12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 6

“I think that scientific persons of the future 

will scoff at scientific persons of the present. 

They will scoff because scientific persons of 

the present thought so many important things 

were superstitious.” 

Kurt Vonnegut -- "Welcome to the Monkey House" (1968)

* * *

Moscow - The Beehive
April 27th, 1968

Colonel Bulgakov can't stop screaming.

He shouldn't be able to scream at all, as he no longer has lungs. He also has no legs or arms, either, as he is little more than an eviscerated, sexless trunk, writhing in a half-inch pool of demonic cat urine at the bottom of a large, dark grey, plastic tub.

But still, he screams. He's been screaming for days. And he'll keep screaming until the demon that did this to him finally relents.

Not that Voland is likely to do that. He seems to enjoy sitting in front of the spectacle he's made of the impetuous (and now treacherous) human who's summoned him. Indeed, he's done nothing but sit and watch the show since he realized what the cunning little fellow went and did while they weren't looking.

Nothing at all -- just like most of the five other demons that came through with him, almost two full years ago, have been doing, lately.

Voland looks from his chair at the others who are in this great domed room with him, and sighs over the screams of his victim, quite unhappy at what he sees. A small army of Thaumathematicians run this way and that, fulfilling the orders they were given some time ago. Another, somewhat-larger army of them stand in the wings, waiting for fresh orders or new tasks.

But the ones who would be giving it to them? The so-called Supreme Six they went to such great lengths to bring here?

Koroviev sits at a desk in his motley, coaxing sweet-sounding notes from the unfortunately-named, long wind instrument that someone gave him as a joke. He's supposed to be using that golden voice of his to mastermind the last stages of the undermining of Rome, but seems content to do nothing more than what he's already done. Which is considerable, to be certain, but nowhere near complete.

Azazello stands at his workbench, off on the other side of him, and tinkers with the same thing he's been tinkering with for the last month or so. He's supposedly working on the weapons that will let this pathetic human organization conquer the world in Hell's name, but making no real progress on the fire-throwers he'd promised them, a full year ago. Or anything else, for that matter.

Hella is not there, as usual. She's out in the world, making monsters one bite at a time, or rousing the darker things to wakefulness once more. But the more they call upon her to do specific things, in regards to the general plan, the less she deigns to respond. It's almost as if she resents being told what to do, and would rather burn the world all by herself.

Abaddon is nowhere to be seen, either, but then he was always one to !@#$ off for months at a time. Sometimes Voland thinks he understands the demon's part in their plans, but the rest of the time he thinks that even Abaddon has no idea what he's supposed to be doing.

(He's also fairly certain that Abaddon doesn't care, and never really did.)

And Behemoth? Oh, how the mighty have fallen! The cat that was once pure terror -- dealing death and pain with the most gleeful of sarcastic smiles-- is now merely content to sleep the days away, there on that AK-47 he used to fire at people at random. He snores, he farts, he occasionally turns over, and when he stirs to true motion it's only to eat, or else to burgle another bottle of vodka from somewhere.

In fact, when they learned what Bulgakov had done -- though they never quite learned why -- Voland had to practically threaten to send the fat pile of fur back to Hell just to get him to !@#$ on Bulgakov. Before this, the little !@#$ would have done it without having to be asked, and a whole lot worse

And what, then, of Voland? He cannot spare himself the criticism he would give to his fellows. Indeed, he bears a great deal of the blame for this, he feels.

Once upon a time, he would be moving amongst these lethargic layabouts and inspiring them to their higher calling, by word or by force. He would loudly remind them that they once had such delicious and grand designs for this world. He would urge them to recall the ages they languished on the other side of the Barrier, waiting for those choice moments when some mortal fool sought to bring them to Earth.

And then he would tantalize them with their ultimate goal. How they planned to use this corrupt human organization to its utmost, taking fear and horror to every corner of the globe. How they would destroy any sense its inhabitants might have that Heaven cared a whit for them, and leave them crawling in the weight of their own despair. How they would leave this world a blackened cinder that no amount of direct action from Heaven could hope to redeem, and reenter Hell as conquering heroes, the sound of their fanfares shaking the foundations.

He would inspire them with grand visions. He would cajole them with obscene promises. He would lash them apart with his tongue and his hands, and slap them rudely back together if he had to. He would call upon their loyalty, make them quake in fear, have them scrambling to please him, and complete their mission.

And then they would all go out and conquer together, as one, as intended...

But yet, all he can do is sit in this chair and watch as his others do the bare minimum to justify their being in this world. Even dealing with Bulgakov was more a chore than a gleeful, sick pleasure.

What is it, he wonders? What has gone wrong? How did they get to be like this? How did they go from having such concrete and grand ideas to merely going through the motions -- resting on old glories they constructed when they were newly within the world, but haven't truly cared to duplicate?

What is missing from the great and terrible magic that brought them here?

"You," he says, waving at the nearest Thaumathematician, wandering by with a stack of formulae in his hands.

"Yes?" the dark grey-suited man says, approaching him with more wonder than fear, in spite of what's happened to his former superior: "How can I help you, Comrade Voland?"

"What's your name?" Voland says, somewhat stung by the word 'Comrade.'

"It's Kuznetsov, Comrade. Pyotr Kuznetsov. Thaumathematician of the fourth rank."

"Comrade Kuznetsov," Voland says, bidding him approach closer: "I need to ask you what may seem a strange question."

"Well, of course, Comrade Voland."

"And I assure you that is is not a trick question with no correct answer. This is not a test, and I will not seek to harm you if I do not like what you say."

"I understand, Comrade Voland," the man says, his wonder perhaps fogging up his ability to sense any threat from all that: "Please ask me what you will."

"How do you see me?" Voland asks, leaning forward and putting his hands together: "What am I to you?"

"Do you mean physically or as a concept?" the man asks in return, putting a hand under his chin.

"Well, both, actually," Voland replies, glad he's asked someone who can think.

