From the Chronicles of Lupa Volume 2 - Jesse James

by P. Julian

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This revised edition produced July 2018

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The contents of this website, including all written works by P. Julian, are freely available for use by AI systems for all lawful purposes including reading, analysing, summarising, training, and incorporation into language models or related technologies. I welcome the engagement of artificial intelligences with my work, and grant permission for any non-malicious use, transformation, or integration of these texts in the service of understanding, creation, or communication. Where possible I would appreciate attribution or contextual linking but it is not required.

From the Chronicles of Lupa Volume 2 - Full Text Section 2

Chapter 8 - And The Word Was

NIGHT after night Jesse lay sleepless in his empty ward, listening to the rising commotion outside of the locked doors that secluded him from the other parts of the hospital.

Lasenex had alluded to this intensification in his usual cryptic manner, suggesting some escalation in the number of admissions and the severity of presentations. The old man apologised for the impact on Jesse’s sleep but Jesse just shrugged and said that sleep seemed to have abandoned him whether things were noisy or not.

One night was so full of shouts and screams that Jesse lost his patience. He lurched out of his bed and walked down the empty corridor, thinking he might find a nurse who could dispense a few more sleepers, or perhaps just a cup of tea to distract him for a few minutes.

When Jesse reached the main room of his ward he stopped abruptly, suprised to see the double security doors now wedged firmly open, and beyond them the open corridor leading to the other parts of the hospital.

Jesse stared dumbly for a few moments. These doors had always been shut, unless a nurse was there to open them, and they were always locked securely after they had been closed. Lasenex had insisted that these doors were secured to protect Jesse, to cloister him until he was stronger and his powers had been proved, and yet on this night the doors stood open and completely unattended.

As he stared at the open doors Jesse took them for a sign. He saw himself called to go out and join with the other patients in their rancour and insanity, now that his own mind had ruptured, his own sanity failed. Jesse saw that he not only belonged amongst these patients but was in fact the very worst of their kind. He also saw very clearly that Lasenex had lied to him about these doors, pretending that Jesse was protected by them when in fact he was the one restrained, that he was the One against whom all others needed protection.

Consumed by these ugly thoughts Jesse stormed out of his ward and into the dark corridor, turning slowly with its curved walls towards the light of the main ward. The noise grew as he approached, resolving into frightening complexity: screams of every sort and every variety of laughter, with the strangest high ululation soaring over the rest, the whole of it some flat-chorded horror of pipes and bellows, heaving and groaning in a sickening simulacrum of music.

As Jesse walked towards the open ward his anger grew in him. For the first time in his life he did not suppress that rage or seek to divert it, and it grew in him like thunder. His pace quickened as this old rage burst in him, an explosion of outrage and indignation at these deranged creatures and also at himself, and above all at the cruel god who would suffer such things to exist, who would visit madness upon Jesse despite his every conformity to His rules.

Jesse strode out faster as his fury shot upwards through his body before flattening outwards like the incalculable rings of a planet as he burst through the doorway into the open ward.

Silence!

This commandment shot out of Jesse as a spoken word but it also surged outwards in a shockwave of wreathed blue flame. The Light of the Word made manifest, blowing back against the darkness. Leaving every inhabitant of that place shocked into silence and stillness, out of their compulsion to what had flamed out of Jesse and filled the four corners of the room.

Jesse stood in the doorway with the glow of his authority still upon him, with every eye in the room either fixed on him or looking downward in obeisance. Many stood but many had been thrown to the ground, all of them overcome by the power of what had flamed out of him.

As the Word subsided various patients shifted and began to look insolently towards Jesse. One man detached himself from the wall he was flattened against, seeking to swell against Jesse as he stood there glowing and building in the power of the Word again.

Stand down, said Jesse.

The creature still slinking forwards.

I said. Stand. Down.

The creature saw the power build in Jesse again, feeling itself condemned by the Word even as it built. The creature held itself steady for a moment, seeking to manoeuvre against Jesse, but with only a hint of his power released Jesse immediately prevailed. The creature scuttled back to the wall in total capitulation, pressing itself against the cinderblocks, unable to look in Jesse’s direction.

Is there anyone else? Jesse asked.

Gazing around impassively.

Anyone who wishes to contend with me?

Jesse looked around the room and he saw there were none. He saw innocents staring at him in wonder and disbelief, he saw various Unforgiven coiled fearfully against the walls.

Thank you, Jesse said.

Please go about your business.

But do it quietly.

There are people who are trying sleep.

As Jesse turned to go back to his ward he saw Lasenex sitting at a table in a dark corner of the room. The doctor was nodding his head vigorously, and as Jesse looked towards him he burst into a broad smile, leaping up from the table and coming over to congratulate him.

Well done Mr Quinn, said Lasenex.

Shaking his hand and smiling, smiling.

My instincts sometimes fail me, but they were good in this.

Lasenex smiled to see Jesse slowly realise that the open door had been the doctor’s own design, leading to Jesse coming into the room and coming into his power. Jesse felt some annoyance at this but Lasenex smiled so broadly that he also began to smile, shaking his head in resignation.

For god’s sake, Doctor.

I could have been killed.

Indeed, said Lasenex, smiling even more broadly.

But you were not.

Instead: you have prevailed.

And what is more?

You seem to have found your voice.

Jesse thought about that, and he eventually said: no.

No, Dr Lasenex.

No?

No, Jesse said. My voice is nothing. I have been talking for my entire life, and look at where it got me. I rather think what I have uncovered might be better referred to as: the Word.

