Subject: [dexf] [Invisibles] "God Slave, The Queen" - Rated R [1/1]
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 02:22:23 -0800
From: Dex <dexf@sympatico.ca>

"God Slave, The Queen"
by Dex

All recognizable "Hellblazer" and "Invisibles" characters and settings
belong to Vertigo and DC Comics; I am using them without permission but
mean no harm and am making no profit.  The plot and original characters,
however belong to me.  Any and all feedback is appreciated at
dexf@sympatico.ca.  Redistribution of this tale for profit is illegal.
Please do not archive this story without contacting me first to obtain my
permission.

Many thanks to Lise for editing and inspiration. This story is mostly about
semen. It also does horrible things to Christ, the Romans and upper
Midland. Reader descretion is advised.

Stridewide Al was in trouble. His left eye was bleeding from the ugly gash
across it, and the right was still swollen from the earlier beating. Only
the energy traces he was seeing through his third eye allowed him any kind
of sight at all. They were very close, but not terminally so. That was his
advantage. Even almost blind and desperate, he saw more then they did; ways
out of the trap they thought was so ironclad. Seeing was believing.

His grin grew vulpine as the rest group came around the corner. Their
burnished breastplates and razor sharp gladius swords caught the dim
streetlight and spread it across the metal like a thick treacle. It was a
deep ruddy hue; fire in the bronze, ice in the iron. Stridewide Al watched
them come in, shouting excitedly over their headsets as they fanned out
around the mouth of the alley. Just one old man, with a face full of
bruises and blood, verses highly trained ex-special forces who had been
infused with the sperm of the XXth Legion, Second Millarian Cohort. The
famed Valeria Victrix hadn't left England in two thousand years, with their
magically embalmed corpses ejaculating infused semen into a deep bowl.
Arthur's men were called the Knights of the Round because of the bowl they
clustered around to drink from, not from the fictitious table beloved of
writers.

Stridewide saw the flickers of energy that it left in their veins, arcing
through the bundles of muscle and crackling adder-quick down taut nerves.
He saw the lines of power tracing through the air; bio-electric arcs which
connected every living creature across the planet. He saw the web of the
soul of Gaia. It was where he saw his escape too.

"Alright, old man. End of the line." The centurion had drawn his SIG-9
pistol, and drew a bead on Stridewide Al's forehead with the laser sight.
Beside him, the legionnaires thumbed the edges of their swords hungrily.
"Control, this is Unit Six-Bravo. We have the infiltrator. Please advise."

"Support on route. Do not, repeat, do not shift position. Maintain contact.
Use whatever force is necessary."

"Acknowledged."

"That eye looks like it hurts, old man. Brutus give you that?" One of the
men sneered, and Stridewide Al smiled brightly.

"It does hurt. Fortunately, I've got two more."

"Two more?"

"Daft old bugger." The centurion shrugged. "Ignore him. We'll wait for the
trucks."

"I don't see it like that, boys. Sorry." Al shrugged apologetically.

"That so? How do you see it then?"

"I see it out my third eye. All those little lines of electricity dancing
back and forth, tying into each other. Making a giant invisible net. My eye
lets me see and lets me be Invisible things." Stridewide's smile grew
cruel. "Let's me touch them too."

"Fucking loony cock— " One of the men started, and Stridewide Al reached
out and grabbed the web that only he could see. His hand moved like a
puppeteer as he pulled on the threads connected to the enhanced energy flow
in their blood and bodies. With a jerk, he wrenched that energy out. There
was a snapping sound, like a hundred very tiny thundercracks, and the
briefest gasps of pain before the squad of soldiers collapsed in front of
him. Blood forced itself out of every pore, forming a vast pool at the head
of the alley. Stridewide Al gathered the energy in his hands like a man
spooling up yarn, and twisted it into a meaty cable. He turned and whipped
out the braided cable like a whip, merging his own energy into the conduit.
The lightning bolt shot down the alley, grounded in the street, and merged
with the underground cables at hundreds of miles a second.

