Chapter 1
A Short Tale from the P.O.Z.
For those of you who have read my POZ tales I present a short piece I have meant to include at some point. I never found the right tale to add it into so here it is as a stand-alone snippet.
South Bank District, Spitfield City
The Coffee Coffin wasn’t in a bad part of town, certainly not for a city like Spitfield.
There were far worse places in the run-down metropolis, whole Districts where you could get somebody killed just for the price of a latte and Danish. Or terminally mugged because you looked like you could afford a coffee and pastry.
This wasn’t one of those neighbourhoods and Grigor Velovich was glad he found himself in such an unassuming locale. He didn’t want his last moments to be spent bleeding out in a filthy gutter, seeing the rats waiting patiently in the dark spaces for the final breath to gasp from his lips.
“Good morning!” the cheerful woman behind the front counter greeted him. She was rather pretty he noted absently, her green eyes and pale complexion matched perfectly by the long auburn tresses she had pinned up into a bun.
“Good morning, Dianne” he replied warmly, smiling at the momentary look of confusion that passed across her delicate features. “You look as radiant as ever, a beacon in the darkness of my unfortunate existence!”
“Oh! Umm, thanks I guess” she answered his strangely worded compliment. Grigor liked to tease the woman, seeing her various reactions each time he met her for the first time. The first time for her, he amended in his own thoughts. And in a sense, the first time for him as well.
“Can I take your order?” Dianne continued, setting aside her confusion with customary professionalism. Grigor knew she had decided he was one of her regulars that she couldn’t quite recall, one of the patrons to the Coffee Coffin that knew her well enough to say her name.
“An Espresso and one of your delightful chocolate chip cookies, if you please” he answered promptly. “I’ll take it here, in the booth at the back”
He fished out his phone from an inner pocket, grimacing slightly as he saw the blood staining the screen. Turning aside momentarily, he wiped the device clean with the sleeve of his shirt and then pressed it against the scanner on the counter. It pinged merrily to confirm his order was paid for and then he tucked it away once more.
It wasn’t like he was worried about having to clean the shirt or use the phone again anyway.
He walked towards the rear of the cafe, a long and narrow building wedged between two much larger establishments. From past conversations, he knew the Coffee Coffin was originally built in a service alley that connected to the rear of both buildings. It had been a noodle shop at first, then a tiny bar before being converted into the current business.
Grigor idly wondered if Dianne Somersby, the current incarnation of the owner, knew the history of her business premises. He doubted there would be time to reminisce with her and in a way that made him sad.
There was all the time in the universe for Grigor Velovich and yet he had very little time left at all. This was the punishment he endured and he could only hope his intuition was right. That today would be the last day he had to die.
His guest arrived at the entrance to the Coffee Coffin, looking into the interior with a grim expression on her face. Grigor met her questing eyes with a polite smile, beckoning her towards his tiny booth.
“Venerae!” gushed Dianne happily from where she was working the coffee machine. “I didn’t expect you to stop by today”
The tall, blonde haired woman tore her gaze away from Grigor, flashing a hurried smile at the other woman. She was tall like a Nordic warrior queen, a veritable Valkyrie from the old legends, broad across the shoulders yet still giving off a feminine air. Her features were striking too, the kind of face that caught the attention of any who saw her and refused to let them go.
Sister Venerae, Sword of the Order of Michael, Grigor reminded himself. A hunter of the arcane and the profane, commissioned to carry out Judgement on behalf of the City’s Governing Council. To execute those who had violated the rules that protected the mere mortals from the monsters who would harm them.
“I couldn’t go another day without one of your delightful coffees” Venerae answered Dianne. “In a take-out cup please as I am still on duty”
“Sure!” Dianne beamed at her and got started on that while she finished Grigor’s order. The tall woman checked the rest of the small cafe and nodded to herself when she saw the place was otherwise empty. She pulled aside the front of the long coat she wore, revealing to Grigor the short sword nestled there in a specially fitted sheath.
