Flake Parish

Flake Parish, S.F.

Part One.

"The temple has been violated!" I woke with a start, drawing a ragged breath as I pushed my body up from the sofa to stare with the glaze of the latewaking stoner at St. Gulik. St. Gulik is the divine messenger of Eris Discordia and today he had taken on the form of Darla, my housemate and occasional lover.
"Wha'?" My incisive interrogation brought forth a torrent of words, all pitched in her own squeaky version of a Brooklyn accent. I caught but half of this and was forced to repeat my questioning, which only incited the flood to ever greater proportion.
"Darla, shut the hell up and tell me what you're talking about!" A mistake. Three years of life with the New York shrew should have conditioned me never to mix loud words with semantic conundrums, but in my defence, well...It was late and I was tired. And no person should ever be subjected to that kind of verbal storm immediately upon waking. To her credit, Darla failed to spend the entire day analysing my request and giving me a synopsis of my technical errors plus my faults in general (like most of our cabal, Darla had attended Berkeley before getting into religion). Rather, she surprised me by becoming clear and concise (thus my love for her; this woman is impossible to fit into a neat character template, there's always something unexpected lurking around the corner).
"Khaine, fifteen FBI agents burst into the temple this morning. They profaned the altar and they abducted Lady Karyllis." I sat with vacant expression for a minute, silently repeating her words to myself.
"Abducted?" Didn't quite ring right for the feds.
"Arrested for possession, with intent."
"That's a narc job, not feds." Darla stamped her foot in irritation, her one concession to the blonde-girly image. I raised my hands in supplication.
"Darla, I'm sorry. Still a bit woozy. What's the plan?" That caught her.
"I, I don't know. I..." Smiling, I tried to take control.
"Let's call all the members of the cabal together and find out whether..." She cut in: "If they found the temple, they might have gone after other members, they might even be watching us now!" Damn, that tied us up. We sat there for about five or ten minutes, silently going through a paranoid routine--searching the room for bugs without actually moving anything other than our eyes. Finally, it got too much: "Hell with this." I stood up. Darla turned to me with worry writ large across her brow.
"Where are you going?"
"Bathroom. I gotta pee."
"Oh...oh." I left her with a half-smile.

When I returned to the living room, Darla was on the phone. She waved me to sit quietly and after a quick goodbye, she put down the telephone (an aged Bakelite model) and faced me.
"Okay, Khaine. If the feds wanted us, they'd have us by now. I've called around and it seems like we're safe; at least for now. Lady Karyllis is out on bail-"
"How the hell did she do that?!" I was seriously shocked, for mentally I had already consigned her to prison.
"She has some excellent lawyers."
"How can she afford any lawyers?"
"How can she afford the sacrament? Guajiran gold ain't cheap, buster." She had a definite point, there. Most of our congregation is, like I said, a bunch of Berkeley dropouts and that doesn't square with the kind of cash flow enjoyed by a drug dealer...but Lady Karyllis not only provided the sacrament for our occasional revels in Her name, she did also deal to the cabal members some quality gear. Seeing understanding glimmer in my eyes, Darla continued.
"Since you and Duke Barry are the toughest members of the cabal, Lady Karyllis has sent word that you two are to function as our military wing for the duration of our reprisal against the local government." Again with the big round eyes, I gaped.
"Come on, Khaine. You always like to show off your Jiu-jutsu, and Barry's built like the proverbial brick outhouse."
"Military wing?"
"Well, what her words were, what she said was...You and Barry will be the two fingers of Discordia, raised in defiance at those who would persecute her followers." I sat back, trying to form a coherent thought, but for some reason all I could come up with was one of those army-style headstones with the words: ‘Khaine Cuttlefish Barret, beloved son of Mary Elizabeth Barret...Died in the service of his goddess'.
"What is it? Are you having another flashback? Dammit, Khaine, I told you not to do any more of Professor O's acid; you know he views his customers as guinea-pigs!" I looked at her with dreamy eyes.
"It's not that. I'm just..." How could I tell her that I was scared?
"It's okay, Darla. Goddess commands and I obey." A cop-out, but she swallowed it, and what the hell? I might survive. As she began telling me the plan, my thoughts drifted and I heard the words of my mother a year ago: "You were always a good boy, how can you say you worship a goddess of chaos?"
"Because it's just too much fun not too, ma."


