This story contains mature subject matter.
It has been submitted, in serial form, to fictionmania in the first part of 2001. Submitted to Crystal's story site on August 5, 2001.
Permission required from the author to post elsewhere.

 

Who Is Mercy Wild?               by: Jacquie Windsor             jacquie@sissy.net

 

Chapter 1

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"Boadie's late again," sighed Terry, the lead singer and guitarist of Gearjammer. "I just don't think that guy's got the heart to be in a band, you know?"

The Dutch boys just snickered. Everyone called them the Dutch boys, since they both came from New York, and their last names began with Van. A lot of people in their crowd didn't even know their real names.

Scott, the bass player, was the vainer of the two. He took pride in his physical shape, although his fine blonde hair was already thinning at the age of twenty-five. Anyone who pointed this out would quickly become aware of Scott's temper and his fighting skills. He could be bloodied, but not beaten.

Brent, the rhythm guitarist, lived and breathed in the same rarefied intellectual ionosphere as cartoon characters like Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd. He snorted absent-mindedly when perplexed, inebriated, content or annoyed. Or any combination of those four states of mind. For Brent, this was pretty much all the time.

Apart from playing music, the two enjoyed drinking and fighting as their two favourite pastimes.

"Unlax, Terror," said Brent. "Boadie's a drummer…sngkgk. Like, he needs space or whatever…you know it."

Terry approved quietly of his unofficial name. He was hardly a terror apart from his searing slide guitar style. He often felt he was the best musician in the group, although the others felt that Boadie added a professional dimension in spite of his erratic behaviour.

He glared dolefully at the Dutch boys, fully aware that a combative verbal response could easily start a fistfight in the rented warehouse where they practised. As Brent had put it, he had to 'unlax'.

"At least," he thought, "Johnny doesn't worry about this kind of shit."

Terry glanced over at the keyboardist, who was meticulously shining the keys on a bank of synthesisers that dominated one corner of the practise space. Johnny Fairmont was quietly fond of his machinery, reserved and tolerant.

"If I had as many songs rejected by the group as he has, I would've quit a long time ago," Terry mused. "The Dutch boys won't give a chance to anything too wimpy. Shit, they even sped up 'All Along The Watchtower' till it was under two minutes."

Terry glanced at the clock, then at the orange bar of light seeping through the frosted glass of the warehouse windows. For all the free time he wasted waiting for Boadie, he could have been doing something worthwhile. His jaded girlfriend of five years had recently ditched him for an insurance salesman, and the odd hours kept by a C circuit bar band prevented him from pursuing a more feasible career.

"I have to be out of here before ten," said Johnny, as the orange sunset grew increasingly red. "I do have a class tomorrow morning."

"Don't be a fool; drop out of school," jeered Scott, swigging a vodka-spiked soft drink.

"Yeah…sngkgk," grunted Brent.

The towers of intellect were at it again. Johnny fell silent.

As the red sunset deepened into violet, the heavy sound of clomping boots on the metal steps outside signalled the arrival of the drummer. The door burst open to reveal the six-foot-four Boadie, a duffel bag over one shoulder and a cymbal stand in one hand.

"I'm here, ladies. And nothing but net, either."

"What do you mean? What's the poop?" asked Terry.

"Always thinking. And always thinking big," replied Boadie, elbowing past the Dutch boys to deposit the bag and the stand near the drum kit. "Band meeting tonight. No practise. You just got to listen, that's all."

Johnny looked disappointed. Terry stared at the linebacker physique of the drummer, wondering what kind of scheme he had in mind. He recalled the time Boadie had pressured the group to travel from their native Idaho to Los Angeles. The quintet agreed to open for The Dickies and 7 Seconds at the Lhasa Club. Some time during the show, their van headlights were kicked out while, inside, they were mercilessly ignored as the crowd drank and grew restless. Finally, the boldest and drunkest people in the room gathered bottles and cans to throw at them until the sound and light guys unplugged everything. Gearjammer was hastened from the stage by the bouncers and left with a cheque that Boadie had neglected to get signed.

Broke and hundreds of miles from home, four of the five band members pressured Johnny into calling his parents collect and having them wire money to him. The trip nearly destroyed the band, but Terry convinced Johnny not to make the bailout an issue by repaying half of the money himself. A year later the band was still intact, but the spirit had dimmed considerably. Rather than dreaming of impending stardom, they played working-class joints in Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington State.

It paid the rent.

"Terror! Snap out of it, buddy," bellowed the drummer. "I'm talking a straight up deal here. No bullshit."

Terry blinked and approached the front of the drum kit, where Boadie had gathered the rest of the band.

"Like I said, the transportation is pre-paid, so no 1985 all over again," he announced. "We just have to take the van to Seattle and catch a flight out of there. It's in the bag. Just don't think about it."

"What deal is this?" interrupted Terry. "Where did you get this from?"

"Moonlighting, of course," replied Boadie with a surreptitious grin.

"Huh?"

The entire group was aware that other touring groups eagerly sought Boadie's talents. Sometimes he would have to cancel his stint with Gearjammer for a week or two at a time in order to fulfil an obligation. At times they knew he was performing with up to five different bands. Still, the four grown boys at Boadie's feet exhaled in mock wonder.

"Two words: 'Mercy Wild'," he boomed, gesturing as though viewing the name on a marquee.

"What the hell's that mean?" mumbled Brent.

"Mercy Wild was the promoter that brought The Screamers to Amsterdam," explained Boadie.

"I don't think they ever went, you know?" suggested Johnny.

"Well, if they would've, they would've got ten thousand bucks, just like we're gonna make."

Terry looked at the Dutch boys, to determine whether they, too, were as sceptical as he and Johnny were. They didn't appear to be.

"Is this like a real thing or what?" the lead guitarist asked Boadie. "I mean, we're not even on tour or nothing. How the fuck do we get offered a gig for ten thousand bucks?"

Boadie affected astonishment.

"I'm worth it," he beamed, thrusting his big thumbs towards his chest. "You guys can be in for the ride or whatever the god damn you want. Or just fuck it and play rat holes from here to fucking Nebraska.

"Look, right here, I have a signed contract. All we need is everyone's signature and, for some kind of reason, a recent photo and a thumbprint."

Boadie drew a sheaf of crumpled papers from his duffel bag and shoved them under Terry's nose.

"Got it all figured, then?" replied the guitarist, accepting the document and beginning to skim through the pages.

"Abso-fucking-lutely," Boadie smiled. "The plane takes us to some place in Europe. We're gonna play on some island or something."

"Corcyra."

"What?"

"It says here, Corcyra," Terry said, indicating the name on one of the dozens of pages in the contract. "Where the fuck is that?"

"It's an island in the Mediterranean Sea," said Johnny, adjusting his wire-framed glasses further up his nose. "More like in the Adriatic, seriously."

"Ten thousand buck…sngkgk," added Brent.

"Let me actually real life read this thing first," said Terry. "Some things sound too good to be true and this might be one of them."

Boadie merely nodded and grinned. "Do whatever you want, Thoroughgood. Say, Johnny, is this Corcyra place anywhere near a beach?"

"It's an island, Boadie. I guess it probably is somewhere near a beach."

"God damn styling."

Terry spent much of the next five days reading and re-reading the contract. The promoter, Mercy Wild, apparently owned a production company named Circe Exhibitions, Incorporated. That bulky title was shortened to CEI after the first page. Some legalese in the second last page referred to a European branch office in Zurich, Switzerland. The company was directed by Mercy and someone named Hoss Weimar. Tiny print in nearly unreadable font explained that CEI was a subsidiary of Goldfarb International, PLC. In turn, their major stakeholder was MDCCCLXXXIX, a cumbersome Roman numeral that Terry had no inclination to decipher.

"Seems an awfully lot more legitimate than a bogus cheque scribbled out on the hood of a car," thought the lanky musician.

"Procul dubio singuli Episcopi, ut fidei magistri, nisi per totius Collegii episcopalis actum ad universalem fidelium communitatem non sese convertunt…"

Thus began the first paragraph on the backing page. Terry was rapidly losing interest in the contract. The guitarist figured that the amount of detail outweighed any other consideration.

"Whoever put this together had a lot of time on their hands. It's only a gig."

Terry yawned. Scratching himself idly, he picked up the phone to call Scott. He had already phoned the rest of the band to confirm that the CEI proposition looked like a good one.

"Van Heusen residence," spoke a neat female voice. It was Scott's mom. The bass player still lived at his parents' house, although he rarely left his room in the cellar.

"Can I talk to Scott? It's Terry."

"He is at a basketball game with his brother," explained Mrs. Van Heusen. "May I take a message?"

"Oh yeah, tell him to pack his gear. We're going to Cor-something-or-other. The gig's going down. It's just all right."

"You boys have such a disastrous vocabulary," chuckled the voice. "But I'll write down your message and give it to him. I know he'll understand it. He's been quite enthusiastic about touring."

Two days later the contract was completed. The five band members fulfilled the unusual stipulation of a thumbprint and a photograph, and the whole package was shipped by express post to a destination on the East Coast. Terry had left his own telephone number is a return contact, since they needed directions to pick up the airline tickets once they got to Seattle.

On the Tuesday morning they were scheduled to leave, the expected call came just an hour past sunrise. Terry was slumped unconscious on the sofa, which doubled as a bed, in the middle of his bachelor apartment.

"Oh fuck," he grumbled audibly, grabbing aimlessly at the receiver.

"Mr. Gramwitz?"

"Yeah, Terry here."

The voice on the other end of the line reverberated as though it came from inside an echo chamber. It was disconcerting simply to listen to, and especially at this time of day.

"Once you are at the terminal, your preparations will be taken care of. Park the vehicle in the 'Yellow Elephant' zone. If you are unsure where that is, merely look for a large sign bearing the likeness of a yellow elephant. Your arrival is expected prior to sundown tonight"

Terry snickered. The echoing voice continued.

"There will be a space among six identical Chevrolet-manufactured automobiles. It is designated 'Reserved: CEI' with a banner that you should easily identify. Once you do this, further directions shall become clear. Do you understand, Mr. Gramwitz?"

"Yeah, whatever. Go to the yellow elephant and park in the Chevys. How could I fuck that up?"

"You could, as you say, 'fuck it up', Mr. Gramwitz, by neglecting to understand. As long as you do understand, the contract shall be fulfilled."

"Say, when exactly do we get paid?"

"The payment will be performed as the contract is completed, Mr. Gramwitz. That is right there on the document itself."

"Oh shit, right," agreed Terry. "What's the gig like? I mean, like, the audience and that. Old? Young? Punky? Rockabilly? Easy listening? What?"

"They will be satisfactory," came the answer. Then a dial tone.

Terry felt like falling asleep again. Yet as slumber threatened to overtake him, the sonorous echo from the telephone call jolted him awake. He climbed off the sofa and peeled on his jeans and a T-shirt. Then he went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a can of Coke, tilted his head back, and swallowed the contents in four hurried gulps.

According to the agreement, they would be supplied with a drum kit and amplifiers, so Terry only had to sling his guitar and a small suitcase out the van to begin the journey. Brent, then Boadie, then Johnny, were each picked up at their respective homes, and the vehicle motored to the Van Heusen residence.

