Stained Glass

Chapter 17

Skill at surgery comes naturally when you’ve spent half your life killing people. I’ve been up to my elbows in viscera since I was seventeen years old, but even I feel a moment of mental resistance to the act of sliding a needle in under my own flesh. There is a part of the brain that fights you as you focus, pierce and depress. It screams louder as the anesthetic fizzes and stings in the moments before it fades into warm, furry nothingness. Instinct as old as life itself rails in the back of your mind, the flesh-crawling, tongue-thickening revulsion of taking a scalpel, digging in to your stomach, and drawing it through skin, muscle, and fat.

I was holed up in the bathroom, lying propped up on rolled towels on a freshly bleached tile floor. With surgical gloves chafing my fingers, I made the first incision with steady hands and clenched jaws, careful not to cut the stiff tendrils of matter I could feel brooding under the surface of my belly. That wasn’t the part that set my teeth on edge the most: It was the sudden sense of wariness I felt… the observant pause of something else, something alien, taking note of what I was doing. I hadn’t realized that the damn thing had been moving inside of me all night until it froze.

Grimacing, I worked my fingers into the blessedly numb incision, feeling for the edge of the starfish. After a few seconds and a lot of blood, I found it, and worked forceps in from the other side.

It flinched away hard enough that the tip of the forceps jerked up out of the incision. I buckled around my abdomen as an awful prickling rushed through my torso… a sensation that turned to blinding agony as the multi-limbed mass of the parasite plunged deeper into my abdominal wall.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it. Snarling, I pushed past the deep wracking pain that boiled up from underneath the anesthetized patch of skin. I got the forceps back in and snapped then around a lashing tendril. They caught and locked, and this time, the parasite pulled them out of my hand and flung them to the ground, emerging briefly from the wound. I caught a glimpse of a gnashing beak-like mouth before the mass of it shot up into my chest.

My next breath cut with a wheeze, like someone had lowered a heavy load of bricks onto my chest. I could feel whip-like tendrils pushing up around my lungs. I looked down, shaking, to see that the parasite – and the sigil – had had vanished. The ‘legs’ were no longer visible. But I could feel its weight and shape against my ribs… from underneath.

“Fuck. FUCK!” I fought to breathe, pushing the surgical tray back. With shaking hands, I fumbled for gauze and saline. I grabbed the nearest plastic bottle and poured it over the open stomach wound, blind with pain. The smell of pure alcohol stung my nostrils. Fire raged through my nerves in the split second before my eyes rolled back and I passed the hell out.

I woke up struggling for air. The new tightness around my lungs and heart was still there, though the pain had faded to a dull throb. I sat up and coughed weakly, wincing as my lungs expanded within a too-small cage.

It was worse than anything I’d ever felt. It was worse than the upir blood. It was worse than being beaten naked in a bathtub, doused in cold water, and kneecapped. I’d experienced both of those things, I could speak with some authority. This thing, whatever it was, had wrapped my organs in barbed wire, the hooks turned inwards to press against liver, lungs, heart and stomach. It hadn’t been my imagination: the parasite was alive. It was intelligent, and its wordless communication was crystal-fucking clear. “Don’t try that again, punk.”

There was nothing to do except wash the wound, stitch it up, and move on. My trembling anger grew with every tied off piece of nylon. This thing was inside me. Sergei had put something inside my body, and I couldn’t get it out. Not even Jana was able to do that to me. She’d been able to get under my skin, but not in the literal sense. Carmine’s bombastic arrogance had never gotten to me. Compared to Jana, he’d been a carnival side-show villain, a coward and a liar. He hadn’t put anything into me that I hadn’t been able to purge.

I remembered Sergei, smiling while Vera drew his oily orange blood from his dead veins. I remembered her walking towards me, limbs jerking with ancient rigor. A flood of images, bodily sensations, and wordless emotions invaded like poison. Even if I gave up on magic and fled to Europe tonight, I would never be free of Sergei. I would think of him every time I drew breath. Cursing, half-blind with sweat, I pulled the bloody gloves from my hands and plunged them under a stream of icy water, trying to wash the taste of violation from my mouth. It was bitter. Like burned wax.