Her meaning was clear and he gave her a slight nod of his own, acknowledging the warning.
“Please, Sister, take a seat” he called out, gesturing to a chair on the other side of his table. “I give my word that I shall not cause any fuss here in this wonderful establishment”
Venerae stalked the short distance to the table, alert and ready to react in an instant. If she was anything like her past selves, Grigor knew he would be dead before his brain registered the fact. Not that he would be so foolish, not here and not at this moment.
Unbeknown to anyone but himself, the grains of sand were trickling out in the hourglass of his life. Very soon now, the life he had lived as Grigor would be over.
“You know who I am?” Venerae asked him, standing at the side of the small booth he was seated in, as if to block his escape. The rear wall of the cafe was at his back, to his right the door that led to the service alley that ran behind all the businesses. If he’d planned on running from her, he’d have already been gone.
“Yes, and I am sure you know who I am too. Please, I only want to talk to you for a little while. Before the business between us is concluded”
The hard look in her eyes softened a fraction and he wondered why. Then Grigor saw his coat had fallen open, showing the blood staining his vest and shirt beneath. He tugged it closed as Dianne bustled up to the pair of them, setting his order on the table.
“Everything fine here?” Dianne asked, looking anxiously between Venerae and him. The Sister let a smile creep across her face and gave the other woman a cheerful nod.
“Yes, we’re fine. Turns out I had a meeting with this gentleman that I had forgotten about. Can you bring my coffee to the table as well?”
“Sure, hon” Dianne replied and went to finish the latte. Venerae folded her long frame into the chair opposite Grigor, her face cold and expressionless. They sat like that for a couple of minutes until Venerae had her coffee delivered.
“Dianne, do you think you could close the cafe for a while?” Venerae asked her. “Maybe shut the front door and go for a walk or something?”
The poor woman looked at the pair of them, him with his hands laid flat on the table beside the untouched coffee and cookie, Venerae with her hands held below the narrow table top.
“It’s okay, Dianne” he assured her gently. “There is nothing to worry about”
Dianne was obviously torn and it made him sad to see her so distressed. It was selfish of Grigor to want this meeting, yet after so long he needed this moment, this chance to tell the one person in the world who might believe him.
“Please do as I ask, Dianne” Venerae said quietly, authoritatively, but with enough concern to make the woman agree. Venerae had always been like that, which is why he was drawn to her time after time.
They waited while Dianne quickly closed the front door to her business, telling a newly arrived couple of patrons she had to run an urgent errand. Once the pair were alone, he slowly raised up h cup of coffee and took a sip.
It was as divine as he remembered.
If there was a goddess of the coffee bean, her name was surely Dianne Somersby.
“Grigor Velovich, you have been ordered to face Judgement by the Board of Governors” Venerae told him, slowly and deliberately as befitted a sentence of death. “You know there is no plea that can alter the action that must be taken, no excuses that can avoid what is to come”
“I know, Sister, and I accept that my fate cannot be changed. The man you know as Grigor Velovich is a Warlock of the darkest kind, a stain upon the face of this world that deserves to be wiped away. I have killed and mutilated the innocent, used their blood and their souls to commit sorceries without a shred of remorse”
His words troubled her, that much he could tell at a glance. She expected him to fight, or to beg, perhaps to stammer out some self-serving reasons as to why they should be spared. In truth, the deeds he had committed repulsed even Grigor and he had seen the very worst of what humanity could do.
Over and over, time after time, seeing the depravity that infected the hearts and minds of endless souls across an eternity too long to be comprehended. Yet he remembered every such moment, the lives of villains and monsters and cowards all ranked in his memory, stretching back to the very dawn of time itself.
“What the hell are you, Velovich?” she snarled, one hand dropping to the sword beneath her coat.