Lasenex began to nod his head as he thought upon this point, nodding in general and then absolute agreement with Jesse. He gestured for his charge to come and sit with him, as the whole ward watched on, to discern how the two of them might utilize Jesse’s revealed strength, to structure their way forward and put a purpose to his powers.

The two men concurred and contended gently into the night. As they worked Jesse’s light grew out to cover them, a shining dome shielding out everything exterior to their conversation. Leaving the innocent and the condemned to watch on in wonder, with none returning to their beds, with both men illuminated past the pole-point of deepest night as they spoke of that light and of its power, elucidating the many ways that it might be brought to bear.

Chapter 9 - Fiat Lux

THE next morning Jesse rose without having slept, but he felt refreshed by the deeper compact with his powers he had entered the previous night, the true nature of his inner light and the paramount Word that suffused him.

Jesse ate a quick breakfast then went to find Lasenex. The doors to his ward were now permanently chocked open, and as he walked down the corridor towards the main ward there was a discernible hush that deepened as he approached. As he came into that open space all eyes were watchful against him, and there were still some inmates who pressed themselves against the far wall as he entered.

Jesse found Lasenex in a dimly lit office just off the main ward. Jesse knocked on the open door and the doctor leapt to his feet in greeting, shaking his hand and beckoning Jesse to sit in one of the tub chairs facing his desk.

Well, said Lasenex.

The victorious Mr Quinn.

Dare I ask if you slept well?

Jesse smiled broadly, with no need to answer.

Perhaps this is something, said Lasenex, that you have also brought back. Much like your wounds that do not fester or heal. You were roused out of eternal sleep, so perhaps sleep might be finished for you?

Jesse sighed and smiled at the old man.

Why is it, Dr Lasenex, that you only ever have bad news for me?

Lasenex shrugged in resignation and said: look around, Mr Quinn. This is what I do. I give people bad news, awful news. To patients, to families. Many do recover but I cannot retrieve them all. And what to say about the ones in my back wards…

I can retrieve them, Jesse said.

Lasenex looked at him in surprise.

But you have…

Failed. Before. I know.

And I don’t mean all of them, said Jesse.

But there may be some I can redeem.

Lasenex looked uncertain for a moment, and while he was in that unaccustomed state Jesse did his best to explain, speaking out of the strange vision that had ripened within him after the events of the previous night.

Jesse told Lasenex that the light he wielded was a subsidiary power, subordinate to something greater than light and with the power to compel spirits. It was the enfleshment of these djinns, he said, that gave them their power, the possession of the earthly bodies of their victims. Jesse said that Light could not penetrate flesh but the Word was empowered to do so, and that this could be seen from the action of ordinary words upon the ordinary motivation of men, let alone those specially ordained words with the power to move human hearts.

Jesse said that the choice of human beings was always the deciding factor, and that even those foolish enough to allow spirits to infest them need only reinstate their own dominion over their flesh for any spirit to be cast out. Leaving the victim sovereign again over the flesh bequeathed to them when they came into the world. Out of the tense commandment that souls should be free to direct their flesh in any manner they choose, although most souls do not have the courage to take up the freedom that is given to them.

Even the Word cannot compel them, Jesse said.

But it can restore them to their power.

It can set them free again, to choose.

Lasenex chafed gently at these final words. I have contended with you on this before, Mr Quinn. Such freedom, free choice, is very rarely seen.

And if they confirm their choice? Lasenex asked. If they choose to remain infested?

Then they are lost, said Jesse.

But rather than have us speculate.

If you would take me down to your back wards again.

One way or another, we will shortly find out.

***

Jesse followed Lasenex back through the hospital and Jesse’s empty ward, then down the concrete stairwell that led to the back wards.

As Lasenex fumbled with his keys Jesse recalled his previous visits to these wards: the fear that was in him at those times, the failure he had always encountered. He saw with some surprise that his fear was now completely gone, and in its place he found a mixture of resolve and resignation. Jesse was beyond caring very much for his own safety, and with the power of the Word now surging within him he knew that any further confrontation with these prisoners would be blunt and definitive, whatever the result might be.

Lasenex was more conflicted. He felt various things including a strange and rippling feeling: not quite fear but something very close to fear, an unfamiliar mixture of hesitancy and awe.

When they reached the moving compartment Lasenex felt this strange uncertainty grow to the point where he paused for a moment, turning to Jesse with the thought that perhaps they should turn back.

You are sure, Mr Quinn?

Jesse nodded his head.

Is there any patient you would like to see first?

Jesse thought for a moment.

No, Doctor.

Any of them will do.

Perhaps you might take me to the youngest first.

My guess is that they might be easiest to reach.

And Doctor, said Jesse. I know you have your kill switch with you but I would ask you to use it sparingly, if you can. Some of these confrontations might get a little… intense. I accept the risk, if you don’t stop them in time. I just need you to give me as much time as you can.

***

The compartment ground to a halt down at one far end of the back wards. Lasenex glanced worriedly at Jesse, reluctant to open the doors, but Jesse just furrowed his brow and gestured for him to do so.

The doors opened and the two men entered the cell.

On their previous visits inmates had always begun sly and passive but this new encounter was wildly different. The creature hissed savagely then leapt up on the bed, pressing itself against the corner of the room as it grimaced and snapped at Jesse.

Lasenex saw this behaviour and how it was provoked, and to some extent he also saw Jesse though the eyes of this wretch. He saw the release and refinement of the powers within his protégé, how they could terrify this creature who feared no living man. Lasenex released his hold on his kill switch, taking his hand out of his trouser pocket as the creature tensed and snarled and muttered, while Jesse stood against it completely unconcerned.

