Wrath and Love

Wrath and Love: Chapter Six

A breath of hot air collected against a pane of thick, acrylic glass. Doctor Marla Zinger stepped back a little and raised a hand, stretching the fabric of her white, long-sleeved shirt to wipe it clean so that she could peer through again at the object inside: a steel dagger of about six inches in length nestled against a small bed of red satin.

There was an engraving along the side of the blade that appeared to be written in a language that bore a striking resemblance to Hebrew, though she was sure that it wasn't. More probably, it was Enochian, a language that she knew many Satanists were fond of using for ritual purposes. And this knife was definitely intended for ritual purposes if the operating table-sized alter to her left was any indication.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh!” The doctor jumped back as the voice of the Antichrist, colder than before, reverberated through the mostly empty, but grandly decorated, room that happened to be located three floors under the ground level of the holding facility for what the Diablo administration dubbed the “special cases” enemies of the state. . “I...I was just looking for the records of the patients-er prisoners that are housed here. One of the guards told me that they were down here.”

Pepito nodded, stepping further into the room. “And so they are. They're about three rooms back.”

“I see. I'll...just be going there then.” Despite her brisk pace as she attempted to dart by the man, she felt his hand wrap itself firmly around her upper arm, effectively stopping her progress. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him with only a trace amount of fear marring her pale features. “I'm sorry, your Highness, did you want something?”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Tell you want, Mr. President?”

His grip on her arm tightened as his eyes narrowed at the woman. “Don't play games with me, Marla. I always win. I think you know what I'm asking.”

“About Jay? Oh, er, Todd? I had no reason to believe that it would concern you. And I have a responsibility to respect the privacy of my patients.”

“Yes, but you also have a responsibility to me. And to report any breaches in my laws.” He grit out the words, but released her arm all the same. “The prisoner's are not full citizens, and they do not have the right to privacy. If you ever come across anything like this again, I want to hear about it. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. I...understand now.”

“Good.” He took a deep breath to compose himself as he stepped a few paces back from Marla before letting the same breath out in the form of a weary sigh. It wasn't her that he was upset with.“You may carry on.”

“Thank you.” Marla gave her leader a respectful nod, then headed for the door, where she lingered for a few seconds, unsure. “Mr. President, if I may, I...I would like to apologize for my earlier words, for saying that it didn't concern you.”

“It's fine.”

“No. I didn't understand before...how much he meant to you.”

His first instinct was still to deny that Todd really did mean so much to him. Over the years he had gotten very good at burying insecurities and weaknesses of any kind, so that wasn't very surprising. But Marla already knew the truth. Like his mother, she had born witness to the scene in his bathroom just a few hours earlier. “I said it's fine, Marla. It's fine.” But the woman didn't stop there.

“If you don't mind my asking, how do you know him?” She took a few steps back into the room, one hand still griping the door frame as if insuring her an easy escape if she should need it. She knew she was taking a risk with this approach, but if it worked the benefits would be well worth it.

“He was...is my friend. We grew up together.”

“Oh. How did...?”

“It's a long story...one that I'm in no mood to tell at the moment.” The half-demon studied the shiny marble floor in front of him before letting his eyes roam once again to the center piece of the room. It struck him as slightly tacky that this room was constantly in a museum-like level of upkeep instead of a clinical level of practical usefulness, which would surely be more appropriate and to the point. But, as his father had said, the people needed their rituals.

“Ah. I'm sorry, Mr. President.”

“Pepito. My name is acceptable in private. And don't be sorry,” he paused to look her way, giving her a small smile, “just stop talking about it.”

“Oh. Alright,...Pepito.” A brief smile tugged at the corners of her own lips as she moved closer, now feeling secure enough to let go of the frame. As she reached his side, her gaze fell back upon the display case that held the dagger. “What is it?”

“Karl didn't tell you in the briefing?” He frowned again, frustrated in his advisor's seemingly falling degree of professionalism. The old demon had been in the business for too long. If he hadn't been a tutor and such a useful political asset years back, Pepito would fire him. Hell, maybe he still would.

“No. It might have been a residual effect of the sedative that I...administered to him this morning, but he did seem to be in a quite a hurry.”

“I see. Well, in light of your recent promotion, you now have level two security clearance, which you've obviously already been given the codes for,” he looked to the computerized lock on door at this, “meaning that what I am about to tell you must remain within the inner circle of the initiated.”

“Of course.” The doctor put on her most serious face.

“You do know why these prisoners are here, correct?”

“Yes. Before, at the work camp, I knew that there were special prisons for those who were found to exhibit possible supernatural powers, so the rest was pretty easy to guess. And Karl did tell me that we suspect that one of these prisoners might eventually become the next host for the Christ spirit.”