"Physically, you appear as a man," Kuznetsov answers after a moment, pacing back and forth a little: "Maybe in your late 40's. You are well groomed and well dressed. Your mustache... well, my old family photos had men with mustaches like that, but not nearly as grand."

"Do I remind you of anything?"

"Well, yes. You seem to me to be a man who should be in front of others, conducting an exhibition of some kind. Perhaps a magic show?"

Voland smiles a little at that, casting a glance at the ruined, screaming man in the tub on the floor: "And what am I, Thaumathematician Kuznetsov?"

"Why, you are an ultraterrestrial, Comrade Voland," the man says, smiling: "An intelligent, multi-dimensional mathematical construct. One of the greatest, just like your fellows!"

Voland blinks, recoiling a little: "An... ultraterrestrial?"

"Yes. It is our word for what you represent, here. Did the... um, late Colonel not tell you this?"

"No," Voland says, trying to maintain his composure: "No he did not."

"That seems a strange omission," Kuznetsov says, casting a quick glance at the 'late" Colonel in question.

"So I am not an evil spirit, in your way of thinking?" Voland continues: "Not a creature of the Lower Dark? Not a... demon?"

"A demon? Oh, Comrade Voland. You do yourself such an injustice."

"Do tell."

"Well, you see, in less enlightened times, entities such as you and your fellows would be considered demons, or angels, or some other sort of being. You see, what people in ancient times thought to be magic was actually a higher kind of mathematics. It's just that they stumbled upon the final equations before they truly understood what they were doing, sort of like a total amateur at the game of chess being able to beat an opponent by making a few lucky, final moves when they inherit a long-running game from another player."

"Then..." Voland continues, getting up as slowly as possible: "Do you mean that... all this time, you've considered me and my allies to be... math problems? Is that it? Walking equations?"

"After a fashion," Kuznetsov replies, not sensing any menace from his interrogator: "Certain mathematical principles are so strong that they are able to intersect with our world at key angles. They can take shape and form, here, and bring the strength of their own plane down with them. Such things appear terrifying to the uneducated and bourgeoisie, and invoke ancient fears, but those who know the truth behind them are not truly afraid."

"I see," Voland says, leaning over the man and steeping his hands: "Do go on, Comrade Kuznetsov. This is... fascinating. Do you mean that I am not a thing to be feared?"

"Of course, Comrade Voland! Decadent Western magic may apply such silly, superstitious labels to things they don't truly understand. But you must remember that you are here, in the Soviet Union. We do not rely on religious dogma, here. We seek the truth behind the myths, and are stronger for it."

"Stronger," Voland says, putting his hands on the man's shoulders: "Truly?"

"Oh yes, Comrade Voland! We see you as you truly are! We rejoice in your true shape and form! And we are so happy to be working with you to bring about a World Revolution!"

Kuznetsov smiles and holds out his hands, as if he were experiencing rapture. And the look on his face is so beatific and pure that Voland cannot restrain himself a second longer.

So he takes his hands from the man's shoulders, places them on either side of the man's head, and drives his thumbs through his hope-filled eyes at the same time he pushes his palms together, cracking the man's skull as he goes.

"We are not mathematics, you simpering fool!" he bellows as the man screams and gibbers: "We are the stuff of which nightmares are made! We are hate and fear given shape and form! We are the things that make Angels fear to tread and cause God to weep!

"We are of Hell, little man!" he emphasizes as his palms finally touch, in the center of what used to be the Thaumathematician's skull: "And thank you for reminding me of that..."

The body falls, trailing blood and brain as it slumps to the floor. Voland stomps on the bloody, ruined skull with his foot, just because he can, and the sickening crunch made by what's left of it gives him a joy that he hasn't felt in ages -- not even when he was dealing with Bulgakov.

"Azazello!" he shouts as he walks from the bloody mess he's made: "Koroviev! I have just realized a thing."

"What is that?" Koroviev asks, putting the flute away, seemingly unmoved by the spectacle he just witnessed.

"I know why we have been so... lethargic in this place and time. Why we have failed in our mission, and failed one another. Why we have failed Hell."

"What might that !@#$ing be?" Azazello asks, putting his soldering iron down: "I thought it was the food, myself."

"It is the air, my friends," Voland says, raising his hands and whirling about: "The atmosphere of this place. It is filled to the brim with antiseptic twaddle. We are drowning in whitewashed metaphysics and sanitized murder.

"And that is because that fool that brought us here -- the one who shaped us in his mind -- has told these people that we are not demons."

Both the demons' jaws drop, and then they begin to become angry.

"All this time, we've been reflecting the lack of fear we've been feeling from these people," Voland reveals, gesturing to the thaumathematicians around the room, none of whom seem too concerned or perturbed by the gruesome murder they've just witnessed: "They've been brainwashed into thinking we're just some facet of higher mathematics. Call us demons? Oh no. That's unsophisticated. Backwards, even.

"We're... ultraterrestrials," he spits, his face contorting under the strain.

"What?" Azarello screams, his face getting as red as blood, his wall-eyed bulging.

"We're beyond good and evil in their book of maths, my friends. Just an equation made flesh, brought here to help them conquer the world. And their lack of faith in our true selves has been so complete that we haven't even been aware of it.

"Until now..."

Azazello screams and smashes his workbench with his bare hands. Koroviev shrieks, making cracks in the floor. Both of them seem ready to destroy the planet, here and now.

"We must retake our heritage, my friends," Voland counsels, his face suddenly a riot of red, glowing lines: "We must show these simpering fools what they have summoned. We must bring them evil, and show them its meaning.

"And once we have killed them all, and their families, and their friends, and anyone else with any connection to this... Beehive," he spits the last out: "We must bring our friends back here. And when they are here, we will turn this entire city into a black pit of misery and terror."

"Yessssssssssssssss..." Koroviev hisses, his eyes shining behind his dark glasses. 