I bound up my new injury, got properly dressed, and slumped out into the clubhouse. Zane was in bed, and there was no one in the garage except me and Binah. My suitcases and bags were there, lined up in a row and waiting to be sorted, except there was nowhere to sort them to. I was still homeless, technically, though I now had money. Cash, bank cards – assuming my accounts weren’t wiped clean – credit cards, which had almost certainly been abused. I could probably still afford a hotel, and plane tickets, for that matter, but duty plucked at me like needy fingers. The video had affected me in a way I hadn’t thought possible. The dirty business of coke and racketeering was one thing. Everyone that was in that scene were adults who knew exactly what they were getting into. But children? Little girls? These people had never been my brothers.

My breathing was labored as I slumped to the floor and determinedly sorted through the Occult texts rescued from my study. I lingered over the Red Book for a few bittersweet minutes, calming myself with the illustrations while I thought over the decoding process. I’d start with the simplest English Bible gematria first. On the off-chance that the sigils were drawn by a Charles Manson-wannabe, their default language was going to be English. Bible code was based on numerology, so I got a notebook, sketched the sigils from memory, and got to work.

Theories on what had happened to the murdered couple gathered slowly over the course of the day, as I buried my anger and pain, researched code patterns and tried my hand at breaking a few of them. The problem with gematria was that it required significant context and deduction to translate the numbers correctly. The number 557 had multiple possible translations, and depending on whether you did it in Hebrew or English, it could mean anything from ‘Christ the Lord’ to ‘Detroit Lions’. It was the reason that Bible code conspiracy existed – confirmation bias was a real danger in this line of study.

Binah meandered up to me at some point and climbed into my lap to sleep. I was dozing when she startled upright, growling, just as the lock turned in the door to the outside. I looked up, bleary eyed, as Jenner entered.

“Hey Rex.” Jenner was back in her trademark black jeans and spiked leather jacket, a pair of articulated leather gloves hanging from her belt. She was tense, and she looked tired. “You look like shit. John, Michael and Ayashe want to talk.”

“When?” I set my book aside.

“Now,” Jenner said. “It’ll take us about twenty-thirty minutes to get to the museum. Ayashe works just north of Manhattan. John and Tally both work at the Indian Museum. We’ll go together, and you’ll ride with Zane.”

My joints were throbbing, my skin aching with fatigue. I shut the book with a sigh. “It’s only been two nights since you hired me on. I took a bullet in the gut during the raid last night, my cat needs her abscesses lanced, and I am in no way ready to report any progress.”

“Too bad,” she said. “There’s too much that needs explaining, Rex. No one’s happy to know that our kids were kidnapped by your friends in the mob.”

“They were never my friends.” I stuffed Nicolai’s folder into my shirt and got to my feet, fighting the twinges in my back and torso the growing ache from the still-raw incision across my stomach. “And we don’t know if they kidnapped them. Even if they did, they might have been hired by someone else. Contract work is a big deal.”

“Well, consider this your chance to demo your theories.” Jenner jerked her head towards the door. “C’mon. Mason and Zane are waiting.”

It wasn’t raining today, but the sky was low and sullen. Zane was standing beside his rumbling motorcycle, warming the engine as he fastened his helmet and pulled his gloves on. His black jacket was plated over the shoulders and down the arms like samurai armor. His helmet was barely bigger than a dog-bowl, worn with a black skull-face mask that covered nose and mouth. The bike was an enormous matte-black beast of a machine; the decal on the side read Big Cat Crew.

“Hey Rex.” He glanced at my stomach, nose working, but he didn’t say anything as I drew up. Instead, he handed me a heavy jacket not dissimilar to his own, but without patches. It felt like something that wouldn’t have been out of place on a medieval battlefield. There were metal plates welded into the shoulders, and armor in the elbows and forearms. “Time to pop your chopper cherry.”

“Come now. You’ve managed not to be crass for the entire three days I’ve known you.” I glared at him as I pulled the jacket it on and zipped it up, then accepted the full-face helmet that Zane offered me. The jacket was a good fit, but the helmet was tight and claustrophobic. I lifted the visor and left it there.

“Then please, Mister Rex, excuse my impropriety.” He arched both eyebrows, but he was smiling.

“Impropriety?” I sniffed. “You must have one of those word-a-day calendars. That’s how you feign an education.”

“My dad’s a university professor, if you absolutely have to know.”