“I am someone condemned to exist in Hell until the world is made into a paradise” he answered simply. He took a bite of the cookie while Venerae regarded him with wide, wild eyes. It tasted amazing, like everything touched by the gentle hands of Dianne Somersby.
“That’s not an answer!”
“Then how about I tell you a story, Venerae? A tale that you may not believe yet I can assure you is utterly true”
She didn’t reply but she didn’t deny him either so he began the tale. A tale he’d told her hundreds, maybe thousands of times before.
“Imagine, if you can, that a very long time ago a being of immense power and vision decided to create the world. They wanted it to be perfect and filled it with all manner of beings, from the tiniest of microbes to creatures so immense that they could block out the very sky. This world was set into motion against an infinite backdrop of stars, spinning around as the beings who dwelt there lived their simple lives, loving and fighting, breeding and dying as the years passed”
“To watch over this bright new world, the Creator - as they shall be henceforth known as - set smaller and weaker copies of themselves to guard this valuable jewel. These guardians were immensely powerful in their own right and some began to question whether the Creator deserved to possess such an incredible thing”
“The brightest and most potent of the guardians openly challenged the Creator, drawing to their side others who supported them in their foolish quest. Factions formed amongst the guardians, styling themselves as Lords of Creation, some fighting for the Creator and others against. A war was begun, terrible and vicious, tearing apart the very world that all of them wanted so badly”
“In the end, the world was destroyed and all the precious lives that it had contained were lost, fading away into nothingness. The Creator was enraged, full of wrath and fire for the one who had caused it all - the bright one they called the Morningstar”
“The Morningstar was torn away from the other guardians, confined in a prison that even the mighty Lords could not break open. Their conspirators were cowed and broken, vowing to do whatever they could to undo their terrible deeds”
“The Creator rebuilt the world anew, yet this time it was flawed, an imperfect copy of what it had once been. The Morningstar had tainted creation and the Lords knew that it could never be the same as it once was. Despair filled the hearts of all and the Morningstar wept in their prison, knowing that it was through their folly that the beautiful world had been lost”
“It took eons of thought before the Creator decided upon a new plan and they drew the Lords unto them, giving each of them tasks to be undertaken in their most potent name. A new world was to be created, filled over the vast time that such beings counted as mere moments with all manner of new life. These Lords would guide and protect this new world, helping to guide it towards the perfection that had once been lost”
“The Creator knew that there would be obstacles, traps and dangers that the burgeoning new world would have to overcome. They knew that no matter how keenly the Lords watched over the world, there was always the risk it would succumb to the darkness. To tear itself apart in a failed quest for perfection”
“They needed a way to test their creation, to make sure it would follow the right path. So the Morningstar was released from their unbreakable prison and given a task that was both reward and unbearable punishment”
“This fallen Lord, the Shining One, was to be reborn into the world as one of its inhabitants. They would live out their life as a kind of test subject, unknowing of their own true nature, pushing the boundaries of what the new world would allow. They were to be a seed of darkness and despair, the kind of being that would bring about the end of the world unless the world itself was able to stop them”
“If the new world chose not to stop the Morningstar, its destruction would follow soon after. Not by the hands of the Lords who watched over it but by the foolish and misguided choices of the people who dwelt within it. Each and every time, the Morningstar bore witness to the end of everything, and they were ashamed of what they had wrought”
“For here is the great tragedy of this tale. The Morningstar brought about the end of creation, yet in the last few hours of their life the true nature of their existence was revealed to them. Each and every life they had lived, over and over, across untold incarnations, the pain and suffering they had wrought was shown to them”
“This was the punishment of the Creator. To know at the end all of the mistakes they had made, the foolish choices they had willingly enacted. The Morningstar was condemned to the prison of eternity, enduring countless lives of misery and suffering, knowing only the truth when it was too late for them to change their fate”
Grigor stopped talking and took another sip of his coffee while Venerae regarded him with narrowed eyes.
“I assume that means you are the Morningstar?” Venerae asked him coldly.
