MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) (5 page)

But it was
wrong
. Broken.

Faces jutted out like open sores all over its torso. Boneless arms and legs hung off in random places, dangling like Christmas ornaments. One of its primary, functional arms was as big as a telephone pole, while the other was withered and feeble. The creature teetered forward on two humongous, but uneven, legs, its gait awkward and unsteady. Its gaping mouth dangled open, lined with rows upon rows of oddly spaced human teeth. The creature looked at Levi with a single enormous multifaceted eye like that of a fly. Then it spoke.

Instead of a single voice, however, it droned on with a multitude of separate voices—male and female, old and young—a chorus, blending into one.

“It hurts. Oh God, it hurts,” the creature moaned, its grotesque arms waving about. “Kill us. Please God, kill us. End the pain.”

The Mudman watched as the creature moved forward.

Something had gone wrong here, Levi could see. That shaman was indeed experimenting, but this Frankenstein monster was no success. Oddly, the monstrous creature had a clean aura. Whatever it
was
, a killer it
was not
.

At least not yet.

The creature’s eye locked on Levi. “Kill us, please kill us,” it said again, its many voices sounding like the sigh of the wind through fall leaves.

In all of Levi’s long years, he’d never murdered an innocent. Not even in self-defense.

Better to flee than take the life of one without blood on their hands. The Mudman was a simple creature with a singular nature: remember and uphold the sacred decree. The thing before him, whatever it was, had not violated the divine mandate; therefore, Levi was bound to inaction.

“Please,” it begged again, its suffering evident.

Levi didn’t know what to do. The AA meetings hadn’t prepared him for this. His mind seemed to revolt at the idea of doing anything at all. He scoured his brain as the creature crept closer, diligently searching for some sermon, Scripture passage, or word of wisdom that might tell him what to do. Might guide him in this task. Levi was learning to think for himself, but at his heart he coveted instruction and direction.

A snippet from the book of Romans ran through his head, the words ringing out in Pastor Steve’s voice.
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil … Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.’”
There was no doubt an evil thing had been done here—even a cursory glance at the twisted creature confirmed this—but to kill it, an innocent being, was surely evil, too. Another snatch of Scripture bubbled up, “
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
”

What was the merciful thing to do here? Levi didn’t know.

He had no answers.

The terribly deformed beast dropped to misshapen knees, its doughy arms held out in supplication. “Kill us, please,” it mewled. This time, the boil-like faces decorating its body mouthed the words as well.

Finally, Levi nodded.

Such a kill would surely violate the letter of the law, but perhaps mercy would uphold the spirit of the law and assuage Levi’s conscience. His spear-hand became a meat cleaver with a three-foot blade. The Mudman tentatively stalked up to the creature, waiting for the abomination to attack, to prove this was some bizarre strategy to worm inside Levi’s guard. But, as the Mudman drew near, the creature began to sob, great tears leaking out from a hundred different orifices. Then it lowered its deformed head to the floor, offering its neck to the executioner’s block.

“Thank you,” the chorus of voices said.

Levi felt more uneasy than before.

“
I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
”
he reminded himself.

He planted his feet and raised the meat cleaver high above his head, but halted, his conviction wavering.
This was right … wait, no, this was murder. Right … Murder … Right … Murder.
His dual nature bickered back and forth while he stood with the weapon upheld—

The creature twitched, and Levi moved on instinct, slamming the blade down and deciding the moral quandary in an instant. The cleaver, sharp as any headman’s axe, passed through the doughy flesh with ease, decapitating the beast in one savage chop. The deformed head rolled across the jagged slabs of broken floor. The corpses heaved a collective sigh of relief, then fell silent as the colossal body went limp.

