Velli

Nostalgia comes over me as soon as I walk in, which concerns me until I realize why. This feels like walking through a mall a couple of days before Christmas. Candy-red carpet covers the clear floors from outside. The chandeliers hanging from the ceiling are smaller but brighter, with glistening gold that draws the eye, and the voices—everyone is so cheery, some even hum.

This is Christmas shopping for the depraved. They walk in and out of conference room doors that serve as stores, and everyone leaves with a joy-filled expression, a bag of goodies, and a slight pep in their step. Even the outfits remind me of Christmas. No, most aren’t wearing the traditional red and white, but this is Division’s Hand. Looking dangerous and important is a matter of life and death. Everyone’s wearing something bright and noisy in the form of bells, chains, or artillery.

Skinny, a legend in Division’s Hand, steps over us now. His right leg, two times my height, lands behind me, smashing the red carpet of the conference floor with a ground-shaking thud. Dream and I grab one another for balance. His thinning gray head bobs and weaves to avoid the chandeliers. His legs are adorned in bright-yellow-orange-and-blue-striped pants, emphasizing the joy of the moment for him. His orange-and-blue sweater makes him look like an out-of-touch dad who can’t match his clothes.

In both hands, Skinny holds two black shopping bags full of goodies. Curly, greasy, and wiggling hairs worm in and out of one bag. An unconscious guy around my age, just out of high school, hangs from the other. The kid’s limp body bounces with each step. Drool falls from his open mouth and drips to the floor. His eyes are glazed. A mass of something without definite shape pulses at the bottom of the bag.

The kid wears no price tag, which means Skinny probably just picked him out of the crowd, knocked him unconscious, and owns him now. The Conference of Desires, easy to get in, hard to leave.

Large fans sit beside storefronts, pushing out sweet smells, giving our journey a sense of ease. Until our noses catch whiffs of blood between the welcome smells of air freshener. Dream and I try our best to ignore the unpleasantness and shock and blend into the crowd, becoming unrecognizable in our all-black garb. Dream is still quite valuable, and someone might try to snatch her for ransom. We pop into one store selling flutes that attract children of any age, depending on the tune, a flower shop selling flowers that can make the receiver forget the name of the giver or make them only remember the name of the giver, wiping everyone else from their mind. An electronic store sells batteries that suck the life force of whoever’s name is written on them. After the last store, we guess we’ve lost anyone tailing us and that we’ve truly blended with the crowd.

It sucks. We’re treated as nameless.

Per usual for you.

Other conference guests jostle and push us. Big shoulders bump us. An occasional slender hand or tentacle wanders by my pocket, and I have to swat it away before it steals something. My skin stings from small scratches either by sharp claws, fingernails, or getting too close to diamond-ringed fingers.

A gap forms in the crowd. They push me to the side with the rest of the herd, back against the white walls of the conference center. The masses pin me in. I’m a witness against my will as one man walks through—Confession.

Confession, leader of a cult of his own name. His white robes graze the floor and almost cover his large bare feet. With white robes and a chiseled body, he could be a throwback to ancient Greece if he weren’t so ugly. His face is paralyzed and hairless—no eyebrows, no beard, no eyelashes, just twisted lips and eyes wide in a permanent state of terror.

Knees drop to the floor. Hands rise in praise, and people wail from someplace deep in their souls to make a throaty song. His followers glorify his name. They push their faces to the carpet and squeal muffled cries of devotion. The hallways are frozen with every eye on Confession and his fanatic followers. No one dares move. We know the cost of upsetting Confession. They quote his scriptures to him, displaying their devotion.

“Scriptum Est: None know more than a god, every fool who believes he does is left bloody and wailing.”

“Scriptum Est: When a farmer leads a pig to his slaughter, is he judged by God for not warning the beast?”

“Scriptum Est: Every step a clown makes is a dance. So let us laugh. He should continue to dance so he may last.”

Confession squats low, right above one follower who’s on his knees and bowing, his face deep into the candy-red floor. Confession puckers his lips, sticks his tongue out, and kisses right in the center of his follower’s neck, the perfect spot for a decapitation. He rises and shuffles to the next of his followers. They’re all lined up to receive their sacred kiss. We are stuck listening to their praise as it echoes throughout the hall.

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I try to squirm my way out of the crowd, but the three hefty sisters in front of me won’t move. They wear dreary rainbow-colored rags and mumble something to one another in a language I don’t know. They each have an eye in the backs of their heads that blinks at me. The eyes are as blue as the ocean.

