Zeke had seen the blue surgical knife before, so he kept his eyes on the lionizing getup.
Electricity flickered and sparked from Ugo’s new apparel — his Healer’s Garb. Ugo did it. He actually did it. He was able to call upon the Tainted spirit within him.
Ugo scrutinized his Garb giddily, letting out his dorky giggle. He slid his hand across the soft material of the robe’s sleeve and then caressed his exposed bandaged shoulder. His two-toned hairstyle ruined the austere look, but somehow, a wise and puritanical air was still around him. Then he spoke. “Hey, I am going to kill the next Halloween party we go to!”
It was like watching an ignorant moron with no subtlety or notion of sensitivity trying on foreign wardrobes with major cultural significance.
“How the hell am I supposed to go to the bathroom wearing this thing…?” Ugo said.
The Anathemia roared, demanding their attention. They watched it make a strange swaying movement. Subsequently, a handful of White Shrouds dived at Ugo.
“Bring it on,” Ugo said dauntlessly. He brandished the knife and held it up like a scalpel, locking it gently between his forefinger and thumb toward the incoming mob.
He swung the knife beautifully in multiple directions with impossible speed, leaving enchanting streaks of neon blue in the air. The Shrouds were split down the middle and across, sideways, and stabbed through. They wafted to the floor and vanished.
The Anathemia roared once again and slammed its head on the floor. It wasn’t done. More Shrouds flew toward Ugo, all the remaining Shrouds in the room this time.
Zeke did his best to keep up with the frantic scene as Ugo jumped onto the nearby column and squatted on it while he was horizontal, generating potential energy like a compressed spring. He blasted forward and bounced off columns, slicing through his enemies as he moved across the hall in a zigzag line. It was like watching a human pinball, and Ugo was racking a crap-ton of points.
By the time he got to the last column closest to the Anathemia, all the Shrouds were gone. Ugo rocketed at the monster. As the baby’s face opened its massive mouth, the Surgeon spun in the air and fell to it upside down. He swung the knife curvedly, making a half-circle — a Pfannenstiel incision. Severing a good number of its front teeth.
The Anathemia shrieked and pulled back, hitting its head on the ceiling as the colossal stone teeth fell to the floor.
Ugo landed on a tooth with a gymnastic dive, then zapped upwards. The Anathemia screamed and thrust its hardened baby face forward, bashing into Ugo with its forehead. He flew all the way back to the first column he blasted from and plummeted onto the stone floor. He got up quickly and then hunched over. His knife was still in his hand, in a perfect surgical manner.
“Mora,” Zeke screamed, finally returning to his feet.
Ugo panted. “I’m fine. I just need to catch my breath.”
“Amazing, isn’t he?” a hoarse voice whispered into his ear.
Zeke jumped away in terror and looked back at Isaac. He glanced at the now empty area where he had landed before, unconscious, then did a double-take.
“How…?”
Isaac put his arm over Zeke and said, “Ugo did it! What are you waiting for? You have just as much Mana flowing within you as he does.”
“Uh…”
The Anathemia turned back, lowered to the crumbling floor, and slithered away.
“Hey, we can’t let it get away!” Ugo said, stating the obvious.
Zeke joined Isaac and Ugo in their pursuit of the monster with his medical bag swinging back and forth in his hand. They dodged obstacles and hopped across the debris.
The Anathemia reached the end of the hall, broke through the door with its head, and continued its escape on the outside.
Zeke, Ugo, and Isaac leaped through the hole and dropped into a paradisiacal garden. The natural lighting was different. Instead of pure white, it now had a hint of warm yellow that brought out the vibrant colors of the lush botany surrounding the three.
The Anathemia slithered across the apple-green grass to their right. Just as Ugo was about to chase after it, Isaac stopped him by grabbing onto his shoulder. “Wait,” he said.
“What?” Ugo said impatiently.
Isaac pointed to the north. “That way is where we can find the Puritas Flor. Chasing that creature down could throw us off our path for miles.” Isaac turned to Zeke. “And we’re running out of time.”
Zeke bit his lip. “It’s not like we can just leave Naomi and AJ, either…”
“Right, so Ugo shall go after them on his own while we get that flower,” Isaac said.
“No, wait, we should support him!”
“It’s not a powerful creature, Hezekiah,” Isaac yelled, straining his already broken voice. “With his third eye opened. The Surgeon has more than enough spells to beat that thing on his own. He can do it.”
“I do feel up to the challenge!” Ugo celebrated. “I feel this incredible power like I can do anything.”
“Mora, you don’t have extra lives in real life…” Zeke said.
“I know, but we really shouldn’t be wasting time. We can’t let that thing get too far, and you two need to cure Má before it’s too late. I’m going.”
Isaac pulled out his saw-toothed knife from his back pocket. He raised his hand. “Yes,” he said, then sliced off his pinky finger like nothing. Blood squirted and oozed out of the wound. He glanced at it indifferently and then squatted to pick up his finger. “Here,” Isaac said, extending the severed digit to a traumatized Ugo. Isaac quickly executed a sign with his other hand, and the finger glowed. “You can use this as a compass. Place it in the palm of your hand, and it’ll point you to where I am.”
