Brenner: The Gospel of Madness (Book 5 of 6)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Thanks and stuff
ROLF:EXODUS III
Viktor
Rolf
Milan
Maria
Milan
Rolf
Milan
Maria
Milan
Maria
Rolf
Maria
MADWORLD
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
Mariam and Wanda
Shepard
FOREWORLD VIII
THE GOSPEL OF MADNESS
Book V
Brenner
By Georg Bruckmann
Special thanks to Richard Briscoe and Conny Kirsch. I still owe you!
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ROLF:EXODUS III
Maria
Maria let her gaze wander over her companions in destiny. The thick winter jackets and coats, a motley collection of garments that did not create any common identity, concealed the fact that they were weak, emaciated people at the end of their rope. Why can I still see that they all belong together somehow?, Maria asked herself. Well, all you had to do was look into their faces. Until now, the tall man with the stone eyes had left them no time to think or process the past events, which followed each other quickly. He only seemed to know one thing. Go on, go on, at any price. She understood that. What she didn’t understand was why this man had freed them in the first place. Now he stood there, with his back facing her and the others who huddled in the hallway while eating greedily, watching the street. He had already loaded his big backpack after arming himself, just like her. He had vehemently insisted that each of them should take at least one gun out of the two sports bags after supplying them all with warm clothing. Now he just seemed to wait until they had eaten. He had made clear that he would lead them out of the city and that this had to happen very quickly. A distant whistle signal reminded her of the reason for his haste. Not that it was necessary. She may have been a hooker, yeah. But she could count. With shivers she thought of the dead in the stairwell. Mia and Levi. Abele, of whom she still had some slimy drops stuck between her legs. Their rescuer had devastated his chest almost completely. Then there was Jan, whose bloody and deformed face she had briefly seen in the flickering light of the lamp, as she had turned her head to the right as she left the building and looked into one of the apartments. Then at the two riders and the eight archers on the roofs. She herself had shot three of them. The dead faces of Bastian and all those who had been struck by arrows or who had fallen under the horses’ iron-clad hooves. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst thing had been the faces of the injured. The way they looked at her when she talked the big guy into leaving them behind. I think they hate me even more than our kidnappers, it went through her head. Well, at least if they’re still alive. But they weren’t the problem. The problem were the others of Viktor’s men. If they came and caught them again, they would all die, tortured to death and hung from lanterns or be crucified. Now she could offer them her holes, as eagerly as she wanted. That wouldn’t get her anywhere. That point was passed. It’s over. Someone was offering her a stripe of shrink-wrapped wholemeal bread. She looked up. It was René who gave her a timid smile. “Put that in your pocket,” he just said. She did it although she had seen that there already was mold on one side of the pack. “Thank you.” she replied quietly and smiled back. You couldn’t be too choosy. Again she let her gaze wander over the survivors of this hellish night. To her astonishment she noticed that at least two men and a woman who hadn’t had a good word for her so far returned her gaze and nodded to her. The circumstances had probably changed. I’m not the one you can fuck for a little food anymore. I’m the one who shoots without hesitation now. You guys are so pathetic. Did these stupid creatures even know how many rapes she had spared them by doing what she had done? And now... Maria rejected these thoughts. They’d lead nowhere. Nothing but more resentment and dissension. Once again a blast of memory struck her. This time it was one of the guys she shot off the roof. His arrow had smashed Hertha’s skinny skull, with whom Maria had shared from her wages just half an hour earlier. The arrowhead had come out in her neck. Full of rage Maria had taken the shooter to task, but only caught his thigh. It had been the fall that had killed the bastard. He had been flinching for quite a while and moved his lips, bloody foam in front of his mouth after he hit ground. Suddenly she was no longer hungry and stuck half the apple she had nibbled on along with the moldy bread in the pocket of her down jacket, which was far too big for her. She looked down at herself. Her bare legs looked too thin. He hadn’t thought about shoes. The jackets and coats