I find someplace else to look—and observe something odd. Five of Confession’s followers are lined up. One has a shadow two shades darker than the others, only it’s not a shadow. Shadows are not always shadows, especially in a place like this. That’s a person. I know it as sure as I know anything, and I also know by deduction that it’s coming for Dream. She’s by far the most valuable person to snatch here. She’s just to my right, touchable distance. I can’t move her because I can barely move myself. I tap the pistol in my waistband.

It’s not going to work. He’s made of shadow.

It could.

It could also go right through him, and bam, you’ve just killed some random with hopes and dreams of their own.

No, I—

Yes, actually. Pick one—Dream’s life or a stranger’s.

I don’t know.

Yes, you do.

I can’t stare at the shadow. If I do shoot him, I’ll need to take him by surprise. Yeah, that makes sense. Before he turns solid to snatch Dream, I’ll shoot. He’ll turn solid. He has to.

He doesn’t have to. Powers don’t have to make sense. Most don’t. That lady’s eye in the back of her neck is blinking at you. Some people can turn organs into bubble gum, and you have me. None of it makes sense.

The loud, muffled, and barbaric screams of Confession’s followers tear at my brain’s concentration.

“Scriptum Est: And there is joy to all who know their place in this world.”

“Scriptum Est: Transform your bodies, commit no sin, and make yourself worthy to follow your God to be a king on Earth. For what is God to the king and the nonbeliever? Still God.”

The shadow skips down the line and blends into another shadow. Three people separate us and him.

“Scriptum Est: In the shadow, there is screaming you cannot hear. In the sun, there are spies you cannot see. They all seek your misery.”

The shadow moves again, one person away from Dream. He’ll latch onto her shadow next. Now, the question is when will he strike? When will he go for the big grab, and can a bullet even pierce him?

“Dream,” I whisper. “Dream.”

She can’t hear me. Confession’s followers are too loud.

Dream’s shadow darkens. He’s there. He could come out at any moment, but he would have to solidify. He would have to.

He doesn’t have to. He could just swallow her in the darkness.

Dream and I make eye contact. She mouths to me, “What’s wrong?”

“We need to move,” I mouth back.

Dream shrugs in naivety, and despite being shoved against the wall, she tries to give me a comforting touch. She reaches out. Her shadow rises. It’s solidifying, just an inky black thing.

Hurry up! It will swallow her.

It ascends above her. He’s humanoid, floating, wobbly, and immaterial.

The bullets will go right through him. Dream’s life or a stranger’s?

Eight needy arms leap from his ribs and reach for Dream.

With one big shove, I push the woman in front of me forward, giving me enough room to pull out my pistol. Blood sprays on my face before I fire. Confession’s hand is inside the man made of shadow—right inside the shadow man’s back like Confession has acquired a hand puppet. The shadow thief is shadow no more. Confession has made his body solid, and the living shadow is in his true form now. Distinguished but dead.

He wears a thick black mustache and a black tailored tuxedo and top hat. All he’s missing is a black cane to complete the look. Contrasting the black is a big, flowing blotch of blood in the center of his body outlining a hole in the middle of his chest where Confession placed his hand.

Blood drenches the back of Dream’s head. She touches the liquid. Confession holds the body above her.

The black-suited man spits blood. I yank Dream out of the way before she’s drenched again. The smell of fresh blood rushes from the body like spray from an aerosol can, and like an aerosol can, the smell lifts and dominates the air until it’s the only scent available, until the mouth is not even safe, until the tongue tastes it. Confession wiggles his hand around the man’s insides. It makes a crunching sound then a wet one, like splashing rocks in a creek, then a sound similar to snapping twigs.

“Scriptum Est,” Confession says, moving the dead man’s jaw like a puppet, a rickety sound, and the body that is not dead yet groans. Confession raises his voice to address the crowd, and I could swear he’s staring at me. “Many myths must a man hear.” With each word, the dying man’s jaw moves in this horrific display of ventriloquism. “Pick one, and serve that master. Search beyond those who are near, and choose well because, in every religion, there is hell. Believe no lie, no matter who dies.”

He drops the dead man on the floor like a child drops toys. Confession leaves in silence. Is this some sort of prophecy? Once he’s through the red curtains, the conference begins again. No one comes to pick up the dead body.

As I wring out Dream’s hair, I try to interpret what Confession’s message to me means. However, I can’t focus because I feel that thick, invisible hand again. We all know Confession avoids eye contact with everyone. What are the chances he would look at me and deliver a prophecy?

Many myths must a man hear. Pick one, and serve that master. Search beyond those who are near and choose well because, in every religion, there is hell. Believe no lie, no matter who dies.