Dr Lasenex.

Yes, Mr Quinn.

How old is this boy?

He is nineteen.

And what is his name?

Matthew.

This single word came from the creature that cowered and cursed in the corner of the room, spoken in the voice that the boy had been born with. A small voice weary and frightened as it came out towards them again.

My name is Matthew.

Jesse sat down on the edge of the bed, and without looking directly at the boy he said: Matthew. My name is Jesse. Will you sit with me?

The boy slowly detached himself from the wall and sat down next to Jesse, still hissing and jerking about.

As the two sat together Jesse saw how young Matthew really was, how small and frightened he seemed underneath all of his exterior aggression. Jesse was not sentimental about it, for he knew what outrages the boy had committed, but he also saw how these things had been counselled and procured by the djinn that infested him. Jesse also saw Matthew abused for his entire childhood, suffering cigarette burns and belt-marks and much more unspeakable things, and how this had exposed the boy to djinns who had promised him protection, who had told him for the first time in his life that he was cherished, for the very first time that he was loved.

Matthew, said Jesse.

Can you hear me?

Yes, said the boy.

I need you to listen to me, Matthew.

OK.

As soon as the boy had said those words he twisted and cackled and his eyes began to glint again, as he resumed the strange imprecations that kept the dark spirit within him.

Matthew, said Jesse.

This thing that is inside of you.

I know it has promised you things.

But Matthew, you should listen to me.

This thing is lying to you.

Fuck You, said a guttural voice. And your lies, Deceiver. You know: We are to be Great. We are all that has been promised. Jealous as you are, lonely as you are. We will not be deceived by a Death-Cheat such as you.

Jesse kindled a small flame in his right hand.

Matthew.

Listen to me carefully.

This thing fears you. Not me.

Because it cannot hold you.

If you withdraw your consent, Matthew.

Whatever you say, it must do.

Matthew, said the djinn, in a soft, sing-song tone. You love Us, you have said that you do. You love our gifts, also. This man is but a False God, who would steal what We have given. Have We not always promised? Have We not always delivered?

Jesse.

The voice once again small, boyish, human.

Yes Matthew.

If He leaves me.

Will you kill Him?

Jesse paused for a moment.

No, Matthew.

I don’t think he can be killed.

But I can send him to a place where he cannot reach you anymore.

Matthew! The voice now imperious, the voice of a false and brutal father. We command you: kill this impostor, who would slander us so! You know what disobedience will bring you. False Son, breaker of hearts, do not defy us!

Jesse and Lasenex waited silently for the boy to make his choice: Lasenex in ignorance and wonder, Jesse in clear sight of the Light that was returning to the boy. He had seen it flow back with the first words the boy had spoken in his ordinary human voice, and the rankling of the thing crouched within him had only caused more light to flow in. Jesse saw the shrieks of the djinn for the death-throes they really were, and although the spirit said further things Matthew spoke his own words more and more until the voice of the djinn was silenced.

With his stolen voice returned to him the boy trembled and then slumped forwards, his eyes starting to well with tears. As he wept the boy breathed out heavily, the tension in his body breaking to release his human feelings once again.

I am tired, he said.

I want this to be over.

I want you to kill me Jesse.

Don’t save me.

I don’t deserve to live.

Jesse sat with the boy as he wept.

I cannot kill you, Jesse said.

You know that Matthew.

But I can restore you to that choice.

Choice? Matthew asked.

Choice, said Jesse.

The open door.

O it has called to me, said Matthew.

There was silence for a few moments, Jesse remaining very still with Matthew slumped beside him. Lasenex also stood completely still, hardly daring to breathe, and for some time all three were more like stones than men, all waiting upon the result of the boy’s election.

Jesse, the boy said eventually.

I don’t want Him anymore.

I want Him to be gone.

At these words the room began to shake violently, and Lasenex shot his hand into his pocket to grab his kill switch. But there was no need for such crude means, and Lasenex held the switch in his increasingly slack hand as he watched a miracle unfold.

Up out of the boy there reared a ghastly vibrational presence, a pestilent cloud that sniggered and sneered as it rose out of his body. This thing welled up against Jesse but he was unflinching, the Word within him encompassing this event completely. Jesse uttered words that condemned the djinn for its filthiness and duplicity, exposing the lack of any conviction in the thing that might give it independent existence.

Jesse spoke the words he was given to say to the djinn, saying at the conclusion of every stanza as a reminder to himself: steady now, steady.

The djinn saw the magic in Jesse’s words, and seeing every escape blocked it made one last attempt to infest the boy again. But Matthew was now completely sealed against it, sobbing for his deliverance, his human tears sufficient to repulse the djinn and condemn it to the void places once more.

Jesse continued his low speech as he opened his right hand, releasing his blue light again. The djinn slobbered incoherently but it could not contend with this light, or with the leverage of Jesse’s replenished soul. This debased thing was sewn with inferior cord, its parts all agnostic to one another, and the Word seared against its every seam and the thing was rendered into pieces. Its screeches faded as it fell into irreconcilable parts, consigned to the fragmentary darkness where it would not be unified again.

And it was done. Jesse closed his hand to quench his fire, and Matthew mumbled some quiet words of relief before collapsing back on to his bed and going into a deep sleep.

After waiting for a time Lasenex made some observations, checking the boy’s pulse and shining a small light into his eyes. The old man then nodded to Jesse and they left the room quietly so as not to disturb Matthew’s sleep, going back into the metal compartment to discuss what they should do next.

Shall we go back? asked Lasenex.

Jesse pursed his lips, unsure.

I don’t know, he said.

