The Mummies of Blogspace9: Chapter Forty

July 24, 2011
Seville, Spain
Duran http://www.harqubusier.blogspace9.ex

The boy acquitted himself well.  Although I haven’t known the sensation of fear for centuries, I confess to some manner of trepidation as we approached the door.  No matter what transpired next, behind that door waited my maker.  I was not entirely eager to meet him.

July 24, 2011
Seville, Spain
Hanson http://www.historyismine.blogspace9.ex

I didn’t know what to expect.  Not this: a fireplace-lit moldering study that might have been ornate and comfortable some decades or centuries ago, two metro Seville policemen done up in riot gear carrying automatic weapons, and one very old man.

If he had passed me on the street, I’m not sure he would have stood out in any physical sense.  He was neither thin nor fat, tall nor short.  He wore a gray sweater and gray corduroy pants which complimented his gray skin and reddish-gray eyes.  All things considered, except for the petrifying odor and aura of desolation, he could have been mistaken for an old homeless man.  But he wasn’t.  He was Gaspar Quiroga y Vela, the five-hundred-year-old demonically-possessed Grand Inquisitor of Spain.

“I haven’t much time,” he said as he tossed a pile of recyclable grocery bags onto the floor.  “I’m to be married today.  The lady in question is fairly begging to feel my spirit inside her.”

Hard as it was to look away, I stole a glance at the bags – they were from SuperSol, the popular chain where I did most of my food shopping.  “Those are for your heads,” he explained, “if I don’t get what I want within the minute.”

Cuellar collapsed and began to grovel.  I heard some Hail Marys, but most of it was begging, which was really too bad because he wasn’t helping our position.  To be honest, I couldn’t take my eyes off the grocery bags.

Quiroga smiled warmly, taking us in one by one.  “My children.”  He nodded to Naya who backed away, and to Duran who didn’t move, “welcome home.”  Moving on to Sacromonte, “you I have not yet met, but I’m pleased to have this opportunity prior to your imminent expiration.  And you,” moving on to me, “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to join me.  My new prince.”

“I didn’t come to join you,” I said, but he just nodded.

“You did.  You did.”  He motioned to one of the policemen who came at me fast, sweeping my feet with a baton and dropping me flat on my back.

“You went down almost as easily as your lovely Lane did, though I dare say she was more eager.  I miss her; she was pliant.”

I tried to catch my breath as the policeman flipped me over and searched me.  I had hidden the malleus momias book in the inseam of my jacket, and it took him about four seconds to find it.  Dutifully, he delivered it to his patron.

Quiroga regarded the book solemnly, turning the pages carefully as if they might crumble in his hands.  “I had no notion it even existed.  Rumors, yes, but I thought them just that.”  He spent a few moments reading the text as I regained my breath.  Cuellar had groveled his way closer and now hung at his leg.

“Something of a tumi, the sword of the indians, was also mentioned in your communications.  Give it to me.”

I shook my head, but a more thorough and considerably more painful search led to the discovery of the tumi in my sock, and its near pulverization beneath a police boot.

Quiroga laughed; it was little more than a giggle.  He held up the book.  “Then all you have are words.”  He shook his head.  “Don’t misunderstand, I know how powerful words can be.  Precautions must be taken in case you have memorized the text.”  With another nearly-imperceptible motion, he gestured to the nearest policeman who began winding a roll of tape around my head, shutting my mouth.

At that, Quiroga held up my precious and hard-won malleus momias book and tossed it into the fireplace.  It caught the flame immediately and began to burn brightly.  “Now then,” he continued, “as to revealing the location of my gold, or removing your heads, which shall we do first?”

What transpired next transpired so quickly that I still have trouble piecing it together.  As one policeman hauled me up to my knees and the other produced a serrated knife, Duran turned to our host and fired that ancient rifle he’d been hauling around.  “This once is for you, sopay,” he growled, but it produced a tiny wisp of smoke, nothing more.

Quiroga frowned.  Sacromonte deftly shot one of the policemen who caught him in the chest with his own fire as he went down.  My precious Naya made quick work of the other.

Finding himself quite outnumbered, Quiroga lowered his gaze and began petting Cuellar’s hair.  “There, there,” he said turning to watch the book burn in the fireplace, “forgiveness can be at hand, my son.  Let us understand that nothing left in this world can hurt me.  Now… as to my gold.”

Sacromonte shot him from the floor but he didn’t even flinch.  I’m not certain he noticed.  I was focused on getting the tape off my mouth but it wasn’t happening too easily.

I didn’t see Duran step around me, but he must have.  Sword drawn, he came at the old man and drove the blade deep into his abdomen, pinning him to the desk.  “Vasco,” Duran called out, “Vasco, I’m a swordsman after all.”

There was no more grinning at this point, no more giggling.  I heard something guttural emanate from the old man, something not quite human.  There was some manner of struggle as his skin began to crack.

“Santo demonios,” Cuellar moaned, “Santo sopay.”

Duran stood his ground as Quiroga, his demon enraged, strode purposefully towards him.  Still pinned to the antique desk by the sword, he pulled the desk along with him as if it were no inconvenience.

Sacromonte emptied his gun to no effect.  Naya stood frozen at my side, a policeman’s head in one hand.  Duran laughed.  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, sopay.”  I, for my part, retrieved what spindly bits of the tumi remained, and hurled them at the demon.  I’m not sure what good it did; the tumi might have been a prop, nothing more, as swords often but not always are.  Then I hit the PLAY button on my laptop.

What rang out through my speakers were just words, of course.  But throughout human history, words have had the power to move mountains, to forge alliances, to alter destinies, and to vanquish evil.  The transcription of the malleus momias I uploaded to the internet made those words available to anyone on the planet.  It was a fitful yet melodic tongue, and I had recorded the words as best I could.

Those words might provide some comfort to a Peruvian cane farmer who might still shut his windows against the cool night rather than stare any longer at the pyramids of old.  Those words might provide some solace to a dynasty of gypsies long overdue their reward.  Those words might ease the sorrows of men and women transformed against their will to something not of their choosing.  Those words were the salvation of a historian and his undead friends who vanquished an evil long in need of vanquishing.

As soon as that sopay understood what was happening, he extricated that sword from his abdomen and hurled it at my head.  I’d not be sharing this missive had not Duran sacrificed his left hand in catching it.  “That’s just one more thing,” he conceded as he retrieved his hand from the floor.

And he might have made it, that sopay.  He might have made it out of the room, out of the range of my puny laptop speakers had Cuellar not clung tightly to his leg.  Not so easy to dislodge as a Toledo sword, Cuellar was a creature of his making – an undead priest, strong in body and conviction.

“Forgive me, Father,” Vasco Quiroga said, holding tightly as the demon screamed and writhed himself out of existence.  “I’ve been sinning for a very long time.”

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