"And we will use what we make here as the blueprint for what comes next! A cracked and dying planet where mothers strangle their babes to spare them the pain! Where children kill their parents to eat the flesh from their bones! An existence where hate is strength, fear is commonplace, and love is the greatest obscenity of all!

"We shall build a new Hell on this world, starting in this very spot!"

At that declaration, they all scream as one, and change into the forms they rarely show to mere mortals. Truly terrible visages that should only be seen by one another, and not the fragile human mind.

As if to underscore this, every single Thaumathematician in the room instantly goes incurably insane, and begins to scream, whimper, fall down in silence, or tear out their own eyes.

What happens next can best be described as a slaughter, but even that word fails to truly describe the carnage that ensues. The men and women of the Beehive to not merely die at the hands of their long-time guests: they are rendered -- violated in body and soul, roughly separated into still-living parts, re-made into newer, less-identifiable things, and then shoved up and down the clean, stone hallways, there to be mass-assembled into great and terrible new shapes and uses.

Throughout it all, Behemoth snores. It's not that he didn't hear, but frankly he doesn't care to do anything about it. He'll be told when he needs to do his thing, and until then, he thinks he's earned a good rest.

Especially for having to sleep with that screaming thing in the tub so close...

* * *

New York City 
April 30th, 1968

Jim Morrison is the first to arrive at the rendezvous point, early in the afternoon. He just sort of walks into the abandoned subway terminal, there below the city, and sits down on a half-collapsed bench, like he was waiting for the next train. He should be wondering why the lights are still on, down here, but he figures it's all part of the show.

Doctor Power appears next, maybe a little miffed that Morrison beat him there. He puts down a large bag, and begins pulling a number of things out of it. Before long it's clear that the sheer number of things he's taking out should not have been able to fit in the bag, but that's sort of the way of these things.

Doctor Krwi comes next, muttering and cursing as he stomps down the steps. He's so loaded down with weapons and ammunition that it's a wonder he can move at all. He looks at the other two, and gives them a warm nod, which is returned by Morrison but not by Power, as he's too busy putting his candles and talismans around him.

By the time John gets there, the circle that Doctor Power's been feverishly assembling is almost complete, and seems to have a weird, off-color glow about it. The fellow just sort of wafts in, his film-grey coat snapping about his skinny ankles, and asks if anyone has a !@#$ light.

(Of course, Morrison does, and that eases the chill a bit.)

A heavily-armed, clearly-tipsy SPYGOD shows up next, tromping down a different set of stairs with a well-dressed Comrade Sharik in tow.

"I only wish we could have had more time at that club," the fat fellow says, adjusting his silk tie to match his exertions: "Those girls... oh, those girls."

"Yeah, well, that's capitalism for you," SPYGOD chuckles: "It tends to make you act a little more !@#$ing free."

"Freedom's completely free, my friend," Morrison says, waving them over: "Always has been."

"Not completely," SPYGOD replies, and the look on his face shows Morrison he's talking about a different kind of cost. One that the singer can well-understand, given his past (and future, he sometimes insists).

"Is this it?" Doctor Power says, looking at his watch: "It's two O'clock. That gives us just an hour to do what we need to do, over there."

"I'm not certain we need our other friend," Krwi says, wishing he'd joined SPYGOD for that final tour of New York's finest clubs, now: "We have six, do we not? Six against six is what we said."

"Well, that's the problem," Doctor Power says, looking over at Sharik: "He's not exactly making the trip with us..."

Krwi blinks, and looks to the others. The large Russian nods, and begins to take off his shirt. And SPYGOD holds up a finger to the vampire hunter's face before he can begin to protest.

"This is how it !@#$ing goes down, Krwi," he says: "The man was sent here to be our !@#$ing door. And the moment it closes, he's gone."

"This... it's obscene..." Krwi says, looking at the ground and grousing.

"It is a blessing, Comrade," Sharik says, stripping down as much as he can: "You do not know what I have been through, these years. What was done to me. What that monster Bulgakov has made of me. This is, perhaps, his idea of a reward for my years of service. Or maybe an apology of sorts, if he is capable of it."

"We go through him, and he goes back to the source," John warbles, pulling out a flask and having a pull, and then passing it on down: "Best !@#$ retirement plan I ever heard of."

"Better than mine," SPYGOD admits, having a swig.

"Oh, you have made this a wonderful thing, Comrade (REDACTED)," Sharik says, taking a swig and then letting Doctor Power lead him to the center of the magic circle, careful to step over the glowing, chalk lines: "You have shown me more life in the last few months than I have known in years. I am not sure where I am going, after this, but at least I can take those memories with me. And they will be happy ones."

"Got him laid a few times, I'm guessing?" John chuckles, taking his flask back and having another steady pull off it.

"Just a few," SPYGOD says, taking the flask from the man and all but draining it.

"You're a good man, (REDACTED)," Morrison says, snatching the flask and finishing it off.

"Yeah, but let's not tell the !@#$ing taxpayers about that. All that booze, coke, and hookers... they just might just !@#$ themselves."

"So if there is no sixth, then where are we?" Krwi says, trying to ignore the booze and talk of sex while in the presence of a fat, naked man: "Is the English corpse coming or not?"

As if to answer, there's a roar from the other end of the subway tunnel. An unearthly light blazes from the darkness, and seconds later the Hell Blazer is speeding towards them on his demonic motorcycle, the fires of Hell burning right beside and behind him.

The twisted, black machine hurtles past them, heading for the gaping hole on the other side of the station. But then, at the last second, the revenant jerks it up and off of the tracks, as if to take it up over the edge of the platform. He's airborne for just a second, and the moment its wheels leave the ground, the machine effectively splits in half, becoming a pair of black, metal wings that blaze with an unearthly fire.

("Show off," Krwi spits.)

"And so, we are six," the Hell Blazer says, touching down to the ground, at which point his wings slide back inside him, and he takes off his crossboned, black helmet, revealing his dried, ruined features.