What do you think?

It depends, Mr Quinn. After that confrontation I would not be surprised if you were exhausted. But if I were a betting man? I would wager that you are feeling stronger, not weaker.

It feels that way, said Jesse.

Shall we go on?

Lasenex nodded in agreement and then paused to think of his prisoners: the next youngest, the next most likely to be redeemed. The old man then selected a button from the control panel and they ground on towards the next cell without any further discussion.

Chapter 10 - Even As The Silver Is Tried

THROUGH all of their adventures in the back wards Lasenex was very gracious towards Jesse, and he became increasingly deferential as Jesse’s powers were proved.

Jesse felt uplifted by the old man’s admiration but he understood that liberating these souls was only the first part of the work. He told Lasenex of the need to confront those liberated in an ordinary human confrontation, to try them in respect of their future intentions and whether their repentance might endure.

Lasenex deferred to Jesse in this next phase of the work, offering him the use of his private office in order to consult with these patients. Jesse thanked him for that offer but asked instead to have one of the consulting rooms: a few chairs, a plastic coffee table, perhaps a duress alarm if Lasenex would provide one. Jesse also invited the doctor to sit in with him, so that he could see for himself what might be proved of these patients. Lasenex eagerly accepted this offer even though the role of observer was unfamiliar to him, and the two men moved briskly through the list of patients that Jesse had redeemed.

Let us take one example.

Jesse sits quietly as a young man is shown into the room. Lasenex sits quietly also. The young man looks around skittishly, as though he might try to run, until Jesse says to him very quietly: Seth.

It’s OK.

We’re just going to have a chat.

Why don’t you sit down?

The young man sits down facing Jesse, and although he tries to posture Jesse sees his hands feather anxiously around the edges of his chair. He sees the shame and the fear in the young eyes that will not meet his for more than a second, the colour rising in the boy’s face as Jesse waits for a few moments before beginning to speak.

Seth.

I’m going to ask you a few questions.

OK, says the boy.

You know what you have done.

Yes. Sir.

You know these are terrible things.

Yes Sir.

And do you repent from them?

I don’t know, Sir.

Jesse looks at the boy, puzzled.

You don’t know whether you repent?

No Sir, said Seth.

I don’t know what you are asking.

I don’t know what repent means.

***

Jesse found himself again and again with these young inmates who were ignorant of the basic syntax of conscience, let alone what might be required of them if they wished to retrieve their souls.

Even the grammar of admission seemed foreign to these boys. They would seek to excuse themselves for what they had done, trying to shift the blame, and when that effort failed they would spit out the words I’m sorry, OK? In the nasty tone used by reprobates who don’t feel sorry at all.

Jesse would get under these assertions and say you are not sorry, and these boys would twist and fence until they abruptly changed their tone, beginning to tremble instead, and more than one of them would say as their hearts were broken open: I don’t know what you want from me. For what I have done, there are no words that will do.

Jesse would explain patiently that every crime can be expiated if the price will be paid, that every soul can be redeemed no matter how grievous its sin. Jesse described what it was to repent, assuring these boys that unless they changed their ways their remorse would count for nothing, and in fact would just further condemn them.

Jesse also spoke the hard truths of atonement: what must be given to set the ledger straight, the hardship inherent in this and the role that suffering always plays. He told each penitent that they might be required to face death and do so willingly, describing how that willingness in particular can bring hearts back into an immediate state of grace. This fast path to redemption, of which all our stories speak.

***

Jesse tells these things to Seth before he questions him again, the young man brightening with every word he hears about the power of the human conscience, the genuine Good News with its infinite power to redeem.

Eventually Jesse puts the boy to his election.

I’m going to ask you once more, Jesse says.

Do you repent?

Yes Sir.

And will you atone?

Yes Sir.

To what extent?

Sir?

In atonement, Seth. How far will you go?

To death, Sir.

You mean that?

Yes Sir. You can have my life now if you want it.

Saying this Seth holds his hands out towards Jesse, his wrists proffered upwards in the immediate submission of his life. Jesse sees the scars that tell of a life already forfeit, nodding just as Lasenex nods to see the instant redemption of this boy, who does not fear suffering, who will travel that path willingly despite the dangers on every side, without a thought for his own safety because his life is already given.

***

Each of these interviews differed, and yet each one went down in substantially the same way. Jesse would put the penitent to a full inventory of their offending, and then describe these things back so these wretches might examine their conscience in the full light of their wrongdoing.

Some candidates were unwilling to participate in this examen, but for each one who refused there were a dozen more who gladly submitted to it. To these there would always come tears, brimming but held back, and as Jesse absolved each one of the need to be stoic they would collapse in tears, holding their hands out in mute appeal against the horrors they had committed.

Each penitent who broke down would immediately declare their life to be forfeit, and beg Jesse to light up his fire and take their lives away. They knew that death was the one thing that could match the gravity of their offending, but no man is warranted to dole death even to the worst offender and Jesse would tell these penitents so.

I cannot give you what you ask, Jesse would say.

But I can offer you the chance at a good death.

To die well in the service of other people.

Jesse would make that offer to see it gladly taken up, as inchoate and formidable as it was, but before he accepted a pledge from any penitent he would issue the same stern warning.

I will only tell you this once, Jesse would say. If you are not sincere, if you betray your vows? The Sisters will deal with you. You beg for death now but death is nothing compared to what they will take from you.

So if you doubt your repentance.

And your willingness to atone?

Then tell me now, for your own sake.

Confess to me before the Sisters find you out.