“Very good.” At least Karl had done something right. “That much is correct. But once the Christ is incarnated, it can not simply be killed by killing the host. It would simply choose another, which is what makes this whole situation...rather tricky. That is why we need the daggers.”

“Daggers?”

“Yes. This blade, along with several others, was forged from steal that was made from the iron of the Lance of Longinus, otherwise known by any number of ridiculously clichéd names such as the Holy Lance and the Spear of Destiny. There is one like it in every dungeon for the potentials. Through the ages, it has been given power through the actions of the men who held it and the belief of those who sought or feared it. It is arrogance, pride, greed. It is all of those sins that make men, and women, great. And, most importantly, it is betrayal. Betrayal of the Christ by humanity.”

She nodded at the information, slightly amused by the bouts of dramatic speech that he seemed to be prone to just as much as the bouts of near apathy for his job, but even more confused. “But...it won't kill him?”

“No. As I've said, that would do little good. What it will do is keep him subdued until we can lock him away somewhere...safe...forever. And then there will be no one significant who can challenge my and my father's reign.” He paused to let the enormity of the implications set in. “So, at these facilities, subjects are continuously monitored. When the Christ emerges, the signs will be evident. If the new host is discovered on your watch, you are to alert me at once.”

“Yes, Mr.-Pepito. I will certainly do that.”

“It won't be a problem for you? Even after what you said at the camp about your pledge?”

“My oath as a doctor means that I can't personally do harm to those in my care. It doesn't mean that I won't cooperate with your laws.” At his pleased disposition, her smile grew even more as she took carefully measured steps into his personal space. Men were so easy. “As I said at the camp, you have my allegiance. My...complete devotion.”

His body tensed as her hand made contact with his lower arm, where his white shirt had been rolled up to expose tan skin, before trailing short, well groomed nails up and under the sleeve, near his biceps. He forced himself to relax. Meeting her intense gaze with his own, he hoisted her up and onto the alter, where her black skirt road up to her hips, legs spreading to encircle his back, pulling him closer as their lips crashed together in a none-too-gentle kiss.

It wasn't that he was really surprised by her actions or the wanton tone of her voice. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence with followers that he allowed this close, and he was pretty sure that they had both seen this coming since before Marla had so much as been hired. But as his hand ran up her inner thigh, ripping the lacy panties a little to get to the moist warmth within, he felt the heat that had started to build in his abdomen turn sour.

Pushing back on her shoulder, he took a deep breath to make sure that he wasn't about to throw up as memories from Todd's ordeal flooded back into his mind. “I...I'm sorry, Marla. I seem to be a little...ill.” He gave her the best smile he could muster under such conditions.

Marla let her legs rest on the table that would now have to be cleaned again. She nodded at his words, waiting for her breathing to return to normal. “I...understand.”

“You think I can take a rain check?”

“Of course.” She smiled a little sarcastically. “I live but to serve you, my Liege.”

Pepito laughed a little as he helped her off the alter, watching her pull the skirt back down to knee length. “Then I think you might be in the wrong camp, my dear.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that.” She dusted herself off, even though there was probably no dust to be found in the room. “Well, I guess I'll see you around. Call me if you need anything. And I do mean anything.”

He doubted it too. If he remembered correctly, Marla's smooth, toned legs had been covered in pants when they landed earlier that day. Satanists were always looking for ways to gain advantage using their varying assets, and from what he could tell, Marla was no exception. The Antichrist smirked at the wink the woman left him with before heading back through the enormous backyard to the main building. The long way back, without powers or golf carts was preferable when you were trying to put off talking to someone.


Pepito had hoped that Todd might be asleep again by the time he returned, seeing as how he had managed to stay away for a good few hours, but, despite his mother's claim that he was still in the Presidential quarters, he saw no sign of the man in the living room or in the bedroom.

“Todd? Todd!” He cursed lowly to himself as he retraced his steps, as if there was some possible way that he could have missed him, looking in the bathroom, the small kitchenette that connected with the living room, and making sure that the door to his office was locked. He was just about to question the two guards on duty outside his door when he heard the balcony door sliding open.

“Here. I'm here!”

“Oh,” the demonic man sighed as he walked a little too briskly out onto the balcony attached to his bedroom, “...I thought that maybe you had tied all the bed sheet in the closet together and made another run for it.”

Todd stopped in the midst of turning back around to face the yard, which far surpassed the one that he and Pepito had played in as children, to raise a dark brow at the other...before remembering that such things currently hurt. He winced. “I hadn't thought of that. But don't worry; I don't think I'm going anywhere with a sprained ankle. It's just...been a while since I've seen the stars.”