“For my sins, I am” he admitted sadly.
“I have to give you full marks for providing me with the most elaborate excuse for your actions, Velovich” Venerae conceded. “But I think you’ll find it saves time to just say the Devil made you do it”
Grigor couldn’t help himself and let out a loud chuckle, then clutching at his side as the action aggravated his wound. Even so, he found himself smiling at the woman who had been sent to kill him.
“You tell me that every time!” he said. “No matter where and when we meet, my tale gets the same response. You are the one constant in every life I have lived and for that I am grateful, Venerae”
She looked as if she was about to leap the narrow table and throttle him, or perhaps to draw the sword at her hip and cut him down. Instead Venerae visibly settled and took a shallow sip of her own coffee.
“I’m here to end you, Velovich. To deliver the Judgement you have so richly earned. Why would you thank me?”
“Why? Because every time we meet, the world has lasted longer in this cycle than it ever did before. Because your very presence here means we are getting closer to the last cycle, the last time I will be reborn”
Venerae took another sip of Dianne’s excellent coffee and set the paper cup on the table.
“The Seers all say that the end of the world is coming, Velovich. We are teetering on the edge of oblivion, of the final Armageddon”
“As the world has done before, Venerae” Grigor replied. “Ragnarok has arrived times beyond measure, I can assure you of that. Yet this time it feels different, like my end is not going to signal the end of everything. It’s as if there is something new this time, some element that wasn’t there before”
“Like what?”
Grigor shrugged his shoulders and drained the dregs of his coffee, then put the remainder of the cookie into his mouth. As a last meal, he couldn’t have asked for anything finer.
“I’m not sure even the Creator knows with any certainty” he admitted ruefully. “But it would be nice to think this will be the last time we meet. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next”
He stood, slowly and painfully, both hands braced on the table top and gave his companion a tight smile.
“My time has come, dear executioner” Grigor said with a warmth that took Venerae by surprise. “Your people should have the place surrounded by now so we won’t be interrupted. May I suggest the service alley at the back of this fine establishment? I’d hate to make a mess of Dianne’s floor”
She didn’t stop him as Grigor opened the rear door of the Coffee Coffin and stepped out into the narrow alley. He stopped with his back to Venerae, allowing her time to gently close the door. At either end of the laneway he could see members of the Order of Michael, standing patiently with their weapons ready, awaiting the signal from the Sword.
“Just to be clear, I don’t believe you” Venerae told him. “However I am not without compassion so I will say this….”
She paused and then he heard her say the words he’d always wanted to hear.
“I hope this is the last time we meet”
He never heard her move, never felt the blade pierce his flesh. There was just a strange pressure in his chest and he looked down to see the bloodied tip of a sword protruding from his body.
Grigor wanted to thank her but the words would not come. His eyes closed and he collapsed into darkness.
=====
Venerae left the Hunters from the Order to deal with the body. She wasn’t even meant to be here, since she had retired from service months ago. Yet when her old mentor, Bishop Wainwright, had called he was adamant she needed to take up her old role one last time.
“He asked for you specifically, Venerae” the old man had told her. “Said he would surrender to the Judgement quietly only if it was you who delivered it”
Venerae sat at the table once again, taking the same spot that Velovich had vacated only recently. Her coffee was still warm enough to drink so she nursed the last of it, brooding over the strange encounter.
According to what the Bishop had said, the Warlock had been cornered by Hunters of the Order on the other side of the city. He’d killed one Squire and badly injured a Knight before escaping them, taking a sword thrust in the side as he fled.
Grigor Velovich could have gone anywhere, used his power and influence to flee the death sentence he’d been given. Instead he’d come here to the Coffee Coffin and waited for his executioner to arrive, drinking coffee and eating a cookie as casually as you please.
“Are you alright, hon?”
Venerae looked up at Dianne Somersby, watching her with anxious eyes. She guessed that at some point the Order had let her re-open the cafe, their business concluded.