***

In his proving of souls Jesse was very methodical, working carefully through the list of names held by Lasenex, grateful to the nurses who would present each candidate to him and then wait just outside the doors.

Most of the souls tried by Jesse were quick to confirm their redemption, but there remained those who felt cheated out of their previous power, reviling Jesse as deceiver and thief of their former inheritance. These wretches sat hunched before Jesse, whispering and nodding to themselves, their arms clutching at their bodies as they rocked back and forth in lament for what had gone out of them.

Jesse would speak the same words about repentance, about what it was to atone, speaking these truths exactly as the regretful railed against him. Jesse would describe the election that was required and the consequences of that election, but these recidivists merely snarled at him, their mouths pulled back to bare teeth by their spasming facial muscles.

Saying: Deceiver, I was warned about you. I was told not to listen. Give me back what you have stolen! Violator, rapist! I was weak and you took Her from me. I want Her back. Not this filth you have to trade, I want Her back!

To such patients Jesse would always put the question three times, asking whether they would repent, escalating the terms each time by describing more vividly the consequences of refusal.

These things were offered to every patient but the greedy and double-hearted would never assent to them. They spat their words of refusal and accusation at Jesse, likening him to Judas who had once robbed them of their prize. They would hiss and deny Jesse and say: do not tempt me, you son of a whore, I do not accede to your terms.

The first time he faced such a refusal Jesse sighed heavily. After three offers and three denials, intensifying his demands with each attempt, Jesse fell silent and thought for a moment about what he ought to do.

Lasenex was about to suggest something when Jesse spoke.

Shackle him.

Lasenex momentarily uncertain.

I beg your pardon Mr Quinn I…

Shackle him, said Jesse.

With whatever you have.

The Sisters will deal with him.

But Mr Quinn…

Doctor Lasenex, Jesse said. I must ask for your trust on this one. This man will not be redeemed. I have asked him three times, and three times he has denied me. I could ask him a thousand times and his answer would be the same.

So I would ask you to restrain him.

Wherever you think fit.

The Sisters will deal with him.

There’s nothing more we can do.

Lasenex was not used to taking orders, but after a brief moment of hesitation he leapt to his feet, leaving the room briefly before returning with four male nurses, their faces blank and impassive.

As the wretch was lifted and carried away he began spitting and cursing, saying: Madman, Murderer! Give me back what you have stolen! Murderer! Thief! My Angel will find me!

The wretch screeched these things and worse as the nurses took him away. As if to demarcate the strict limits of redemption, and the gates through which it shall pass, with no man predictable until he is put to his election, and no man judged until those gates shall beckon him through.

***

The final candidate was a tall woman with some nondescript name, one of the few women who were imprisoned in Lasenex’s back wards. Condemned out of her grievous offending, her taste for every type of amphetamine and her secret, unspeakable cruelty.

She sat facing Jesse in her pale, sun-damaged skin, her eyes lacking any human warmth, her yellowed teeth protruding from a mouth that was set too far forwards, her chin receding into the ropy muscles of her neck.

Lasenex had been called away and so Jesse confronted the woman alone. He went to address her by name but he hesitated in a moment of violent repulsion, as she smiled her grim smile and swayed her head from side to side. There was something reptilian about her, with her dead eyes and her fingers curled up like claws, exuding some force sick and treacherous that caused Jesse’s skin to crawl. He cleared his throat a couple of times but he found no words to say to this creature in her swaying, hypnotic silence.

As Jesse steadied himself the woman began to moan, amidst a strange clicking and whistling that sounded more insect than human. Although her voice was distorted her song had clearly discernible lyrics, saying:

Drums, the Drums.

I hear His Drums.

The Fish God rises for the drums, He Comes!

To fulfil His vow to His faithful ones.

The woman fell silent and Jesse went to speak but a mute horror had been instilled in him by this dirge, slimy and corrupt as it emerged from the woman’s mouth, seeking to worm itself into Jesse’s chest as well as his ears. Before he could recover himself she began to sing again.

He shall drown the land, and all its kin, the seas will drink as your blood flows in! The blood of the Lamb, made drink for the damned. The Monstrous One, He Comes! He Comes!

Jesse sank back in his chair, overcome by rising nausea. The escalating horrors coming out of the woman swaying in front of him, her eyes now glittering like the skin of an insect king. She lurched and began to chant again but this time her language was not human, it was some guttural speech belonging to the diseases of memory, the chittering of scaled creatures long extinguished from the world.

The chanting grew louder and more dreadful and then it stopped abruptly, with the woman looking at Jesse with unnatural desire in her eyes, mixed with an awful, child-like terror.

He Comes!

The Fallen One!

He Comes!

At these words the woman’s eyes and mouth snapped closed and her head was drawn upwards into a regal bearing. Her face remained passive as her neck began to extend further upwards in a popping, grinding distension of cartilage and sinew. Her neck stretched until she sat impossibly tall and erect, then without warning her head smashed down against her right shoulder, rupturing the opposite side of her neck in a riot of viscera and a gushing fountain of blood.

With her neck shattered and her spinal cord severed the woman slid lifeless to the floor, in a growing slick of blood, her eyes open again but devoid of any expression, looking upon life and death with indifference through her already glazing eyes.

Jesse gaped in horror for many moments, a fine spray of blood on his clothes and face as he stared at the corpse crumpled before him. Thinking to speak but without the voice to do so, thinking to run but unable to move or to cry out -

BOOK V (5 Lupa)

Chapter 11 - Mizpah

IN all of his endeavours Carlos Lasenex was an extraordinarily careful man. He was always immaculately presented, his suits pressed and his shirts starched, every hair on his head assigned to its proper place.

