They carried the rigid figure up the embankment and out onto the edge of this gloomy, green swamp. A nasty looking mist was rising above this place. The odor seemed to indicate this was not the first time it had been used for human disposal. With a great heave, they threw the man into the deepest part of the dirty water.
They returned to the stream. The lieutenants were standing nearby, anxiously smoking cigarettes. Their van was packed up tight and ready to go. They were just waiting for Hunter and Joxx to fulfill their grisly task.
They picked up the second body and began walking again. This one's face was still covered by his mask as well, but there was something about him that made him seem younger and somewhat innocent. He was also much lighter than the first body.
He made less of a splash when they threw him into the bog.
They returned for the third man, but Hunter knew they would not get very far. They reentered the hollow to find the lieutenants were clustered around the remaining body. They were excited and extremely animated.
Hunter and Joxx quietly approached the scene. It was coming to an end, and Hunter didn't want anything unexpected to happen now.
"He's alive! I tell you, I can see him blink," one of the lieutenants was saying, bending down over the third body. "He can hear me, can't you, Jimmy boy?"
"Blink Jimmy!" another of the lieutenants was yelling. "Blink yer eyes if ye can hear us!"
Hunter and Joxx arrived just as the man lying in the mud began blinking his eyes madly. His mask gone, his face was painfully stretching into a smile, too. Despite his grave condition, he almost seemed happy.
Suddenly, in the background, came the twin growls of more Saracens and the flying, whirling thing.
"Let's get him out of here!" one of the lieutenants said. "Before those bloke bastards trip over themselves and crash down upon us as well!"
Without ever acknowledging Hunter and Joxx again, the men picked up the wounded but smiling man and squeezed him into the back of the van. Then they climbed in themselves and roared away through the deep forest, literally leaving Hunter and Joxx in the dust.
Joxx looked over at Hunter, dumbfounded.
Hunter just shook his head.
"It gets weirder," he said.
Flash!
Everything was green again.
The walls, the bed, the bed covers, the rug, the floor beneath the rug. And everywhere the same shadowy if beatific image of a figure with long hair and wings sprouting from the back, arms spread wide as a gesture of friendship and warmth. Pictures on the wall. Carvings on the wooden door frame. Even the designs printed onto the sheets, this same picture of the faceless, mysterious angel.
The sun was streaming through the emerald curtains blowing lazily in the morning breeze. The light itself seemed to have a greenish tint to it. Hunter was sitting in the ornate chair in the corner of the room, his fists balled, his face anxious. He was waiting for the next step to begin. It was always slow at this point, and it was always hot in the small room. Hunter knew it hadn't rained on this part of the Earth in many, many years.
Joxx was hanging out the window, half covered by the green curtains, looking down on the grand square below. There was a vast plaza ten stories down. Many people were moving through it, many wearing religious clothing.
"Cassocks and such?" Joxx was complaining. "Where are we now? In some bad dream conjured up by your little friend, the priest?"
Hunter didn't reply. This place had once been called Peter's Grand Square or something along those lines, and the city that surrounded it was once a small country in itself. But this formerly tiny kingdom now took up more than half of what was once called Europe.
"At least it is not as wet and cold as the first place you brought me." Joxx sighed, still hanging out the window, talking more to himself than Hunter. It was a habit of his. "It's pleasantly temperate here…."
Hunter wished, as he always did at this point in the mind ring trip, that the bottle of wine sitting on the table next to his bed was filled with slow-ship instead of the vile red stuff that passed as vino in this place, in this time.
"I do say that it makes me uncomfortable to see so many people in habits and collars, though," Joxx went on. "And this damn angel everywhere you turn. Religion is something that's always made me very nervous — more so here, whereever the hell we are."
Again, Hunter remained silent. Joxx's senses were about to get a jolt — and much more than the discovery that they were now about a thousand years ahead of their last scenario.
"Yes, too many cassocks," Joxx said, still gawking out the window. "Too much religion will drive you crazy, guaranteed."
Finally, he pulled himself back in, only to discover that Hunter was now wearing a floor-length black cassock. Even worse, he was wearing one, too.
Joxx began to protest of course, but before the words could get out of his mouth, there came a soft knocking at the door, just as Hunter knew it would.
"Your transport is waiting," came the lilting voice from the other side. Hunter jumped to his feet and opened the door; it was the one sequence of the trip that he actually enjoyed, though for a very strange reason.
On the other side of the door was a young, very pretty girl. She was not a nun but a novice, the last step before the final plunge. She was in training for the Order of the Precious Holy Blood. Her habit was not as dour as some of the other religious women Hunter had encountered here. Her smile reminded him of Xara.
"I can escort you down to the departure zone," she told Hunter sweetly. He quickly agreed.
With Joxx tagging along reluctantly, Hunter and the young novice walked down the dark hallway, a dead ringer for some of the buildings found atop Special Number One. They spoke, as they always did, about the weather, her advancement into the order, the pleasant ride that was guaranteed between here and New York.
"They say the ocean looks especially green today," she told him, again as always. But this time, she had a bit of a devilish smile.
They reached the bottom floor and walked out onto the emerald marble plaza. An ancient shuttlecraft was waiting for them.
Joxx nearly burst out laughing when he saw this vehicle. Its design most closely resembled the troop shuttles used by the Empire in real time, but only as a distant and forgotten relative. The machine was long, tubular, "buglike" in the ancient slang of Earth. It had gaggles of attachments hanging off of it. Pipes and vanes and unrecessed steering rockets. The power plant in the rear stank of ion-ballast exhaust, and indeed, Hunter had learned, this thing used a dumbed-down version of ion-ballast propulsion, a sort of mini-star engine for quick but uneconomical jumps around the planet.
It just looked unsafe, and that was Joxx's initial complaint through the snickering. But Hunter wouldn't have factored in an unsuccessful flight. Or would he?
Joxx finally climbed aboard, swishing his long cassock around like a grand dame. Hunter chatted a little more with the young novice, and she smiled through her veil. Then she shook his hand. When the jump car took off, the bit of wind generated lifted her thin shroud a little, and he was able to see her eyes and face.
She smiled and then waved good-bye.
The shuttle ascended from the plaza, and soon they were looking down on the dome of the huge basilica.
It was a light shade of green, of course, shimmering in the morning sun. It held magnificent spires, their turrets topped in emerald leaf. They, too, gave off a strong glare. The shuttle rose quickly to 10,000 feet, and from this height it became apparent that this basilica was not the only one in the vicinity of the great square.
In fact, it was just one of hundreds of basilicas that stretched along the winding, tree-lined highways leading to the coastline. Dozens more could be seen along the seaside cliffs beyond. The shuttle turned north, and even more of the magnificent cathedrals were evident atop the high, snowcapped peaks to the north and east, many displaying huge statues of the ubiquitous angel. Another turn, now to the west, and even more of the grand churches could be seen lining a winding highway, one that eventually passed right through the city once called Paris.