The King in Metal (1/15)
“The King in Metal”
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Charles/OFC
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Pickles, OCs
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD, off-screen sex
Summary: Charles endures pretty much the worst family reunion ever.
This chapter should give you a better idea of what things are going to be like. Answer to the trivia question is below the cut. Also, how does Selatcia not have a fic tag?
The title of this story refers to a short story collection called The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. The first four stories of this horror collection focused on a fictitious play called "The King in Yellow," which drove anyone who read it mad. HP Lovecraft later cited the stories as a major inspiration for his work. I also recommend the first four stories just because they're good.
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Chapter 1
“Are you assholes ready to die?”
The crowd roared; they were indeed ready, if the pain waivers meant anything, and the legendary metal group Dethklok launched into their second set, which began, appropriately, with a newer version of “Go Forth and Die.” The words changed every time Nathan Explosion sang it; a few suspected that it was because he didn’t always remember the words, but he was a gifted enough songwriter to come up with new ones on the fly. Or maybe he was too drunk to notice what he was doing. Theories floated around message boards but were never verified. It didn’t matter in the end, except to drive ticket sales, so fans could hear their own personal versions, record them on their hidden devices, and upload crappy versions on WikiKlok the next day. If they were still alive.
Up on the control tower above the open-air stadium, Charles Ofdensen frowned at Nathan’s words. Only the pain waivers would protect that sort of speech, because if this went like every other concert, some fans would die and their relatives would try to sue. Charles had tried many times to issue warnings about that sort of speech, which Nathan ignored if he ever fully processed it in the first place. But the manager couldn’t stay on the issue for long. Voices were coming in on his headset, the one that also included specially-designed ear plugs because after over a hundred concerts, Charles wanted to retain some of his hearing. In the tower, which was mobile, he had access to every monitor and through the headset, the chatter of every security team. Klokateer 82 and the Dethcommandos were standing by but not deployed. 3201, his assistant, was at a station but ready to jump in should he need to be elsewhere. No one could say that Charles Ofdensen was not in control of his kingdom from his tower on high, no matter how unruly and downright riotous the peasants got.
The chatter was normal and his mind drifted to the actual music, which he was much fonder of and could certainly still hear despite the earplugs - and if he couldn’t hear it, he could feel it, as it made everything in the vicinity vibrate, including, it felt like sometimes, his insides. The Klokateers who handled the stage during the concert were usually too shaky to clean up - another set had to be switched in. All of this happened like clockwork. It was the least of his concerns. He was more worried that the audio fight between Toki and Skwisgaar would escalate again. Toki was playing louder and faster than the song required, something too subtle for people unfamiliar with his style to notice, but something Skwisgaar would pick up on seconds in. Fortunately, according to the view, the lead guitarist was doing nothing. If he started playing faster, too, the fans were in for a hell of a show, which was fine unless it escalated to a physical fight and stopped the music, pissing off the rest of the band and the fans. Charles was always happy in the end though; it made for great concession sales for Team Skwisgaar and Team Toki merchandise.
His mind snapped back to the security line when he heard, “Intrusion in Sector 4.” The hoodies around him, who were listening to the same thing, followed his gesture to hone in on it, but Sector 4 was a darkened part of the construction sector on the left of the arena, and lighting it up would just draw attention to it. Most security issues were handled without anyone knowing they existed, before or after.
“It looks like five, sir,” one of the security Gears said from his monitor.
He turned to the Dethcommandos and said very calmly, “I want the leader alive.”
“Yes, sir.” They saluted him and left. They would understand that failure was not an option.
“Intrusion in Sector 8,” came a voice on the scratchy audio. Damnit, how much had he paid for this equipment?
“How many?” he demanded, both of the people around him and the Klokateer on the line.
“We’ve only got one on the heat sensor, but it’s an open area, and some fans have started trash fires. That could be throwing us off.”
“Give me a squad.” He grabbed a rifle from the supply cabinet. “If it’s him, I want him myself.”
3201 looked at him, her expression unreadable with the hood on, but he didn’t have to read it. But she wasn’t a commando, so he didn’t have to explain that she didn’t have to go, that her job was to stay and monitor the situation. He leapt off the structure and onto the temporary elevator that would take him down, where a squad would be waiting for him. He removed his bulky headset and let it rest on his shoulders, one speaker still in his ear so he could hear the cackle of faraway bullet fire as the Dethcommandos engaged the intruders. It wouldn’t be heard by the audience - nothing would, other than Dethklok’s “Bloodrocuted.”
Their target was astonishing close. Too close, if he remembered the security parameters, which he did. They moved in silently, the others going first. They had night vision goggles and therefore the advantage. He heard firing, but it was going wild, hitting rafters and cement and a few parked cars in the nearby lot. The loudest noise came from the car alarms, which no one would respond to, because no one ever responded to car alarms unless they were the actual owners. What he didn’t hear was cries, or death. He didn’t smell blood. He was mildly disappointed when the first thing in front of him as he advanced was a hulk of a Gear, standing there listlessly.
Charles didn’t have time for this. He hit the Gear with the butt of his rifle, dropping him in an instant, then raised the rifle, this time with the flashlight on. As his man fell, there was nothing between him and the intruder, who was also all in black.
The intruder was not armed. He was in a suit, no tie, and he had a red collar like a priest’s. His hair was gray, but there was still some youth in him. That Charles advanced on him drew legitimate surprise as he squinted in the light. After a moment, he was able to focus and see his opponent. “You.”
“Yes. Me.”
Charles pulled his tranquilizer gun out of its holster and fired two shots. The man staggered back, and he put a third in for safety. The old guy couldn’t weigh more than 150 pounds, but there was nothing like a little buffer between his enemy and consciousness.
When the old man sank to the ground, the guards returned to sanity, except for the one who was out, of course. “Get him to the Dethcopter,” he ordered the nearest Gear. “I want him sedated until I see him next. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get 822 to a medic.” He did not explain himself, or wait for them to answer. He thought a mild concussion would serve as a reprimand. Charles climbed back into the elevator and it soared back up to the command center. There he learned the fate of the other intruders - either dead from gunfire, knives, or cyanide capsules.