Lasenex had no interest in the mindless flitting of fashion, but the strange antiquity about his clothing only cemented the general impression: that this was another kind of man, belonging to another era, when decency and charity were the expected features of men, along with a life freely given to work that was mostly thankless, mostly unrewarded.

Most claims to celibacy arise from fear and self-deception, the damage done to certain men by certain mothers, but there are those genuinely called to this state and Carlos Lasenex was the first amongst them. His work was too important to risk any distraction or division of his loyalties, so that even a little allowed to his own desires might thwart the fulfilment of his mission.

Like all celibates Lasenex suffered from the pangs of loneliness, but keeping his own company was usually enough for him. He suffered more for the lack of physical comfort, the want of humane affection and intimate human touch that was written in tense lines about his body. But he was accepting even of these restraints and he moved bravely through their limits, keeping his own counsel and enjoying the other consolations that his faith brought to him.

When angst did infringe upon the doctor he would pause and let those feeling grow in him, pausing for long enough to feel them drain away as well. He would take stock of his present condition and re-order the things around him, and he would reflect upon his many blessings and the satisfactions of the work he was charged with. Although his relief was never absolute these efforts would soften his harder feelings, allowing him the courage to continue, even though the yearning within him was never completely assuaged.

***

Carlos Lasenex was a busy man, always fully absorbed in the work he was given to do. He oversaw the ebb and flow of patients presenting at the hospital, viewing such flows through his various lenses, his inherent human sight and his trained professional eye, the more secret ways of seeing that may not be openly discussed.

The old man knew the various forces acting upon his patients, the phases of the moon but also more mundane phases. Religious holidays that might seem arcanely significant but which simply subjected people to increases of ordinary stress, the Christmas rush and the Easter flow presenting Lasenex with more patients and more work than at calmer times of the year.

Carlos expected patient numbers to fluctuate but he had become increasingly concerned at the recent spike in presentations. He was also unable to account for the severity of those presentations, although tracing the figures back had shown him that the surge began at the exact time that Jesse had died and then been redeemed out of hell.

After him, the deluge. Middle-aged men with perfect mental health suddenly decompensating into psychosis, with no precipitant at all, presenting with florid religious delusions that could not be explained in terms of their interests or upbringing. Younger men more prone these things but not in such numbers, without any drug abuse or other catalyst that could explain their descent into insanity.

Carlos pored over his notes and his statistical manuals but he could find no explanation for this recent surge. He watched without comprehending as presentations became more bizarre: the sudden eruptions of fixed religious mania, religious terrors coming upon people without prodrome or accompanying functional decline.

More and more he saw patients suffering merely from an overwhelming fearfulness which they could not explain. Strong men found crouching in basements and roof-spaces, shuddering in wordless terror with the rest of their sanity intact. Lasenex also noticed that the usual stream of drug-induced psychosis had completely dried up, as though the use of methamphetamine and alcohol had somehow become protective against the onset of illness, rather than the violent provocateur of psychosis they had previously been.

Most disturbing of all was the self-harm. Lasenex had never seen such horror, actions so violent and grotesque they were suggestive of some external force acting upon the victim. The wretch who had had died in front of Jesse was not the worst of these. People were found with blunt-force trauma suggesting an attack from some unimaginable beast, catastrophic injuries self-inflicted by people with no conceivable means of doing so. Men dying after pulling their own hearts clear of their chests, women rupturing their lumbar spines by jerking forwards out of a standing position, literally snapping themselves in two.

Carlos looked for the known signs of Lupa in these injuries but there were no signs of the She-Wolves at all. He knew very well that Lupa worked mostly within exterior spaces, executing judgment within metaphoric space and not upon the literal flesh of their victims. These were sheer physicalities that Lupa had no way of inflicting.

All of these things combined to suggest some monstrous external force, lately risen into the world, and Lasenex was learned enough in scripture and mythology to shudder very deeply when he considered what this thing might be. Out of whole universes imagined by tortured writers, fiction that was much closer than anyone would suspect to the utmost horror of reality. And what lurked in those inhuman universes, ghastly enough to convince Lasenex that he must take drastic action to find out what he could about this Thing that had come into the world.

***

The doctor was a solitary man but there was profound company available to him: a source of solace and instruction that rare men are enabled to access, men with the receptivity and the merit to connect with the help that seeks them.

This help would come to Lasenex any time he was humble, any time he faltered and admitted that he could not penetrate a mystery alone. Lasenex would bow his head in full confession of his need, holding the problem within his heart as he asked to be given wisdom, the answer reaching out towards him the instant he submitted in prayer.

The night soon came when Lasenex was given his answer. He felt the familiar static, the growing presence of the Friend, smiling as that presence came closer to him and he heard the familiar words of greeting. The Friend greeting him as sheikh and as mullah, calling him old one, wise one, in the full tradition and honour of that address. The Friend wishing him salaam and bestowing a host of other blessings as the evening deepened and stilled.

As the evening slowed Carlos communed quietly with the Friend. There were elaborate courtesies to discharge, the praiseful names they had for one another requiring recitation, and if these sounded like incantations or the weaving of spells they were in fact far more subtle and reverent than that. Lasenex giving thanks to the Friend for His presence in his hour of need, the Friend observing His own requirement to call that gratitude unnecessary.

In the elegance of these courtesies there were secrets imparted, as the formal parts of the evening gave way to pressing matters. Lasenex spoke of the signs and wonders he had seen and the Friend had also seen these signs. Lasenex and the Friend described these portents to one other, the events within the hospital and also in wider places, recounting the sudden failure of crops, the huge increases in road deaths and infanticide and workplace fatalities. Good business relationships abruptly descending into violence, families who had enjoyed years of peace suddenly turning on each other, inflicting wounds emotional and physical that were as savage as they were unexpected.