he had provided them with seemed to be the only thing he had to offer at the time. Her gaze rested on his back as she again pondered on his motives. It was still dark outside, and she could literally feel his eyes trying to penetrate the night. I wonder when daylight will come. She had completely lost her sense of time. What if Viktor ... Another whistle cut the silence. Closer this time. Like it was his command, the big guy turned around. Besides the two sub-machine guns with the silencers that he carried around his neck on straps and that hung down from him, he now held a hunting rifle in his hands. Protruding out of the side pockets of his military cargo pants were fresh magazines. In the best barracks yard tone he gave instructions in which the distant sound of hooves of horses on pavement mixed. “Come on now, we’ve rested long enough. We’ve got to keep moving! Out the door, turn right, down the street. Move it! Everybody take one bag!” He stopped next to the door and stared, the gun in his hands, in the opposite direction. He waited until all of them, Maria at the head and closely followed by René, had followed his instructions and left the hallway. “Always keep moving in this direction. I’ll be right behind you.” She would have liked to have turned around to see what he was doing. But the dark streets and spooky silhouettes of buildings, vehicles, and wild plants that loomed in front of her, demanded all of her attention. It was like the night was full of demons. The whistle signals seemed to be coming from everywhere and the buildings moved closer together in Maria’s perception. Because the whistling was permanently reflected by the canyons of the houses and by their smooth facades, it was almost impossible to be sure from which direction they sounded or how far away they were in reality. She cursed herself for not having wrapped rags around her feet like some of the others had done. The horsemen had forbidden them to wear shoes of any kind in order to prevent them from fleeing. But they had accepted that they were making slow progress with their prisoners. Now, however, speed was far more important. House after house and crossroad after crossroad passed her by. Twice she got dizzy. I guess I’m weaker than I thought. Then finally she heard someone running. He came back. A few seconds later he ran next to her and she turned to him. “What did you do?” she asked her res
cuer.
Viktor
It had taken longer than he wanted to admit to himself until Viktor had had the courage to come out of hiding and leave the place of the terrible massacre caused by the ghost and run back to the station in blind panic. If one of his men had acted as he had, he would have had him killed immediately. He was aware of that irony. But what did that mean? Honor and pride had quickly lost their importance in the face of the possibility of losing one’s life. The ghost had finished Jan with his two axes in the twinkling of an eye. Then he had stormed out of the apartment and into the stairwell and had occupied himself with Mia and Levi. Abele had foreseen the order Viktor had just given him. He was trying to prove himself. They young man had only climbed into the apartment behind Viktor’s window, but when Viktor was still staring down at Jan’s bloody face, Abele had pushed the knife in his iron fist past him and followed the ghost into the hallway. Viktor had not been able to see what was happening there in detail. But the long-lasting bursts of fire he could hear told the story at least as impressively as if he had seen for himself what had happened there. Eventually, while the machine gun of the ghost had barked, Viktor had squeezed himself into a gap between the fridge and the wall in one corner of the room and just waited. Prayed as he now admitted to himself. Prayed to be spared. It worked. The Lord loves me. Then he listened to the noises they made. Only when he was sure that they had all left the house was he careful, step by step, to get out of his hiding place and look out of the broken window. The brief but clearly pronounced instructions of the ghost had penetrated his ear, mixed with the whistling signals of his people and the sounds of horses approaching at high speed. Then the shooting and screaming had started again, outside and further away, and Viktor had still not dared to leave the house they had chosen as prison camp for their prey. “Finish them off! Kill them! Kill them all!” That’s what he yelled, but only in his mind. His lips had remained silent, sealed by the sight of Jan’s deformed, bloody skull. When Viktor finally reached the station forecourt, he stopped running. Fucking hell. Christiano! Christiano would not simply mock him if he learned that Viktor had lost almost half of his