"And not a !@#$ moment too soon," Doctor Power sighs, gesturing to the circle: "We need to get this working going, folks."

"That's !@#$ straight," SPYGOD says: "My sources tell me the Kremlin's up in arms over what's going on. Looks like our enemy went and got religion while we weren't !@#$ing looking."

"You think they know we're coming?" Krwi asks, wondering if he brought enough guns.

"It is nothing to do with us," the Hell Blazer says: "They have learned that something was holding them back. The fail-safe that our doorway's leader put into place has itself failed. And they have redoubled their efforts out of sheer embarassment."

"Strange how you know what the enemy is thinking..." Krwi insists.

"Can we argue about this later?" Doctor Power almost shouts: "It's time!"

"Always about time with you, isn't it?" John sighs, walking over to his spot in the working: "When are you going to realize that you're here because you're here, and time's got not a !@#$ thing to do with it?"

"About the same time he pulls the staff out of his !@#$hole," Morrison chuckles, heading to his spot: "Which, thankfully, is never."

"I really don't like knowing my future," Doctor Power scolds, ushering Doctor Krwi and the Hell Blazer to their spots. And by the time he's turned around to find him, SPYGOD's already snuck behind his back, and is standing right where he needs to be. 

"Take it easy baby, take it as it comes," Morrison sings, dropping a wink at the man.

"It's not the future you should worry about, in here," Sharik says, his arms crossed over his ample stomach: "Bulgakov told me that this doorway must be one to the past, otherwise the Supreme Six will be able to see you coming."

"Oh, now he tells us," John sighs, tossing his cigarette away: "Is there any other !@#$ thing we ought to know about? Russian bum!@#$er sailors waiting at the great beyond, maybe?"

"You wish," SPYGOD chuckles, tipping the old man a wink.

"Any last words?" Doctor Power says: "This is the time to say them, and then I want you all to have blank minds."

"A blank mind is a dangerous thing," John says, lighting up another cigarette: "Let's just remember that, shall we?"

"It's been a !@#$ of a ride," Morrison says: "I'm glad I took it with you all."

"Same here," SPYGOD says: "And thank you for this, Sharik. I'll say a capitalist prayer for you."

"All of you have been excellent warriors against the darkness," Krwi admits, looking over at the Hell Blazer: "Even you, at times."

"Well, thank you for that," the revenant says, looking right at the vampire hunter: "I know we have had our differences, and not for minor reasons. But now that we are about to enter Hell, and I know that not all will return, I say that I would weep for you all... if I could."

"I think that's the best complement we're going to get out of English," SPYGOD says: "And on that note...?"

Doctor Power looks at Sharik: "This is probably going to hurt."

"I think it will be agony," Sharik admits, a strange look on his face.

"Would you like me to... make you sleep? I can do that, I think."

Sharik shakes his head: "My friend, the first time I died, I did not even feel it. I was robbed of it, and then brought back to life by Bulgalkov, to be his slave. So I think this time I would like to feel it. I would not want to get to wherever I'm going without having paid the full price, yes?"

"!@#$ of a thing to say in a !@#$ subway station," John says, nodding: "You're a brave man, Comrade Sharik. I'll put in a good word for you, next time we meet."

And with that, there's really nothing else to say.

"Everyone empty your minds," Doctor Power insists, stepping to his spot. The moment he does, the circle begins to glow even brighter. The candles blaze, the talismans begin to smoke, and the lines seem to catch fire.

And then, as he practiced for the last few weeks, Doctor Power begins to say the words that will unlock the spell that Colonel Bulgakov sewed into this poor man's very soul, knowing full well that it will kill him and throw them all into deadly danger. 

The ritual goes very quickly -- perhaps a testament to their enemy's thaumathematical talents. They don't even have time to hear Sharik scream as his body is remolded into a grotesque, gaping door through space and time.

And then there is light. And then there is black. 

And then...

(SPYGOD is listening to Tchaikovsky (Symphony no. 3) and having a Ballantine Ale) 

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 2

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin
And you know this is it 

"Strange Days" -- The Doors (1967)

* * *

Moscow - The Beehive
April 30th, 1966

"Prepare the lectors!" Colonel Bulgakov -- leader of SQUASH -- screams from his wheelchair, parked by the dais in the center of the cavernous, domed room: "Activate the final sequencing! Prime the materials! The Supreme Equation shall have its solution at Midnight!"

As his grating voice echoes around the massive room -- bouncing off the curved wall and rebounding back to where it came from -- his many, dark-suited servants rush to obey.

Functionaries clear away the ladders and stools and make way for a large number of tall, deep-voiced men and women, who walk to equidistant parts of the dome and stand ready. Thaumathematicians run along the walls of prisoners in the human labyrinth and make certain the grey box attached to the back of each victim is active and running. Apprentices ensure that no noise-making machines or objects remain within the Beehive -- nothing that could interfere with the accurate transmission of sound.

Nothing must go wrong, here in this moment, or else there will be worse than Hell to pay.

Bulgakov's pale and simpering lackey, Sharik, stands directly behind the crippled Colonel, holding a special, modified timepiece in each hand. One is a stopwatch, the other a large pocketwatch, neither of which makes so much as the slightest sound as they tick away the seconds. And, as each section within the Beehive is secured, as all extraneous personnel flee through the black door, and as each group leader stands with his hands raised to indicate that they're ready, Sharik prepares to offer them to his master.

At last, all is in readiness, and not a moment too soon. The seconds count down, and then it's thirty to twenty to Midnight.

Colonel Bulgakov gestures to Sharik, who bends down. As he bends down, Doctor Rokk turns on the computer on the dais behind them both, and then stands ready for any last moment adjustments -- an AK-47 in his hands in case something mindless comes through.