This was the third time they got behind the lines. It would hopefully be the last, now that Charles had the old man. “Our prisoner is going to need some special care,” he said. The others nodded.
It was the final set. The final emergencies were standard: a falling tower that was part of the set crushing fans, twenty dead in a mosh pit, and a fire set by some held up lighters catching people’s hair. Deaths would not exceed expectations. Charles stretched his right arm, which was still sore from disuse, then ordered the command center disabled as he proceeded backstage, but not before 3201 caught him.
“You have a smudge.” She wiped it off his chin. “Someone’s using too much grease on the rifles.”
He rolled his eyes. “The list gets longer and longer.” That was, of things to remind his men about. Or maybe just the ones who cleaned the rifles, for starters. “Thank you,” he said as he opened the door. He walked under the hot lights and bypassed the waiting crowd of groupies rich enough to afford backstage passes or slutty enough to pass muster in the bouncer’s opinion. He went instead to the hallway where the boys would pass through to the party. As usual, he was the first one to see them off-stage, sweating through their clothes and greasepaint. Skwisgaar and Toki were already arguing as they ignored him and moved on to the Klokateers waiting to remove their paint.
“What the fuck wasch that?” William was next. “No one could hear my basch lines over them playing?”
Charles offered him a cold water and said nothing. Murderface’s anger would be diffused as soon as he saw the waiting groupies, even if they weren’t waiting for him.
“Woohoo!” Pickles staggered offstage. He usually had the most energy post-show. “Man, my feet’r feckin’ killin’ me. Dey got a couch in der, chief?”
“Of course.”
Nathan was last. “Hey.” Sometimes his voice was just totally gone, but he could growl out something before he even had water. His water came with a tea bag in it to soothe his vocal cords.
The evening continued as normal. Charles spent most of it scanning the incoming groupies and making sure forms were signed with the outgoing ones, and occasionally poking his head in at the party. If the boys even noticed him, they told him to join them, which he appropriately declined. The last hour he spent either talking to record executives in person or on the phone, and all the other post-press junkets required for the morning news, including some info on upcoming shows that he was willing to let “slip.”
Things wrapped at 5 am, and the Klokateers loaded five somewhat conscious Dethklok members and a small horde of new groupies onto the Dethcopter for the four-hour flight back to Mordhaus, which was currently near the Maine-Quebecois border. Charles made sure all the boys were sleeping soundly in their beds - or doing otherwise in their beds - before heading to his office to look for pressing calls that might need to be handled as the morning shows discussed the concert. He didn’t consider it a very distinctive one, so there wasn’t much to talk about and no calls for him to take.
He looked at the clock - he’d been awake for exactly 28 hours. Not extraordinary for a concert night, even a smaller venue like this one, but he had been a lot younger when he started doing this. He scratched his right arm, a habit that was hard to break. There was no need for it now that the cast was gone, but his arm had only been free for three days and habits were habits.
His assistant checked in at his office, looking to see of he was asleep or awake. “No emergencies,” Angela - or 3201 - said. She was younger than him, but not by much, and she had every right to look exhausted. “Go to sleep, sir.”
“Can’t. Smell like grease paint and ... grease.” The right arm of his suit was blotted with it from the rifle. Some head was going to roll when he could think straight about it.
Usually, showering with someone else was a lot of fun. Charles certainly had room for it. This time, it was more about actually getting clean as fast as possible, because they were too tired to do anything else. Angela didn’t have to be there. She had her own room. He just ... kind of wanted her there, and she knew that, which was one of the many reasons why he liked her.
He slept beside her, one arm lazily wrapped around her torso, and did not dream. Aside from the usual.
************************************************
The post-concert schedule was clear, to give Charles time to catch up on all the things put off in preparation for the concert. Non-essential items could be dealt with, emails could be caught up on, and phone messages could be answered. Usually, the boys spent days recovering and wearing out the groupies, so Charles was genuinely surprised when he got a text from Nathan demanding his presence in the living room.
The boys were in the hot tub, getting a start on the day’s drinking while their music videos played in the background. Charles walked in front of the TV. “You, uh, wanted to see me?”
“Yeah.” Nathan looked pissed. He reached behind him and picked up a large white envelope. “Do we have to go to this shit?”
“It’sch not schit it’sch a schacred scheremony!” Murderface sad.
“Ja, it ams - what it do’s, agains?”
“Old people get drunk and dance and it sucks,” Nathan said.
“You ah, got invited to Sam’s Bar Mitzvah?” Charles couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. And he recognized the envelope. There was one sitting on his desk. “In answer to your question - No, Nathan, you do not have to go. Dethklok is not performing. You have no contractual obligations to be there.”
“Then why should we go?”
“Dood, because it’s a free perty!” Pickles was much more excited about the idea.
“And we wants to sees whats you ams complain-gsk about,” Skwisgaar said.
“I wants to go, nots be electrifies!” Toki said.
“The electric slide,” Nathan said with a very brutal expression on. “It’s the electric slide.”
“Were you all invited individually?” He looked around at numerous expensive envelopes as they mumbled something that sounded like a ‘yes.’ “Then you can all decide for yourselves if you want to go. No one is obligated. Nathan.”
“Dood, he has ta go! Then we won’t be Dethklok!”
“You don’t have to be Dethklok. You were individually invited,” Charles said. “But Nathan, the old people getting drunk when you were a child were in fact adults, which I would remind you that you now are, and therefore you can get as drunk as you want and no one can make you dance anything, including the electric slide. If you want to escape that particular number, you’re welcome to join me in the game of being scarce when the music starts.”
“Huh?”
“I mean I have no intention of doing it, either.”
“Why are you - oh right, he’s your nephew.” Nathan had his frown-y “thinking” face on. “Wait, how do you know about the electric slide?”