people to the ghost. Somehow Viktor had to succeed in getting his people out of the station and thus out of Christiano’s sphere of influence without this getting wind of Viktor’s failure. And he wouldn’t be able to do that if he breathed like an asthmatic granny and the fear sweat stood on his forehead while he demanded admission. Viktor leaned his back against the wall of a house. A sign announced that on the ground floor of the building once an Irish Pub had been housed. When he had regained his breath, he walked slowly, using well measured steps across the station forecourt. Past Christiano’s decaying artworks. One of the bodies looked vaguely familiar. As he went on, he searched in his memory for a face that would fit, but he found none that he could associate with the dead man who was decomposing here. All that remained was this vague feeling of déjà vu. Then Viktor rejected all thoughts in this direction, because Christiano´s guys who guarded the main entrance had become aware of him. Viktor tightened up and walked up to them. “Gotta warm me up and check on my people.” The one on Viktor’s right answered. “Yes. Go inside. Fucking cold out here.” They let him pass. As soon as Viktor entered the stinking station concourse, the feeling arose that something was completely wrong. Had this one guard - not the one who had spoken, the other - grinned? The improvised barricade, with which Christiano’s people secured the main entrance and which had been opened for him, was laboriously closed behind him again. What the hell happened here? Something ... Viktor moved through the bystanders with played self-confidence. They all shunned his gaze. Employed themselves with handicrafts. Cooked or put wood and books on their little fires. But it wasn’t spoken. Nobody talked. What the hell happened here? He turned towards the north-east corner, where his people had been accommodated. They let him make seven more steps, and then just as he saw Christiano sitting on one of his horses and was immediately getting angry about that fact, they seized him. *** The agonies were unbearable, and during the whole procedure Viktor lost consciousness again and again. He heard his own screams, almost bursting his larynx, as if damped by cotton wool, and saw kaleidoscope-like blurred images. Pictures of rusty saws, of needle and thread. Of meat cleavers and tongs. Of Christiano, who sat on a horse - on Viktor’s mare Sibelle - and let it trample on the twitching bodies of Viktor’s people. Then, at some point, there were no more pliers and saws and hatchets and bloody horse hooves. Just blackness. Then there was Christiano´s smiling face directly in front of him and nearly took his whole field of vision. His lips moved and he gesticulates lively and in a good mood. At first it was like turning the sound down in a movie. Then, after injecting Viktor with a funnel and a tube of some hideous burning liquid, Christiano’s words became clearer in Viktor’s ears, and his gaze was less blurry. Why haven’t I tasted anything? He now realized that Christiano´s son Milan stood next to him and turned a bloody shred of flesh in his hands. Somewhere in the back of Viktor’s consciousness, he realized it was his tongue. The younger man just bit off and chewed while his father spoke. “Dear Viktor! Old and good friend. You’ve disappointed me deeply on the one hand. On the other hand, you’ve been a real thrill to me. Already in Rome you excelled through outstanding achievements, just as I did myself. An capable commander, fully committed to the Cardinal’s cause. Just as faithful as you were then, you have now done your job excellently. You managed to drive the ghost out of its hiding place. I would like to congratulate you on this, my dear fellow. Great work! Really extraordinary! That’s the only reason you’re allowed to live a little longer. I don’t want anyone to say I’m unfair.” Viktor heard Christiano’s words, but his brain couldn’t really make sense of them yet. That was partly because he was distracted by two new discoveries. Viktor discovered that he was naked on the one hand, and he was surprised that he yet didn’t freeze. On the other hand, he discovered that he was sitting on a horse now, on his mare Sibelle. Something about it seemed wrong to him. It was kind of low, too close to the ground. Then he came up with it. Sibelle had no legs. “Like I said. I’m not a monster. And that’s why I’ve given you one last task. Instead of just getting your skull banged on, you can serve art. My art. My art of transience. I name you ”rat on horse”, I think. For even though you have done me a great service by succeeding - I am sure that your plan was terribly clever and well thought-out - in scaring the ghost and tying some ballast to his leg, I