FATHER FERMIER

Chapter Five.

Jersey Turnpike. The Present…again.

The towering laminated highway lamps pulse yellowish-white on the black leather interior. Ruby’s raven hair flashes with each beat as the Phantom’s heavy thrum purs with demonic power as if it too were possessed.

“The meatpacking district, huh? Didn’t realize it still was catering to degenerates,” I say, glaring out at the red sea of brake lights winking back at me, reflecting off the lightly rained-on road. I fucking hate traffic. And I hate it even more when it makes no sense in the middle of the night.

“What you don’t know, Angel-killer, could fill the Vatican’s tunnels,” Ruby replies without turning her head.

She’s probably right. But I’ve walked this sphere for over two hundred years. The things I’ve seen could at least fill the Vatican’s vaults.

“So…Ruby. Ya ever hang with any demons while vibing in that socialite life?”

Amos’s normally raspy register takes on a sultry tone, dripping honey from the tip of his barrel.

“No, Amos. And I’m not starting now. I stick with nephilim.”

Fuckin’ nephilim. I’ve always stayed as far away as I can. But now we’re heading right into the heart of half-breed territory. Ruby’s told me the proprietor works…well, worked, for her pops. Some nephilim named Father Fermier who runs all the import/export as well as the biggest underground fetish dungeon on the lower west side.

Which is where we’re going right now.

I have a serious feeling we’re walking into a trap. Either way, if this asshole does anything stupid, Amos will end him faster than he can ball gag one of his wingless whores. I need my fucking pinky and this is my only lead.

“I still think the location’s a bit on the nose. Bangkok Supper Club?”

Ruby giggles. It’s cute and catches me off guard.

“I guess I knever thought of that. Bangkok.”

Her voice has a spring to it. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but something’s off.

Amos chimes in as I’m wandering through my thought chambers.

“Meatpacking. Bangkok. Gawtdammit, I love the English language!”

Signs for Hoboken are popping up. We’re almost there. Just gotta part the red sea.

“How you holding up, Ruby?”

I still don’t trust her, but she’s the bridge I need to cross right now…right after the Lincoln Tunnel. If she proves true, maybe I’ll take her West. Maybe.

“I’m as good as a daughter can be after watching her daddy turn into skin soup,” she says, finally facing me.

Ruby has a sharp beauty to her sultry demeanor. She’s more than meets the eye, that’s for sure. These fuckin’ nephilim are like the mercury in a thermometer—deadly if broken, yet harmless in packaging.

“Thanks for asking though, Jed. You’re sweet sometimes,” she smiles.

I can feel Amos warm on my leg. He’s chasing gunsmoke with this girl. I can’t even imagine how that would work. Unless this fetish bar brings something out in her?

“Jed’s alright,” Amos says, interrupting a bizarre image in my brain. “Should have seen him back in California when we first met. He was a broken mess.”

“How’d you two first meet?”

Ruby’s doe-eyes peer up from her down-turned head, lashes licking her pale skin. I wanna dive into her soul-pools with my exposed heart. Damn it, she’s good.

“It’s a long story for another time. I’ll just say it all began in the dead of winter deep in a gold mine in the Central Sierras.”

“Poetic,” she replies with a twinkle. “That’s some special alchemy, you two joining together. You’re like the Rebis.”

“Who you callin’ a Rebis, Ruby? I ain’t no bitch!” I can feel Amos get hot as hell on my hip.

“Calm down, guys.” I point up to the green sign that proclaims our entry into the Lincoln Tunnel. “Can we have a little peace as we cross the border. I got a thing with underground avenues.”

Modern technical miracle or not, these almost two miles underwater still give me the heebie-jeebies. We used to take the ferry across. Now we have millions of river tons above our heads, waiting for a crack to pry through and bring all that water weight crashing down.

The city lights can’t come soon enough and Ruby interjects my reptilian brain’s overthinking with directions to the Supper Club.

“It’s a short stint on the West Side Highway down to Little Twelfth. Then Greenwich to Horatio and a left on Hudson and we’re there.”

It’s funny. Kids Ruby’s age are all helpless without their GPS. Seems like she’s got a knack for directions. Noted.

“They have parking?”

“Valet for where we’re going.”

“I don’t have cash.”

“Just follow my lead,” she winks at me.

And then we’re there. The place is quaint. Authentic Thai food in a modern decor. My stomach growls at the thought of coconut soup. Whoever thought to take nutmilk and cook it up with spices was a fucking genius. Too bad it’s not a late-night city joint for the drunks. Too classy for that.

I can see a squat figure step from the shadows as our hulking Phantom rolls up to the neon-lit storefront.