“Because I work in the entertainment industry. I get invited to things. They think they’re doing me a courtesy. I’ve been to weddings, funerals, Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, brises, baptisms, confirmations, vow renewals, Buddhist pujas, and Kalachakra initiations. And I’ve done almost all of them sober so you have nothing to complain about.”
“So ... I don’t have to be sober?”
“No. That is not a requirement. All you have to do is be on your ... relatively good behavior, and try not to burn down the reception hall.”
Nathan looked on the fence about it, which was a push in the right direction. Murderface took the initiative. “I’ll go, but I don’t want to schee them cut off hisch dick.”
Pickles hit a little metal counter he had. He didn’t say why.
“For the last time, Murderface, that’s not what happens!” Nathan roared.
“He’s right, William. That’s a circumcision. We’ve been over this.”
“But Jewsch have to be circumcised! And he’sch a Jew. That’sch what thisch isch about, right?”
“Sam is already circumcised.” Charles had firsthand knowledge of the event. “They do it when you’re a baby.”
Murderface crossed his arms. “I wasch never a baby.”
“But you are circumcised.”
“How do you know?”
“Yeah, how do you know Murderface is circumcised?” Nathan was suspicious. “’cuz the Internet is all about how you’re gay for me.”
“I’m not gay ... I’m not gay for any of you. What did I say about things you read on the Internet?” Charles pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You didn-sk answers da question,” Skwisgaar said as he strummed. Fortunately, the guitar was not plugged in. “How do you know Moirderface ams circinsized? And also, what ams circinsized?”
“Even if I hadn’t you all naked on drunken rampages over the last ten years ... look, in America it’s usually done as a medical procedure to newborns. But it’s not done in Europe.” His face was actually getting a little warm. “So ... look down and figure it out.”
“No!!” Nathan howled. “No looking down in the hot tub!”
“Ams gay,” Toki said. “No’s looking downs in da hot tub.”
“Facebones!” Nathan said. “Can’t Facebones like ... explain it? In a really metal way?”
“Yeah, yeh got one of those videos, right?” Pickles swirled the straw in his hurricane glass.
“No. No, Facebones has never discussed the topic in any of his videos. And he never will.” Of this, Charles was very sure. He looked to the nearest Klokateer, the one in the corner. “1928, please explain circumcision to them. Guys, I can’t help you. If you don’t mind, I have some work to do.”
He left to the sound of 1928’s yelp and the guys yelling at him, all of which he ignored until he was safely back in his office.
************************************************
Charles was not completely safe. Angela waited until a natural lull in the business conversation, then pulled the envelope out of her notebook.
“Oh no.”
“She asked me for my full name. For the invitation inside,” Angela said. The envelope itself just read ‘3201.’ “I didn’t tell her.”
“That was the, um, correct thing to do.”
“Am I going to have to buy a dress for this?”
“A suit is fine.” He couldn’t ask her to wear a hood. He also couldn’t ask her not to go - it was the reason Sarah had gone out of his way to invite her, to get her there without having to be Charles’s ‘plus one.’ “Take the money out of petty cash.”
“If you don’t want me to go - “
“It’s not really my decision,” he said. “It’s Sarah’s. I don’t know what she’s imagining - if this is like any Bar Mitzvah I’ve ever been to, she’ll be way to busy to bother you.”
“I don’t necessarily consider it bothering,” Angela said, knowing it gave him the shivers. His girlfriend and his sister would have ... way too much to talk about. “Are the masters going?”
“Nathan’s holding out but they’ll get him to do it. Sam will be thrilled. Or die of embarrassment.”
“But he’ll be a man when he dies.”
He chuckled. “Yes.”
************************************************
It was well into the night when Charles finally got down to some very serious business, deep in the bowels of Mordhaus. It was an apt description, because the cells were not far from the septic system, but there was always a strong smell of medicinal cleaners when Charles ventured down there, per his instructions.
His other instructions had been followed to a tee. The guest was kept sedated, no one looked him in the eyes, but he was kept on an IV and monitored so he would stay healthy. He was just coming around when Charles approached the interrogation room, flanked by Angela and 82. Unlike other prisoners Charles Ofdensen took the time to interview, the old man was not “prepped” first. All the video feeds except one were disabled so no one else could watch. Charles looked through the one-way mirror to see the old man handcuffed to a chair, still on an IV so a truth serum could be used, his eyes blinking in confusion.
“Dim the lights,” he told 82. “I don’t want a headache.”
“Are you sure - “
“I’m sure I don’t want you going in there, yes,” was his answer. He took the heavy folder from Angela and entered the room, shutting the door behind him. A small, twisted part of him that had been watching too much Law & Order: Criminal Intent was looking forward to this as he dropped the heavy binder on the table between them and sat down. “Welcome to Mordhaus, Reverend.”
His data-miners dug up a considerable amount of information on Reverend Duggan, from his high school GPA to his last ATM withdrawal. The information Charles wanted would only come from him, and none of it explained how the priest (of what religion, it wasn’t clear) got his men past security in no less than three concerts. Charles had suspicions.
That was why the only security feed that wasn’t disabled was the one that went to his private line, and the only Klokateers not sent to the other end of the prison were ones he trusted.
“There’s two ways out of here,” he said. “In a body bag, or in multiple body bags. It’s your choice.” He added, “Or we could let you go and see what Selatcia does to you.”
The priest flinched.
“You don’t even have to answer. I’m very good at reading faces.” He opened the folder but didn’t show anything inside it yet. “You used to work for the Tribunal, but now you’ve gone rogue. And you took your men with you.”
His prisoner didn’t nod, but his eyes widened just enough to give him away.
“Selatcia would never sanction an attack on Dethklok. That’s why you left. You’re starting to think he’s on the wrong side. That he wants the Metalocalypse to happen.”
This time, Duggan did nod, however involuntarily. He was too frightened to conjure a real response.
“You weren’t the first and you won’t be the last. But that’s just your guest. You were probably close to Cardinal Ravenwood, even if you didn’t always agree with him.”