"I'll go get the motherfucker," offered Brent.

"Go ahead. But get him out here now," warned Boadie. "If he screws everything up, I'll shoot the bastard."

Brent wandered up the driveway to the front door of Scott's place, pausing once to flick his middle finger back at the rest of the band. Once at the door, he hammered on it audaciously, without a thought for the occupants.

There was no answer. The inarticulate Dutch boy rained blows on the door with his fist. Two minutes after he'd first approached the house, he grew impatient and reached for the door handle. It gave way to his fierce grip, and the rest of Gearjammer watched, equally impatient, as Brent disappeared into the house.

There was little sound inside the comfortable residence. The floor seemed to pulse with an even rhythm as Brent searched for Scott. He called out once, without reply. On the main floor, the house appeared to be vacant, with a sterile comfort ordinarily reserved for housekeeping magazines.

The even rhythm persisted as Brent found himself at the head of a staircase leading down. As he started down the steps, he realised that the rhythm conformed to a tune he remembered hearing somewhere. Halfway down the steps, the sounds were unmistakably that of a song. He simply couldn't place the melody among his repertoire.

By the time Brent reached the base of the stairs, he could hear a full band, playing a catchy song. The song was voiced over by a haunting androgynous echo, as though Klaus Nomi and Patsy Cline had merged into a single being.

"This is shit music, sngkgk," Brent convinced himself. "Total fucking shit. Scott!"

Sensing a pale glow from behind a closed door in the basement, the rhythm guitarist punched it wide open with a single powerful blow. To his utter revulsion, Brent found Scott completely bedecked in a diaphanous frock, crowned with a lustrous blonde wig, and cavorting aimlessly in a room decorated with posters, fabrics and colours he'd expect in a fifteen-year-old girl's room. The place even smelled of lavender and roses.

"Holy fucking fuck," screamed Brent.

Brent ran up the stairs, clambering like a scared animal, moving his legs and arms at full speed until he reached the van.

"What the fuck are you on?" challenged Boadie. "Where's Scott?"

"A freaking fruitcake, pansy-ass, motherfucker," bleated Brent. "He's totally gayed out down in his room. Let's get the hell outta here!"

Terry blinked at his co-guitarist.

"Calm down, Brent, seriously. Where's Scott?"

Brent quickly explained what he had witnessed. The rest of the band, including Johnny, laughed heartily at Brent's unsubtle joke.

"Yeah, Scott's in there all pansied up like some fruit, right?" chortled Boadie.

"Yes, fuck, I told you that," Brent yelled.

"So, dingleballs, if I go in there right now, that's what I'll find. Scott in some bitch outfit?"

Brent nodded wildly.

"OK, Brent, you win this one. I'll go in and find it out for myself."

Boadie slid open the rear van door, against the vehement protests of Brent, and the genuine laughter of Terry and Johnny. He walked straight up to the house and into the foyer. There was no detectable sound, but he knew that Scott's room was in the basement.

The heavy drummer descended the steps quickly, eager to prove Brent wrong. He scurried to the door to Scott's room, which opened as though by magic at his advance. Boadie nearly ran Scott right over.

"What's up?" queried Scott.

Boadie craned his neck to see past Scott before the light switch could be turned off. The dark colours of a true thrashcore apostle greeted his gaze.

"So where's the lavender?" Boadie asked.

"Huh?"

"Oh, didn't Brent tell you? He said you smelled like lavender or some lame shit."

Scott's eyes blazed. If Boadie didn't have a reputation for being able to absorb unbelievable physical assault without so much as flinching, the bass player would have attacked him right there.

"Brent said I'm a fag?"

"I think you better ask him," snorted Boadie, noticing that Scott was dressed in the decadent style he always did. No roses. No bouncy rhythm on the stereo. Altogether, there was nothing to remotely hint of the things Brent was raving about.

"I take it we're going on this gig?" Scott asked. "I've been waiting whatever for an hour for you fuckheads to show. Five more minutes and I'd have given up."

Boadie and Scott returned to the base of the stairs, ascending them and departing from the house. Brent glared suspiciously at Boadie and Scott, as though an awful trick had been perpetrated upon him. The entire drive to Seattle was punctuated with offhand threats between the two Dutch boys, a treat to which their band mates were seldom privy.

"Whatever they're on, it's good," Johnny said to himself. "They only pick on each other now, and leave me alone."

The airport lights winked ahead as the sun began to cast long shadows.

"We're supposed to be here before sunset," mentioned Terry, guiding the van towards one of the vast parking lots surrounding the terminal. Each lot was marked with a different colour: red, blue, green, violet and yellow. Remembering the instructions, he drove past the yellow gate. Long rows of vehicles sat along standards bearing the silhouettes of wild animals. It was easy, as the voice predicted, to find the yellow elephant. The reserved sign, among six late model Chevys, was equally obvious.

"I hope none of you idiots brought any dope with you," cautioned Boadie, as the van engine switched off. "This is an international flight and we can probably get dope there anyways."

Each of the Dutch boys shrugged insolently.

"Shit, I mean it, I ain't telling you for my health. I don't want to miss out on my cut just because one of you superstars got busted at customs."

"Fuck you, of course not," Brent hissed. Scott echoed those thoughts.

The quintet began to exit the van. Terry was startled to see a tall woman in a navy suit emerge suddenly from around another van. It was situated just on the other side of a low concrete barrier, next to one of the cars that marked the reserved spot.

He felt a tingling on the back of his neck, as though an electrical current was passing nearby. The slim guitarist turned towards his four cohorts. Although he was able to move freely, he noticed that each one of the four appeared to be rooted to the spot as though frozen in time. He swung around to peer at the woman.

"What's going on here?" he demanded. "Who are you?"

"My name's irrelevant," smiled the woman. "I see you've largely met the conditions so far. I believe the only thing left now is to get you guys on a plane."

Terry squinted at her in disbelief. How could she be carrying on so nonchalantly when something was so apparently wrong?

"What's happening here? I feel real weird, and my band looks like they're all frozen."

The woman looked about quizzically. "I'm not sure I understand, Mr. Gramwitz. You and your band are basically on schedule. You're not on drugs or something, are you?"

Terry ran his fingers through his dark hair, then wearily down to his neck. That seemed to stop the tingling sensation.

"Maybe I'm just tired from the drive. I just don't know. Something seems, like, different, I guess."

The smartly dressed woman nodded. "Probably you're just tired. It's nothing. Just get the gear you have and place it into the rear of my van. We need to use a private airstrip, not the main airport here."

At the woman's leisurely direction, Terry unloaded the equipment himself, stepping around the others who continued to stand motionless nearby. At the same time, he felt a compulsion to do all the work without questioning the woman any further.

"It must be my imagination," he thought, taking the last load out of their band vehicle and securing the latch before trudging over to where the woman stood. He climbed willingly, somewhat exhausted, into the back and laid down quietly on the carpet near his guitar. Placing a tired hand on his own neck, Terry massaged the spot the tingling emanated from. He felt his own breathing become uneven and forced.

He blinked and glared through a spotty mist as Boadie's square-jawed face loomed over him.

"Terror. You all right or what?"

The guitarist tried to sit up and get his bearings. The van was not their own, and it was obviously moving along the road.

"You guys. What happened?"

"I think you passed out, Bud."

Terry realised that the other four band members were also crouched in the seatless rear area of the vehicle. The tingling was gone from his neck.

"We're going to an airstrip, right?"

"Yeppers," nodded Scott.

"So who was the woman in the suit?"

Boadie's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Terror, just 'cause Brent's seeing shit don't mean you are too. Stop fucking around. You just hit your head on the door after you parked the van."

Terry rubbed his head, where a bruise hid in his scalp. "For real?"

Boadie laughed. The others joined him. Terry managed a vapid grin.

"I must just be tired, you know, distracted and shit. Long drive."

"Any excuse, Bud," acknowledged Boadie.

"So, we're all here. Who's driving?"

"The CEI dude," replied Scott. "Just like Boadie said. Piece of cake, you know."

Terry relaxed and joined the others in a freewheeling banter, trying to shake the ethereal cobwebs from his mind. He wondered, though, whether the jarring memory he'd had about the woman and frozen time were similar to what Brent had experienced back at Scott Van Heusen's house. As darkness crawled in for the night, the van turned down a bumpy side road towards their departure point, and he knew there would be time, later, to buttonhole Brent and get his version of events.

The vehicle ground to a stop. Terry saw, as Boadie had promised, that it was a male figure who emerged as a dark silhouette as the side door rolled open.

"Off we go," urged his voice, "just pack up what you got and let's get sailing."

The group shuffled out of the van, unloaded the gear, and followed the man towards the roar of a small jet. They traversed a dry grass field and a short stretch of asphalt, clambering onto the plane in relative silence. Naturally, the jet engine roar drowned out everything else, only subsiding once the cabin door was closed.

Within a few minutes, the man disappeared into the front of the aircraft, the cabin pressure was adjusted, and the plane accelerated down the runway and into the black skies.

"Excellent rush, man," nodded Scott. "Love the way these little planes sort of just take off."

"You've been in one of these before?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah, of course. Flew one for the mujahedin in Afghanistan, man. Absolutely."

Boadie wrinkled his nose at Scott's boastful lie. "Get any Nepalese Temple Weed off them, Scottie?"

Scott grinned and nodded, unaware that Boadie had simply invented a type of pot. The drummer thought for a few seconds, then decided against beginning a fistfight in the jet. He felt relaxed and confident, especially with the prestige of having found this easy gig for the band.

The interior of the jet was comfortable, with plush individual seats facing forward and offering plenty of legroom. Brent and Johnny sat near the front, followed by Scott and Boadie, with Terry occupying a single seat near the middle rear of the cabin section.

"Pretty styling jet," Scott said to Boadie across the wide aisle. "Can't complain about the transportation, hey?"

Boadie attempted a response, but his attention turned to a small screen descending from the ceiling of the cabin. It covered the door to the cockpit in a deliberate, casual motion.

"In-flight entertainment," said Terry. "No problem."

The lights in the cabin dimmed as a wide beam of white shone from just above Terry's head. All five of the young men had a perfect view of the screen.

"Yabba-dabba-doo!" shouted the familiar image of Fred Flintstone.

"Flintstones?" groaned Johnny. "This is just dumb."

The jet streaked noiselessly over the Great Plains. Inside, Fred and Barney were entertaining the band with double the effect that Hanna or Barbera expected.

Scott grinned at the slapstick antics on the screen. The vivid colours and easy dialogue kept his interest, taking his mind off the long flight to Greece.

"Wil-mahhhhhh!" yelled Fred. "Where's my dinner?"

"Coming, Fred," said the impossibly thin waisted wife of the quarryman. She carried a plate of oversized ribs to the table. "Oh Fred, Brent wanted to tell you that he was going to the Loyal Order Of Water Buffalo meeting at the bowling alley tonight. Now you know I don't like you hanging out all the time at the bowling alley."

Scott leaned forward in his seat. He was sure that Wilma had just referred to Barney Rubble as 'Brent'.