The support teams screamed into the alley minutes too late to see all this.
One of the legionnaires retched as the stench of the blood already gone to
rot plumed out over them. The centurion flexed his hands in anger, but knew
bone deep that their prey had escaped into the night, leaving them nothing
but a pile of exsanguinated corpses and untold pints of clotted blood and
mystic semen. A peal of thunder echoed in the sky as he turned away.

***

"—and from there, I hooked up with John Bull and he got me out of England
on the quiet." Stridewide Al sipped his beer from the amber bottle. He
rubbed his thumb in the beads of condensation on the side of the very cold
bottle and sighed. "Makes for a nice vacation."

"Kind of the point, isn't it?" King Mob said, sipping his own beer and
smiling. "What happened to the rest of your support structure in Midland?"

"That's the issue," Stridewide Al said. His eyes went vague as he looked
out over the grounds. "We've been marked."

"You?"

"Yes."

"I've seen you step sideways across London. A group of tech geeks in
Birmingham made you?" King Mob said incredulously.

"We're not just dealing with a group of chemical engineers, like we
thought."

"Considering the legionnaires, no."

"It's beyond even that. I know of a genetics lab in Brazil that's been
pulling the same ingestable power spunk cocktail using the embalmed testes
of Saint Absalom." A gust of wind stirred the leaves, drawing Al's glance.

"Funny word for it: cocktails. Like in a highball glass with ice and a
little umbrella. In fact, the whole thing is just that; a cock tale." King
Mob drained his beer, a wicked light in his eyes. "A cock tale about high
balls."

"There's a lot more to this than just the sperm from long dead Roman balls."

"I'll be honest," Lord Fanny appeared suddenly, silently from the woods
near the pool. She held a carafe of clear liquid and a net bag of limes in
her hand. "With you boys, no matter how much ceremony you cloak it in, it's
still about balls."

"I thought it was about dick size?" King Mob joked.

"That's politics. Secret societies are solely about semen. Darling, don't
be a beast. Get some ice." Fanny winked as she poured the glasses of gin,
using a fingernail to pare away the rind of the limes and squeezing the
tart pulp out into the glasses. King Mob reappeared a few minutes later,
with a silver bucket full of ice. Stridewide took a sip and smiled.

"Bols?"

"They were out of Beefeater."

"Thank good for that."

"Al, what are we dealing with?"

"It gets complicated."

"It always does."

"All right, let's start at the beginning. Do you remember Philip De Coucy?"

"Rare book dealer, right? Spells his name with one ‘L'?"

"French. Lives in Milan now. He used to do some research for us. Threw in
the odd bit of esotoria now and then in exchange for the occasional rare
book." Stridewide Al refilled his gin and leaned forward. "So, when he
called, we assumed it was more of the same..."

***

"Magnificent, isn't it?"

"Sure Dec. What is it?"

"Save us from the Philistines." Philip De Coucy's eyes rolled heavenward
and dropped back reverently to the tome in his hands. "‘De Chymische
Mochzeit des Christian Rosencreutz', 1616. This is one of the first
Strasbourg printings. The author, poor mad Johann Valentin Andreae. Look– "
Philip opened the book with his long pale fingers, caressing the pages like
the body of a lover. "Andreae had Balsom engrave his famous raus croix
ruhor here, but this printing also have the symbols of the Templers imposed
behind it. That was dropped from the later printings."

"That's all very well and good, Dec. However, if I came all the way down
here for this little window into bookdealer's ecstasy, it will go very hard
on you." Stridewide Al shoved his hat further back on his head, scratching
his fringe of greying hair.

"It focuses on the ascension of the Templers in the Order of the
Rosecruxitions." De Coucy flipped through a few pages, noting sections as
he did. "The Templers formed the idea of the thirty-six Invisibles; the
very same concept on which you base your own groups. Tell me this wasn't
done intentionally."