The expression confirmed some of it, but it was hard to read. The Reverend tugged at his restraints, but he was too old and weak to get out of simple handcuffs. There was some spirit left in him.
“Your Tribunal information is probably pretty stale. Not good bargaining material when we’re talking about how you want your life to end. And I can make the people who get eaten by an alligator look lucky.”
The tugging became more frantic. The prisoner was starting to understand just how bad his situation was. He hadn’t told Charles anything yet and he’d somehow answered every question.
“The only reason you’re alive now, which you must be smart enough to figure out, is because you do have information I want.” Charles gave him a hard stare, holding the pencil in his hands so hard he was close to breaking it. “How did you get past my men?”
Duggan looked for a moment as if he was going to cave, then frowned and spit on Charles. Or at him, because he couldn’t spit very far and it hit the desk instead.
“Selatcia taught you something. You sold your soul to this man.” He pulled out the picture of Selatcia Crozier had given him. “And you don’t even know who he is.”
The old priest’s expression dissolved into terror, because what Charles said was true. He really didn’t know Selatcia, didn’t know where his power came from. Charles got up, straightening his tie as he went, and faced his reflection in the two-way mirror. Then he hit the button on the wall and disabled the speakers before retaking his seat.
“What I want to know,” he said with much more force, his fingers pressed down on the table as if he was getting ready to strike, “is why you can’t affect me.”
Duggan willingly returned gazes for the first time. Charles racked his brains for some way to incite him, to make him offer up some precious information when Charles had nothing on the table but torture and death.
“In a way, we’re both on the same side,” he said, lowering his voice even though he knew they couldn’t be heard. “We both have the same enemy.”
The priest shut his eyes. He was concentrating, and not at shutting out the world that was now very deadly to him. Charles laced his fingers together and waited. There was a long period of silence, maybe as long as minutes, before Duggan’s head, which had slowly fallen back in his state, sprang forward and his body collapsed into the chair. He looked paler than before, and somehow thinner, as if his ruffled clothing was handing off him. “There’s a barrier.”
“Between the two of us?”
“Something is blocking me from reaching your mind,” Duggan said. “I was never ... my skills were not quite what they could have been, had I stayed.”
Charles wanted to say that Selatcia had been in his head easily, but that was just once, and he was beginning to believe that it was entirely unintentional, as it had been meant for Crozier. “I’m not intentionally blocking you.” He did not want to reveal that he did not know how.
“No. You’re clearly not.” Duggan was now very precise. This his area of expertise, not Charles’s. He was the priest who played with magic, not the CFO with an Accounting degree. “Something is protecting you, just as unnatural forces are protecting Dethklok. But they’re not the same.”
He knew it wasn’t Selatcia. It was clear from his Tribunal contacts well ahead of talking to Crozier that somehow he’d stayed off Selatcia’s radar. It was the only way he’d managed to stay dead for nine months. He was a wallflower, but not that much of a wallflower. There had to be a better explanation.
“If you are immune to him, you stand the best chance against him,” Duggan said, a strange hope in his eyes.
“I know the stakes.” But Charles wasn’t strong enough to fight Selatcia and he suspected he never would be - another thing he just couldn’t confirm. “But there’s something else out there. Something that can defeat him.”
“Nature has a way of balancing itself,” Duggan said. “In a strange way, you are very blessed.”
Or cursed, Charles decided not to add. He pulled out a notebook with crudely-drawn hieroglyphs and an English translation beneath them in pencil. He flipped it over and slid it across the table. “Have you seen this before?”
Duggan leaned forward, but didn’t spend much time on the text. “Cardinal Ravenwood made Sumerian texts his personal project. I never saw anything this long. What is it?”
“It’s a very confusing story,” Charles said. “Everyone who’s read it has gone insane.”
Duggan shriveled back. “Except for you?”
“I’ve only read pieces,” Charles admitted, even though he had the whole translation. He couldn’t be sure it was right, of course, without showing it around to a lot of scholars, and he didn’t want to do that. The more he knew about it, the less he liked it. “Why don’t you try again? This time I’ll try to be ... open.” He was tempted to get a playing card, and hold it to his head to test the man’s psychic abilities, ala Ghostbusters. “Why don’t you try it like your life depends on it?”
It was not an idle threat. Duggan reached out as far as he could with the cuffs, which meant his knuckles were barely beyond the edge of the table. “Give me your hands.”
Debating first whether he should tell 82 to tranq him, Charles threw caution into the wind and put his hands over Duggan’s withered fingers, something that probably made the two people watching him flip. But he cleared his mind of them for the moment, and everything else, leaving Duggan a warm, inviting field. He even imagined a G-ddamn field of grain, if that would get the job done. He let - he tried to let - his worries fall away from him, with the nightly vision quietly in the background, ever asserting itself when he wasn’t too distracted. Now it surfaced, as it had a tendency to do at bad times, and he pushed it down again, having seen it too many times to possibly be interested. He counted back from ten, and when he was done, restarted at 100.
He was in the 60’s when Duggan made a gurgling sound, and Charles opened his eyes. The priest was in the same position but with his head leaning sideways and his eyes rolled back into his head. Blood trickled out of his nose and mouth. Then monitors started going off, and Charles scrambled for the door so 82 could assess the situation.
Duggan was alive, but not quite. Eventually the medics determined that the priest was brain dead. An aneurysm, they said. They didn’t bother to start life support.
The only thing Charles was sure of was what he told Angela. “I didn’t do it.”
It wouldn’t have mattered to her if he did, he supposed, but there would have been follow-up questions. No, he could not kill people with his mind. “What did you say to him?” She did sound annoyed about him disabling the speakers.
He pulled her away from the medics and other Klokateers. “I asked him why he couldn’t do to me what he did to the guards, and he couldn’t answer me.”
“And then his brain exploded.”
“It seems so.”
“Could that have happened to you instead?”
“No.” That was the point of the thing. He looked at the medics wheeling the priest away. “Give him a burial. No Al-75.”
He hadn’t killed the poor man with his mind, but other things had done it for him. And he still didn’t know what.