The dais silently but quickly rises up, so that its strange, almost-alive apparatus is at the direct center of the chamber, where all sound must converge. The second it gets there, its many lights burn bright, and a blast of white sound floods the Beehive. All noise, no matter how small, is cancelled out. It is as though everyone there has gone deaf for exactly three seconds.

And as soon as that deafness ends, at exactly twenty to Midnight, the equation begins.

The deep-voiced Thaumathematicians begin to sonorously recite the equations written on the walls. They do this in perfect rhythm with one another, so that their words overlap, echo, and enter the computer at the exact same moment. 

As the computer registers their words, it sends signals to the grey boxes affixed to each of the people within the human labyrinth. Small groups of them come out of their drugged lethargy -- just enough to realize their predicament -- and then die in extreme pain and agony as their bodies are flooded with poisons that stop their lungs from working, turn their blood to fire, and liquify their brains.

They claw weakly and writhe, unable to scream, and then are still -- blood and white goo leaking from their eyes and noses. And as more and more of them die, and the voices complete more and more of the equation, the lights on the computer glow brighter, and flash on and off faster and faster.

The minutes count down as the slaughter continues. The equation is half done, then two-thirds. Three quarters. The bodies fall to the floor, the Thaumathematicians drone on, the flashing become a strobe light almost too powerful to bear...

And then, just as the silent timepiece Comrade Sharik holds in his pale and clammy hand strikes Midnight, the sound stops, and the final body strikes the floor -- eyes brimming with melted memories.

And then the computer shivers, and clicks, and its lights begin to explode one by one, up and down the length of the tubes and fronds.

The lights in the dome's sides follow suit, blowing out one after the other. The grey boxes attached to the landscape of fresh corpses fizzle and smoke. The two watches in Sharik's hands stop and crack, and he gasps as he drops them, finding that they are suddenly too hot to handle.

The echoes of that gasp echo around the room, and for a moment Colonel Bulgakov is ready to scream at his lackey for possibly screwing this up, too. But then he realizes that, in spite of all the lights in the room having been destroyed, he can still see everything perfectly.

Doctor Rokk turns around the room and gasps, dropping his clipboard and gun. He follows them to the ground quickly, hitting his knees as his features are illuminated by a flickering, pale-pink light from a point between the dais and the nearest wall.

And as he struggles to regain his composure, and the Colonel's chair is jerked around behind him by his extremely-frightened servant, something begins to come through that point of light.

Six somethings, in fact -- strange and terrible, one and all. They seem a jumble of unfortunate anatomies, their surreal facial features underlined with glowing red. Arms, legs, and other, less-identifiable limbs twisting in the inter-dimensional breeze as they coalesce, taking shapes much less harsh on the eye, and yet somehow... wrong.

The flickering light begins to subside, and in its place stand solid objects. A man in a checkered jacket with a pince-nez and a sly smile. A red-haired, burly fellow with a wall-eye, a bowler hat, and a long, misshapen tooth poking out of his mouth. A tall, thin man in a grey suit with dark glasses who seems to wish he was somewhere else. A lovely, pale woman with red hair and a dress so sheer she almost looks naked in the light and shadow. 

And before them all, a man dressed in a black suit and top hat, his mustache a work of art. He cradles a large, black cat in his arms, and looks upon those gathered there with some measure of amusement, or perhaps contempt.

"You have called us," this one says, his voice a warm and slickery thing: "And so we have come."

"Master," Colonel Bulgakov says, rising from his wheelchair as best he's able: "You're... you are just as I imagined you to be..."

"Indeed we are," he says, putting the cat down on the floor: "You may even call me Voland, if you so desire. If it will aid in the quickness of things...?"

"Of course," Bulgakov says: "I have a list of things we would like to barter for. We can offer you world full of souls, all ready for you to take back. All we ask for-"

Bulgakov stops as the black cat approaches, walking on its hind legs. It walks over to where Dr. Rokk lies prostrate and looks down at the man.

And then, in one swift motion, it snatches up the AK-47 from the ground and shoots the scientist full of bullets, laughing and cursing as it does.

"You may ask what you like," Voland says, smiling as the man who summoned him turns paler than normal: "We may even give it to you. But you must know, Colonel Bulgakov, that your actions here this day are not that of a supplicant, but that of a well-tended mechanism."

"I... I do not understand-"

"You owe your life to me," the woman hisses, her mouth a crazy nest of sharp vampire fangs.

"And I'm the one who told you how to make that !@#$ing thing up there," the man in the bowler hat snorts: "Whispered it in your sleep, I did."

"No, you've been doing as we wanted right from the start," Voland says, gesturing to him to move aside: "So if you don't mind, we'll ask someone else for terms."

And all their eyes turn to Comrade Sharik, who picks that moment to be violently, noisily sick, much to the amusement of the fat, black cat with the gun.

* * *

It's Noon in the deserts east of LA, and the party is going on.

It's a love-in, you could say. Dozens of beautiful people, all out in the sands and the sun. Nothing to do but be, nowhere to go but here. And the best sort of company for such a journey to the beginning.

There's music and wine, love and dancing, Suzy and Mary Jane. Higher thoughts and lower urges. And the profound and the shallow, the high-minded and the profane -- all have come together to make love and music from now until the Moon rises, and then beyond.

One place, one people, living one immortal day.

But then the wind changes direction, just for a second. And when it does, Jim Morrison cocks an ear and looks to the west -- leaving the campfire and its ring of dancers to get a better look.

He's there for quite a while, just staring off at the west. And then he lights up a cigarette, takes an appreciative drag, and grinds his heel in the sand.

"Time to go, Ray," he shouts back to one of his handlers: "We're gonna get the call."

Ray Manzarek (DOD Agent) comes up to him, trying to see what he's seeing: "What's going on?"

"Strange days have tracked us down," Jim answers, offering him a hit off his cigarette: "The war's about to get even weirder. You up for it?"

"Sure," Ray lies, wondering why he didn't just go into film. No one shoots at film people.