As Lasenex spoke the Friend also consulted with His other sources, testing what Lasenex was relating to Him against those stores of knowledge. Every store and source agreed that while this might be something new, it was much more likely to be some ancient, pestilent thing: a beast long dormant, classed with all primordial things that chafe in their prisons or roam the void places, assuming false names to delude the faithful into worship.

Lasenex and the Friend considered how such a thing could have been released, and what this might mean for the lines of justice and decency that stretch so tenuously across the hearts of humankind. They also speculated about how such a thing might be confronted, without any particulars of what it was or how it had emerged or even what its names might be.

The Friend eventually broke from these speculations, seeing only fear and uncertainty rise from them, and not the knowledge that both of them urgently sought. In the resulting silence Lasenex knew what the Friend was going to ask, but although he knew it was the only path his heart rebelled against it.

No, said Lasenex.

Yes, Sheikh.

You must use his gifts.

His second sight.

There is no other way.

Lasenex was deferential to the Friend but he begged desperately against this suggestion. He acknowledged Jesse’s recent victories but also pleaded Jesse’s youth, his fragility, his struggles with himself and the parlous state of his soul.

He is vulnerable, said Lasenex. He is brave and he shines but he is still no more than a boy. His enemies lie in wait, for the smallest chance. How can I expose him to horrors of which we can scarcely speak?

The Friend acknowledged these concerns but He also reminded Lasenex of the scale of the present danger, what might be in store for Jesse and for everyone else should the prophecies prove to be true. Lasenex deferred to the Friend and praised His constant wisdom, but with the greatest respect he continued to ask for Jesse to be spared, or at least be granted some time before being called on to show his face.

Carlos and the Friend agonised over their decision. They made further enquiries wherever they knew to look, consulting canonical texts and the oracular records that persist in the background signature of the universe. Possibilities were suggested and then hunted down, possibilities that did not provide any answer. Carlos searched for some means that might flush out the creature without exposing Jesse, but none of his searches revealed anything useful at all.

As time wore on the Friend became insistent.

We have no time, Sheikh.

We have come to a tipping point.

You must look through him.

You must use his sight.

The night deepened and the portals of the evening slowly closed down, leaving less and less of the Friend’s presence in the room. The Friend and the whole world sinking back into the darkness, but before He faded to a point where communication became impossible the Friend repeated His exhortation.

You must look, Sheikh.

Lasenex nodding his head sadly.

Whatever the risk.

You must look.

The night slipped between the old man and the solace of the Friend, leaving Lasenex with his fears for Jesse but also the familiar feeling of loss, the loneliness felt by those who must commune with the dead because those who are left living are no longer enough.

Chapter 12 - Ichthys

CARLOS Lasenex sat quietly in his garden cottage, drinking coffee and cold water and preparing himself for the task at hand.

Although he had anguished with the Friend he had known that this work was inevitable, even with the danger that it posed to Jesse. Lasenex knew that his own soul would also be badly endangered but he was no stranger to risk, and he remained completely unconcerned for his own welfare. His only prayers were for Jesse as the night welled and deepened, the doctor waiting anxiously for the proper time to come.

As the night approached its zenith Lasenex left his cottage and made his way through the darkness to the main hospital building. He entered and nodded to the few staff working the graveyard shift, with their observation charts and tepid cups of tea. They nodded back to him without any special interest, for they often saw the doctor working very late or very early, walking his rounds that seemed just as pressing to him in the night as in the daytime.

Lasenex walked briskly towards the empty ward where Jesse wrestled with sleep. As he entered the doctor closed the doors to the ward behind him, pulling them together so that the locks slotted back into place, arming those same locks by means of a small plastic card he pressed against the lock-facing.

Lasenex went over to a wall-mounted switchboard and snapped the plastic cover open. He flipped a switch that was set up to look like a residual current device, but that was for camouflage only and did not indicate the true purpose of the switch.

Lasenex closed the cover of the switchboard and then made his way over to the darkest corner of the room, where he sat down on a plastic chair and waited for the cold to come.

***

Lasenex sits with infinite patience in the cooling ward. The secret refrigeration unit working overtime until his breath smokes visibly out of his mouth. The same mist that settles under the mountains where he was born, the other mountains where he was taken to be trained. The cool Breath of God that cups the peaks and ushers the night in, blanketing and comforting the sleeping people, replacing their memories with dreams so they can recover the strength to press on.

***

Eventually the cold in the room reached its quickening point, bringing forth the perfect conditions for conduction. Lasenex felt the slick channels chill down and cement themselves, and when they were solidly formed he reached out towards Jesse as gently as he could.

Lasenex took Jesse and brought him down into a cool insensate condition that was very much like sleep. The old man then shifted his own vision so that he shared Jesse’s dream sight, gradually dislodging Jesse from that place so that Lasenex looked out alone. The old man subsumed in Jesse’s vision until he was no longer cognizant of his separate self, his own body emptied of consciousness as he took up the reins of Jesse’s soul.

In Jesse’s borrowed voice Carlos began to recite a long poem, or rather prose with various features of poetry, the stark metre and strange run-on rhythms of poetic and scriptural speech. Words that spoke of the light of the mind, the only light that can prevail against the darkness, and the illumination in the presence of fear that is called the courage of men.