“Oh. Uh. You probably shouldn't be putting any pressure on it so soon.” Pepito's eyes roamed down to find Todd's ankle warped in a fresh bandage, and mostly hidden beneath the leg of silk charmeuse pajama bottoms that were just a tad too big for him. The man had apparently been dressed in his clothes, but he decided not to mention it. The situation was already uncomfortable enough.

“I'm not.” Todd leaned further onto the railing, lifting the sprained leg a little off the floor to prove it, before shrugging as he let it back down. “Well, not really.”

“How long have you been out here? Have you eaten? ”

“Not too long.” Todd allowed himself to look back out into the night. Before prison camp, he had never anticipated a time when he would look back fondly upon all those nights that he had spent on his parent's roof with a crowbar, stargazing and hoping that the aliens wouldn't take his reprieve from the scary-neighbor-man or the little-ghost-girl as an invitation. “And yeah, I have. Uh, your mom said to tell you that your dinner is in the fridge. Steak, I think.”

Pepito nodded, surprised at how causal, and calm, their interaction was going. At least on his own part, that calm was somewhat forced. He was trying hard not to incite anymore hostility for the moment. Taking a few steps forward, he leaned on the railing to Todd's right himself, letting his gaze dart from the professionally styled foliage that surrounded them, to the tall, horribly white fence that closed off the prison for the special cases, hiding it from sight.

A silence, part genial, part award, seemed to wedge itself between them as they took in the moonless night. Pepito sighed. The new moon reminded him of Marla and her advance. This time of the lunar cycle was his favorite for bedding women. It was just so perfectly blasphemous, so hot. And he had always had an affinity for blood...which, he thought, was possibly about to make him sick again.

Another deep breath, and the Antichrist looked away from the sky, to where Todd's hand gripped the railing, not far from his own. If his own reaction to the memories was this bad, it must have been near unbearable for Todd. Fighting off a sudden urge to cover the man's hand with his own, he pushed himself back into a standing position. “Let's go back inside. I think I need a drink.”

Todd frowned at the order, light as it was given, when it pulled him out of his momentary escape from the present reality, reminding him that he was still a captive, no matter how luxurious and nostalgic the cage. Still, remembering how easy it was to anger Pepito these days, he slipped the crutch that Doctor Zinger had left him earlier under his right arm, turning around to walk through the open glass door when the other gestured for him to go first.

In the kitchenette, Pepito accessed the small bar that resided underneath the open counter, which doubled as a table and looked straight into the living room, where Todd was currently sitting on his couch. The other man was flipping half-heartedly through a recent news magazine that he had found on the coffee table, no doubt discovering things that he had missed out on over the last year...if he was really paying attention to it. He noted that the other looked a little dazed as he poured two short glasses three-quarters of the way full with single malt scotch, ducking back down to add something extra to the second glass.

“Here.”

Todd looked up from the magazine, amazed, and in some ways horrified, at how fast some aspects of American culture seemed to have changed, and how much others had not, to see a tan hand holding out drink the color of good maple syrup. Too bad he knew it wasn't going to taste that way. He took it anyway, giving Pepito a half curious look. “So, am I sinful enough to drink now?”

Smiling a little at Todd's sad attempt at humor, Pepito shook his head. He suspected that, given the slight tremble of the other's voice, there really was some underlying insecurity. Under other circumstances he would have exploited it, but the thought of Todd blaming himself for what had happened to him in the camp on any level was just too disgusting. “No, but don't worry; I'll be here to keep an eye on things. I'm surprised you still remember that.”

Taking a deep gulp of the scotch, Todd coughed a little, both at the others word's and because the drink tasted like malted smoke and burned like fire on the way down. When he looked back up to see Pepito taking a seat in one of the two chairs that faced the couch at an angle from the other side of the coffee table, he felt the fiery sensation warm his whole body as the substance traveled through his veins, bringing the blood to the surface of his skin. It didn't help that along with the lecture he had received about how only true sinners could be trusted to properly manage sins, even ones as minor as drunkenness, he had also remembered the events that had transpired once he and the Alter Boy of Doom had actually been drunk. But the whiskey blush was a good cover...maybe. “Yeah, well, I remember a lot of things.”

Shifting uneasily in the chair, Pepito tried to think of something to say to that that wouldn't be quiet as insensitive as his earlier 'floor show' comment in the bathroom. Pursing his lips, he titled his glass to one side, then the other, watching the scotch coat the inner walls as the aroma drifted up before allowing three fingers to tap its side in a repeating rhythm. When had he gotten so bad at this?