“Could I get another coffee, please? And maybe one of those delicious cookies?”
“Sure” Dianne said affably. “A chocolate chip one like your friend had?”
“Yeah. Like my friend had”
=====
He found himself on the edge of a vast ocean, the water lapping gently at his bare feet. The suit he was wearing was unchanged although the blood no longer stained the expensive cloth it was made from. Where his Italian leather shoes and hand woven socks had vanished to was a complete mystery but he didn’t let it trouble him.
The sky was an odd shade of blue, closer to a pale purple with no clouds at all in the broad swathe of sky he could see. It was beautiful and he let himself admire it for a while as the waves rolled almost silently against the stone covered shore.
“They’re waiting for you” a deep, masculine voice called out to him.
He turned and saw a rough looking wooden shack built against the dunes that edged the shoreline. It had a porch at the front with a simple set of steps leading upwards to where a screen-covered door offered access to the interior.
On the porch a man sat watching him, drinking leisurely from a can of beer, an insulated box at his side presumably containing more. He gave him a smile and beckoned him closer.
“I’m Uncle Rex” the man declared. “Nobody else was game to bid you welcome so I volunteered. Come and have a beer if you like”
He looked along the shore to his right, seeing distant dark shapes hovering at the very edge of his vision. Some were tall, some were thin, some seemed to shimmer and shift from one form to another.
“They’re worried that you’ll be taking over now that you are here” the man who called himself Rex announced cheerfully. “If you ask me the Lords of the After need a bit of a wake up call, so maybe your arrival is a good thing”
He walked across the beach, the tiny stones under his bare feet crunching with a sound like bones being broken. At the foot of the wooden steps he paused, regarding Rex with eyes as dark as the deepest hole in the earth.
“Are you not afraid of me, Rex?” he asked in a voice that was as soft as silk, as slippery as oil.
“Nope. I’m already dead so I don’t think anything worse can happen after that. Did you want a beer? My niece brings them to me from the other side so I can guarantee they taste okay”
“A cold beer sounds good” he agreed and climbed the steps, his bare feet leaving smoking imprints in the weathered timber. “I assume you know who I am?”
“Yeah, but I don’t worry too much about that kind of stuff” Rex replied with a grin. “While you’re here, what should I call you?”
“I’ve had many names, Rex. What do you think would suit me best?”
The man took a sip of his beer, pondering his reply.
“How about I call you Nick?”
“That sounds fine by me” Nick answered and took the other seat, a worn and weathered rocking chair fashioned from wood so old it was completely grey. When he sat down, it felt finer and more comfortable than any throne he’d occupied in all of eternity.
“The Lords tell me they expected you to arrive in chains, trussed up like a vicious animal until the Cycle begins anew. When you arrived like you did, they absolutely crapped themselves!”
Rex chuckled again at the thought and Nick allowed himself a smile.
“Things are different this time” Nick agreed and accepted the can of beer his companion proffered. “For a start, nobody has been willing to share a drink with me in the After. Perhaps I have been forgiven for my sins at last”
“I wouldn’t read too much into it, Nick” Rex commented sagely. “It’s just a beer. I have no idea what the Creator intends for you”
“That may be so, yet I feel there is more to you than meets the eye, Uncle Rex”
Nick opened the can and drank deeply, surprised at how cold and refreshing the beer was. It tasted like the world he had left behind and he thought about his last moments with Venerae. About the things he would miss from the mortal world.
“Rex, this niece of yours who brings you beer. Does she live anywhere near the Coffee Coffin in Southbank?”
“Not exactly, but she seems to be able to go anywhere she wants to these days” Rex answered affably. “Is the coffee there any good?”
Nick contemplated the ocean, his gaze drawn to the empty horizon. He felt no need to rush things, to race towards the end that had come so many times before. It felt like there was time now to sit quietly, admire the view and drink something pleasant.
“I’d say it’s the best coffee I’ve ever had”