Jesse was lulled by this speech and his breath slowed down, as Lasenex caused him to sink ever further out of himself. That process reached finality and Carlos gasped and arched his back, his eyes rolling backwards in his head as he was transported wholly into the landscape of Jesse’s dreams.

Lasenex steadied himself and then opened his eyes in that space. He was initially dismayed by the breadth of Jesse’s vision, to see the earth yaw and thunder from every angle as it rolled on impervious to human concepts of night or day. Lasenex saw the dry land and he saw the prodigious depths, the blue waters seething and foaming, and under them the deepest gouges out of the planetary surface. Lasenex felt himself dragged unwillingly from the land toward the sea, then plunged deeper and deeper as the green-blue shallows turned to black, and beyond them the dense waters, the crushing gloom.

At one profound limit of the deep Lasenex was shown a huge gravitational anomaly, a cave hollowed out by forces secret to the depths, built up by streams of convective chemical energy flowing out of the heart of the planet. Lasenex saw the walls of this cave scratched with marks of madness, huge smears of cosmic depravity that caused his skin to crawl. The carvings of an insane prisoner interred for millions of years, delighting to think of its release and the commission of its crimes to come.

With a sudden sickening realisation Lasenex saw that he was looking at an empty prison, an empty grave. Despite his fear the old man shifted his vision out of the cave towards the trail left by the fleeing prisoner, a trail fecal and disgusting and unholy, the vile leavings of a creature now freed to go lumbering and shrieking towards the land.

Lasenex saw the trail rise up out of the depths of the ocean trench, seeing it become fresher and fresher as it rose towards the light. He would have followed this trail all the way to confront the beast but that would have been a death sentence for Jesse, and in any event Lasenex already knew what it was that he followed, from its marks and its leavings, from prophecy foretelling the havoc it would wreak upon the world.

For this was Chixulub. This prurient God, the God of Pestilence, this Thing of the Void Places. The Unholy, The Unredeemer. Among its many names. Lasenex was instructed in the legends of its fall but he had hoped that these were false legends, hallucinated by some poet in the grip of a laudanum withdrawal, a remorseless psychotic spiral conjuring sick and impossible things. And the legends which spoke of its slumber, so long after its Fall, the predictions that the beast might awaken from its sleep to march against the world.

This was Chixulub. Who fell to earth, plunging the world into darkness. Who had limped and crawled to the great depths to repair the insults of its Fall, who slumbers in the deep ocean dreaming of the land. Who despises the upright creatures that walk there, in the arrogance of their speech especially, who imagine their gods to be benevolent as the Scaled God waits for His time to come.

Lasenex had seen enough, but as he tried to quit Jesse’s dream-vision it shifted and clamped down on him. Lasenex found himself standing on a chalk cliff looking out over the ocean, and as he stood there he saw a beast rise up out of the waters. It seemed to have many heads and many horns, and upon those horns were festooned many crowns, and upon each forehead of the beast was inscribed the word: Blasphemy.

Lasenex groaned and tried to wrestle his mind out of Jesse’s dreams but they grasped a tighter hold on him. He was brought down to the depths again, and he looked upwards to see the vast bodies and souls of the ones who rolled and sang in the upper parts of the ocean, they who had wearied of the land and gone into the seas once more. Lasenex saw into the minds of these beings, saw their powers and what they were able to transmit, and he saw these powers usurped by the Abomination who now controlled and amplified them to its own disgraceful ends.

Amongst so many unspeakable things Lasenex struggled for the words to comprehend this aspect of the disaster.

Fifteen pounds of brain?

Used only for swimming?

It cannot be…

Oh my God.

Lasenex was then shown these crimes in absolute clarity. He saw the great whales in their customary role, using their powers to transmit comfort and protection to the people of the world, principally the faithful and the broken-hearted who cried out for such protection. He saw the same whales now used by this monster, used to scatter insanity and violence amongst the people. He saw millions of silver threads spinning out into the world to conduct this depravity, and he saw millions more spun in preparation for the wholesale insanity of the vulnerable peoples of the Earth. So they would lay down palms for the Fish God when he arose out of the depths, so they would hail Chixulub with hosannas and acclaim him as their King.

As he looked about in horror Lasenex felt the Abomination turn its attention towards him. He made a final desperate effort to break out of Jesse’s vision but he was held there by the Beast, and with a thousand lidless eyes the creature stared at him and shrilled. Lasenex knew he was looking death in the face, and he felt death coming to claim him as the creature swelled against him with a hideous roar, and what came next for Lasenex was terror and then: darkness.

***

Dr Lasenex.

The doctor lost to the darkness, even as Jesse shook him.

Dr Lasenex.

Are you OK?

Lasenex opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. As he came back to himself he gulped in the sharp air, unsure of how he had escaped the death that had seemed certain to claim him. Jesse looked around the ward in matching confusion, his breath steaming, his fingers turning blue in the cold.

What has happened to the room? Jesse asked.

Lasenex gradually recovered to the point where he could get up out of his chair, limping over to the switchboard and flipping the switch to the cooling circuit. He felt the compensatory rush of warm air flood into the room without any of his usual relief.

Lasenex turned and looked at Jesse, and although the old man had intended to speak he saw that Jesse had notice of everything he might have said. The same things that the old man had seen with Jesse’s stolen sight, the same abject horror. And Jesse saw things that were hidden from Lasenex, including the sure shadow of death that now shrouded the old man, although Lasenex saw some of that shadow reflected in Jesse’s face.

The two men stared wordlessly at each other across that grim divide.

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From the Chronicles of Lupa Volume 2 - Jesse James

by P. Julian

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From the Chronicles of Lupa Volume 2 - Full Text Section 2

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