Todd sipped the alcohol a little slower, still grimacing at its taste, but enduring it under the, probably false, hopes that it would make the pain and stress a little less. After sitting in silence for a few long minutes, staring into his glass, he finally spoke again, this time more seriously. “Pepito?”

“Humm?”

“Tell me what's going to happen to me, for real this time.”

“I've actually been thinking about that, and...I've decided that you should stay here.”

“Here?”

“Yes, at this estate. I'll have Mother fix a room for you tomorrow, but understand that you'll have to be monitored by security.”

Todd's eyes found his drink again and then the magazine. That was much more than he had expected. He knew that he should be thankful, and he was, but he couldn't just stay there, living in comfort, oblivious to the plight of everyone else who suffered in the camps and on the streets. He looked back up slowly, nervously. “Don't take this the wrong way; because I...really appreciate that, but...what if I don't want to stay here?”

The Antichrist frowned a little irritably as his grip on the glass tightened. It figured that Todd would rather run back to his enemies. “And why wouldn't you want to stay here, Todd? Because if your problem isn't with the decor, then you might want to keep it to yourself and accept my decision, and it is my decision, gracefully.”

Slumping down a little in his seat, Todd shook his head, but didn't divert his eyes from the other. “So I'm not allowed to leave here?”

“Of course not. You're still a prisoner of state until you accept the mark or I decide to pardon your crimes. And I shouldn't have to tell you that your little infatuation with a group that likes to make attempts on my life doesn't make a pardon very likely.”

“How many times do I have to say that I'm not a member of the Resistance? I don't want to kill anyone. I just...”

“You just want to help the people who treated you like shit growing up? You just want to undermine all of my progress as best you can, even when it includes setting dangerous criminals free, even when it means abiding the kinds of conditions that you have? Well, that's too bad because, one way or another, it's not going happen again.”

Todd bit into his lower lip before he realized exactly what he was doing, flinching when it yielded more pain and the taste of blood, near the end of Pepito's reply. It was amazing that, even under the circumstances, he was the one who felt guilty. It didn't change his opinion on what Pepito was doing, but it did touch him that, even given the other's claim that he had betrayed him, it sounded like this new arrangement was about his protection as much as it was about some kind of punishment or protection of the “state”. “...I missed you too.”

“What was that?” Partly narrowed eyes widened in the change of direction that the conversation had suddenly taken.

Clearing his throat, the man spoke again, this time in a higher volume, “You said that you missed me earlier. I missed you too.”

Standing, Pepito paced back and forth a few times in front of the coffee table. “Todd, you...” He stopped before the question came out as he realized that he could ask himself the same thing. Over the years, he had thought of getting back in touch with his best friend, but there had always been so many obligations to attend, and by then his pride had been more than happy to get in the way. Plus, there was always the lingering awkwardness of their more recent meetings. “You can sleep in my bed tonight. I'll take the couch.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Todd let the disappointment slip out in his own voice. He didn't know what he had expected, but the other's actions had seemed to be leading up to something more substantial.

Making his way around the low table to take a seat upon said couch, Pepito raised a brow at the other man's tone. “You're getting the better deal with the bed, but if you'd rather-”

“No. The bed is fine. Really.” This time Todd even forced a small smile, which was returned soon after as Pepito raised his still full glass of scotch in a toast.

“Good. To your health...Amigo.” The last word, which had become more of a term of endearment for the other over their childhood years in addition to its causal Spanish meaning, was rusty and stiff with years of disuse, but Pepito plowed on, clinking his glass against Todd's and downing the contents in one go.

A chill ran down his spine as Todd finished off his near empty drink, and he looked down at the few drops left in the glass, suddenly feeling suspicious...and dizzy. The glass fell to the couch, bouncing once before Pepito's hand sat it on a side table beside his own, and Todd leaned back into the couch, his hand on his forehead, breathing harder and trying to stop his mind from swimming or making any more Pepito clones. “...Pepito...”

Pepito caught Todd in his arms when the man fell toward his side of the sofa, griping him loosely to avoid putting too much pressure on the bruises. He smirked when he saw that the other's eyes were already fluttering closed, his pulse rate slowing again, with minimal struggle. “Sorry, Todd, but I don't really like you in black and blue.”

His hand fisted in the sleeve of the Antichrist's shirt, but it was already too late. He couldn't hold off the drugs that had apparently lurked within the drink. He heard Pepito tell him not to be afraid, and strangely, or not so strangely considering the other's demonic powers of persuasion, he really wasn't. The last thing he felt was a finger gently running under his bruised left eye. It felt...soothing.