"It wasn't."

"So you say. But still, you follow the same ideals in structure that they
laid out so many years ago."

"Ancient Templers were more interested in shagging each other up the arse
then with alien intelligences invading the Earth." Stridewide Al looked
uncomfortable.

"Of course not. However, they did advocate a similar order based on your
system. You're working under their percepts, even if it is coincidently."
De Coucy smiled nastily. "Maybe a touch of the Secret Masters after all?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Now, can we get to the reason you brought me here,
Dec?"

"Ah, yes. The book's fly-pages were damaged, scrawled on. I have a friend
who specializes in creative restorations."

"Forgeries."

"Occasionally. In any case, I contacted him to have the fly-pages replaced
so I could list the book as a pristine copy. Once I listed it, I received a
very strange call from a perspective buyer."

"Define strange."

"She called about the book, asking specifically about the fly-pages, and if
the ‘complete' copy I had listed still contained the damages. There was a
bit of intense negotiation–"

"And you caved."

"Of course. A little blackmail is not a dishonourable thing in the rare
book market." De Coucy set the book back down on this worktable and sank
into his chair. "She asked who had done the restorations. Two days later,
poor Sebastián was found dead in his shop. He must have decided to keep the
fly-pages."

"What was on them?"

"I have no idea what it means, or even the language it was written in.
However– " De Coucy pulled four pages out of his desk. "I photocopied them
before I sent the book off to Sebastián. I thought it might be an
interesting side project. You know, decode the secret graffiti or
something. Now, I just want the pages gone."

"Why?"

"These are the only copies I have. I don't speak the language and the
little drawings make even less sense to me. Once I give them to you, I'll
truly know nothing and can tell no one anything."

"Ducking and hiding then?"

"I'm a rare book dealer, a brandy drinker and the kind of man who buys his
women at a very discreet club in the city. Chaos terrorism and mortal
danger I leave to you." De Coucy handed over the pages and pulled a bottle
of Napoleon brandy from a drawer in his desk. He poured out two glasses and
handed one to Stridewide.

"Good luck with the pages." De Coucy toasted. "I'm glad I'm not you."

***

"So, you decoded the pages?"

"Slowly. The whole thing was a Vigenere cipher; a grid pattern code that
was developed around the fourteenth century. Probably the most secure code
that did not require a mechanical assist ever developed. On top of that, it
was written in Eskhara, the Basque language. Took us a while to find a
cryptographer and a scholar we could trust." Al stood. His worn face was
even more drawn than usual, like the pain had etched the lines in it
deeper. "The drawings were an odd mix of Latin, Hebrew Kabbala and Aramaic.
They mostly concerned themselves with a description of the legionnaires and
the brotherhood that created them."

"Templers?" Mob asked.

"Far older then that order. In any case, it was strange enough to merit a
look. We did some tracking of the book, and found it came from an estate
sale from an old English manor. Quite a lot of rare books in the auction;
old bibles, theological texts and Arthurian legends. Most of the lot was
bought up by this pharmaceutical company. A bit of Troub's magic pulled up
that number calling De Coucy's. So, we went in to take a look." Stridewide
sat back down with his drink, and shook his head at Fanny's offer to refill
it.

"So, why is this such a major deal, Al? What's their angle?" King Mob said.

"Darling, you're so linear."

"No, it's a fair question, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. But I
think I found the Holy Grail."

There was a moment of pure shock, even from as experienced paranormal
operatives as Lord Fanny and King Mob.

"Say that again."

"The Grail. You know, cup of Christ. At least, that's what I think it is."
Al looked pained.

"Right. Well, let's see what you saw," Fanny said, pouring the rest of the
gin into a shallow dish and touching the top lightly. "Concentrate on the
incident."

