Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

His reasons. The only problem is, I have to keep replacing the heads. They wear out very quickly, and it's often hard to work out exactly what God is saying, when the mouth is rotting and falling apart. I know, I know; the bad workman blames his tools, but… The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Still, there's never any shortage of traitors and heretics. Sometimes I find them among my own people when I'm in a hurry. God doesn't like to be kept waiting."
    Tel nodded slowly, keeping his face blank. No wonder Finn wanted Angel replaced. It might undermine the faith of the Church Militant fanatics, if word got out that their revered spiritual leader had gone barking mad. Tel sighed inwardly. Perhaps… if he got Angelo out of here, away from all this, and the pressures of the job… then perhaps he could be coaxed back into his right mind. Mother would take him in. She always did.
    Angelo had always been her favorite.
    "You can't stay here, Angelo," Tel said carefully. "It isn't safe anymore. I need you to come with me now."
    He reached out a hand to his brother across the desk, but Angelo recoiled immediately. A slow craftiness entered his gaze, and his voice rose sharply.
    "No, this is my place! I have made it a holy place, and sacred. I can never leave here. The world is a dirty, sinful place, full of liars and schemers… Nowhere else is safe now. They plot against me, they do, even the Durandal. I never trusted him. But I know what's going on. I have my sources, and God tells me many things. I live on pure air, you know. I have transcended the need for grosser nourishment. Angels are above all mortal weaknesses. You must go. I have a sermon to finish. The people are waiting to hear from me. They rely on me."
    I can't kill him, Tel thought slowly. It might almost be a merciful release, but even so… I can't murder a helpless pathetic mess like this. It would be like poisoning a small child. It seems… there are some lines that even I won't cross. Who would have guessed it?
    "Come with me, Angelo," he said, with something very like compassion in his voice. "Let me take you home."
    "I can't go home," said Angelo. He sounded suddenly tired, resigned. "I don't belong there anymore.
    Finn gave me so many drugs, and I took them… and now I have to stay in the place I made for myself.
    Did I ever tell you about what happened in that Church, on Madraguda, all those years ago? I lied. It wasn't like that at all."
    "I know," said Tel.
    "I thought I found my path there, and my destiny. But all I really found was the darkness in my own soul.
    Get out of here, Tel. You can't help me. Even I can't help me now. I must do… what I must do."
    "Angelo…"
    "Get out, Tel. Before God tells me to hurt you…"
    Tel backed slowly out of the dimly lit room, not taking his eyes off his brother, and then he left, closing the door firmly. He looked at the secretary behind her desk, shook his head helplessly, and strode off back through the Cathedral. And wondered where the hell he could go, where Finn Durandal wouldn't be able to find him.
    It didn't take long for the news to get back to Finn. Tel wouldn't have been surprised if Angelo's secretary Marion hadn't put in the call herself. Either way, Tel had barely found a private comm booth, and started calling round his so-called friends and allies, when he discovered that the word was already out on him. And the word from Finn was death. There was to be no chance for explanations, or excuses.
    Most of the people Tel called wouldn't take his call, and those few who would seemed to take an inordinate delight in informing him that he was no longer any associate of theirs. Tel Markham had been disowned from on high, and now he was an outcast, a pariah, with a price on his head. Some gloated, some even made threats, but most just wanted him to go away and never call them again. Because failure might be catching.
    Tel left the booth and wandered off down the street. He hadn't spent long enough on any call for anyone to be able to trace him, but he felt a need to keep moving. He knew there was only one place he could safely go now, but he resisted the idea, his thoughts plunging wildly back and forth for some alternative.
    Because once he fell into the Rookery, that was the end of his soft, comfortable, privileged life. He hated to think he'd thrown it all away, just because of a brother he'd never even liked much. And then he stopped, and looked at the vid screens on display in a store