Ruby rolls down the window while I bring our asphalt-eater to a smooth stop.

“Password,” the Valet grunts. He pokes his crooked beak into the car, sending a waft of his flowery aftershave into my airspace. Roses with a hint of lilies. Who the fuck wears rose-lily aftershave?

“Badalamenti,” Ruby shoots back at him without any hesitation.

“Welcome, Sister Ruby. And your companion?”

“A guest of my father.”

“Enjoy your visit, Sister. Father Fermier is in the chapel.”

He retracts like a turtle pulling back into his pressed tuxedo. I exit the Phantom, stepping onto the pavement as I toss him the key fob.

“Take care of her, Valet. Please and thank you.”

“Absolutely, sir. Like my own. Enjoy your experience at the Orpheum.”

The Orpheum. Makes sense as we descend into Hades.

I adjust my suit jacket. A fitted Brioni isn’t very forgiving when you’re carrying a hand cannon like Amos. I look back to see the Valet and our Phantom disappear into the dark.

“Follow me, boys.”

Ruby’s already opened the door and is cast in a pinkish glow from the “Closed” sign. It flickers as we enter the Bangkok Supper Club.

The interior is a cozy wood-theme. The sweet smells of basil and oil still permeate the cool air. I really wish I could be slogging down a coconut soup right now.

At the back of the restaurant we’re met by the tuxedo’d Concierge.

“It’s good to see you again, Sister Ruby. Please send your father my best.”

Ruby nods. She’s playing his death close to the vest. Politicking. Maybe she’s angling for the chair, playing me for a fool. The thought lingers like bad baloney.

We’re taken through the kitchen to a sigil-marked door. Saturn’s Intelligence. Interesting. Not a sigil I’ve seen too often.

The Concierge places his hand on the sigil and his skin shifts, aligning. The door clicks open.

“Enjoy the Orpheum, Sister Ruby. Your room is ready and waiting.”

The Concierge never makes eye contact with me. He knows I’m not nephilim. Luckily they still haven’t tried to take Amos. And we’re not having a repeat of last time. They try and take him there’s no questions, just hot hellfire answers.

“Stay close, Jed. This is not a place you want to be caught with your pants down—unless you’ve brought the lube.”

Fuckin’ smut clubs. It’s probably a bunch of leather and latex freaks hanging upside down on steel girder crosses being flayed by scalding scythes. Disgusting.

We descend the sterile steel stairs into a blinding white circular antechamber. Several iron doors fan out around the perimeter. One to the north and two on the east and west walls as well as the one behind us. Each has a planetary sigil on it. If I were to connect the dots it would make the Seal of Solomon. Interesting.

A single fluorescent tube illuminates the room at 5200 degrees Kelvin. Daylight at nighttime.

Ruby opens the second door to the left. Mercury’s Demon. Something doesn’t sit right with me.

“What the fuck is this, Jed? I thought we’d be seeing some good deep dickin’ and whores on all fours,” whispers Amos in his husky metallic tone.

I step into the room. It’s brimming with books on all the walls that reach up into its vaulted ceiling. Ancient manuscripts, papyrus scrolls, flesh-bound texts and all things that would make an occultist no-touch orgasm. In the center are three red leather chairs with brass bolted arm rests.

Ruby is already rifling through one of the shelves.

“What the hell did you think it was going to be, guys? A fornication and felatio funhouse?”

“Um, YES RUBY. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE!” Amos doesn’t hold back in his frustrated exclamation.

Ruby laughs as she pulls three onion-skin scrolls from the shelf.

“The mind is far more sensual than the flesh. Humans are into their bondage and hooks. We’re more into edging the unconscious.”

Now this is some new shit.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Amos moans. “You nephilim are into the boring bits. I need some hardcore demon porn. None of this pansy-ass mind melding.”

Ruby motions for me to take a seat as she hands me one of the scrolls.

“Virgin female flesh inscribed by torn newborn fingernails in the blood of a betrayed King. These will take us to the edge and beyond. And where my father would have hidden your pinky.”

I remove my jacket before taking a seat and opening the scroll. When I look down at it the symbols are moving.

“I’m feeling as though you pulled some damsel-in-distress to lure me into an archaic magick trap.”

“Maybe,” she giggles.

The scroll begins melting into my skin, the black blood marking tattoos across my flesh. Fuck. I reach for Amos who leaps into my hand.

Everything slows as I fan the hammer, spraying hellfire slugs at 1,800 feet per second. The demonic ammunition cuts across Ruby, splashing the book cases behind her.

She doesn’t die. Instead she begins to Fibonacci spiral into a coffee cup milk swirl. Behind me a voice corkscrews into existence.