Or why.
To Be Continued...
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Charles/OFC
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Pickles, OCs
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD, off-screen sex
Summary: Charles endures pretty much the worst family reunion ever.
This chapter should give you a better idea of what things are going to be like. Answer to the trivia question is below the cut. Also, how does Selatcia not have a fic tag?
The title of this story refers to a short story collection called The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. The first four stories of this horror collection focused on a fictitious play called "The King in Yellow," which drove anyone who read it mad. HP Lovecraft later cited the stories as a major inspiration for his work. I also recommend the first four stories just because they're good.
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Chapter 1
“Are you assholes ready to die?”
The crowd roared; they were indeed ready, if the pain waivers meant anything, and the legendary metal group Dethklok launched into their second set, which began, appropriately, with a newer version of “Go Forth and Die.” The words changed every time Nathan Explosion sang it; a few suspected that it was because he didn’t always remember the words, but he was a gifted enough songwriter to come up with new ones on the fly. Or maybe he was too drunk to notice what he was doing. Theories floated around message boards but were never verified. It didn’t matter in the end, except to drive ticket sales, so fans could hear their own personal versions, record them on their hidden devices, and upload crappy versions on WikiKlok the next day. If they were still alive.
Up on the control tower above the open-air stadium, Charles Ofdensen frowned at Nathan’s words. Only the pain waivers would protect that sort of speech, because if this went like every other concert, some fans would die and their relatives would try to sue. Charles had tried many times to issue warnings about that sort of speech, which Nathan ignored if he ever fully processed it in the first place. But the manager couldn’t stay on the issue for long. Voices were coming in on his headset, the one that also included specially-designed ear plugs because after over a hundred concerts, Charles wanted to retain some of his hearing. In the tower, which was mobile, he had access to every monitor and through the headset, the chatter of every security team. Klokateer 82 and the Dethcommandos were standing by but not deployed. 3201, his assistant, was at a station but ready to jump in should he need to be elsewhere. No one could say that Charles Ofdensen was not in control of his kingdom from his tower on high, no matter how unruly and downright riotous the peasants got.
The chatter was normal and his mind drifted to the actual music, which he was much fonder of and could certainly still hear despite the earplugs - and if he couldn’t hear it, he could feel it, as it made everything in the vicinity vibrate, including, it felt like sometimes, his insides. The Klokateers who handled the stage during the concert were usually too shaky to clean up - another set had to be switched in. All of this happened like clockwork. It was the least of his concerns. He was more worried that the audio fight between Toki and Skwisgaar would escalate again. Toki was playing louder and faster than the song required, something too subtle for people unfamiliar with his style to notice, but something Skwisgaar would pick up on seconds in. Fortunately, according to the view, the lead guitarist was doing nothing. If he started playing faster, too, the fans were in for a hell of a show, which was fine unless it escalated to a physical fight and stopped the music, pissing off the rest of the band and the fans. Charles was always happy in the end though; it made for great concession sales for Team Skwisgaar and Team Toki merchandise.
His mind snapped back to the security line when he heard, “Intrusion in Sector 4.” The hoodies around him, who were listening to the same thing, followed his gesture to hone in on it, but Sector 4 was a darkened part of the construction sector on the left of the arena, and lighting it up would just draw attention to it. Most security issues were handled without anyone knowing they existed, before or after.
“It looks like five, sir,” one of the security Gears said from his monitor.
He turned to the Dethcommandos and said very calmly, “I want the leader alive.”
“Yes, sir.” They saluted him and left. They would understand that failure was not an option.
“Intrusion in Sector 8,” came a voice on the scratchy audio. Damnit, how much had he paid for this equipment?
“How many?” he demanded, both of the people around him and the Klokateer on the line.
“We’ve only got one on the heat sensor, but it’s an open area, and some fans have started trash fires. That could be throwing us off.”
“Give me a squad.” He grabbed a rifle from the supply cabinet. “If it’s him, I want him myself.”
3201 looked at him, her expression unreadable with the hood on, but he didn’t have to read it. But she wasn’t a commando, so he didn’t have to explain that she didn’t have to go, that her job was to stay and monitor the situation. He leapt off the structure and onto the temporary elevator that would take him down, where a squad would be waiting for him. He removed his bulky headset and let it rest on his shoulders, one speaker still in his ear so he could hear the cackle of faraway bullet fire as the Dethcommandos engaged the intruders. It wouldn’t be heard by the audience - nothing would, other than Dethklok’s “Bloodrocuted.”
Their target was astonishing close. Too close, if he remembered the security parameters, which he did. They moved in silently, the others going first. They had night vision goggles and therefore the advantage. He heard firing, but it was going wild, hitting rafters and cement and a few parked cars in the nearby lot. The loudest noise came from the car alarms, which no one would respond to, because no one ever responded to car alarms unless they were the actual owners. What he didn’t hear was cries, or death. He didn’t smell blood. He was mildly disappointed when the first thing in front of him as he advanced was a hulk of a Gear, standing there listlessly.
Charles didn’t have time for this. He hit the Gear with the butt of his rifle, dropping him in an instant, then raised the rifle, this time with the flashlight on. As his man fell, there was nothing between him and the intruder, who was also all in black.
The intruder was not armed. He was in a suit, no tie, and he had a red collar like a priest’s. His hair was gray, but there was still some youth in him. That Charles advanced on him drew legitimate surprise as he squinted in the light. After a moment, he was able to focus and see his opponent. “You.”
“Yes. Me.”
Charles pulled his tranquilizer gun out of its holster and fired two shots. The man staggered back, and he put a third in for safety. The old guy couldn’t weigh more than 150 pounds, but there was nothing like a little buffer between his enemy and consciousness.
When the old man sank to the ground, the guards returned to sanity, except for the one who was out, of course. “Get him to the Dethcopter,” he ordered the nearest Gear. “I want him sedated until I see him next. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get 822 to a medic.” He did not explain himself, or wait for them to answer. He thought a mild concussion would serve as a reprimand. Charles climbed back into the elevator and it soared back up to the command center. There he learned the fate of the other intruders - either dead from gunfire, knives, or cyanide capsules.