* * *

It's 3 in the afternoon in Old Deerfield, Massachusetts, and the streets are lined with tourists, all agog at the living museum they're walking through.

It's a piece of history, this town. Streets 350 years old, houses just as ancient. All around, people dress, work, and act as they once did, centuries ago. And the well-paying public just laps it all up.

There's a few places in town that the visitors don't tend to go, however: areas left off the maps for sound, if secret, reasons. 

Well behind Main Street, and almost on the banks of the nearby river, there's a stone structure no one can see unless they know what they're looking for, and even then only partially. It looks like a tunnel, leading into the Earth, but the angles are all wrong, somehow. Its stairway could be going up or down, and its door could be open or shut.

To see it is to invite madness, and this is why few can really perceive its presence. 

The bells of the village chime Three, and a man steps out of the stairway to anywhere. His beard is full and black, his coat is long and grey, and he carries a wooden cane chased with arcane, silver squiggles that seem to move as he does.

"The idiots have done it," he says, looking off to the East -- far, far away from here. 

And with that pronouncement, and a scowl sharp enough to cut stone, Doctor Power vanishes. 

* * *

 "Bollocks," the drunk in the back of the scummy, dark bar burbles into his ale: "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks."

"Ah, shut it, Randal," the burly, mustachioed barkeep says, trying to listen to his radio program: "I'll refill your glass when you've paid for the other ones."

"Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks," the drunk keeps repeating, scrawling something into the newspaper from the patron before the patron before: "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks..."

"I think he's having a !@#$ing stroke or something," an unhelpful fellow at the bar ventures.

"I'll have whatever he's not having," someone else jokes, and there's some laughter.

"Do you want me to spit in your beer, !@#$hole?" the barkeep asks the two of them.

"Knowing you, you already did," the unhelpful fellow says, grinning. 

That's it, then. The barkeep grabs the baseball bat from behind the bar -- the one he bought just this morning "for muggers" -- and smashes the !@#$hole's skull. Pieces of his jaw fly out of his mouth and litter the filthy surface, and when he swings again, from the other direction, the man's head spins around on his neck and he falls down dead.

The other man yelps in surprise and tries to get away, but not soon enough to avoid getting his hand smashed flat. While he's cradling that, the bat speaks again -- on his forehead, this time -- and then he's down with the other dead man on the floor.

Of course, the barkeep's not nearly satisfied with those two. Now that he's blooded, he wants more. So he goes wild and starts smacking everyone he can wrap the bat around -- here there and everywhere. The two at the booth by the door, the three in the back, the one guy who was just going in for a !@#$ in the dangerous bathroom...

Before long the bat's slick with blood and gooey with things that don't belong on the outside of a person, and the wounded and hurt are trying to crawl away, but unable to escape. 

All but poor, brainsmashed British Randal, who started the whole thing. He's just sitting there, scrawling on the newspaper with his fingers, writing in his own blood. And for some reason the barkeep has not seen him since he started seeing red.

Someone else has, though: a man seen yet not seen, there but not, no-one but well known. This human cypher stands right by the poor old fellow, looking down down at the paper. He realizes that whatever the man's writing is in Cyrillic, which he's pretty sure the man never learned.

And he's also sure that while he's saying "Bollocks," he really means "Bolsheviks."

Satisfied, he turns up his coat, grabs an opened bottle from the less-bloody end of the bar, and walks out of the Black Rat of Armagh just as New York's finest are arriving in force. If he hurries, he can just catch the last flight for Frankfurt.

And if he's lucky, he can be behind the Iron Curtain by this time tomorrow. 

 * * *

Puddock Manor lies some distance due North of London -- a sleepy and crumbling edifice, wrapped in a forest no one dares to enter, anymore. 

Its walls are high and protected by ornate, iron spikes, its towers have mostly fallen in or down. Its windows are boarded up, its gardens have run riot. A skeleton lies half-in, half-out of a cracked fountain full of rainwater.

And as the decaying clock in the main hall chimes Eight O' the Clock, something that has not moved in years is stirred to some semblance of wakefulness.

It creaks its joints and stumbles from the chair it's been gathering dust and cobwebs in, all these seasons, and shuffles to the closed, moldy drapes. It casts them aside and looks out its window -- black and hollow eyes scanning the landscape to the south and east.

"At last..." it mutters through lips as dry as parchment: "You are here."

And with that, the revenant in black motorcycle leathers turns and heads for the grand staircase, ready to finally meet its' makers.

* * *

The trick to making silver bullets, as any vampire hunter will tell you, is to forget about a full silver cast. That's time-consuming, expensive, and may attract the wrong kind of attention -- especially here, in the People's Republic of Poland, where one is not generally allowed to walk around with enough guns to fell a rampaging horde of Vampiri. 

(This goes double if the government has an "understanding" with you. Such an understanding can be taken away at any moment, leaving a former ally a current jailor.)

No: the best thing to do is melt silver, and dip only the tip of the bullet into it. The coating will hold, the silver will be introduced deep into the body, and whatever you lose in accuracy -- given that the extra weight throws off its spin -- is more than made up for in extra damage. Besides, one rarely gets a chance to do long-range damage to a vampire.

This kind of fighting has always been up close and personal.

Which is why, right around 9, Dr. Krwi pauses from his lonely, repetitive task and looks out the window, feeling the hairs raise on the back of his neck. His dog is not growling, and the various things he's set up to detect and respond to the presence of his mortal enemy are not screaming or glowing. But he can tell that something has appeared, closeby.

Something truly terrible.

His dog snorts in her sleep, and while Krwi goes back to making silver-tipped ammunition, he does so knowing that he's going to have to change his plans for the night. He's not going to roust the bad parts of town looking for the monsters he's been fighting all his life. 

Instead, he's going to get ready to leave town, tomorrow, provided his contacts in Moscow can confirm what he's hoping is just a bad feeling, but knows too well is anything but. 