>From her fingertip, a dark swirl, like a viscous oil spiraled into the gin
and shot through the clear liquid. The silverish blob gave way to a
succession of colours, and the swirling liquid slowly began to form into
images from Stridewide Al's own memories.

***

"This is peculiar."

"Curiouser and curiouser."

"Quiet." Stridewide Al shushed his companions as they crept through the
moss encrusted tunnel. It had once been a Roman sewer, but the layers of
moss had all but wiped away the stone work underneath. What was oddest was
the strands of luminescent moss, glowing violet and crimson in the dark.

"Ever seen anything like this?" The Decoy was prodding the moss nervously,
afraid to continue or to stop.

"Seeing is believing," Meme Doe muttered.

"Ignore it. As soon as Cosmo gets back, we're moving." Stridewide opened
his third eye, drinking in the tunnel with other sight.

"Chamber up around," Cosmo Topian said in his ear, appearing suddenly from
the dark. "Lots of bodies, all arranged around a circular bowl. There's
something inside it. Glows a bit."

"Is it clear?"

"Three men. Two are talking in the right hand corner. The other one is
dipping into the bowl."

"For what?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Cosmo said, holstering her gun.
She hunched down and began to draw in the muck with her knife. "The chamber
is a flattened circle, maybe thirty feet in diameter at the widest point."

"Cosy." Thirty feet was not a lot of room to manoeuver in.

"The main parts seems to be this centre bowl, on a dais above the floor.
Slab looks like yellow marble. Definitely not local hewn. The bodies are
arranged hanging, like on big spinal boards the medics use." Cosmo's knife
made crisp, rapid lines. "They're head down, and racked in a cone pattern,
as the ceiling tapers up."

"Well, O Captain, my Captain. Each of those bodies is hung like a baby's
arm holding an apple in it's fist."

"Great. I'm glad our dead friends are hung like the proverbial horse."

"Oh, it get's better." Cosmo's nostrils flared, and a combination of
amusement and disgust warred for control of her expression. "Each of them
has an erection like Big Ben, and they each pop off a load every so often."

"What?"

"Yup. Big creamy wad right down and into the big bowl."

"Which the one guy–"

"Was dipping into, yes."

"Shit." Stridewide scratched the fringe of his hair. "Shit," he said again.
"Power drink. The opposition is going to be tougher then we thought."

"Germans had something like this in the thirties. Wasn't all that
powerful." The Decoy said.

"Feels different. There's a lot of power floating around here."

"Bug out?" Cosmo said, an eyebrow cocked.

"I want to know what's in that bowl first," Al said. Cosmo smirked.
"Besides the semen," he finished lamely.

"Right. Straight in, go for broke and bug out just as fast?"

"Sounds good. Decoy?"

"Always me, yeah," The Decoy said miserably. He shuffled nervously in a
circle, his tattered long coat trailing in the slime. Finally he stopped,
and looked up with his watery brown eyes. "Let's go," Fifteen voices said
in unison. The room was now full of The Decoy, fifteen separate men looking
hesitantly at the corridor. Al nodded and they started running down, the
rest of the group following.

They reached the chamber in a minute, shouts of alarm heralding their
entrance. The Decoys went past the dias, racing right for the men in the
corner. Cosmo and Meme broke left, guns out and trained on the man who had
stumbled back from the bowl in surprise, dropping his cup full of semen to
the ground. Stridewide headed straight for the bowl, watching the room with
his third eye. All the veins of energy warped into a funnel, leading
directly to the centre of the bowl. The first two of The Decoys reached the
men, who had drawn wickedly sharp gladius swords from their robes. The men
slashed at the intruders, impossibly fast strikes. The Decoys blinked out
as they were struck, disappearing with a hollow pop. Cosmo shot the man
where he stood, stunned by the disappearance. The shot caught him in the
chest, and he fell wetly. Meme's shots went wide, forcing the other man
back. Stridewide Al grabbed the lines of energy in the man by the bowl and
twisted. He also fell with a scream. Cosmo fired again, but the remaining
man seemed to elongate, his preternatural speed coming up as he fled from
the room.