"Well you can tell that sawed off runt that tonight's my night to shave my legs and watch soap operas with my Wilma."

"Oh Fred, you're such a sissy," cried Wilma. She reached for the seashell telephone to call the Rubble residence.

"What the fuck is this?" bellowed Scott.

Boadie glared over at the bassist. Scott appeared to be delusional, scowling at the humorous delights portrayed by the Flintstone characters. The bulky drummer watched Scott, rather than the screen, slowly gathering a logical link between the experiences related by Brent and then Terry. And now, possibly, by Scott.

Scott's interpretation of the cartoon became increasingly different than what the others were seeing. His version displayed Fred as a cross-dressing neurotic who was fixated on housework.

"Tyum-te-tum-tum," warbled Fred, garbed in a lavender frock, his permanent five o'clock shadow deeply rouged. He sat cross-legged in a chair in the stone house, darning some socks. A nearby porcupine glared quizzically as Fred plucked a new needle from his nest of quills.

"Oh boy, now the lady of the house is looking for a prick," complained the porcupine.

Scott leapt from his seat, screaming at the screen. Boadie intercepted him, knocking him forward onto the floor between the seats where Brent and Johnny sat.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" sneered Brent.

"I don't fucking know," yelled Boadie, pinning one knee into Scott's back. "He's out of control. Damn he's a wiry fucker."

Brent refused to help Boadie, imagining it to be a personal argument best left among them. Besides, he wanted Scott to hurt a little since the scene at the Van Heusen house, and especially since nobody had believed what he'd seen. Boadie was as forceful as he could be, restraining the blonde Dutch boy by locking one arm behind him and leaning much of his weight into the knee in the centre of Scott's back.

Scott heard only the roar of Fred Flinstone's hearty belly laugh resounding in his ears.

"Barney!" squeaked Betty Rubble. The screen was out of Scott's line of sight as he wriggled in futility beneath the ponderous weight of the drummer.

"Barney, you can't wear my negligee tonight."

"Uh, why not, Betty? Looks like it fits pretty good good good."

The laugh track from the cartoon seared into Scott's mind.

"I know, Barney, but that's the one I bought for your boss's birthday. Mr. Slaterock will be so happy in it."

"Aw, Betty, but I was just getting used to wearing it. Mr. Slaterock don't appresh-elate good sexy clothes like I do."

"Barney Rubble," Betty retorted, "you'll get out of that negligee this instant or you and Fred will never be allowed to do the stroll behind the bowling alley any longer."

Scott's face contorted with uncontrolled anxiety. As the jet coursed through the black skies, he felt helpless. A powerful reverberation shook his head and heart. As he felt himself lose control of his sanity, another sensation began to surge through his body.

Pinned under Boadie's formidable weight, he realised that his assailant had managed to loosen his pants and pull them down to his knees. The sterile air of the aircraft momentarily caressed his buttocks. Then, heat and friction combined as a large object touched his rectum, then plunged inside with a deep, hard thrust.

Scott screamed.

"Get off me. Help. You're fucking my ass, you bastard."

The transvestite antics of the Bedrock denizens seeped into his mind amid panic and revulsion.

"I'm gonna fuck you silly in your sissy lingerie, Barney ol' boy," crowed an elated Fred.

"I'm gonna make you my bitch," heard Scott, with Boadie's cock working his ass like a jackhammer.

"Make me your Wilma," howled Barney.

Scott heard himself scream again. It was a bubbly and idle squeal, rather than a genuine shriek of terror.

"Oh yah, Boadie, fuck my hot ass…"

In a hallucinatory juxtaposition of sexual expressiveness, cartoon-like caricature, and complete exhaustion, Scott felt a throbbing in his anus, even as he glowered over his knees, hands clamping his legs to his chest in a seated foetal position. Brent and Johnny were turned half around in their seats, staring at him, with Boadie and Terry turning their heads with a show of concern on their faces.

The uncomfortable throbbing continued. Scott was frightened and annoyed at what had happened, and suddenly realised that the entire band was looking at him as though he was crazy.

"I'm not crazy. You guys. Why didn't you stop Boadie?"

"Stop him from what?" asked Johnny.

Scott gulped.

"From, uh, raping my ass."

Brent snorted and giggled at the same time.

"Raping your ass?" asked Terry.

Boadie ventured a comment, then sank back into his seat. He felt that something was wrong, since Brent, then Terry, and now Scott, had each claimed to experience a different version of events. But this time he had witnessed Scott's strange behaviour, and had to exert force to prevent him from jeopardising their mission.

Scott glared at the screen at the front of the passenger compartment. The Flintstones were acting out an absurd drama. Fred pretended to be the Kissing Bandit to make Wilma more appreciative of his worth. He wasn't dressed up in lingerie, nor was Barney to be found dancing in the daisies wearing only a corset. Scott became sullen and anxious, rocking back and forth on his seat in anticipation of a renewal of the delirium.

As the aircraft sped further away from their Idaho roots, the group became increasingly tired. The films eventually stopped playing, and each member nestled into his seat and began to snooze. All except for Scott, whose eyes remained, fixed on the blank screen, and whose heart continued to pound at a rapid tempo.

The dark tint on the jet's windows hued the rising sun in a deep violet as the Atlantic Ocean frothed beneath them. Once the plane began to descend, the cabin pressure changed, gently moving each slumbering musician from the world of dreams into shining reality.

Boadie yawned, stretched, and leaned towards Scott. "You get a good sleep?"

"Yes," snapped Scott, lying.

Through the windows, Johnny peered at the black sea underneath them, and as the descent became more rapid, noticed the colour changed to a deep aqua, with individual swells gradually becoming discernible. Broad bands of land grew across the horizon.

"Should be North Africa over there, if I'm right," he pointed. "That means the Greek islands would be straight ahead somewhere."

"Somewhere, sngkgk," Brent grunted. "Fucking keyboard genius."

The plane closed the distance with the sea below, and pitched to the port side as the engines screamed in their ears.

"Ready to land," supposed Terry to himself.

Ten minutes later, the jet indeed touched down on a long airstrip cut along a narrow point of land. On one side of the plane were brown cliffs; on the other side was the sea. The strip left little room for error either way, but the landing was smooth and effortless.

A raspy voice, containing the hint of a foreign accent, made an announcement over the P.A. as the engines went silent and the aircraft stopped completely.

"Gearjammer, welcome to Corcyra. May your stay be pleasant and safe."

The group expected a crewmember to appear at the doorway to the cockpit. Instead, a side door clicked, moving by an invisible hand, and sturdy metal staircase rattled up to the exit. Terry shrugged, sat up, grabbed his guitar case, and wandered over to the stairs.

"Hey there, we're coming right down," he called out to a pair of men holding the movable staircase at its base. He immediately became aware of the heat, which he hadn't expected.

"Kind of warm, ain't it?" winced Boadie, clamping a pair of sunglasses to his head to face the daylight outside the plane.

"Fucking hot," Brent agreed, similarly donning sunglasses.

Soon all five band members had exited the plane, Scott being the last, with their minimal luggage in tow. The two men ushered them across the narrow tarmac towards a dusty trail that quickly led to a cascade of steps cut into the hillside.

"You guys talk or what?" bellowed Boadie. "Or what the fuck?"

"Maybe they don't speak English," Terry wondered aloud.

"We speak English, of course," said one of the guides. "But perhaps it's better to save the effort for the climb."

"Oh shit, how long is this hike gonna be? I mean, no limo?" Scott complained. He wished he'd worn lighter clothing, instead of the black Scratch Acid sweatshirt and black leather shit kickers.

The guides did not respond, climbing each step deliberately, with the visitors clumping along behind them.

Johnny nudged Terry as they paused on one of the steps leading upwards. "Ask them what that means."

"What means?" Terry growled.

"That."

The coarse clothing worn by their hosts each had an emblem stitched onto the sleeve, nearly on the shoulder blade. The patch bore a red and yellow insignia, with some wording that neither American could figure out from that distance. Realising that he would need to elbow past both Boadie and Brent to approach the guide, Terry opted to wait until they'd climbed to their destination.

Brent, walking just ahead of Terry, appeared to be sighing heavily, and several times looked like he was about to drop his guitar case. Terry caught up to the rhythm guitarist.

"You all right, Brent?"

The slender Dutch boy slouched away from Terry. His breathing sounded more and more uneven.

Terry touched him on the shoulder. "Are you OK?"

"Don't touch me," Brent hissed, turning suddenly towards the group's lead guitarist. Terry noticed his eyes appeared to be bloodshot, and his face was streaked with moisture. He peered closer, looking for evidence of exhaustion or overheating, yet was struck with a shocking realisation. Brent was crying. Those were tears rolling out of the corners of his eyes and down his cheek.

Out of sight of the other band members, Terry slowed down and kept Brent nearby with a firm hand on his shoulder. The Dutch boy made no attempt to flick his hand away. Once Johnny and Scott had passed them, he squared to face Brent.

"What's wrong? Don't worry, nobody's gonna hear nothing."

"It's those pipes. Flutes or something. They're just…so…sad," Brent replied.

The footfalls of the other three were far enough ahead that Terry could cup his ear and listen intently for the sounds. Nothing.

"Brent, you'll think I'm nuts, but I can't hear nothing. No pipes or whatnot, anyhow."

Brent gazed at Terry, misty-eyed. "You…can't…hear them? I guess I can't explain it. They're, like, my pipes or something."

Terry was possessed with concern, but tried not to let on to Brent that he was hearing things. Something else concerned him, too. Brent wasn't snorkling and sniggering like a hillbilly. He was speaking properly. That was unheard of.

"Brent. Just listen to me. Don't listen to the pipes. We have to go and play a gig here. It's just a pile of easy cash and then we go home. That's all we have to do. Follow me. Please keep up, OK?"

At Terry's urging, Brent proceeded up the rough-hewn stairs. Once or twice he nearly broke down in an emotional futility, but each time Terry subtly prodded him onwards. Johnny's questions would have to wait. Right now Brent was a handful.

The seven men continued to climb, with the spacing widening as they progressed. The two guides were several paces ahead of Boadie, with Johnny sweating and panting behind him. Terry kept Brent climbing, although the rhythm guitarist was suffering from a slothful delirium.

"Those birds are from hell," he spat, as a pair of Mediterranean sparrows twitched and sang from the gnarled branches of a laurel tree. "They shriek because of the pipers. They are envious and cold."

Terry felt Brent hang off his shoulder, muted in his contempt for the passionate, almost poetic, speech he was dispensing.

The cliff-hanging stairs began to level off, none to soon for the tired quintet. Boadie peered through the dusty wind and saw a great stone building perched on the crest of the hill. He looked around to see the rest of the group following at their own beleaguered paces. From this point, too, he could see the sea stretching between the island and the craggy phalanx of the Greek shoreline. In the other direction, the sea filled the horizon.

He turned back to follow the guides, who were quickly approaching a sturdy gate set into the structure's walls. A two-headed eagle stood as a sentinel over the archway, etched in the same sandy stone as the rest of the building.

"Fucking old castle or something," he shrugged towards the sweat-soaked figure of Johnny.