Ugo stared at the finger and then grabbed it. “Okay,” he said, without giving himself time to react to the absurdity. He ran in the direction the Anathemia fled.
“Use your incision spells to cut open its belly and free the girls!” Isaac suggested.
Ugo raised a thumbs up and disappeared into the greenery.
Isaac let out a sigh of relief and sauntered North. “Come on, Hezekiah, we have a flower to find.”
Zeke would prefer anything more than to be left alone with Isaac. But this wasn’t the time to be a coward. Everybody exerted themselves to showcase unwavering courage; all he had to do was walk in a garden with an unsettling guy. It was the least he could do.
He breathed in and out slowly and then started walking.
----------------------------------------
Zeke walked side-by-side with Isaac through the perfectly colored landscape. Following his lead diligently. Stopping when he stopped, turning when he turned, as they passed by vast green clearings, small ponds, and areas overly filled with multicolored plant life. Curved trees with vines attached to them that had giant grapes almost the size of Zeke’s head, puffy green shrubs like cotton candy, and a variety of flowers dotting the vista.
The scent was pleasant and fresh, and once again, the temperature was just right. A perfect setting of warmth. The grass the pair stepped on crunched with a heavenly sound, and the gentle wind whistled harmonically as it blew through the foliage.
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It was damn near to whatever Zeke could imagine Heaven to be like, for sure.
But his eyes fixed on Isaac for most of the quiet journey. Quick flashes of Isaac’s antics shuffled through his mind. The young devout was a dangerous enigma. Zeke looked down at where Isaac’s pinky should've been, and the wound was sealed, making it into a stump. When did he do that? Blood was still around his hand, but it didn’t bother him. Zeke thought of Isaac as a representative of the most harmful kind of obedience and fearlessness, like a well-trained soldier who would pull a trigger the second his superior gave the order.
As Zeke concentrated, he chewed on to his tongue in his mouth on the sides. His erratic behavior had to be addressed.
“Why do you keep trying to hurt yourself?” Zeke blurted. “You keep putting yourself in harm’s way, and it’s like… you enjoy hurting yourself, or rather, putting yourself in danger.”
Isaac looked back at him immediately. “I was wondering when you were going to stop staring at me and finally say something.”
“Do you find joy in it?”
Isaac’s eyes did a full rotation as he thought. “I wouldn’t call it ‘joy,’” he said. “It is something more grandiose. ‘Fulfillment’ is the right word for what I feel.”
Zeke raised his brows.
“Hezekiah,” Isaac said and then fingered his throat, “have I ever told you why my voice is like this?”
They both halted.
Zeke clenched tighter onto the handle of his medical bag. Was there really a story behind it? He figured it was just because of puberty screwing him over.
Isaac reached for a thin branch overhead and snapped it. “My father, Pastor Isaiah, used to have a drinking problem…”
The start of the story already forced Zeke to stagger in his steps. He was staring at Isaac, wide-eyed. Isaiah Noble, Winterberry’s most prominent pastor for over 20 years, had a drinking problem? No way.
Isaac nodded to answer Zeke’s hectic thoughts, and the two resumed walking. “My father had to deal with a lot of emotional stress, and, at the time, he resorted to alcohol to remedy it. It continuously worsened since the day I was born. One day, he came home and was quite violent. It was a hard day at church. The news of staff members stealing money came to light, and it was just so stressful, so he was very intoxicated,” Isaac explained calmly. “My mother was angry and got into an argument with him. One thing led to another, and quickly, things got physical.” Isaac’s everlasting smile faded for a moment and then returned even wider. His hoarse voice remained calm and showed no sign of anger. “My siblings were way too young, so I was the one to step up. I was 14, I believe, and I confronted my father to defend my mother. I feared things might’ve not ended well if I did nothing. Another altercation ensued, and my father punched me in the throat.”
“You’ve heard of the saying that drunks have crazy strength, right? Sometimes, when I sleep at night, my throat hurts just as much as that night. I screamed right after, louder than I ever had before, which I shouldn’t have, and I remember blood gushing out of my mouth. And I remember, clearly, the look of horror on my father’s face,” Isaac said. “That’s when I learned about the importance and the power that pain has.”
Zeke leaned toward Isaac. “So he damaged your larynx?”
“Yeah, the doctors said something about vocal cord nodules or something. I don’t remember the full explanation, but yeah, it has to do with that.”
“I can’t believe this. I never thought for a second that your voice was a symptom…”
“It still hurts every time I swallow, like a sore throat that never goes away.”
“Doctors seriously couldn’t do anything about it?”
Isaac shook his head and then shrugged. “At first, they weren’t promising anything, but then they said they might be able to do something about it. I couldn’t let that happen.” Isaac paused. At that moment, a ray of light shone on him, making his eyes radiate saintly, and then it passed. “I had to do some convincing to prevent it from happening.”
The answer popped into Zeke’s head immediately. “You used magic on your parents…”
Isaac waved his hands modestly. “Mind spells are not my specialty, but I can manage,” he said. “If you continue to suggest it over the years, then you no longer have to maintain the spell active.”
