Chapter Seven
Angelo lost his boots and jacket, threw away his trousers too, and ran, almost flew, screaming himself raw. The storm had grown in strength again, and the horrible shadow had drawn nearer. It had made a horrible sound, distorted by echo, muted by thunder. A black figure that reminded Angelo of a great spider, eight legs twitching to push the thing forward as it threw itself in the direction of its prey.
It was with tremendous relief that, as he tried to understand where he had ended up, he recognized the neighborhood where Bard lived. He ran past the little café Bard had loved and Angelo had detested, now rendered a sad little ruin of shattered glass and broken masonry. It had once been full of old people who lined up for fresh bread.
Angelo recognized the broken tower of what had once been a newsstand, the same he had bought his smokes from more than once and received dirty looks from the vendor whenever he noticed the fresh bruises on Bard.
It was with relief that he ran inside the familiar apartment building, closing the door behind him. Unable to lock it, battered as the thing had become, Angelo pushed the heavy table used by the old receptionist back when the building had one. The thing was damned heavy, and Angelo strained himself mightily to push the thing against the door and bar himself from the outside world. He curled under the desk and shivered on the cold hard ground, which at least had been dry, listening for the thing that had chased him.
It had waited outside, making a sound Angelo was sure to have misheard as clopping. It snorted impatiently but did not make to break in, content with padding about, away and then back, away and back, again driving Angelo mad with terror.
He pathetically crawled from under the heavy desk and up the flights of stairs to Bard’s apartment.
“Please,” he begged at the door, “please let me in.” And on his knees, he slammed at the door with both fists. This slowly creaked open to the darkened apartment within.
“Where the fuck are you?” Angelo demanded. Shaken as he was, he quickly took to old habits; projecting the horror into violence and visiting that on another was easy. Angelo dived into the darkness, bumping into a chair and throwing it off. Angelo blindly reached for the switch while cursing but the light wouldn’t go on. He searched for his lighter and flicked it uselessly; it had become so soaking wet it was useless. Angelo flung it away. “Say something! I know you’re hiding, you fucking pussy! Come out!”
Lightning filled the silent apartment, and Angelo saw a figure standing by the window. Again, in the dark, blinded by the flare followed the thunder. Angelo rushed to where he had seen the figure, his hands hitching to find purchase on Bard’s neck. It was with a gasp and wide eyes he was surprised by the sharp stab into his gut. Another flash. “You crazy fuck.”
Bard had ducttaped a glass shard to the end of a headless broom’s wooden pole. The improvised spear had dug deep, and held in both hands, pushing Angelo and pinning him to the ground without uttering a word. Another flash.
Bard’s left eye was missing. His hair was long, and for the first time Angelo could remember, Bard’s facial hair was fully grown. Beard and mustachios that looked grey in the half-lit night. Thunder followed.
Freezing gales dragged shards across every surface and kissed Angelo’s limbs. Prostrated, the curtains billowing from the windows, a naked, blood-stained, one-eyed Bard stood erect against the distant lights of the thunderous night. Angelo shrieked as he bled on the floor, his cries muted by the thunderstorm.
“Cur!” Bard shouted, pointing at the bleeding Angelo. “Traitor! Villain! You judge yourself above God and men? I need not both eyes to see you for what you are!”
“What are you doing?” cried Angelo, choking in blood, dragging himself away from Bard, who stepped forward, naked, his mutilated eye socket almost aglow.
“Silence!” Thunder and lightning overlapped. Hail pelted both men and washed away glass shards and broken furniture. Such strength the ice and wind had that Angelo was pushed across the floor; when this ceased Bard had a stage set for himself with the storm as his background. Naked but for the quilt over his shoulders, Bard pointed again at Angelo.
“Bitter is the wyrm’s poison, and wyrm you be!” Bard yelled even louder. “Wyrm! I punish thee! Shed thy liar’s pelt and return to the dirt that birthed you! Woe!” Bard uttered the word with a voice deeper than he had ever known, a command echoed from ancient caverns in his lungs, an echo chamber revived in his blood by an anger he refused to keep buried in the soil of his body, no longer an artifact but a living thing. “WOE!”
Angelo bled profusely, and nearly fainted. To his surprise, he felt himself numb to the pain, feared this was his end, only to have this followed by a terrible itch. Unable to control himself, screaming wordlessly, he tore at his clothes and his own skin; undressing himself, scratching until the skin was raw, torn, and bleeding.
“Crawl on your belly for all of eternity! Return ye to the dank pits of mud and shit in which you were spawned! Return! Return!”
Bone shattered; flesh peeled back as a fat undulating shape burst from Angelo’s gut. A great serpent heaved and hissed out of him, falling to the floor, shedding Angelo, leaving behind a withered mess as life escaped from him into this new form.
“Until the hammer lands on your skull, until men and gods must again walk the twilight roads! Remember you the form of man, doomed as you are to be a beast! Now and forever!”
Amber eyes cut with black slits, a thick rope of a body, covered in toxic green scales and a belly as white as a fish’s, Angelo hissed and slithered away into the darkness. He exited the scene through the apartment door he had left open, sliding down the flights of stairs and leaving behind him a trail of gore. His own screams receded to the back of his mind. If he had still a human body, if he dared even imagine himself within the new brain that housed him, Angelo would be wrapped in the serpent’s coil, those sharp fangs buried deep in his throat to pump dreadful poison into his blood.
Within the serpent he had become, he prayed for release, for forgetfulness, or at least for death—but none came. He wormed away, into the night, full of hunger. Angelo’s lizard brain and human mind only synched when they heard thunder. There! A heavy step, a gallop, drew near. Fearing to be trampled by a horse, the wyrm escaped to the bushes, and wormed into the ground. It would know the darkness of the tunnels well, and return to them to grow fat until the twilight dawned again upon the race of men.
Bard did not laugh, and this triumph brought him no warmth. It was with grim resignation he drew sigil upon sigil, and tore at the human remains for supplies with which to weave his next spell.
“I stand under the tree
Mighty branches
Parched roots
Take me winds
On raven wings
Carry me home!”
And a tree grew from the center of the sigil circle, hosted in the made-up spear and consuming the remains. The walls shook, both the ground and ceiling gave way to a great wooden hulk; with blackened branches, it pierced every body of those unfortunates who had been sleeping in their beds. Flesh was pierced by the branches and torn apart. Skin rendered apart and fused to the bark, blood absorbed into the tree to grow into its sap.
Soon it stood, massive, as the apartment building shuddered and all occupants were consumed and all they owned was scattered. Read leaves budded from dark branches, roots grew fat and coiled through the ground. Whooping, naked, danced Wotan reborn. All-father, old one-eye, alive within the hearts of men.
And he watches.
And waits.