“Let me guess: Pickup Truckology at the University of Detroit?” I changed my gloves for the gauntlets he passed over.

He rolled his eyes. “Dean of Economics at George Fox University, asshole.”

I paused for a moment, arms crossed. “Explain to me again how you ended up in a biker gang?”

“No.” He patted the rear seat. “Butt goes here, feet go on the pegs and don’t come off. You’re gonna have to hold on to me. Lean with the bike when I turn, don’t scream in my ear, and we’ll be good.”

Just as I was about follow his lead and settle on the rear seat, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and twisted to look back at the clubhouse. It was Binah, trotting out of the formerly closed door towards us. I tapped Zane’s shoulder and pointed. He rolled off the throttle a little and looked across, as perplexed as I was.

The little cat, back to normal after the insufferable trauma of her bath, broke into a limping trot as I attempted to extract myself from the bike. I wasn’t even halfway off when she jumped up onto the front of my trousers and clawed herself into position on my shoulder.

“How’d she get out here?” Zane called back over the din. “We shut the frigging door.”

“Where there’s a way, there’s a Siamese who is too clever for her own good.” I sat back down, unzipped the jacket, and tried to silently communicate my intent as I bundled her into the front of it. To my surprise, she didn’t complain. Her unheard treble purr shuddered against my ribs, silenced by the growl of Mason’s motorcycle as he roared past us.

Zane shook his head and slung himself onto the saddle with the casual ease of an experienced rider, while I used the pegs to perch uncertainly on the rear seat. It put me crotch to tailbone with this relative stranger, who leaned back comfortably as he righted the bike and revved the throttle. The machine stirred like a rolling storm underneath us, rumbling with a deep throated growl. The sound was blue and sweet on the deep notes, red and sharp-tasting on the high. I kept my hands off the vibrating surface at first, but as Zane righted the bike and kicked off the stand, I risked touching the seat. The deep bass purr of the machine traveled through my fingers and straight to my teeth, deep enough to be pleasurable instead of painful.

“All set, Rex?” Zane had to practically shout back to me.

“I think so.” Gingerly, I transferred my hands from the seat to his waist. It felt somewhat perverse to be touching him while sitting on the rumbling motorcycle.

Jenner’s bike snarled and popped as she turned and pulled up beside us. Her getup was no less intimidating than Zane’s, and her brilliant red and black bike was only slightly smaller. “Come on, ladies. Time to get moving.”

We rumbled slowly down the gravel to the road, and then we took off with enough torque that my teeth stepped back in my head and my stomach lifted into my throat. My hands flew to Zane’s waist, lifted off with alarm as I realized I’d grabbed him, and resettled as we turned the first corner and roared off down the street.

“Press up!” He yelled back. “Hold on properly! You’re throwing me off!”

He was right: my awkward weight was making it harder for him to turn on the wet road. I pressed against his back, sandwiching Binah between our bodies. My face was burning hot against the tight padding of the helmet… at least until we reached the Expressway, picked up speed, and began to fly.

I forgot about our incidental intimacy as we screamed over the Brooklyn Bridge, buffeted by a ripping tunnel of chill, damp wind. Without the shell of a car to insulate me from the world outside, I was acutely aware of the smell of the city, the rising breath of eight million people and billions of other living things, the surge of life and motion contained within the sprawling stillness of New York. My pain and fatigue receded as I straightened in the saddle and craned my head to watch the sky kiss the sea far below, the wind whistling through the gap between helmet and visor. It took my mind off the meeting and the parasite and the children and my pain. For the first time since Vassily and Mariya had died, since Zarya had expired her last on the end of a sacrificial knife, my mind was perfectly still.

Zane was solid and relaxed under my hands, warm even through layers of leather and cloth. Now and then, I caught hints of his cologne on the wind, and I could imagine what it would have been like to ride with Vassily like this, his arm wrapped around my waist, or my arm around his as we tore up the road. It occurred to me then that Zane was the first person I’d willingly touched since Vassily expired in my arms… and my wonder ebbed with a growing sense of formless, frustrated confusion.

Vassily would have been jealous beyond reason or sense if he’d seen me like this, pressed up against a man he didn’t know, someone who was not our mutual friend. It was inexplicable, but suddenly, I’d never felt more like a traitor in my life.