“I can’t believe that Pastor Isaiah did that...” Zeke said, lowering his eyes.
“It was the moment I woke up,” he said with a contained glee. “My role in this universe became clear to me. After that, my father changed for the better. He never came home drunk again. He never drank again. He cleaned up his act and became a better father, husband, role model… a better human being. I saved him, Hezekiah. My suffering saved him.” Isaac shuddered with an unsettling delight.
A lake appeared before them. Isaac halted on the bank and stared at the still crystal blue water. Zeke stood beside him and studied the former enigma.
The Noble family had such an uncharacteristic problem? Addiction, abuse, and physical injury were all covered under wraps. The Nobles had issues? Isaiah stood in front of thousands, preaching while posing as a sanctimonious figure. He was just a hypocrite. Corrupt Pastors was nothing new, of course, but Isaiah was different. He had interacted with Isaiah personally frequently. Isaiah had visited his house and given him advice on multiple occasions. He was just a damn hypocrite. If Isaiah Noble hid these problems, does that mean that his wife, Lori Noble, aside from a plaster saint alcoholic husband, had scandalous secrets of her own? They are all hypocrites!
Zeke watched Isaac walk into the unmoving lake.
What they did to their firstborn. That was the Nobles’ biggest sin of all. It all made sense now. They crippled his mind. Feeding his brain with thoughts of being a rescuer, cultivating his savior complex. They did nothing about it. They took him on the road and had him do sermons on TV. No wonder he is like this! Guilt panged in his gut. Or was it pity? Most likely, it was a feeling of sharp relief from hearing that Isaac and his family weren’t perfect, far from it.
“Hezekiah, don’t tell me you’re afraid of the water,” Isaac yelled as he stood in the middle of the lake with the water up to his shins. “It’s fine. We’re so close to it! Come on!”
The Puritas Flor was near. He had no time to be wasting time in his chaotic mind. Zeke leaped into the lake, splashing water all around. The water was nicely warm. He waddled over to Isaac. “How close?”
Isaac pointed to his right. Zeke turned his head in the same direction.
There was a door standing in the lake, attached to nothing. It was meaty and had jagged mouths crisscrossed across it and one yellow eyeball at the top.
Zeke didn’t react to the horror. “So… what? We have to go through another door?”
“Mhm… It’s just right behind it.” Isaac traveled through the water with ease. The water rippled peacefully with his movement.
Zeke waded through the lake, hoisting his medical bag high in hand.
“Hezekiah, I think it’s time that I explained to you what exactly this place is,” Isaac started. “If you paid attention. You’d notice that it feels like it’s still under construction because it is. It’s incomplete, and I inherited it from the previous Vicar, Seraphina Gussalen.”
They reached the red, fleshy door with pulsating muscle tissue. Isaac touched the slimy surface. “But this Sub-Realm isn’t mine alone to inherit. Your predecessor had a role in starting this project as well. The Damned of the Thirteenth Generation, Alexander Skaggsy.” Isaac withdrew his hand. He gazed at Zeke with his mad, widened brown eyes. “Alexander and Seraphina were lovers, you see, and they had a dream. That dream is sealed behind this door… it can only be opened with an Amalgamate Spell performed by the Vicar and Diagnostician.”
“Wait, what?”
“Hezekiah, your Mana Pores are open. I’ve given you a well-brewed Mana potion and put you in dangerous situations. You should be able to use your magic by now! I need you to focus. Do you understand me?”
“What does this have to do with my Mom—?”
“Focus on the voice of your Healer’s Garb.”
“Isaac, what does this have to do with the Puritas Flor…” Zeke paused and played back the comment Isaac made. “Wait, you said ‘put you in dangerous situations.’”
Isaac’s expression brightened.
Zeke read his elated look and feared the worst. “Isaac…”
“Focus, Hezekiah.”
Zeke connected the dots quickly in his head. “Was this all a plot? How much of this Realm are you controlling?”
“I can’t control the Realm, Hezekiah. Don’t be silly, but the Anathemia is one of my summons.”
“You son of a bitch!” Zeke snapped. The water swashed under him.
“I need you to help me open this door, Hezekiah! I will now tell you the truth to prove how much I care for this cause and how much I trust you to do the right thing.”
“Is the Puritas Flor even here, Isaac?”
“No.”
“Malparido… you brought me here only to help you open this door.”
“You should be flattered, Hezekiah,” Isaac said. He put his hand over his heart and titled his head to the side. A weak smile stitched across his rosy-white face. “I did all of this for you. I waited for the Diagnostician to be revealed for so long. I figured all I had to do was wait for the Mana Pores of the Diagnostician to open up, but it was taking so long! I had to force it open somehow, but I didn’t know the Diagnostician’s identity then! What could I do? And then a golden opportunity appeared before me.”
Zeke pulled back. “No…”
“Griffin’s Seals, The Great Seals, conjured by the Deliverer of the Thirteenth Generation, Caden Griffin, the Neurologist—”
“Oh my God.”
“Me and three of our wonderful siblings were able to undo them all.” Isaac spread his arms far and wide. “I threw the universe into chaos just to meet you.”