"Next time we do something like this, we've got to make sure we have a change of clothes. I'm wetter than a flounder."

"Smarter than one, too," joked Boadie. "Come on in. Those guides are already way the fuck ahead of us."

Inside the building, the corridors provided welcome cooler shade, with natural light seeping through overhead slits cut into the ceiling and a sparse setting of torches providing further illumination. The guides stepped quietly in their padded shoes, refusing to slow down or turn to offer help. Boadie and Johnny quickened their pace to catch up. They were almost out of sight when Scott entered the structure.

The natural light glowed with a deep red. Several passageways wound off from the narrow, tiled hallway. After several yards, the bass player stopped and looked to the left and the right. Then behind.

"Where are you guys?" he asked cautiously. "Boadie? Johnny?"

Scott was certain he'd seen them enter, but he couldn't hear them walking. He knew Boadie was wearing heavy boots, and should have been sufficiently noisy within the stark interior of the building.

"Hey, Boadie. Where the fuck did you guys go?"

Only his echo responded, so Scott headed down the passageway he assumed they had proceeded. As he walked, the corridor seemed to vibrate with colour and sound. He kept on. The corridor slithered ahead of him, yet he continued unconcerned.

A breathy whisper filled the hallway along with a sweet scent. "Diamonds." Scott tiptoed, cupping an ear to listen for the whisper again.

"Diamonds."

"I don't think I heard that right," he replied in a wary voice. He brushed along one of the bare walls, holding himself upright as he followed the direction of the whisper.

"Diamonds."

Scott slid his fingers through his hair, peering into the murk of the downward sloping passageway. The tips of his fingers felt good against his scalp, slowly drifting his lengthening hair away from his face. His step and pulse became faint and delicate.

"Diamonds."

Scott gasped in pleasurable surprise. The twisting corridor led him to a beautiful room. Velvet drapes covered the far windows. Mosaic tiles formed colourful patterns on the floor.

"This is so gorgeous," he said to himself. "Wait, what am I thinking?"

He looked down at his feet, conscious of a sudden cooling sensation. As a strand of long blonde hair flopped into his eyes, he looked at his toes. They stuck out, painted red, from the open toes of a pair of white, plastic sandals. As he leaned back in shock, his heels teetered precariously on their suddenly acquired elevation.

"Why do I want diamonds?" he thought, rotating his body slightly on the rigid high heel of his right shoe. A vast mirror on a vanity along one of the walls reflected an image he was unprepared to see. Instead of being encased in slovenly jeans and a shirt, his body flowed in easy curves. The looking glass portrayed a picture of sensuous, blonde, female grace.

"This can't be happening. That isn't me, it's a girl," Scott tried to convince himself. "This castle must be haunted or something."

He rested both hands on the vanity and shook his hair from his face. He looked over at the door through which he had passed, to follow the eerie voice that promised diamonds. To his dismay, he noticed that a stone surface now extended the entire length of the wall. The only opening he could detect, after scanning the room, was the shielded window.

Click, click, click. His heels resounded on the patterned floor as he made his way to the window. With reservation, he reached out with a delicate, smooth arm to part the velvet drapes. The window was fixed with three vertical bars set into the masonry. Beyond them, Scott saw a spectacular ocean view, with the waves crashing into steep cliffs descending from a narrow ledge just outside.

He turned around again, absent-mindedly sucking on a long laminated fingernail, to scour the room for another exit. Then, peering again through the sturdy bars. They were set far enough apart that he could slip his head through to better judge his location. To the right, the narrow ledge eventually cut under the building, leaving the impression that the foundation was formed from the stone cliff itself. To the left, the ledge ran unevenly for several yards. Then a pair of bushes emerged from the rock, obscuring some of his perspective. Past the bushes, it appeared that the edge of the building nestled into a crag, beyond which there was nothing he could see from his present vantage point.

Scott slipped his head back into the room. He wandered over to the edge of a large bed and sat to contemplate his fate. He clasped his hands together as though in prayer and gazed at the floor. The mosaic tiles formed a double-headed bird of prey, with tiny coloured squares forming letters, around the image, in an alphabet he couldn't decipher.

"I wish I knew what was happening to me," he despaired. "This is just too fucking weird."

He stood up, becoming better accustomed to walking on the high heels strapped to his feet. He checked the stone wall that covered the entrance to the room. There was no evidence of a secret panel or any other means of escape.

"Escape. It's really escape. I'm in fucking prison," he decided. Scott's voice surprised him in its chirpy tone. He wrung his hands at his sides, frowned, and stalked over to the window once more. He grabbed two of the vertical bars and pulled as hard as he could. They would not budge. He stuck his head between them once again, to squeeze his body through as far as he could. Although his head fit, his narrower female form was still too large to slip through them. He was able to push through just past his shoulders, but his ribcage prevented him from extending himself all the way.

As he looked down, the ledge appeared to be mere inches wide. The sea churned far below, almost far enough to make him feel dizzy. He inhaled suddenly and extracted himself from the bars.

He seized one of the metal cylinders with both hands and tried to wrench it loose. To his amazement, the bar he chose turned in his grip. As he continued the rotating motion, the masonry began to erode in small grains at the base and the top. Encouraged by his success, he kept at it.

After nearly an hour of working the bar, summoning an internal strength to counter the weakness he felt in the female body, the metal was practically separated from the stonework. With a single, great, final push, the bottom of the bar cracked through the softened stone. Scott's furious last push almost threw him forward with the heavy object. He loosened his grip at once and the bar tumbled edge over edge, down the cliff and into the sea.

"Shit, shit, shit, so now what? This get-up ain't hardly mountain-climbing equipment," he sighed.

Scott turned around to assess his options. In spite of its accoutrements, the room seemed to be nothing less than a gilded jail cell. The narrow cliff top outside the window, on the other hand, represented both danger and freedom.

"I can't stay in here. I'd rather die and take my chances," he confirmed, quietly.

With boldness wrought from fear rather than common sense, Scott walked over to the window, lifted the hem of his clingy, silvery gown, and stepped gingerly onto the ledge. First his right foot. Then, balancing himself and gripping one of the remaining bars, he swung his left leg through the opening until he was perched on the ledge, completely outside the prison room.

He looked upwards, then towards the bushes that still obscured his view towards the left. Upwards, the outer face of the structure seemed to meld with the sky. There was no way to climb the smooth stone. As he searched the wall along the direction he intended to move, though, he saw that several horizontal clefts might offer some kind of grip.

"If my nails hold out," he mused.

Slowly, painfully, with a soft wind curling his long blonde tresses into his face, Scott started along the ledge. As his left hand let go of the last bar, he was completely at the mercy of the ledge and the cracks in the wall. And the strength of his nails.

Over the faraway din of the crashing waves and the palpitations of his heart, there came a third part to the chorus. Fuzzy and distorted.

"Guido's swarm of bees," Scott remembered. Guido was a part-time busker who once tried out for Gearjammer the previous year. He produced an effects box that was home-built from a Radio Shack kit. The ensuing guitar sound was neither exactly music nor noise. Instead, it resembled a furious collection of winged insects in search of a field of honeysuckle.

"Shit, here I am in a dress and heels, climbing a fucking cliff in the middle of nowhere, and all I can think of is Guido and his goddamned swarm of bees?"

The distorted noise became louder, closer.

Scott shivered in the warm breeze and turned to look away from the wall, in the direction of the awful noise.

He saw what first appeared to be three dragonflies, grotesque flying insects with translucent wings flapping powerfully in the Adriatic sky. His mouth fell partly agape as the dragonflies rapidly approached. They were not insects. The noise they emitted was not from their wings but from their throats.

Their flight was rapid and determined, straight at Scott. His perch on the ledge was in enormous peril as he distinguished the hideous beaks protruding from the heads of the creatures. They were mere yards from him as he teetered, wheeled, and began to fall.

The nearest winged creature plucked him, mid-air, stopping his inexorable descent. Grasped in a set of powerful claws that extended from the thorax of the lead beast, Scott's female form was pulled from imminent death and carried off.

-------------------

Who Is Mercy Wild? Chapter 2

-------------------

Unaware of Scott's fate, Terry guided the whimpering Brent into the cheerless castle corridor. The architectural splendour of delicate friezes high up on the wall, regiments of torches marching in file ahead of them along each side, and the series of squinches, arches and vaults spaced in the overhead stonework were lost on him. He was just a human crutch upon which Brent relied heavily as the lead guitarist tried to catch up to the rest of the group.

Against the regular echo of their own ponderous footfalls, Terry heard the reverberation of heavy boots pounding on the floor tiles ahead of them.

"Boadie. Wait up. Wait the fuck up. Brent's gotta have some goddamned help. Serious."

Terry's desperation drowned out the other sounds in the long hallway. His vocal pleas were aimed at a pair of figures he detected far ahead. A long time ago, he remembered, the same kind of illusion greeted Alice in Wonderland. There was something about an egg in a shop, seated on a shelf that seemed to recede from her more quickly than she could approach it. Alice didn't have to put up with a simpering companion leaning heavily on her shoulder, though.

The sound of boots on the floor stopped abruptly, and the hallway returned only the echoes of his breathing and Brent's sniffling. With nothing to guide him, Terry depended on guesswork to figure out where they were going.

"Well, it isn't that tough," he told himself. "The hall only goes two ways. Where we came from and where we're going to."

Torchlight guided their progress, brightening the elaborate carvings in the stones that joined the walls with the ceiling. The carvings were crude, as though an amateur had scraped them out of the rock. Most were painted, in dull colours suffused with grimy dust, probably from the settling smoke coming from the torches. The procession of animals and people appeared to portray an army of some kind. Above their heads ran a series of unintelligible symbols, perhaps spelling out words in a language that Terry didn't understand.

At one point on their tiring journey through the corridor, Terry paused. Several individual sculpted elephants, tinged in a subtle gold, intermittently appeared in the frieze. The yellow elephant again? He recalled the first meeting with the strange woman in the parking lot.

"Terry," Brent whined, "let's go. Please. I can't stand here waiting. We gotta go."

Brent's voice disappeared into a whispering echo, and the pair resumed their laborious pace. After an indeterminate time, with Terry glancing frequently at the sculptures, they arrived at a doorway set in the wall. The slide guitarist took in the entire story told by the frieze, of an armed group of soldiers from long ago, marching through mountains, across plains and over rivers, to an exotic destination where they met another army. Angels and devils flapped overhead, appearing to scheme together against the first army. The opposite force unleashed showers of arrows upon them, and the inhuman host carried each arrow through its flight, plunging it into the body of one of the attackers.

It was a picture-story of pride and defeat, and of an unholy alliance of beings that Terry didn't believe in. He knew they were supposed to be devils and angels, because they had wings and other fabulous paraphernalia.

Before leaving the corridor through the doorway, he gazed up one final time, to see a carved inscription. It was in plain English, which was a mild surprise: "We make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it."

"Whatever the hell that's all about," Terry thought. He helped Brent through the doorway, into a chamber where Boadie and Johnny stood.

"Where's Scott?" asked Johnny. "Wasn't he with you guys?"

"Nope," Terry replied.