Part Two.
Duke Barry cut through the door frame in ten seconds, praise be to thermite! I smacked it with my jackboot and we piled in. Dark house, gloom to the very hilt, but Darla's loan of her ‘starbrite' night vision gear stood us in good stead. I stopped on entering, the hazy green image of a tall figure in menacing terrorist outfit froze my heart, and just for a second I swear I thought it was over: "This is it."
"Too right, let's get it on." Duke Barry's whisper came as I realised I was staring, freaked, at an enormous mirror directly opposite the entrance. Shaking my head, I followed him along a hallway, claustrophobic in the view-churn of my goggles. Duke Barry probably thought he was being very stealthy, but his harsh breathing would have given a mating elephant a run for its money at your local karaoke.
"Relax, man." I hissed at my companion, fearful that his respiration might cause a host of phantom bodyguards to issue from the shadows. He paused, faced me. His face was obscured by the goggles, making him look every bit the diplomat's nightmare.
"I can't. I'm on edge. Butterflies are practising ballet in my gut." He had a point.
"It's for Her." Those words cut right through to the old medulla, and Duke Barry's body responded. He went deeper in. He was now shaking, and his teeth were grinding in time to his breath. I had to do something, or he was going to bottom out in the thick of it.
"Barry, for fuck's sake cool off. Come on." With an audible sigh (I was past caring), I took point and walked down the passage, forcing every ounce of authority I had to ooze from my pores. A heartbeat later I heard him follow.
The house was large, definitely up-market and a bit complex to navigate when your vision is akin to a Martian invader. We both had memorized a map of the building; our target slept on the third floor, though he sometimes got up in the night to urinate or work in a study, on the second floor. We inserted at three oh three and three seconds, right when he was most likely to be sleeping like a hibernating bear...after it's been stuffed. Plus Freddo, our driver, was a numerology nut. He wouldn't go near the place unless we promised to do it this way. No problem for me; I like all the good omens I can lay my leather-clad hands on.
I reached the stairs, and hunched for a moment to listen. Duke Barry padded up to me, his breathing and posture suggesting a more positive outlook on the mission.
"Khaine, I'm OK now." He nodded decisively, and put his foot on the first step...Which surprisingly failed to protest beneath his weight. Duke Barry likes his Happy Meals. With him leading again, I took a last glance around, then followed him up. The stairs were beautiful mahogany with an expensive inlay of silver filigree. Or maybe they were plywood from the reject store; I still couldn't see too good in those bloody goggles. Whatever, the question is moot. The stairs were there and we ascended to the third floor upon them. Nuff said.
At his door we again halted. This was crunch time, a second later we would be changing history, writing it, even. The tyrant lay behind this portal, and minutes of planning and preparation had gone into the formulation of this mission. Success was but one potential and there were a myriad ways to fail...And then all our work would be in vain.
"Set?" Duke Barry broke me from my revery, and I noted him patting his gear; I followed suit, checking all the necessary equipment was actually attached to my utility belt, and not sitting on the back seat of Freddo's car.
"Check." My reply was all he needed. Duke Barry gripped the door handle, drew in a deep, silent breath...And in!
His hands clamped the man's arms, I slapped gaffer tape across his mouth. Then Duke Barry grabbed him as he lay on the bed, wrestled for a moment with our struggling victim until I could wind the tape around his wrists, binding him helpless before our onslaught. We lugged him out of bed, and Duke Barry began to cut off his clothes (pyjamas, with a surprising array of cute bunnies spattered about), while I got the gear out. First the gun, then the razor and finally the magic marker. I laid it out on the floor, a few feet away from our prisoner, now helpless.
"Hold him tight, I don't want to cut off anything unnecessary." My partner nodded, hefting our victim to a kneeling position. I crouched before him, blade in hand, and again cursing the damn goggles. Taking a moment, I fiddled with the amplitude of the N.V. gear until everything was as bright as possible. Then I began.
Razor in hand, I cut a swathe through the man's pubic hair, being as gentle as possible while forcibly shaving a person quite capable of having me imprisoned for life, were he ever to see my face. It seemed to take ages, getting all the little curly strands off, and at every touch of the blade he squirmed like a goosed octopus. Finally, he was ready for the next stage. I reached for the gun.
A fine blue mist coated our prisoner's manhood, which seemed sadly shrivelled at the treatment. It's owner was in no better condition, in fact he appeared to be suffering an apoplectic fit, his eyes darting from side to side like frenzied gophers. My paintgun rapidly finished the job, in fact I put on an extra-thick layering of azure Dulux just to be sure. And finally, I took the magic marker and wrote in large letters of a garish red (I bought them for the contrast): GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE etc., all across the poor fellow's rather out of shape body.
"Last lap, Khaine!" Duke Barry's voice echoed oddly in the previously silent room, and for a moment I flashbacked to my fear of the phantom horde. This passed when I realised that both Duke Barry and our prisoner were eyeing me in anticipation of the next ignominy to be visited upon this man's body. Reaching into a pouch on my belt, I brought forth a small bottle full of a clear watery liquid, imbued with a strange lambency in the hazy greenness of my goggles. I also got out a large Q-tip. I nodded, and Duke Barry gripped the man's head and jaw in mighty, or at least hefty, arms.
After unscrewing the bottle top, I dipped the Q-tip within, then withdrew it, glistening with eldritch menace. Our man's eyes were now fixedly tracking the item I held, but it shortly passed from his view, as I inserted it into his ear. Drawing a second from my pouch, I repeated the process with his left ear. Then I sat on my haunches and waited for the first sign.
My watch told me it was nearing 3:12 AM, which seemed impossible. All this in less than ten minutes? A few more passed in contemplation as Duke Barry and I remained in stasis, him holding our prisoner tight (lest he shake out those little sticks from his earholes), me gazing intently at his eyes, for that first little jitter of activity as the drug would begin to play with his noodle.
Tides came in, and out. Empires crumbled and still we waited. For a few minutes I had been flicking my eyes at the window, for it was curtained and in the garish green haze I could not tell if the sun was beginning to rise. I also wondered whether Freddo would stick it out, or if two walking adverts for Terrorists'r'Us would have to catch a bus back across the bay...