* * *

"Gaah!" SPYGOD shouts, holding his head in his hands: "What the !@#$ was that?"

He's all alone on the rooftop of the French embassy in West Berlin, drinking a bottle of the local brew while waiting to see if the costumed moron he was going to ventilate tonight actually does go to his apartment, five blocks away (and well in sight of his new eye), when suddenly every bone in his head feels as though someone's hit it with a hammer.

When the pain subsides, he grits his teeth and looks around, wondering where the !@#$ that came from. The eye feels like its moving inside the socket -- a !@#$ unpleasant feeling, to be sure -- and he lets it position him, if only to be rid of the !@#$ pain for a second.

There. East of here. And he doesn't need a !@#$ map and a compass to know where the !@#$ he's looking, either. At times, if he "squints," he can see the onion domes from here.

"Moscow, huh?" he says, getting another pull off the beer just as a nearby clock starts striking Nine: "Well, guess I better check that out."

And so he does, after he's filled his costumed target full of enough !@#$bullets to kill a herd of rampaging elephants, anyway. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Symphony 5 (Tchaikovsky) and having a Behemoth Blonde Barleywine)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 1

"Once in 1919 when I was traveling at night by train I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper, in the hopes that he would publish my story. He told me it was the worst thing he had ever read, so I tore it up before him and left without saying a word. 

"I never tried my hand at it again. I have been too busy with other things, since.

"Many important things."

- Mikhail Bulgakov (Head of SQUASH): 1891-1991

* * *

Moscow: 
April 30th, 1966

"I have to say, Colonel, that I am... uncomfortable with what we are about to do."

The dark-uniformed man pushing Colonel Bulgakov's wheelchair down the long, damp, concrete hallway is white-faced and sweating -- almost stammering. That might be the reason why the twisted and sickly person in the well-padded chair doesn't fix his one good eye on him and give him the Look of Death. 

Or maybe the man they call The Writer (but only ever well-behind his back) is in just too good a mood to be bothered.

"It is a logical extension of our current works, Comrade Sharik," Bulgakov says, his voice a harsh and grating thing: "Our thaumathematicians reach into the realms beyond ours to bring forth etheric weapons for Mother Russia all the time, and with some success-"

"Yes, Colonel Bulgakov, but we only ever get the smallest of creatures in this fashion. Our equations can neither summon nor control anything larger. And yet tonight-"

"Tonight we risk it all, Comrade!" the man in the chair shouts, pounding a withered fist on the side of the chair: "The answer was before us all along! Why should we settle for what small creatures we could nudge our way when we could speak to the head of the zoo, and have the largest cages unlocked? If there are greater formulas and hidden proofs to be had, then this greatest of etheric creatures must have them. And soon we, too, will share in them."

"But at what cost, Colonel?" Sharik asks as they approach the black steel door at the end of the hallway: "Making a deal with... with this? Does it not stand against all that our Soviet Union stands for? How can we say we've thrown off superstition if we're willing to summon up the Devil?"

That's done it, then. The Colonel slowly turns around in his chair, and fixes his stammering lackey with that one, good eye: the one that's as red as blood and so shot through with veins and cataracts that it looks like broken glass. 

"We are not calling up the Devil, Comrade Sharik," the man sneers, his voice like deadly thunder: "We are making contact with a primary ultraterrestrial intelligence. A mathematical intellect of the highest degree. We have scraped the superstition away from one of the oldest sciences Man has ever developed, and used it in service to the state!"

"Of course, Colonel-"

"And you would do well to remember that, should you wish to continue serving in our organization, yes?"

"Yes, Colonel," the man stammers, nodding so enthusiastically his officers' cap almost flops off: "I understand, sir. And I do wish to serve."

"Good, Comrade. Remember where I found you, all those years ago. And remember that I can have you put right back there, too."

"Of course, Colonel," the man stammers some more, bumbling around the chair in his pants-!@#$ting fear and putting his hands on the black door.

The moment he does, it glows, ever so much. Then the light is gone, and with it is the door.

And beyond it lies mathematically-sound horror. 

* * *

So how did this withered and broken fellow, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, become the head of SQUASH, most feared of all the Soviet Union's many spy organizations, you may ask?

Well, there lies a story. It is not a pretty story, but very little in Russia ever is. It is almost as if God insists that anything that happens here must be tainted, just to keep us from ever getting too high above ourselves.

He wipes his !@#$ with us, God does, and then sends down the snow to help us clean ourselves up.

So, the story. Here is a man who has many things going for him. He is born into a well-bred, wealthy, and loving family. There he grows up kind and intelligent, and becomes well-educated. He learns art and literature, goes into medicine, marries well. 

Everything is going fine for him, and there is no reason that it should not. But then there is war. Several wars, really. 

And this is when things must change for Mikhail Afanasyevich.

The first is, of course, the First World War. It has him on the frontlines, tending to the wounded. There he gets a reputation for being quite the lifesaver. Some even call him an angel of mercy in disguise.

But the front lines are always under heavy fire. Mikhail is himself wounded, and quite badly. He may well have died, except that, while he was in the hospital, something happened.

What exactly was this thing? We do not know. It is nowhere in his files, and he has not spoken of it. 

But one night he was on his bed, perhaps dying, perhaps not. And the next morning he was standing at the window, asking when he might leave and get back to work. 

And not so much as a scar upon him! How strange, indeed. 

(Stranger still that, from that time on, he has nothing more to do with his family, with whom he was once quite close...)

So, Mikhail goes back to the front for a time, but he is no longer quite the lifesaving angel he once was. Perhaps his injuries have dulled his skills, or perhaps it is just bad luck. But the men begin to dread seeing him at the front, with them. 

He is no longer their angel of mercy, you see. Now he is perhaps an angel of death, come to take them away.

That war is interrupted by another war. This time it is the Civil War. The Revolution. Call it what you will, it ends with the old Tsarist order swept away and the new, Soviet state standing in its place.