"You sure took your sweet time," growled Boadie, turning his wrist to look at his watch. "Damn, I'd say it's a half-hour, but my watch's busted."

Terry changed the subject. "Where'd the guys in the robes go?"

"They said to stay here and wait for you," intoned Johnny, "which we've been doing for, I'd guess, about a half-hour. Boadie, my watch isn't working either."

Terry guided Brent towards one of the massive wooden columns jammed against the room's interior. He left the wide-eyed rhythm guitarist propped against the pillar and wandered back to where the other two musicians stood. The space was larger than a one-bedroom apartment, with two more entrances apart from the doorway through which they had entered.

"Have you tried either of those doors?"

"They're both locked or jammed," Boadie replied, drawing a heavy breath. "What's his fuckin' problem?"

Terry and Johnny followed Boadie's contemptuous leer towards Brent.

"I dunno. He started mouthing some sort of shit about birds and pipes playing and some other god-awful crap. Actually, he's starting to sound like he's snapping out of it, though."

Boadie was ready to demand the truth when one of the heavy doors opened. Two figures appeared, one in the coarse robes of the guides who had lead them from the plane to this building, and the other in a business suit.

"Greetings, Muses," smiled the man in the suit. "My colleagues and I are pleased you could make it. Our pact is certainly being fulfilled properly. If you'll follow me, I will take you to the area to which you will be confined until your performance is due. Do I make myself clear?"

Terry expected Boadie to begin peppering the well-dressed stranger with demands and threats. It was odd that the drummer was so silent.

"Not totally clear," began Terry. "We were all wondering where Scott is. Not much of a band without our bass player."

"Oh? I take it this 'Scott' is the fifth person. Minor misunderstanding, I suppose. We simply required a quartet. Come this way, please."

Terry looked over his shoulder as the robed man walked to the pillar that Brent rested against. The Dutch boy was helped along as the entire group followed Suit Man out of the chamber.

"So that didn't answer my question," Terry insisted, walking swiftly past the others to join Suit Man in front of the group. "What did you do to Scott?"

To the right of the procession, at one point in the wall, another open doorway allowed Johnny to see into a spacious hall. The glimpse lasted no more than a couple of seconds. At the far end of the large room sat a lone figure. It was a balding red-haired man, probably in his late forties, cloaked in a red robe. The robe covered most of his body, but the snapshot glimpse revealed he was also wearing an armoured breastplate. Odder still, as the silent figure relaxed on a chair that seemed more like a throne, he held a book in both hands.

In spite of how quickly the vision appeared to him, the portrait was etched in Johnny's mind.

Suit Man, meanwhile, led the group down a small flight of stone steps while Terry continued to ask him about Scott.

"We'll go to the apartments where you'll stay. The others can stay there and we'll go somewhere else to discuss it. It is my intention that you are all happy here, and that the performance is successful."

Terry turned to reply, and saw a calm confidence in Suit Man's face.

"OK, sure, that'd be cool."

"These are your apartments. Five rooms. Should be more than enough space for you. Your instruments will not be an issue until we are thoroughly prepared for the performance."

As the quartet stood quietly, Suit Man explained the conditions of their stay.

"Your nourishment will be brought to you. This hallway and those rooms that join it on that side are yours to use according to your needs. Clothing. Sleep. Entertainment. Whatever your requirements are, any of the attendants will be available to do our best to live up to your expectations."

Suit Man swept his arms around, indicating the area which was prepared for Gearjammer during their employment. He turned to point down the hallway in either direction.

"You can't go past the doors at the ends of this hallway, at least not without permission. It may sound a little inconvenient, and I am sure that it isn't the best arrangement in the world, but the contract's quite specific about your accommodations. So, we'll leave you three while Terry and I continue our parley."

The serene confidence that Suit Man exhibited acted like a cloud of reassurance one the band members. His GQ qualities felt like a cool breeze in the Corcyran heat. As Terry and Suit Man walked further down the corridor, followed closely by the robed guide, Johnny turned to the two who remained.

"I don't know about you guys, but I could really use a bath."

He poked his head into one doorway, then another, and turned back to grin and Boadie.

"It's right in here, too. Looks pretty nice for a dungeon."

Terry and Suit Man went through one of the forbidden exits. Presently they found themselves in a room that had all the appearances of a law office. Books lined heavy shelves along three of the walls. The usual stone face of the castle interior was completely covered by polished wood panelling. The furniture was modern twentieth century leather, wood and metal.

"Sit down, please," motioned Suit Man. "I am not an impatient man, but I believe that your idle curiosity is not getting either of us anywhere. And I mean you and your band mates, Terry."

Terry sat on the edge of a large, deep couch and listened intently. The steely, handsome style of Suit Man was perplexingly enchanting.

"You're looking around you, at all this luxury, in the middle of a big stone castle. You see strange men in robes wandering around. You have detected changes in some of your own perceptions, and you know, also, that things are appearing to your friends.

"This is no shock. Things change. I believe in second chances, even third chances. Opportunities to do things this or that way, and opportunities where you're actually in control of the outcome, more or less. Are you with me still?"

Terry shrugged.

Suit Man smiled at the docile guitarist and continued.

"You and I have a lot in common, Terry. I lived for five years in a town not far from your hometown. You wouldn't even recognise me. As you might guess, I am a lawyer. I had the fortune or the misfortune or the accident of being somewhat of a child prodigy. I graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, and both of my parents were jurists. My father was a Superior Court Justice and my mother was the deputy assistant Attorney General for the state of Wyoming. I took an undergraduate degree at the Bemidji State University by the time I was eighteen, and won a scholarship to Stanford to take my law degree. Nowhere to go but up. That's the way I thought, then, like the universe owed me a living and that it was there to be taken at my discretion.

"I graduated in 1976 at the age of twenty and took an internship in my father's own legal trust. Now, while I was at Stanford, I came across the seeds my own undoing."

Suit Man stopped speaking and wandered over to a cabinet, withdrew a pair of crystal goblets, then moved to a second cabinet containing a selection of bottled wine. He swiftly and efficiently withdrew the cork and filled each of the goblets with the deep red liquid.

"Here, have a drink."

Terry thanked him, and took a slow, long sip. The story intrigued him. Everything about Suit Man intrigued him.

"Please go on. I'm listening."

"At the law school, I met a fellow named… Well, the name's irrelevant. This fellow was a graduate chemistry student who attended Stanford at the invitation of a rather unsavoury collection of individuals. Basically, he was there to learn how to manufacture a legal version of Dilaudid. One thing led to another, and eventually I tried some at a party. It didn't get me hooked or screw me up or make me forget why I was there at the university. But those kind of people, a little rough, a little dangerous, really made me think I was missing something.

"That whole scene was going to come back to haunt me. About four years ago my Mom became very ill. She had cancer. She left her job and went to a clinic in California to hope to find a cure, or at least to stop it from progressing. The therapy didn't work and she died just six months after the first diagnosis. Pretty overwhelming stuff that early into my career."

The lawyer took a short sip from his own glass and stared balefully at Terry.

"I'm so sorry," offered Terry. "I mean it's not like it's my fault, and I didn't even know her, but it sounds like such an awful story."

Suit Man looked into his drink and sauntered over to sit on the edge of the couch next to Terry. He licked his upper lip and sighed.

"Oh, it got worse. My father, who lived a short distance from a house I bought, didn't show up for work one afternoon. His office phoned me and I drove over. I found him in the garage with the car engine running. He'd plugged the ventilation grates with towels. He was grey. Awful.

"My first reaction? Not calling the authorities. All I thought about was the synthetic Dilaudid. I was so stoned for a month after phoning my old school buddy and having him courier me enough of the drug to last me a month. Maybe two months. I didn't know what the right dosage was. I just kept doing it until I didn't hurt any more. I was so stoned I missed the old man's funeral."

"Holy shit," winced Terry. "That's really really awful. I feel so sorry for you."

The lawyer placed his left hand on Terry's thigh. "I'm here. And I'm quite OK as you can tell."

He stared deep into Terry's eyes with a searing glow that caused the guitar player's skin to flush. This man, this remarkable male model, was a fragile victim of horrible circumstances beyond anyone's control. Terry could feel it and his heart throbbed in sympathy.

"The nightmare just kept on. I continued to half-heartedly continue my practice, taking on heavy and intricate cases that I hardly understood. And more artificial Dilaudid. I was on the verge of burning and crashing. I tried to control my moods by using Halcyon to counteract the after-effects of the Dilaudid. I started losing cases and clients.

"The whole toxic cocktail started to do me in. I was arrested, ploughed out of my brain on MDA and Halcyon, stealing rental movies from a grocery store. And by this time I was owing money to the dealer friends that my college acquaintance turned me onto. I was completely fucked. A store detective had seen me steal the movie from a shelf, and he grabbed my jacket as I left the store. I wriggled out of it and ran about fifteen blocks to a wooded area by the river.

"Smart guy. I'd left my chequebook in the jacket. My address, everything, was still in it. The cops were waiting at my house when I returned. I was booked and everything, just treated like a common criminal. Because I was a common criminal. A common, stoned, son of a wealthy suicide victim, lawyer, creepy criminal. How was that going to look on my record? How were my parents, looking at me from up in heaven, or down in hell for that matter, going to feel? Even then I didn't give a damn."

He squeezed Terry's thigh tenderly. Tears welled in the guitarist's eyes. He was enchanted by the confessional monologue that Suit Man was unravelling for him in the sanctity of the law office. It felt like the responsible thing to do.

"I got off the rap. I used something called the 'Halcyon defence'. That was a gambit developed in the upper courts of Nevada where it was proved that prescription of Halcyon resulted in erratic and unusual behaviour. So, I learned nothing. I was rewarded for my trouble by having my costs paid for, and my lawyer pressed for damages to my reputation. We won that, too. I now had a regular income from my father's trust and a big pile of free cash from the grocery store chain for impugning the character of such an outstanding citizen as myself. Oh yeah, and I had to pay the grocery store chain $8.99 plus tax for the video.

"I was ready to rock, as you might say. The guys that my old college friend had turned on to me found that no matter what they fronted me, I was good for it. So pretty soon, they found out I sometimes took trips to Canada. I got in good with them by taking whatever they wanted across the border. Either way. I figured with a haircut, a shave, breath mints and deodorant, I could cover anything from the border guards. It worked. I was laughing.

"What I didn't know was that they knew about my 'second job' all along. They just wanted to find out who I was delivering for. I thought I was a big shot, but they knew I was just a drugged out nobody."

Terry watched the smooth delivery of this increasingly twisted story as it escaped Suit Man's lips. He gasped a bit with each sentence. Without thinking about it, he allowed his hand to slip over the lawyer's gentle grip on his thigh.

"I had picked up a delivery in Edmonton and I was driving to the airport. I see these lights in my rear-view. I was perfectly ready for the trip, not even stoned or anything. But for some dumb reason, instead of just pulling over, I started driving faster, trying to outrun them. I won't give you all the gruesome details, but I ran over a spike belt eventually and had to stop.

"They found the shipment. I apparently had three loaded guns in the car. I don't even remember how they got there. I was set to do serious time. By the time the trial was done, I was already disbarred. I owed the gang in the States about a quarter of a million dollars for the lost shipment. There's no insurance in that business. I took the risk and I lost. Simple.