It kicked in. You can always tell when Professor O's braincase special is hitting someone's pleasure centre, you get this rapid shift of the pupils, they start getting real big and then shrinking to full stops very fast, like the inverse of a flashing light. I leaned close to his face, which gave me reason to smile. His pupils where not only dilated, his eyes where actually focused in two separate directions!
Duke Barry dumped our charge on the floor, as I gathered my stuff. He also took the razor and cut the tape around our man's arms. There was no longer any chance he'd get a doctor to counteract the drug, so we both reckoned it would be more fun if the governor of California were loose to roam while he hallucinated for the next seventy-two hours. He was already making happy bubbling noises when we left, having ripped the tape off his mouth, although he left the Q-tips in his ears...it gets people different ways. But, before we reached the stairs, I grabbed Duke Barry's shoulder, whispering quickly: "We have to get him out of here."
"What? Our job's done, man." I could picture his frown beneath the chunky black goggles, but I persisted.
"Man, listen, if we leave him then his family will keep it under wraps."
"Doesn't matter. We're doing this for the Lady, Khaine. Not publicity." He was getting agitated again, so I handed him my gear, and left him to choose his own path while I got our man.
"We're goin' for a walk, alright?" His grin was disturbing, but he seemed quite happy to be escorted downstairs. I saw that one Q-tip had been discarded, but the right-hand one remained, which just seemed to pile on the weirdness. Outside, Duke Barry was still waiting, and he cautiously helped me take our man down the staircase. Barry didn't speak to me, but he didn't make a fuss about my decision, either.
Outside it was still dark, and Freddo's car was still parked across the street. Releasing our victim, I spoke in a hush: "Off you go, now." Maintaining his inane grimace, the most powerful man for at least three blocks staggered away, occasionally pausing to converse with diverse faeries, or whatever his drug-addled brain was conjuring. Staring at his pale flesh without the aid of my goggles for a moment, I pondered what we had unleashed on a sleepy city.
"We've done one hell of a thing tonight." My words were a breath's whisper, but Duke Barry caught them, and replied: "Sure have, brother. Hail Eris!"
"All Hail Discordia!" I returned the chorus, and we hurried over to Freddo's waiting car.


Part three.

"Newsmen were shocked today at the Governor's announcement that he will begin the introduction of major reforms in the laws governing the use and sale of prohibited narcotics, with specific attention to hallucinatory and psychedelic substances. In his address earlier this afternoon, it was made clear the Governor believes that these substances are not guilty of the harm so often levelled at them, and there may even be a decriminalisation of such, beginning over the next few months. It is possible that this sudden reversal of position will lose the Governor support from the California Police association, but many locals here in the bay area appear to welcome his decision. Whether the majority of voters approve will become clear next year in the election. Moving on to other news-" I cut the power and passed my joint over to Barry, who looked like he needed to cool off a bit. He wouldn't speak after we got back to my place, and a week of lying low hadn't improved his composure. Amazingly we weren't arrested within twenty-four hours of our break-in, and apparently the feds hadn't put their temple-raid (they were calling it a drug-bust) together with our freaky assault on the Governor's head. Lady Karyllis looked likely to get off unpunished, for all the evidence had apparently been confused with a case concerning illegal monkey-running, making it likely that the charges would be dropped.
"Hail Eris and pass the home brew!" Darla's intoxicated cry was echoed by a chorus of: "All hail Discordia", for we were devout folk. Then we proceeded to get wasted. As I lay on the couch, my Brooklyn Blonde draped in my arms, I considered the future. We were all a bunch of headcases, and in despite the Governor's unexpectedly positive response to our vengeance, there could be no doubt that in time we'd all run up against the good ol' forces of law ‘n' order, and no one can fight that forever...but we weren't there to fight, and in the end Chaos takes care of it's own.