The Mudman stared down at his work, feeling something brand-new: revulsion. Not merely the self-loathing he was accustomed to, but genuine sorrow and sickness over the kill, leaving behind a deep and abiding uncertainty. He was a creature of black and white, and this deed didn’t fit neatly anywhere into the picture.
What had he done? What did this mean?
After a long beat, he decided now was not the time for such thoughts. Not here in the Deep Downs, surrounded by the profane, with an injured victim to look after and Kobocks waiting around every bend.

He could examine these thoughts later. He turned and headed for the girl strapped to the stone table—she was the priority, now.

Not a girl, he saw on closer inspection, but a woman. Late twenties or early thirties and pretty, though with hard lines worked into her face. Lots of tattoos covered her body—bright skulls and artful roses—though one in particular caught his eye. Running across her chest, just below her collarbones, was a name:
Punk Rock Sally
, it said.

He pressed fingers against her throat, feeling out her pulse: present but reedy and slow.

Next he examined the crudely stitched slice running vertically from breastbone to belly button. The cut was clean and precise, done by someone who knew more or less what they were about. Still, the white skin around the incision was swollen, red, and hot to the touch—potentially deadly infection. Not surprising, considering the environment.

The meat cleaver at the end of his wrist twisted and shifted, reverting back to normal. He picked up the scalpel from the metal gurney—the tool looked like a kid’s toy in his oversized mitt—and carefully sliced a line down the inside of his opposite wrist. Ichor welled to the surface, shimmering softly in the firelight. He tossed the surgical knife to the floor, its purpose fulfilled, then jammed his fingers into the cut, golden blood smearing across his fingertips. He traced his blood-streaked digits over the scar, liberally coating the wound with his blood.

Though Levi wasn’t magic, his blood was powerful. Dangerously so.

Once the wound was thoroughly treated, he pried opened her mouth and forced some of the liquid down her throat, massaging her jaws so she would swallow.

She fidgeted and mumbled a weak protest.

“Gah. No more. Shit, no more.” She gagged, but kept it down.

“Hush now,” Levi said with a voice like a cement mixer. “Hush, it’ll be alright.”

He loosened her from her restraints, but left her in place so he could get a last look at the gruesome and oddly familiar altar.

The wyrm with a thousand legs seemed to be staring at him with its ruby eyes. The altar was stone, Levi knew, but in the dancing illumination of the fire, it looked alive. The thought that the altar was
only
a thing of stone was no real comfort to Levi—after all, he was not much more than a thing of stone himself. He drew closer, curiosity getting the better of him. The Kobock Nation was well known for their vile rituals, but the scene he’d stumbled upon went far beyond anything Levi had ever heard of.

What had they been doing down here?

With an effort of will, Levi forced open a small cavity in his side—an internal storage locker, of sorts—and pulled out a cell phone, neatly wrapped in a plastic bag. Pockets were notoriously unreliable, especially since he shifted form so often, so stowing items
inside
his body was the safest way. He took a moment to snap a couple of pictures of the bas-relief and a few more of the grotesque flesh golem, then resealed the phone in plastic and slid it back into the divot in his side. Gray skin quickly swelled over the phone, leaving behind a smooth, unmarked belly.

A single missive—handwritten on a piece of heavy stock paper—sat folded on the altar ledge. Levi snatched it up, read it over once, then shoved the letter into his side with the cell phone. He’d examine it in detail later; right now he had greater concerns. The girl. Even with his ichor working through her system, she needed a hospital. Humans were beautiful things, wonderfully and fearfully made, but frail and fleeting. She could still die. Probably would if he didn’t get moving. Gently,
gently
, he lifted her into his mammoth arms, cradling her like a newborn.

She stirred again, whimpering against his chest.

Her eyes fluttered briefly. “No more. Please, no more,” she offered again. Then her lids fell shut and she slept.

“Hush now,” he said. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”

FIVE:

Sunday Service

Light shone through the stained-glass window, bright shafts falling over the far row of pews, while the gentle warble of a piano hymn capered in the air. New Eden Mennonite Church, nestled right in the sunny suburbs of Aurora, Colorado. Not an Amish church, nor even filled with the plain-dressed folk, but rather a modern congregation populated with a myriad of folk, some good, others not. Admittedly, there were a few older congregants who spoke Pennsylvania Dutch—the low German of the old Mennonites—but mostly, they were simple, hardworking people who believed in following Jesus.