"By the time the whole thing was finished, I was looking at extradition and a big debt to people who'd be able to get me in prison. That was the first time in my life that I stopped to think about who I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it. Time to admit responsibility. To stop blaming everyone else for my difficulties. How do you think that went over?"

"Went over?" asked Terry. "Went over with who?"

"Everyone involved. I'm here today, talking to you, so you know something good had to happen somewhere along the line."

"Yeah, I guess so. Aren't you going to tell me?"

Terry felt the words leave his lips. He felt vulnerable after the lengthy confession of this handsome stranger.

"Your suspicions are right. Things got better, but not right away. I did go to prison. I was extradited. Doesn't sound better, does it?"

"No," admitted Terry.

"I wound up in a prison in North Dakota, serving a ten year sentence I knew I wouldn't survive. There were already seven men there who belonged to the group I still owed money to. I had a cell mate there who wasn't with that group. The first weird thing I noticed about this guy was that he had a most unusual tattoo on his arm. A yellow elephant.

"We got to talking, and he realised I had a lot of raw talent, unused ability I guess you could say. One morning, maybe the second week I was there, he said he understood the seven guys there were going to kill me that Saturday."

"How did he know that?" asked Terry, astonished at the mention of the yellow elephant.

"Connexions. He knew who the people were, what organisation they belong to, how much I owed them. Everything. His proposition was to ensure my safety in return for a pledge to his friends. I wasn't ready for that. I believed I could do it myself. Or die trying. I was that willing to admit my mistakes.

"He said he recognised that, and as a gesture of good faith, he offered that a sign would be revealed by the same week's Thursday. It was Tuesday at the time. I figured he was jerking me around, so I said if he could prove his intentions to me, I would take that as a sort of a God-like sign that my own transformation was genuine."

"What was the sign?" asked Terry, enthralled by the suspense that Suit Man generated.

"Four of the seven men were suddenly transferred to another facility. Just like that. It made no sense to me at all, but even three men would have been too many for me, and I had about forty-eight hours remaining.

"I told the guy I was ready to deal, but that I had nothing left to deal away. My trust was being held in escrow under a new law about proceeds of crime. He said I didn't need anything material to deal. My mind and my imagination and my education were enough. I called him Doctor Faustus. Can you believe that? Faust?"

"What's a Faust?" wondered Terry aloud. "Or who's Doctor Faustus?"

"No matter, honey," smiled Suit Man. "I wound up making a very similar deal to the one that you made. The man in the same cell offered me a position in a corporation run by some lady named 'Mercy Wild'."

"Who is Mercy Wild? Have you met her?"

"No, honey, I'm afraid you're looking at a small, but very satisfied, cog in a mighty complex organisation."

Terry realised that Suit Man was not only massaging his thigh, but also calling him 'honey'. And his heart and head were pounding with an oddly stimulating passion for this man, his history and his sensual style.

"I appreciate your listening to my incoherent babbling, Rebekkah. You are a very beautiful woman, and it's a true honour to gain your attention and, perhaps, your affections."

"Rebekkah? Why…I…"

Terry paused. He looked down at Suit Man's gentle massaging hand. Where a pair of unwashed jeans had covered his thigh, now there was a naked leg covered in sheer hosiery. A short skirt covered his lap, barely.

"You were saying?" grinned Suit Man. "I have learned that honesty is of utmost importance. And that change is also possible, through the good graces of Mercy Wild and her corporate affiliates. But why bore you with the details?"

"Oh, God, bore me," gasped Rebekkah, drawing her delicate hand across the sculpted cheekbone of her GQ hero. Her companion returned her show of affection, drawing his lips close to hers, running his hand across her other thigh to clasp her waist, and kissing her with the depth and emotion of a man possessed by lust.

Terry had utterly vanished in a physical sense.

As the embrace deepened, he felt in his soul that he was Rebekkah, is Rebekkah, and always would be Rebekkah, because this man without a name had so thoroughly opened his own vulnerability to her that she could not deny her strong desire to be Rebekkah.

As she continued to kiss his sensuous lips, he laid her back on the couch, undressing each of them in turn.

"You are a beautiful woman, Rebekkah," he whispered. "Everything I have, I want to share with you."

As two bodies entwined in unbridled passion in the office, the three other members of Gearjammer remained in the isolated area of the castle. Johnny had found a bathroom with an enormous porcelain pool in the centre. Brent, the whimpering rhythm guitarist, and Boadie, the brash drummer whose promise of success had led them to Corcyra in the first place, entered another room.

 

The room was lit partly by daylight inching through arrow slits in one wall, and a solitary torch near the doorway.

"Brent, dude, are you gonna be OK?"

"Yeah, I think I'm feelin' better," answered the other young man. "I don't remember much getting here though."

"The Terror was mumbling some shit about you hearing music. You still hearing it?"

Brent shook his head.

Boadie looked around the room, which was sparsely furnished, his attention focusing on a large stone box in its centre. The object appeared to be set in the floor, roughly eight feet in length, waist high, and a couple of arm's lengths wide.

"Kind of breaks up the space, don't it?" he grinned at Brent. "Like a big fuckin' table or something."

"An altar. A crypt or something," added the guitar player.

"You must still be fucked up, dude. What would make you say that?"

Brent shrugged off the challenge. In better times he would have taken Boadie's words in the worst way. Today he merely felt like sitting down and letting the big drummer blow off steam. He found a sturdy chair along the wall and parked himself there, gazing intently at the enormous stone box that filled the centre of the room.

"Hey, you just set yourself down there, Brent, ol' boy. I gotta admit this thing here has me all curious."

Boadie drew his hand along the surface of the stone box, which was smooth, flat, and remarkably free of dust. He looked at the side of the big rectangular object, noticing that it was riddled with unfamiliar patterns. "K-E-something-A-E-P. Funny looking A, though. Ke-app?"

Brent rested his chin on his hands as Boadie tried to puzzle out the strange words carved into the side of the stone box.

"Carvings on the side here," said Boadie. "An elephant. A couple of elephants, actually. Some kinda coincidence, ain't it? What's with this elephant shit?"

"Elephant shit, sngkgk," Brent snorted. "That's pretty funny, Boadie."

-------------------

Who Is Mercy Wild? Chapter 3

-------------------

Johnny Fairmont smiled at the welcome sight of a pool in the centre of the room adjacent to the one where Boadie and Brent remained. Not a ripple disturbed its surface, and it filled the space with a pleasant aroma. The dusty trail and the warmth of the Adriatic climate enervated him, so an opportunity to bathe and relax was more than welcome. Johnny smiled and took off his watch first, staring at it glumly as he realised it still wasn't working. He held it to his ear, as though he might hear a glimmer of ticking but there was none. He set it down on a sturdy bench near the pool.

The shiny surface of the water radiated sufficient heat and vapour that Johnny felt comfortable as he stripped out of his clothes. These, too, were laid on the bench. He poked a single toe into the water.

Keeping his glasses on, the keyboardist ventured into the water up to his ankle. It was pleasantly warm, yet there was something unusual about the way it jiggled rather than rippled. He withdrew his foot and stared at it. The skin remained smooth but dry. He doubted that the smooth liquid in the pool was water. It was almost like a tub of gelatine, yet it was neither sticky nor viscous to the touch.

A series of steps led to the centre of the depression set into the floor. Adjusting for the refraction of light through the liquid, Johnny guessed that it might come up to his neck if he stood in the middle.

Amazed at the strange way the pool looked like water, yet behaved differently, he decided to find out for himself whether it would refract light as he expected. One leg at a time, he walked slowly down the five submerged steps, feeling the caress of warm water washing over his legs first, then gradually up his torso as the descent continued. Once in the middle of the pool, he found that his estimate was correct. The water, or whatever it was, came up to his neck after all.

Relaxed by the confirmation that it refracted light in the expected manner, and because it felt fine against his skin, Johnny retraced his steps backward until he found a comfortable sitting position. He immersed himself up to his neck on the second step leading down to the centre of the basin. His eyes slid half closed and a quiet smirk crossed his face. This was luxury.

The stillness of the pool was momentarily disturbed, yet Johnny continued to relax until he became overwhelmed with the sense of being watched. He opened his eyes and peered across the pool. He squinted, feeling around for his glasses.

"Where the heck did I put them?" he wondered aloud.

"I have my glasses on," explained a female voice that came from across the pool.

"Right. Where's mine?"

Johnny squinted to get a better look of the girl who had joined him in the bath. She looked similar to someone he had known. Straight blonde hair. She wore glasses, too, but they weren't the same style he wore.

"You're playing some kind of joke on me. Those aren't my glasses," said the keyboard player.

"Yes. They are. I am you, after all."

"Right. What the heck does that mean?"

"I am you," answered the girl. "You and me are the same person."

"That's impossible."

"Why do you say that? Why do you think it's impossible?"

"Because I am right here and you are over there," explained Johnny.

"Just because of that? That's not a very good reason."

"OK. Well just logically it doesn't make any sense. You're…a…chick."

"Why should being in a different place and being a girl make any difference? And that's 'girl'. Not 'chick'."

Johnny fell silent for a few minutes. Nothing seemed too logical. Ever since Boadie had signed them up for this trip, nothing had worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. This was just another example.

"Well, you look like someone I know or someone I knew. Why would I be somebody I know is not me? How can I just run into myself all the time?"

"It hasn't been all the time. Only a few times that you thought it was me. Like, me being someone else who isn't you. We have met, you are right."

Johnny noticed that she smiled pertly whenever she paused, adjusting her glasses whenever she did. He began to think she was touching her glasses on purpose, to tease him.

"You, well, me and you, came back from a mini-tour. That was before you were in Gearjammer. You were touring playing country music. That part of your career is pretty embarrassing for you, especially when that welder guy from some industrial punk thing called Treblinka used to bring it up at parties. Punk parties."

"Yeah, I remember him," said Johnny. "That was Jerry Watson. The guy used to call himself Brutus Regicide. What a fucking hypocrite he was. He made twenty bucks an hour welding and lived with his parents. That Treblinka was the worst piece of bullshit I ever heard of. They thought they were going to go to New York and become superstars. Leather jackets their moms bought them at the mall in Grand Forks. Morons."

"Oh, come on, Brutus wasn't so bad. After all, we slept with him, you know?"

Johnny's jaw dropped. "I…don't…think so. I never did."

"Well I did," grinned the girl, touching her glasses once again. "He was OK, but not the best you ever slept with."

"What is it with you?" Johnny demanded. "You're just making all this crap up just to screw with my mind."

"Think what you want. Anyhow, you interrupted my story about where we met. So I'm not the only one changing the subject. Remember Malicious Enterprises?"

"Yeah. They were my booking agent. That was some jerk and his stupid wife who used government programmes to pay kids minimum wage and use the profits to pay for their drug habits."

"That's right. Bob and Sandra Brown. They used to throw pretty wild parties in Portland and get all the kids fried on MDA. We ran into each other at one of those, if you remember."