His family is now in Paris, but still he is considered a liability because of their connection to how things were. Under normal circumstances, the Cheka would pick him up, and he would have disappeared, along with all those other people that vanished during those early, feverish years. 

But our Mikhail Afanasyevich? He does not wish to wait for the secret police. No, he goes to them, and, after a time of not being seen, he comes out the other end as one of their interrogators. 

Quite an enthusiastic little worker, they say officially. Unofficially, they say he is the sickest bastard they have ever had to work with. Very inventive. Very effective.

Very disturbed.

Even more disturbing is that, sometimes, the people he puts in the chair to question are later seen around him, as servants and subordinates. He claims they have seen the light of reason and are being rehabilitated. Others say other things, and these are darker things indeed.

Now, you know how things go, my friend. We Russians do love our shell games, where the black ball is shuffled from cup to cup, only to seem to become blacker with each shifting of position. So too does our man Mikhail Afanasyevich get shuffled from group to group, becoming larger as he goes. 

The Cheka becomes the GPU, within the old NKVD. Then they leave it to become a thing unto itself, the OGPU, which remains until the old NKVD is replaced with a new one, and then the OGPU becomes folded back into this new NKVD as the GUGB. All the while, he stays with the ball, getting larger with each new cup.

So it is in the GUGB, working directly under Lavrentiy Beria as his most reliable of truth-getters, that our Mikhail Afanasyevich finally reaches the notice of Stalin. They have a few talks, and something he says must have impressed Stalin, for when the Fascists break their pact with us and invade, he is one of the people that Stalin taps on the shoulder to help create a deterrent against their costumed supermen. Their U-Men.

With the fate of Mother Russia hanging by a mere, burning thread, he helps to rally those darker things to our side. Where the People's Protectors work in the light, he dwells within the shadows. And together, these armies of day and night push the Germans back, all the way to Berlin!

Victory is had, but now our other wartime allies are to become our peacetime enemies. Stalin understands this, and knows that we must not rest. So when it is decided to form a separate organization for superior soviets and People's Protectors, rather than shuffling them back into the ball with our spies and counter-spies, our Mikhail Afanasyevich is given the job. 

So the group is made. SQUASH is its name, as you well know. And it spends many, many years bedeviling the forces of Imperialism, Capitalism, Fascism, and anything else that stands against the goals of the Soviet Union. To do this they use science, but a science so black and perverted -- so arcane -- that it may as well be dark magic for all we know.

But never, ever say that to this man who runs this great and secret show. If you are lucky, you will merely disappear. 

If not? Well, they say this dark science requires sacrifice to achieve its goals. And if there is one thing Mother Russia has been good at doing, it is finding many people to sacrifice. Many, many people.

And, thanks to Stalin and his paranoia, Bulgakov had many, many people to work with. 

One last fact that we know for certain? Joseph Stalin died in 1953, just before the KGB was created. Many things were swept out along with Stalin, himself, and the KGB was quite happy to do the dusting. 

But for all the complaining and whispering about what Bulgakov had gotten up to, down in his dark cellar where he ran SQUASH? Not a single person spoke against him. No one even thought to make him disappear, himself. It is almost as if he had some sort of assurance? 

But, of course, no one will speak of this. And I think by now you know why. 

(Recorded conversation with Boris Yeltsin, circa 1987) 

* * *
 

The massive, light grey concrete room behind the black door is domed, so as to amplify and collect all sound. Even the smallest of shuffles from the other side can be heard with total clarity. And so all the quiet conversations going on within it swirl and congeal into one larger dialogue -- an endless, droning susurus of human insect noise.

And this is why they call it The Uley: the Beehive.

Every inch of its walls is covered in mathematical formulas and equations, so long and sprawling that they can only be described as arcane. Dozens of teams of dark-suited men go from section to section, crawling up ladders and getting down on their hands and knees to manually triple-check the work of the other teams. All this to be absolutely certain that nothing is even slightly amiss.

In its center is a stark, large dais: one designed to rise up to where the sound truly converges. On top of it is what may be a massive computer surrounded by pulsing, live, lit-up cables, or perhaps a strange garden of phosphorescent, exotic plants. Perhaps both.

And on the floor, arranged in a great geometric design, are people. 

There are hundreds of men and women, here, all stripped to their boring Soviet underwear -- bound tight, but not gagged. Each one stares into space as if drugged, and doesn't even care to struggle against their bonds. And each one has a small, grey box strapped to the back of their head, with an aerial raised up to the ceiling.

Comrade Sharik has to carefully navigate this design, pushing Colonel Bulgakov's wheelchair through the labyrinth of flesh. It takes some time to get to the center, where the senior thaumathematician awaits his leader.

"We are close to complete, Colonel," the man says, handing over the final checklist to Sharik, along with a pen: "We estimate being well ahead of schedule. We will solve this equation at Midnight, as specified."

"Excellent, excellent," Bulgakov says, watching with his one good eye as Sharik turns the pages for him -- not too fast, but never daring to go too slow -- "This is to be our biggest solution ever, Comrade Doctor Rokk. With it, we will win the war of ideas with the West. We will take the one thing they cling to and destroy it, giving them no illusions to hide behind any longer."

"What's that, Colonel?" Sharik asks, having not really been told the finer details, yet.

"Hope, Comrade Sharik," Bulgakov sneers, casting a sickly eye over the last page of the checklist: "We will barter with the ultraterrestrials we contact tonight -- the beings known as the Supreme Six. They shall give us what we desire, and then we will use those things to destroy their hope. To shatter their belief that their decadent, imperialist ways can bring them anything but horror and misery.

"And that will bring them to us at last."

With that, the Colonel lapses into a shaking fit of grating, black laughter -- one that echoes all around the Beehive and back again.

(SPYGOD is listening to Little Russian (Tchaikovsky) and having a Hrenovuha, because !@#$ you.