"We're made."

"Let's get the hell out of Dodge," Meme Doe said, nodding. Stridewide held
up a hand and turned towards the bowl. He avoided a wet drip from above and
peered over the lip.

"My god," Was Al's only response to what he saw. In the centre of the bowl,
tipped over and glowing slightly, was a wooden cup, banded in gold. Al
reached for it, and a golden light suffused the entire chamber.

"Is that...?" Cosmo said, her voice trailing off with wonder.

"You truly are the King of Kings," Meme said, equally astonished.

"I think it–" Stridewide started, but was cut off as his third eye flared.
The lines of energy in the room pulsed and began to rotate. The lattice
that he'd seen on entering was wildly fluctuating. Al turned to yell, to
try and get his team free. The wash of energy grew and the lattice exploded
outward. Everything disappeared in a blaze of gold.

***

"Woke up next to a shattered guardhouse." Al rubbed his face. "A couple of
the units caught up with me. I got roughed up pretty hard before Cosmo
turned up. She went out north and I went south. I'm not sure if she made it
out or not. John Bull didn't know."

"We'll find out," Mob said, blinking a bit to clear the golden afterimages.

"Darling, a question. What did the Grail do?"

"I don't remember. But I'm hoping you can figure it out."

"Guesswork?"

"Well, not entirely," Stridewide Al said, reaching into his bag. He pulled
out a wrapped package and dropped it on the table. Fanny and King Mob
exchanged a look before she picked it up. The paper came away to reveal a
wooden cup, banding with bright lines of gold. The table sat silent for a
long moment.

"It's heavier than I expected," Fanny said finally, softly.

"I know," Al said. "First thing I thought. What do you think?"

"Holy relicts?"

"There has to be more it than that," Lord Fanny said. "We need Takashi or
Robin for this."

"Or me." Mob was around with his pistol before the words even stopped.
"Hello Al."

"Cosmo?" Stridewide said finally. "You made it out? Bull said he hadn't
heard anything."

"He wouldn't. I made my own way. You look like hell," Cosmo Topian said,
walking over and sitting down. Her red PVC pants creaked as she crossed her
legs. "Mob, Fanny."

"Darling, you look tired," Lord Fanny said. Cosmo's blonde hair was hanging
in limp tresses, and there were dark circles under her model blue eyes.

"I am. Achingly so. But I can't sleep yet."

"Why?"

"The Grail, Al. I know what it is."

"What?"

"Yeah," Cosmo said tiredly. "It's killing me."

"Cosmo, you're completely losing me. Try this again." Al said, his dark
face grey with shock.

"It's not a holy relict. It's a thing; a transfer. Static bio-infection.
Like a goddamn shunt. Back and forth, with the thing as a conduit."

"What?"

"Encoded light pulses. It flares and transmits a complex organic code via
laser. It rewrites your goddamn cells to produce sophisticated
nano-machines. Those machines transmit your bio-energy one way or another.
If you're using it for your own purposes, you can draw that energy into
yourself. Makes you faster and stronger. That's all the semen was;
fourth-dimensional power sharing. God, they're using the energy of the
children that could have been, sucking the potenia dry. The vampiring of
Schrodinger's Cat." Cosmo sagged.

"You have got to be kidding me," King Mob said finally.

"I call it Galahading. You remember him? Found the Grail, died in religious
ecstasy? He was the jump that Arthur used to restart the Grail. The entire
Round Table conquered because they were living off that energy. Hell, that
was the body of Christ. He made his twelve disciples drink from the cup,
and used their energy to survive the cross." Cosmo shivered. "And now they
have us."

"The flare?"

"It will effect you the least, Al. Your third eye. You can manipulate the
energy. Me, I'm the walking dead. The coding is embedded in the cellular
structure of the wood. No way to separate the one from the other."