The little congregation was a strange fit for Levi, but in some ways a natural one. Years back, when the Mudman had first decided a change was in order, he’d tried attending temple, which seemed intuitive given his past. Each time, though, he’d been driven from the synagogue by the memories, which were far too loud there. Overpowering. The rabbi would pull the Torah from the Ark and unfurl it across the
bimah
—a dark wood table used for the reading of the Scriptures—and suddenly Levi would
be
the rabbi. A flashback to some other life, before the war and the camps.

Everything in the synagogue was like that. The
Beth Midrash
, a connected hall used for Scripture study, held its own ghosts. As did the
Mikveh
—the ritual bath. He couldn’t even glance at the
Ner Tamid
, the eternal flame, which burned ceaselessly above the Ark, without some image or another rearing up and flooding his brain. So, in the end, temple was too painful for Levi.

He’d discovered the Mennonites through his AA meetings, which were held in the basement of the church he now called home. Named after its founder, Menno Simons, the Mennonite Church had roots steeped in Anabaptism, a tradition which harkened back to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Though Martian Luther ushered in a theological revolution, it was the Anabaptists who took it furthest. The Radical Reformation, historians called it.

The Anabaptists were the first to preach and practice adult baptism—the origin of the name
Anabaptist
, which meant “second baptizers”—a crime which warranted the death penalty in most of Europe. A crime for which scores of Anabaptist leaders and followers were drowned or burned at the stake. They believed that church should be voluntary and separate from the state—a crime which earned them exile as subversives to the state. Most important, at least for Levi, they took Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount at face value.

“Love thy Enemy” was not a suggestion or rhetorical hyperbole, but a divine mandate. They were among the first conscientious objectors.

Their radical notions came with a hefty price tag: thousands dead, murdered at the hands of Catholics and other Protestants. Yet, even while being hunted and butchered like animals, the Anabaptists refused to take up arms, refused to seek vengeance for their slain, instead leaving justice for the Lord, and even caring for their persecutors. Needless to say, Levi didn’t
quite
fit in.

But he
wanted
to.

Wanted to change almost as bad as he wanted to kill. A fine dance, constantly pulling at his soul. The words of Saint Paul bounced around in his thick skull. “
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do … I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
 
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
”

If anyone could help him to learn to resist his inclinations toward vengeance and retribution, he reasoned it was the Mennonites.

“Alright,” said Pastor Steve from the pulpit as the music faded, “let’s stand and greet one another in love.” The small congregation, maybe a hundred and fifty all present, gained their feet amidst the groan and squeak of polished wood. Levi stood with all the rest and turned to the congregant on his right: George, a tall beanpole of a man with a narrow face, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, and a balding pate surrounded by a ring of wispy brown hair.

“Mornin’, Levi.” He extended a hand, a cautious smile breaking across his angular face. George was a good man, solid, steady, but serious and not easy or loose with smiles. He wouldn’t have smiled at all had Levi been in his true skin. But George
did
smile, even if it was only a thin stretching of the lips, because Levi was in disguise.

In this form, Levi stood at 5′5″, was slight of build, sported a pooching potbelly, and had bad posture. His head, like George’s, was nearly bald on top, and he too wore a pair of glasses, even though he could see like a hawk in the high mountain air. Levi found glasses were disarming to many people. A thin red mustache, thick denim pants, a plaid button up, and a Carhartt jacket completed the look.

Levi grasped George’s bony hand and pumped vigorously. “Good to see you, George, good to see you. How’re Margie and the kids?” Levi asked with false enthusiasm. He wasn’t good with words or talking, but he’d seen this ritual preformed enough times to know how it was supposed to look.