would still like to confront you with some of your transgressions.” Christiano took a dramatic break and looked at Viktor. Then he went on. “You know I’ve been through the cycle more times than you have, so I’m authorized to give instructions, right?” Viktor tried to speak. He would say anything Christiano wanted him to say. When he tried, he noticed that not only was his tongue missing, but also his lower jaw. All that escaped his neck was a slimy rattle. “Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re trying to say. Everything’s not that bad and all. But I don’t see it that way. Not only did you try to keep your slaves from me. No, you and your people have broken the Cardinal’s rules.” Thoughts raged through Viktor’s mind, bending in pain and horror. You sick fuck don’t take the commandments very seriously yourself. He’s got my jaw in his hand. How that asshole is taunting me. You self-opinionated pervert. He’s joined forces with the unworthy to storm this station. His sick son eats my tongue. My horse. Naked. Everybody’s staring at me. It can’t be true what’s happening here. What am I going to do? Is that my blood down there? Is it the horse’s? The way he stands there mocking me with his gossip. My eye hurts. Everything hurts. Hypocrite. No. No. That’s impossible. It can’t be. Christiano continued. “Yes, yes. I still know what you’re trying to say. But please be so kind and listen to me for a moment before I swap your ears with those of the horse. Did you really think you could get away with this? That you and your raidy little raider riders get away with hiding such a big treasure from me? I mean, maybe I would have even left you a few of them, who knows? No, you had to try to smugg
le your prisoners past me. And in such an idiotic way. I have my people all over town. We have already seen you when you arrived along the Rhine at the edge of town. My little Milan here...” In a fatherly manner Christiano put his hand on the shoulder of his offspring, who still had some of Viktor’s blood at the corner of his mouth. “...has been tailing your people the whole time. Tonight too, by the way. Your plan had a crucial weakness, you know? You just put too much faith in your people. You’d better have held them closer to each other. Well. Now you might think something like: ”But then we never would have found the ghost.” I have to tell you that the ghost - just like us - has been on your trail since you arrived here. I’ve seen him up on the roofs. I knew he’d come for you. And I also knew that he would most likely manage to escape your little hunt and relieve you of the prey. Now again, maybe you’re wondering why I didn’t help you.” Christiano laughed quietly before continuing. “Well. After all, there was the slight possibility that you would succeed. So it seemed wise to me not to put any of my own people in danger. But even now that you have failed so miserably, I am on the winning side. The ghost’s gone. His advantage was that he was alone. That he was alone and that he had nothing and nobody to worry about. He’s not staying here. He won’t keep bothering us. He’s driven out. Exorcised. Just like a good child of God does it with ghosts. And he has not only been driven out . He’s handicapped now, too. Thanks to you and your greed. If you had brought your inferior slaves here, as it would have been the law, the ghost would certainly not have crawled out of its hiding place. Then he’d still be out there on the roofs attacking my patrols. Considering this fact, I must grant you the grace to live a little longer. But...” Hypocrite. They’re just excuses. I’m missing two toes. I wonder if Milan ate them too. This talk sounds great to your people. I want to go home. It’s just a show. It’s just a show. It’s all not true. Just a production. I’m kidding. Christiano always had a sense of humor. I think I’m gonna die. “...the thing about your weapons. That just begged for punishment. Oh, Viktor! How could you disregard the commandments of the Cardinal - our Redeemer, the savior, the Bringer of Innocence - so much that not only your people, but even you yourself, carry such engineered weapons?” Now Christiano raised his voice so that it penetrated loudly and clearly through the station hall. “This must not remain without consequences. And that’s why I’m going to keep working on you. I told you, I’ll start with the ears. And when I’m done with you, I’ll personally pick a few of my people and send them after the ghost. My son Milan will lead them and unlike you he will not disappoint me! Is it not so?” Christiano turned to his son. This one nodded. “Yes, that’s right!” “Isn’t it so,” Christiano now shouted from his lungs into the train station and all bystanders shouted an enthusiastic response.