This was the third time they got behind the lines. It would hopefully be the last, now that Charles had the old man. “Our prisoner is going to need some special care,” he said. The others nodded.
It was the final set. The final emergencies were standard: a falling tower that was part of the set crushing fans, twenty dead in a mosh pit, and a fire set by some held up lighters catching people’s hair. Deaths would not exceed expectations. Charles stretched his right arm, which was still sore from disuse, then ordered the command center disabled as he proceeded backstage, but not before 3201 caught him.
“You have a smudge.” She wiped it off his chin. “Someone’s using too much grease on the rifles.”
He rolled his eyes. “The list gets longer and longer.” That was, of things to remind his men about. Or maybe just the ones who cleaned the rifles, for starters. “Thank you,” he said as he opened the door. He walked under the hot lights and bypassed the waiting crowd of groupies rich enough to afford backstage passes or slutty enough to pass muster in the bouncer’s opinion. He went instead to the hallway where the boys would pass through to the party. As usual, he was the first one to see them off-stage, sweating through their clothes and greasepaint. Skwisgaar and Toki were already arguing as they ignored him and moved on to the Klokateers waiting to remove their paint.
“What the fuck wasch that?” William was next. “No one could hear my basch lines over them playing?”
Charles offered him a cold water and said nothing. Murderface’s anger would be diffused as soon as he saw the waiting groupies, even if they weren’t waiting for him.
“Woohoo!” Pickles staggered offstage. He usually had the most energy post-show. “Man, my feet’r feckin’ killin’ me. Dey got a couch in der, chief?”
“Of course.”
Nathan was last. “Hey.” Sometimes his voice was just totally gone, but he could growl out something before he even had water. His water came with a tea bag in it to soothe his vocal cords.
The evening continued as normal. Charles spent most of it scanning the incoming groupies and making sure forms were signed with the outgoing ones, and occasionally poking his head in at the party. If the boys even noticed him, they told him to join them, which he appropriately declined. The last hour he spent either talking to record executives in person or on the phone, and all the other post-press junkets required for the morning news, including some info on upcoming shows that he was willing to let “slip.”
Things wrapped at 5 am, and the Klokateers loaded five somewhat conscious Dethklok members and a small horde of new groupies onto the Dethcopter for the four-hour flight back to Mordhaus, which was currently near the Maine-Quebecois border. Charles made sure all the boys were sleeping soundly in their beds - or doing otherwise in their beds - before heading to his office to look for pressing calls that might need to be handled as the morning shows discussed the concert. He didn’t consider it a very distinctive one, so there wasn’t much to talk about and no calls for him to take.
He looked at the clock - he’d been awake for exactly 28 hours. Not extraordinary for a concert night, even a smaller venue like this one, but he had been a lot younger when he started doing this. He scratched his right arm, a habit that was hard to break. There was no need for it now that the cast was gone, but his arm had only been free for three days and habits were habits.
His assistant checked in at his office, looking to see of he was asleep or awake. “No emergencies,” Angela - or 3201 - said. She was younger than him, but not by much, and she had every right to look exhausted. “Go to sleep, sir.”
“Can’t. Smell like grease paint and ... grease.” The right arm of his suit was blotted with it from the rifle. Some head was going to roll when he could think straight about it.
Usually, showering with someone else was a lot of fun. Charles certainly had room for it. This time, it was more about actually getting clean as fast as possible, because they were too tired to do anything else. Angela didn’t have to be there. She had her own room. He just ... kind of wanted her there, and she knew that, which was one of the many reasons why he liked her.
He slept beside her, one arm lazily wrapped around her torso, and did not dream. Aside from the usual.
************************************************
The post-concert schedule was clear, to give Charles time to catch up on all the things put off in preparation for the concert. Non-essential items could be dealt with, emails could be caught up on, and phone messages could be answered. Usually, the boys spent days recovering and wearing out the groupies, so Charles was genuinely surprised when he got a text from Nathan demanding his presence in the living room.
The boys were in the hot tub, getting a start on the day’s drinking while their music videos played in the background. Charles walked in front of the TV. “You, uh, wanted to see me?”
“Yeah.” Nathan looked pissed. He reached behind him and picked up a large white envelope. “Do we have to go to this shit?”
“It’sch not schit it’sch a schacred scheremony!” Murderface sad.
“Ja, it ams - what it do’s, agains?”
“Old people get drunk and dance and it sucks,” Nathan said.
“You ah, got invited to Sam’s Bar Mitzvah?” Charles couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. And he recognized the envelope. There was one sitting on his desk. “In answer to your question - No, Nathan, you do not have to go. Dethklok is not performing. You have no contractual obligations to be there.”
“Then why should we go?”
“Dood, because it’s a free perty!” Pickles was much more excited about the idea.
“And we wants to sees whats you ams complain-gsk about,” Skwisgaar said.
“I wants to go, nots be electrifies!” Toki said.
“The electric slide,” Nathan said with a very brutal expression on. “It’s the electric slide.”
“Were you all invited individually?” He looked around at numerous expensive envelopes as they mumbled something that sounded like a ‘yes.’ “Then you can all decide for yourselves if you want to go. No one is obligated. Nathan.”
“Dood, he has ta go! Then we won’t be Dethklok!”
“You don’t have to be Dethklok. You were individually invited,” Charles said. “But Nathan, the old people getting drunk when you were a child were in fact adults, which I would remind you that you now are, and therefore you can get as drunk as you want and no one can make you dance anything, including the electric slide. If you want to escape that particular number, you’re welcome to join me in the game of being scarce when the music starts.”
“Huh?”
“I mean I have no intention of doing it, either.”
“Why are you - oh right, he’s your nephew.” Nathan had his frown-y “thinking” face on. “Wait, how do you know about the electric slide?”