"So you're saying that this cup is actually a plague vector?"

"Basically."

"Well then, darling," Lord Fanny said, picking up the Grail. "There are
ways to deal with that." She flipped open the gas barbeque lid and tossed
the cup inside, slamming the heavy steel lid back down before anyone could
react. Fanny twisted the gas to high and hit the starter. The barbeque
started with a throaty whoosh, and the crackle of flames leaked from under
the lid.

"What did you..." Al said, his voice tight.

"Burned the greatest relic in mankind's history," Fanny said lightly. "I
suppose I could use a drink."

Three sets of eyes followed her across the concrete deck and as she
vanished through the door. Mob took a deep breath and looked over at the
two Invisibles.

"She's quick, but effective. What does that mean for you?"

"I-I don't know," Cosmo said, still in shock. "The regulator is gone, but
the machines are still there. They could still work. Especially for the
ones trained with it."

"But it's an energy transfer, right?" Al said.

"Yes."

"Then," Stridewide Al leaned back in his chair and opened his third eye.
The world receded behind a series of energy links, from the people, the
earth itself, even the movement on the wind. From himself and Cosmo, he saw
lines running out to endless links, each stretching across the planet. She
was right. They were tied into the very men that they'd set out to stop. He
gritted his teeth as he delved inward. Inside himself and Cosmo, he found
the locus; the centre of the threads which would kill them. The lines were
thin but pulsed malevolently.

Stridewide took a deep breath and grabbed the lines, tearing them out and
wrapping them around his fist. He pulled, winding the lines like a knitter
winding thread. The energy grew and grew, as the line wrapped into from
distant sources. The further he wound, the more pulses came down the lines,
as the life was ripped away from the owner. The pulsing bundle on his hand
got larger and larger, eventually obscuring the whole fist. The last few
lines fluttered in. Al turned and tore the bundle in half, a shattering
bleed of energy washing out across the fields. Mason's trees would grow
healthy for years to come. Al took one of the bundles and placed it back at
the point of infection in Cosmo and release it. The energy filled her body
naturally, smoothing over the damage. He did the same with himself, gasping
as the energy boiled through him. With a shuddering breath and a final
effort, he closed his third eye and snapped back to reality.

"I think I've come." Cosmo said, wide-eyed and shuddering. King Mob was
shaking his head and trying to clear the excess energy from his senses.
Stridewide sunk back in his seat, utterly exhausted from his high.

"Was that it?" Mob asked.

"I think so. The only link is between Cosmo and I. Hopefully that won't be
a problem."

"I doubt it," Cosmo said, shaking her head. Her blonde hair had changed
from lank tresses to a glorious tongue of burnished gold, and her fair skin
glowed. The pain that had etched Al's face was gone, subsided, leaving
behind his laugh lines.

"Darling, you look fantastic. I'm jealous," Fanny said, reappearing from
the house with a bottle of wine and four glasses. "I can feel the life out
here. You did well, Al."

"Thanks. I– thanks."

"Of course. Come everyone." Fanny poured the deep red wine into the
glasses. I was thinking of barbequing but that option is pretty much out. I
hope drinks will work for everyone instead."

"A bit of Communion?" Mob asked.

"Body of Fanny, given to you," She said wickedly as she sipped. "Try not to
choke."

Their laughter was punctuated by the crackle of the flames as it immolated
the goblet. The bands of gold melted and ran, dropping tiny drops of gold
onto the grey concrete, where they sat like tiny stars in the dying light.
Lights in the darkness, and new hopes for those who might be.

"Playing mother to the unknown, darling," Fanny said, as King Mob refilled
her glass. Fanny smiled warmly and sat back, immensely satisfied. "One
regret at that."

"What's that?"  Mob asked. Fanny patted his arm and settled in for a long
night of drinking.

"It's a shame I'm not a virgin."

FIN