Dirty Work: Volume 2

Story Five - Nostalgia - 6

The corridor led a short way before it opened out into a large service room made up as a bargain-variety Order of the Bat Worship temple. Inside were a dozen hooded figures with the silhouettes of bats stitched into the fabric on the back. At the front of the room on a dais made of old crates was a woman, mid fifties perhaps, hood down, holding her hands out to the masses. To her side was a large, transparent box, sides made of energy walls held in place by the eight corners. It was filled with blood, and I had a sneaking suspicion that this one wasn't filled voluntarily.

'Time to call in the reinforcements,' Mansi whispered in the shadows. As much as I hated it, I agreed with him. I doubted that the whole crowd of maniacs were packing heat, but I wasn't about to go in and find out.

At the front of the room, the woman facing her audience was speaking. 'We praise that which flows within us.'

'Praise,' the congregation repeated as one.

'We seek salvation through that which grants life to all.'

'Life to all.'

'We are prepared to sacrifice what we must in order to achieve enlightenment through the blood.'

'Enlightenment through the blood.'

The woman who I assumed was Jin Holler turned to the side of the room. She waved her hand to summon someone forward. Onto the rickety dais was pushed a man, bound and gagged. He had a cracked Halo-Visor and bruises on the side of his head. He had a large cut on his forearm that had been badly treated, so that parts of it still glistened. Behind him was a slender robed figure, which proceeded with a squat gold incense burner, which dangled on a chain and spewed rosy smoke. The burner looked older than most galaxies.

'Mr Wolsal,' Mansi hissed. 'Recognise him from the files.'

I nodded. If he was Wolsal, then the incense burner, given the rusted, knocked, dinted outer surface, would have to be package I was sent to collect. The theory made sense, as the worshippers would have had every chance to get hold of sparkling new paraphernalia from the regular temple. They, however, had wanted a special old one, and they had found it.

The reverence with which the incense burner was taken by Jin Holler doubled my suspicions. She waved it past Wolsal's face, and he squirmed to try and escape the fumes. 'You have brought us this miracle. A device of the ancient ones, used for transporting themselves into the realms of the dark masters. Now we shall do the same.'

Wolsal was pushed towards the scarlet coffin. His eyes bulged through the crack in his visor. He tried to throw his handlers off him but the figures were too strong.

The figure which had brought in the burner stepped back to the shadow of the dais.

Mansi tapped me on the shoulder and I almost put a dent in the tunnel's ceiling. He drew a line across his throat and pointed to the crowd. 'They'll kill him.'

As if to confirm his point, Jin Holler brought from behind her a square holder with a blade handle sticking out the top, like a knife left in a block of cheese. She slowly withdrew the knife with an almost comical ssshhhhing. There was no doubt that she had done it for maximum impact. It worked.

Wolsal's eyes bulged and now he wasn't just squirming but screaming behind his gag.

'My friend,' Jin Holler said with a soothing voice which chilled me. 'You have brought us our salvation. Now we shall allow you also to find it. Rejoice, and know that you are to be saved.'

I thought about trying to get a decent shot at the woman. It would do everyone a favour for a big red splodge of blood to miraculously fountain from between her eyes. But then they'd turn on me, and there's no way I would be able to get up the ladder again without ending up with a hole in the back of my own head.