“Because I work in the entertainment industry. I get invited to things. They think they’re doing me a courtesy. I’ve been to weddings, funerals, Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, brises, baptisms, confirmations, vow renewals, Buddhist pujas, and Kalachakra initiations. And I’ve done almost all of them sober so you have nothing to complain about.”
“So ... I don’t have to be sober?”
“No. That is not a requirement. All you have to do is be on your ... relatively good behavior, and try not to burn down the reception hall.”
Nathan looked on the fence about it, which was a push in the right direction. Murderface took the initiative. “I’ll go, but I don’t want to schee them cut off hisch dick.”
Pickles hit a little metal counter he had. He didn’t say why.
“For the last time, Murderface, that’s not what happens!” Nathan roared.
“He’s right, William. That’s a circumcision. We’ve been over this.”
“But Jewsch have to be circumcised! And he’sch a Jew. That’sch what thisch isch about, right?”
“Sam is already circumcised.” Charles had firsthand knowledge of the event. “They do it when you’re a baby.”
Murderface crossed his arms. “I wasch never a baby.”
“But you are circumcised.”
“How do you know?”
“Yeah, how do you know Murderface is circumcised?” Nathan was suspicious. “’cuz the Internet is all about how you’re gay for me.”
“I’m not gay ... I’m not gay for any of you. What did I say about things you read on the Internet?” Charles pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You didn-sk answers da question,” Skwisgaar said as he strummed. Fortunately, the guitar was not plugged in. “How do you know Moirderface ams circinsized? And also, what ams circinsized?”
“Even if I hadn’t you all naked on drunken rampages over the last ten years ... look, in America it’s usually done as a medical procedure to newborns. But it’s not done in Europe.” His face was actually getting a little warm. “So ... look down and figure it out.”
“No!!” Nathan howled. “No looking down in the hot tub!”
“Ams gay,” Toki said. “No’s looking downs in da hot tub.”
“Facebones!” Nathan said. “Can’t Facebones like ... explain it? In a really metal way?”
“Yeah, yeh got one of those videos, right?” Pickles swirled the straw in his hurricane glass.
“No. No, Facebones has never discussed the topic in any of his videos. And he never will.” Of this, Charles was very sure. He looked to the nearest Klokateer, the one in the corner. “1928, please explain circumcision to them. Guys, I can’t help you. If you don’t mind, I have some work to do.”
He left to the sound of 1928’s yelp and the guys yelling at him, all of which he ignored until he was safely back in his office.
************************************************
Charles was not completely safe. Angela waited until a natural lull in the business conversation, then pulled the envelope out of her notebook.
“Oh no.”
“She asked me for my full name. For the invitation inside,” Angela said. The envelope itself just read ‘3201.’ “I didn’t tell her.”
“That was the, um, correct thing to do.”
“Am I going to have to buy a dress for this?”
“A suit is fine.” He couldn’t ask her to wear a hood. He also couldn’t ask her not to go - it was the reason Sarah had gone out of his way to invite her, to get her there without having to be Charles’s ‘plus one.’ “Take the money out of petty cash.”
“If you don’t want me to go - “
“It’s not really my decision,” he said. “It’s Sarah’s. I don’t know what she’s imagining - if this is like any Bar Mitzvah I’ve ever been to, she’ll be way to busy to bother you.”
“I don’t necessarily consider it bothering,” Angela said, knowing it gave him the shivers. His girlfriend and his sister would have ... way too much to talk about. “Are the masters going?”
“Nathan’s holding out but they’ll get him to do it. Sam will be thrilled. Or die of embarrassment.”
“But he’ll be a man when he dies.”
He chuckled. “Yes.”
************************************************
It was well into the night when Charles finally got down to some very serious business, deep in the bowels of Mordhaus. It was an apt description, because the cells were not far from the septic system, but there was always a strong smell of medicinal cleaners when Charles ventured down there, per his instructions.
His other instructions had been followed to a tee. The guest was kept sedated, no one looked him in the eyes, but he was kept on an IV and monitored so he would stay healthy. He was just coming around when Charles approached the interrogation room, flanked by Angela and 82. Unlike other prisoners Charles Ofdensen took the time to interview, the old man was not “prepped” first. All the video feeds except one were disabled so no one else could watch. Charles looked through the one-way mirror to see the old man handcuffed to a chair, still on an IV so a truth serum could be used, his eyes blinking in confusion.
“Dim the lights,” he told 82. “I don’t want a headache.”
“Are you sure - “
“I’m sure I don’t want you going in there, yes,” was his answer. He took the heavy folder from Angela and entered the room, shutting the door behind him. A small, twisted part of him that had been watching too much Law & Order: Criminal Intent was looking forward to this as he dropped the heavy binder on the table between them and sat down. “Welcome to Mordhaus, Reverend.”
His data-miners dug up a considerable amount of information on Reverend Duggan, from his high school GPA to his last ATM withdrawal. The information Charles wanted would only come from him, and none of it explained how the priest (of what religion, it wasn’t clear) got his men past security in no less than three concerts. Charles had suspicions.
That was why the only security feed that wasn’t disabled was the one that went to his private line, and the only Klokateers not sent to the other end of the prison were ones he trusted.
“There’s two ways out of here,” he said. “In a body bag, or in multiple body bags. It’s your choice.” He added, “Or we could let you go and see what Selatcia does to you.”
The priest flinched.
“You don’t even have to answer. I’m very good at reading faces.” He opened the folder but didn’t show anything inside it yet. “You used to work for the Tribunal, but now you’ve gone rogue. And you took your men with you.”
His prisoner didn’t nod, but his eyes widened just enough to give him away.
“Selatcia would never sanction an attack on Dethklok. That’s why you left. You’re starting to think he’s on the wrong side. That he wants the Metalocalypse to happen.”
This time, Duggan did nod, however involuntarily. He was too frightened to conjure a real response.
“You weren’t the first and you won’t be the last. But that’s just your guest. You were probably close to Cardinal Ravenwood, even if you didn’t always agree with him.”
The expression confirmed some of it, but it was hard to read. The Reverend tugged at his restraints, but he was too old and weak to get out of simple handcuffs. There was some spirit left in him.