Johnny recalled a few times he had gone to the Browns' parties. He knew they were never in the same place, although he knew he had gone to Oregon for at least one of them. That was some time ago, though, when he was still a teenager. He knew he hadn't seen this girl for around the same length of time, which seemed to confirm some of what she said.

"It was at a penthouse apartment near the river. Beautiful view of the river, the mountains, and all that. Do you remember it at all?"

The girl adjusted her glasses again. Johnny relaxed his eyes since the squinting had become uncomfortable. Besides, his vision was just poor enough that he could see her without noticing her hand continually playing with her eyewear.

"I kind of remember. What were you doing there?"

"Same thing as you. We're the same person after all. Bob got you into a room with him after you were starting to come down off your high. You aren't as so straight-laced as you pretend to be, Johnny."

The keyboard player searched his memory for a scene such as what she was describing. The place sounded right. He knew he'd been to Oregon for one of the Browns' debauched evenings.

"Ha. You are starting to remember, aren't you?" teased the blonde girl. "Bob Brown knew you were going to want more MDA and he had you on your knees for it. As I remember it, he even told you to unzip his pants and take it out."

Johnny felt a shock of realisation, amid the soothing tonic of the pool.

"Ah, ah, maybe," he stammered. "Wait a second, I mean he could have just told you that. It doesn't mean anything. Like not like you were there or anything. Could mean anything."

"Really. So you think I'd care enough to ask Bob Brown if you'd ever sucked his cock to get free drugs? You are pathetic."

She paused, allowing Johnny the chance to become deeply embarrassed at the memory of an evening with the Browns.

"I know more. Lots more. Everything, even. What about Black Duck's slut girlfriend. You wait till he's out working construction in Yakima, and then you spend your free time over at her place. Oh, nice taste in girls, too, Johnny. How'd you get to shacking up with that slut?"

Johnny became increasingly tense at the girl's strident tone. Black Duck was a skinhead who did power lifting in his spare time. He was feared by many, although Johnny had befriended him only due to his size. He wasn't tall as Boadie, packing roughly the same weight into a five foot nine frame. His girlfriend Melanie was a chubby, earthy girl who dressed poor even though both her parents taught at the college. She had a fondness for combat boots.

"Black Duck would've killed you if he knew what you did."

"Well, I sure wouldn't have told him. I mean, she was obviously lonely."

"Lonely?" giggled the girl. "You saw her at a party, and both of you were loaded. You just thought you'd go ahead and tell her all the lies that any guy would if he was desperate. Why'd you do it, Johnny?"

"There was nothing wrong with what I did. Black Duck wasn't going to come back and just pick up where he left off. That just wouldn't happen. No way."

"So you lied to her, and told her that you had to leave after the summer, that you were going off to Washington DC to start a band with some guys from State Of Alert and Nip Drivers. Where'd you get that stuff from?"

Johnny reminisced and laughed a little to himself.

"You know, of course, but I won an air band contest by lip-synching to the Nip Drivers version of 'Rio'. And I'd just heard that SOA was breaking up. I mean, you could have proved it either way."

"Shallow bullshit," she countered. "You're all pissed off at me for sleeping with Brutus because he's a hypocrite and a pretentious asshole, and you're doing exactly the same thing. Who do you think you are? You don't fool me, and I am you, in case you forgot."

"Well, it didn't really hurt anyone," argued Johnny. "Melanie was fine with Black Duck coming back and just stopping the whole thing. She never even picked up that relationship right where it left off anyhow. I just think she was tired of him."

"That's not for you to say. You must remember your sex marathons on your off weeks. When you couldn't get a gig and just decided to go over to her place and fuck all day? Even that was a lie. You liked the room as dark as possible even in broad daylight. You started fantasising that she was someone else. Big man? I'd say you were a coward who couldn't face your own lies and your own perversions."

Johnny sat in stunned shame. The girl was terribly right about the whole thing.

"You would lie there and let her ride your cock, and you were imagining the whole time that she was someone else."

"Shit," thought Johnny. "There's no way she could know this. She must be reading my mind or something, because I would never tell anyone this."

"You wouldn't admit it. But you had a crush on this secretary that lived in your neighbourhood. Holly McArthur. She had blonde hair, big boobs and the loveliest face. Very naturally kind of fresh. And while you were in bed with Melanie, while you were inside her, you imagined that she had traded places with Holly. You wanted to fuck Holly so bad, but there was no way she was going to go to bed with you. Never in a million years.

"So you're kissing and fondling Melanie's boobs, pretending they were Holly's. That's not all. Once you knew you could get off like that, you imagined that you were Holly, and that you were riding some loser's cock and squealing. And that got you really hot. If you couldn't fuck Holly, you wanted to be her, didn't you."

"Please," implored Johnny. "I wish you'd talk quieter or change the subject or something. Boadie and Brent are going to hear."

"Hear that you broke into Holly's apartment one day? Hear that you stole some of her lingerie? One of her bras? Oh, Johnny, why wouldn't you want your band friends to hear about that? I couldn't imagine."

The girl spat the words in a mocking tone.

"If she's really me, how can she be so cruel to me? So insensitive?" Johnny rationalised. He was still having a hard time believing that they were the same people. He thought she could either be reading his mind, which seemed equally impossible, or that he had somehow told someone about his shadowy secrets. That merely seemed unlikely.

"You have no faith, do you? I'll be blunt with you then."

The girl rose from her seated position in the basin and stood knee deep on the second step leading down. She slowly and calmly walked around the oval. She stopped once she was at his side. He stared up sleepily at the girl, who appeared to be roughly his age.

"Let me show you what you can have, if you truly want it."

With that, she took off her glasses and placed them on his head, adjusting them until he was able to discern her figure. The girl was slender and frankly cute. Naked, and completely blonde.

She grinned luridly at him and stretched one leg over his reclining pelvis. She lowered herself into the pool, straddling him and allowing her youthful breasts to settle inches from his lips. Her pussy rubbed against his cock and her lips curled into a satisfied smile.

"You have done this before, Johnny. We have both done this before. I am Cynthia and you are Cynthia, too."

Her voice seemed to sing to him in a symphonic whisper.

"You wanted to be someone else, Johnny, and you wouldn't stop at your fantasy. You had to have it. I have needed it too. Sometimes the wind arrives from the north and in spite of its cold, I enjoy it. But when it shifts to a westerly wind I am afraid. Hold me, Johnny, and make love to me, because that will keep me strong. I love you because you love yourself. You need to do this to make us both strong."

Cynthia's meandering whispers put Johnny at ease. She had already reached down to insert his cock into her, and she was writhing on it just as Melanie had during their fling. In the same way, Johnny's mind sank into a relaxed serenity as he felt himself consumed by becoming Cynthia.

"The sun's disk dies on the western wind," gasped the young lady, filling herself with Johnny's erection and his consciousness. "That's why I'm so afraid of this stupid place. Together, as one, we can make it through. We can fix it."

The air felt heavy in Johnny's throat. His eyelids dropped shut and the brightness of the room faded into blackness. He knew he was Cynthia. It was a glorious feeling, penetrated and alive with sexual electricity.

She felt the cock within her explode in a frenzy. Her heart was lost in some other world. It was a world of mythical nonsense. It had painted flowers and visionary animals she couldn't imagine as Johnny Fairmont.

Cynthia stared down at the reclining figure beneath her. She plucked the spectacles from the shell of the keyboard player and allowed his head to rest back onto the steps. She grinned with satisfaction as the body slipped under the smooth liquid. Adjusting the glasses on her face, she knew she was both Cynthia and Johnny Fairmont, and was stronger than the sum of the parts.

In a far part of the room, she found a slatted closet door. Within it, Cynthia discovered a delicate robe covered with flowers. It fit perfectly, and she strode quietly, barefoot, across the stone floor towards the door that led to the other rooms.

She was startled when it opened abruptly. A pretty girl, with flowing brown hair, an overtly sexy ensemble, and a sweet crimson smile, strutted through the door.

"Cynthia. You look so cute in that outfit. Recognise me?"

Rebekkah slid her hand down her side to her hip, curving her body into a mock statue, and toying with her hair.

"Rebekkah, you look like a Corinthian prostitute," laughed Cynthia. "Haven't you got any modesty?"

"Would you have modesty with a body like this?" Rebekkah asked in reply.

"Naw, I guess not," agreed the shorter girl. "I got Johnny though; did you manage to get one out of this yet?"

"Yes, the guitarist. Well one of them."

Cynthia stared over at the glassy pool. Its surface had become opaque and mirrored, entirely swallowing the form of Johnny Fairmont.

"There is something about this place," said the blonde-haired girl. "I kept thinking after I accepted this transformation that I would somehow know what was going on. I mean, Cynthia seemed to know everything but she doesn’t. You know, Rebekkah, that I saw some guy in a robe and old armour in one of the other rooms. And there's the whole business of the yellow elephant."

"I know. That's weird. And there was some inscription over the door where we came in. Right after this whole kind of tapestry carved into the stone. Something about the right way to walk."

Cynthia stared down at Rebekkah's feet, strapped neatly into a set of high-heeled shoes.

"I don't think it's my shoes," smiled Rebekkah. "That would be just too obvious."

"What happened to your boyfriend?" asked Cynthia, changing the subject.

"What would make you think," began Rebekkah, placing both hands on her hips now, "that anything would've happened?"

"I did it too. I figured you must have gotten some. Hey, I'm teasing. Say you didn't enjoy it?"

"I'm not going to lie to you. Of course I liked it."

Cynthia grinned in silent, knowing agreement. She turned once more to reassure herself that the pool was still opaque, still concealing and consuming the body of the man who had joined her in this form.

"We've gotta find Boadie and Brent. Or whatever they've become by this time. It feels good because it's nicely cool in here. And the wind is still blowing a little from the north. That's a good thing."

"Why should the wind make a difference?"

"I'm not sure. It's not really something I can explain. It…well…just leave it at that."

Rebekkah turned suddenly towards the door. She heard the sound of heavy boots on the stone.

"That sounds like Boadie," she said. "It sounds like he's in a hurry, too."

The two girls made their way to the door, but once they arrived in the hallway the sound of Boadie's heavy footfalls was disappearing into the distance.

"Me barefoot and you in heels," cried Cynthia. "We're never going to be able to catch him this way. I just hope he doesn't intend to do anything stupid."

"Boadie? The guy who got us into this? Now what would ever make you think he was about to do something stupid?"

Cynthia laughed briefly at Rebekkah's outburst. They made their way to a corner of the hallway, leading to the exits they had been warned against violating. Boadie was gone.

Rebekkah turned around. Past Cynthia's shoulder, she realised that a solid wall covered the first chamber, where she had left all three remaining members of Gearjammer. Whether Brent was inside she could only guess. What mattered to her was that Boadie was apparently no longer in the restricted area, and had sped away in great haste.

"What do we do now?" Cynthia fretted. "That bastard is going to wreck everything for all of us."

"Let me think," answered the transformed Terror. "There has to be a way to fix this. I know we need Boadie. I can't say why, though. It just is."

Cynthia adjusted her glasses, looking first at Rebekkah, then down the corridor where the suspected that Boadie had fled, then at the sealed wall. Whatever was happening, she felt a distinct loss without the community of her band mates, even Scott, who had vanished completely.