“Jedediah. Amos. Welcome to the Orpheum. We’ve been preparing for your visit.”

Does everyone have to fucking welcome me to the Orpheum? I think as I float up, untethered to gravity. Thick fleshy cables are sprouting from Amos as razor hooks dig into my skin.

“What’s happening, Jed? I don’t feel so good, buddy.”

One thing at a time. Need to face this new adversary…this fucking Father Fermier.

Floating, I use Amos’s new-sprung tendrils to whip me around, thrashing my arm so that they helicopter. As I slowly spin, I see an extremely tall and thin humanoid dressed in a skin-tight black suit. Something about him (or it?) screams grey alien from the History channel. The pale face is smooth with a thin, wet veneer. There’s a recessed nose above a lipless mouth.

In the mouth are filed teeth that, when opened, reveal a thick, black tongue.

“I apologize in advance for the duress your mind is about to endure. It is not my intention to break your conscious self, but if this happens I am deeply sorry. As you might now realize, it is Amos we need.”

My lips move as if covered in molasses—ponderous and labored.

“What…the…fuck…Ruby?”

She smiles innocently as she hands Father Fermier the other human skin scroll.

“All part of the plan, as they say.”

Her and Father Fermier’s scrolls also begin to disintegrate, burrowing deep into their respective arms just as it did mine. The three of us now have matching symbols all dancing in tandem. A whirling dervish by design.

“I’m pretty convincing, huh Jed? Oh daddy, why? Oh why?” She cries mockingly, but it all emits in a warbled series of words, bleeding into each other like a 45 record played at 33.

“It…was…you…”

“Yeah, Jed it was me. I killed him. Daddy wasn’t playing the game and he had to pay the piper. And your pinky’s not hidden on some distant weird world. It’s in Vegas on ice. I sadly gotta break the news you’re not getting it back. Father Fermier and I are going exercise your demon and make sure Metatron gets what they need. All Hell’s about to break loose and Lucy’s gonna be on all fours with a ball gag and a butt plug.”

I can’t fucking believe it. Wait, I take that back. She’s a fucking nephilim. No respect for the pecking order of Angels and Demons. Of course I believe it.

Amos cries through the swirling ether, “Jed, ya can’t let these sickos break us up! We need to finish the List!”

The four walls have now fallen completely away. Beyond each of the cube’s six sides is a different color frequency encapsulating multi-dimensional shapes that break all the Platonic solids’ rules. The seventh is the room itself.

Seven root colors: the holy trinity of RGB and four of which I’ve never seen. I’m gonna guess these are the Tetragrammaton. They all spiral out to infinity.

“We are in a pocket of your mind, Jed.”

Father Fermier’s watery voice probes my frontal lobes.

“A pocket that connects the Many to the One. But as a pocket it only provides a less than perfect path. Enough to surgically remove your unholy connection to Amos, though I only can guarantee the life of the child. It is Amos who is the key to this coming battle. As the host you’ve played your part, and for that we give thanks.”

The nephilim’s hubris is unbearable. It always has been their downfall. Just as Saturn was tricked and Jupiter lived, these half-breeds are all mind and no heart. It’s what will destroy them in the end. I just gotta figure out how to take out these two so I can hit Vegas with a vengeance. Nobody fuckin’ steals my pinky.

“Shall we begin?”

I can’t even answer as Father Fermier’s spindly digits probe out, extending like silly putty. As the appendages approach they begin to dissipate into gold-flecked particles that float towards my gaping mouth. It began with gold and it will end with gold. Poetic.

“Breathe me deeply, my son.”

“Ah Hell no, Father Fuckface. We are not going down like this especially after being so disappointed with all the innuendo. I mean, come on Ruby, WTF?”

Amos’s voice gives me some solace. My eyes wander to the multi points in the multi-colored dimensions as the gold dust penetrates my orifices. I don’t have much time. I can feel the particles expanding inside me like foam sealant.

Ruby’s eyes are lolling in her head as if she’s orgasming in ecstasy. And then I feel her. She’s in every molecule of my body, all the way down to the subatomic level. Her presence penetrates my very essence. And then there are two.

Father Fermier flows through my energy fields—in and out, above and below all at once. It’s the strangest threesome…well, foursome with Amos in the mix, that I’ve never experienced since I’ve only been with one woman.

My Elizabeth…and I plan to keep it that way.

The last thing I hear is Amos as everything begins to fold inward.

“Whoa, whoa guys. This definitely wasn’t on the evening’s menu and I’m feeling preeeetty fucking violated right now.”

I strain my senses outward but I can’t hold on any longer as the particles fully expand while everything folds.

And then I implode.

******

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

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