“Your Tribunal information is probably pretty stale. Not good bargaining material when we’re talking about how you want your life to end. And I can make the people who get eaten by an alligator look lucky.”
The tugging became more frantic. The prisoner was starting to understand just how bad his situation was. He hadn’t told Charles anything yet and he’d somehow answered every question.
“The only reason you’re alive now, which you must be smart enough to figure out, is because you do have information I want.” Charles gave him a hard stare, holding the pencil in his hands so hard he was close to breaking it. “How did you get past my men?”
Duggan looked for a moment as if he was going to cave, then frowned and spit on Charles. Or at him, because he couldn’t spit very far and it hit the desk instead.
“Selatcia taught you something. You sold your soul to this man.” He pulled out the picture of Selatcia Crozier had given him. “And you don’t even know who he is.”
The old priest’s expression dissolved into terror, because what Charles said was true. He really didn’t know Selatcia, didn’t know where his power came from. Charles got up, straightening his tie as he went, and faced his reflection in the two-way mirror. Then he hit the button on the wall and disabled the speakers before retaking his seat.
“What I want to know,” he said with much more force, his fingers pressed down on the table as if he was getting ready to strike, “is why you can’t affect me.”
Duggan willingly returned gazes for the first time. Charles racked his brains for some way to incite him, to make him offer up some precious information when Charles had nothing on the table but torture and death.
“In a way, we’re both on the same side,” he said, lowering his voice even though he knew they couldn’t be heard. “We both have the same enemy.”
The priest shut his eyes. He was concentrating, and not at shutting out the world that was now very deadly to him. Charles laced his fingers together and waited. There was a long period of silence, maybe as long as minutes, before Duggan’s head, which had slowly fallen back in his state, sprang forward and his body collapsed into the chair. He looked paler than before, and somehow thinner, as if his ruffled clothing was handing off him. “There’s a barrier.”
“Between the two of us?”
“Something is blocking me from reaching your mind,” Duggan said. “I was never ... my skills were not quite what they could have been, had I stayed.”
Charles wanted to say that Selatcia had been in his head easily, but that was just once, and he was beginning to believe that it was entirely unintentional, as it had been meant for Crozier. “I’m not intentionally blocking you.” He did not want to reveal that he did not know how.
“No. You’re clearly not.” Duggan was now very precise. This his area of expertise, not Charles’s. He was the priest who played with magic, not the CFO with an Accounting degree. “Something is protecting you, just as unnatural forces are protecting Dethklok. But they’re not the same.”
He knew it wasn’t Selatcia. It was clear from his Tribunal contacts well ahead of talking to Crozier that somehow he’d stayed off Selatcia’s radar. It was the only way he’d managed to stay dead for nine months. He was a wallflower, but not that much of a wallflower. There had to be a better explanation.
“If you are immune to him, you stand the best chance against him,” Duggan said, a strange hope in his eyes.
“I know the stakes.” But Charles wasn’t strong enough to fight Selatcia and he suspected he never would be - another thing he just couldn’t confirm. “But there’s something else out there. Something that can defeat him.”
“Nature has a way of balancing itself,” Duggan said. “In a strange way, you are very blessed.”
Or cursed, Charles decided not to add. He pulled out a notebook with crudely-drawn hieroglyphs and an English translation beneath them in pencil. He flipped it over and slid it across the table. “Have you seen this before?”
Duggan leaned forward, but didn’t spend much time on the text. “Cardinal Ravenwood made Sumerian texts his personal project. I never saw anything this long. What is it?”
“It’s a very confusing story,” Charles said. “Everyone who’s read it has gone insane.”
Duggan shriveled back. “Except for you?”
“I’ve only read pieces,” Charles admitted, even though he had the whole translation. He couldn’t be sure it was right, of course, without showing it around to a lot of scholars, and he didn’t want to do that. The more he knew about it, the less he liked it. “Why don’t you try again? This time I’ll try to be ... open.” He was tempted to get a playing card, and hold it to his head to test the man’s psychic abilities, ala Ghostbusters. “Why don’t you try it like your life depends on it?”
It was not an idle threat. Duggan reached out as far as he could with the cuffs, which meant his knuckles were barely beyond the edge of the table. “Give me your hands.”
Debating first whether he should tell 82 to tranq him, Charles threw caution into the wind and put his hands over Duggan’s withered fingers, something that probably made the two people watching him flip. But he cleared his mind of them for the moment, and everything else, leaving Duggan a warm, inviting field. He even imagined a G-ddamn field of grain, if that would get the job done. He let - he tried to let - his worries fall away from him, with the nightly vision quietly in the background, ever asserting itself when he wasn’t too distracted. Now it surfaced, as it had a tendency to do at bad times, and he pushed it down again, having seen it too many times to possibly be interested. He counted back from ten, and when he was done, restarted at 100.
He was in the 60’s when Duggan made a gurgling sound, and Charles opened his eyes. The priest was in the same position but with his head leaning sideways and his eyes rolled back into his head. Blood trickled out of his nose and mouth. Then monitors started going off, and Charles scrambled for the door so 82 could assess the situation.
Duggan was alive, but not quite. Eventually the medics determined that the priest was brain dead. An aneurysm, they said. They didn’t bother to start life support.
The only thing Charles was sure of was what he told Angela. “I didn’t do it.”
It wouldn’t have mattered to her if he did, he supposed, but there would have been follow-up questions. No, he could not kill people with his mind. “What did you say to him?” She did sound annoyed about him disabling the speakers.
He pulled her away from the medics and other Klokateers. “I asked him why he couldn’t do to me what he did to the guards, and he couldn’t answer me.”
“And then his brain exploded.”
“It seems so.”
“Could that have happened to you instead?”
“No.” That was the point of the thing. He looked at the medics wheeling the priest away. “Give him a burial. No Al-75.”
He hadn’t killed the poor man with his mind, but other things had done it for him. And he still didn’t know what.
Or why.
To Be Continued...