-------------------

Who Is Mercy Wild? Chapter 4

-------------------

While time fled for Cynthia and Rebekkah, Boadie and Brent watched it crawl by like a wounded serpent. The burly drummer was interested in the large stone box in the middle of the room, while Gearjammer's rhythm guitarist continued to rest in languid innocence on a bench.

"Hey Brent," announced Boadie, "this box looks like the lid could be took off of it. How much do you think it weighs?"

Brent snickered, assuming that the biggest member of the band was pulling his leg.

"Look, there's definitely a crack, like where the top was put on," Boadie continued. "I don't think it would be that hard to just push it off."

"Why?"

"Just because. You know, to see what's inside. Maybe it's full of diamonds or something. Maybe we could pocket whatever it is and get away with it."

"You just like wrecking things, Boadie."

"Oh!" cried the drummer in mock hysterics. "Brent the Dutch Boy don't wanna wreck nothing. What a laugh riot you are, buddy. That gig at the Masonic Temple in Palo Alto with Agent Orange you sure looked like the Jesus Christ of not wrecking shit. You were so plastered on Ne Plus Ultra that your brain was a puddle."

"Shit, Boadie, I don't even remember that."

The drummer chortled in a booming echo.

"You couldn't remember breaking down the back door of the place cause you thought you were locked out. Couldn't even find the fucking front door, you were so wasted. Broke in and found the stairs down to where the KKK or whoever kept their Mason clothes. You wound up wearing some freaky Mason shit and running back up into the gig like you were Batman.

"When they finally tackled you and got you calmed down--took all the security in the place and they were surfer boys who lived on breaking heads at gigs--that was the end of ever having bands play at Masonic Temples anywhere. I think they must've made you the poster boy for vandalism. They charged the people that put on that show about $30,000. You wrecked the goddamned chandelier by throwing a drapery you'd ripped down, right up over it, and climbed halfway up before it fell. You would've killed yourself if everyone hadn't dragged your legs away from it. Hey, but you sure put the zing into the stupid surfer crap they were playing. You did it, man. You were crazy and you were fucking great."

Brent grinned as Boadie regaled him with past glory. It always seemed like he was right in the middle of any memorable event. Memorable for those more conscious at that the time, though, since his actions were frequently the product of an alcoholic haze.

"Well, pop out the expensive scotch and I'll do it," he muttered.

Boadie pretended to pat himself down. He glared in mock horror at Brent.

"Shit. I am fresh out of Ne Plus Ultra, Brent. I don't see any cupboards in here to hide any neither. I guess you'll just have to commit some vandalism without booze. Can you do it? Can you manage it? Hey Brent, can you survive it?"

Brent leaped to his feet, as though to attack Boadie for his insolence. A rush of blood and adrenaline made him suddenly dizzy, and he paused to regain his senses. Once he stopped hyperventilating, he found himself satisfied that the drummer had meant no insult.

"Y'know, that's a good idea. Let's get the top off this piece of crap, sngkgk."

"First smart thing you said in eighty years," Boadie grinned. He stalked over to the solid stone box and began to wrestle with the slab covering. Brent moved towards the box, too, and bent forward to increase his leverage. As they grunted and sweated, never budging the stone, the rhythm guitarist let his gaze relax upon the rich images carved into its side.

He could swear that three of the figures raised in relief had, moments before, been those of nubile waifs. As he continued to stare, pushing on the stone, the three waifs transformed into likenesses of Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, the trio comprising "Rush". He blinked and pulled away from the stone, feeling as though the box itself was causing him to imagine things.

"Brent. What the fuck you doin’?" demanded the burly drummer.

"You know what? I keep getting this idea. Like I been doing this a long, long time. Like I’m pushing a rock up a long hill."

Brent’s explanation descended into an obstinate babble that appalled and confused Boadie at the same time.

"Like I keep getting smarter and then stupid and then really smart again. I remember I had to read a story in junior high about that. ‘Flowers for Algernon’. It’s this guy who’s all genius and then his mouse dies and so he gets stupid again. Never figured it out. It’s a story by Daniel Keyes, I think. I think that’s the guy’s name."

Brent stood up, glancing at the relief on the box. Clearly, there was "Rush", in all their second-rate concert-rock glory, etched prominently on the side of the casket.

"Keyes. Yeah, not confusing it with Kesey. Ken Kesey was the "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". And not with Keynes either. John Maynard Keynes, like a three-barrelled name, an economist. Should have wrote "Economic Kool-Aid Acid Test" or something."

The incoherence of his rhythm guitarist caused Boadie to forget about removing the top from the stone object. He felt like knocking some sense into his band mate first.

"Boadie, just listen, I know it sounds all weird, but I am remembering all this stuff like I know it, like I’m not just a stupid beer-drinking idiot. I hear that thing from that other story too…it was junior high too, I know."

Brent waved his hands about, speaking excitedly about the stories and the memories. Boadie’s confusion increased with each animated phrase.

"Damn, that was it. I can hear it, it’s a ‘pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’ sound like in that Walter Mitty story. Every time he knew something was going to happen, that was just a ‘pocketa’ sound."

Brent touched his ear and stared at one of the bare walls of the castle chamber.

"Not empty. It’s a ‘pocketa’ sound. You hear it, Boadie, right? And I see it too, right there. In green crayon just like on the walls of the Slanted House. ‘Let’s Lynch The Landlord.’"

Boadie strained to see anything at all on the far wall but there was nothing there. Brent had snapped.

"Right there!" exclaimed the Dutch Boy. "Yes, now I can see that it’s true, it’s true, it’s true. This landlord. This place. And just like Jello Biafra is to the ‘Dead Kennedys’, Geddy Lee is to ‘Rush’. It all makes so much sense now, like it’s amazing."

Brent wandered over to the wall, bent forward, and retrieved the green crayon from the ground, using his left hand. He wheeled around and yelled, sweating, at Boadie.

"My left hand, you motherfucker. I am right-handed, and I can write with my left hand. The left hand. The sinister, the gauche, the outcast."

He turned back to face the wall, and beneath the title of the Dead Kennedys song only he could see, began to scrawl half-blind and furiously. Boadie had not seen a green marker in his guitarist’s hand, but the message now being written was completely visible to him.

"Testimonium ignorantiae vestrae, quae iniquitatem dum defendit, revincit, in promptu est."

Brent finished writing and turned back to face Boadie, the whole room pounding with a searing ‘pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’.

"What’s that say? Fuck it, Boadie, what does that say?"

Boadie opened his mouth and felt as though the words were being forced through his teeth as a dying breath, a death rattle:

"Evidence of your ignorance, which refutes your wickedness even while supposedly defending it, is at hand..."

"Hands up, who wants to die?" boomed a disembodied voice, pounding into both Brent and Boadie, not from within the room, but from the room itself.

Shivering and almost collapsing to their knees, the two Gearjammer alumni watched in stunned amazement as the rock on the wall bearing the ancient Tertullian quote pulsed with a tremendous ‘pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’, bending and forming around a creature so horrible that Christians would have leapt gladly into the lions’ mouths to escape it. Its face curled in a contemptuous sneer, and it loped like a powerful, wounded animal, escaping effortlessly from the stone with something like seaweed trailing off its limbs. The pounding rhythm kept pace with its unusual gait.

"Ah fled this fuckin’ heap on doctored wings…" it shrieked, although it’s wings trailed on the ground lifeless. "Mah flailin pinions, with splints and rags and crutches…"

This howling mania was thorough nonsense to Boadie, but Brent smiled wanly at the black, grey, green beast as it scrambled towards the huge stone box in the centre of the room. The rhythmic, grinding, senseless, shuffling monster melded with the shriek of dactylic meter.

"…ah caint tolerate this ol tin-tub so fulla trash and rats! Felt one crawl across mah soul…"

Most of the lyrics were lost in the constant howling echo that reverberated against each stone wall and back again, colliding in a chaotic din. The creature stopped and glowered at the box, then seized its corners with its hands like pliers. Its arm span was that wide, easily seizing the lid and raising it off its moorings, as easily as a child would raise a toy aeroplane and cause it to fly.

"…And Lord shakin, even then was dumpt into some icy font, like some great stinky unclean…"

The shrieking voice slid into meaningless confusion again, amid the roaring ‘pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’. With a single heave, the smelly giant monster threw the great stone lid against the wall facing the sea, where it blew apart into dust. Grand, crashing, terrible noises that shuddered and screamed like a freight train.

"…Wrapped in mah mongrel wings, ah nearly freeze in the howlin wind and drivin rain…

The beast lumbered over to a shuttered window and parted it, staring almost intelligently downward at the water. It turned slowly around and pointed around the room with its deceptively strong hands, thin and clumsy when not prying one-tonne objects apart and reducing them to powder.

"…If this is Heaven ah'm bailin out! (Ars infectio forco Dio) To the plank!"

The creature turned around slowly, leaving Brent and Boadie stunned on the floor. The steady din began to fade, and the beast punched through the grating that kept the violent or the curious outside the castle, then it hunched itself up onto the sill and contemplated the jump. This window was high up the cliff, just as the one through which Scott had slipped before he fell into the arms of a flock of shrieking flying creatures.

"…Ah see them…ah must save them…the little fishes are submerged…ah must save mah little fishes lest they drown…"

Then the powerful thing leapt, crying one last time ‘ah’m bailin out!’, before plunging downwards into the white-capped sea.

"Now that was more than just a little strange," murmured Boadie, looking over towards Brent, who seemed to detect his every word as a lip-reader. The pounding echo settled into quietude in their heads, yet the confusion of the beast’s rapid, powerful, and unusual presence continued its effects. And the room still stank like something between a corpse and a barnyard.

The drummer lifted himself from the floor and crunched over the powdery remains of the sarcophagus lid to peer through the window. Looking down, he couldn’t tell whether the monster remained below, since its colouring was indistinguishable from the darkening sea.

Brent got up too. He began to follow the drummer when a movement drew his attention from the window. A figure appeared to be rising from the massive stone box, sitting up in its place.

"Boadie. Hey, Boadie, look at this, man."

The drummer stood back from the sill and his eyes widened at the greying appearance of a gaunt figure emerging slowly from the box. He froze.

The figure’s eyes flickered in the dim light of the chamber, grabbing onto the stone sides of the casket to help itself up. Gradually it was able to clamber out of the box, standing between the two members of Gearjammer and the only exit from the room, if one didn’t count the window.

"What the fuck are you?" challenged Boadie.

"My name is Kepler," answered the figure. He began to idly dust himself off, appearing to easily comprehend his surroundings, and the motivations of the two American musicians.

Brent wagged his finger towards the old man: "Kepler. Kesey. Keynes. Keyes. It’s really the ‘Land of the Living K-People’ today."

Boadie shook his head. He looked back across the room, to see if the wall through which the beast had come was still there. Indeed, the green scrawling that had been put there by his rhythm guitarist was still there, and there was no sign of damage to the stone surface. It made no sense to him, but it seemed to be making sense to Brent. That was unlikely. The Dutch boy had never been able to figure out anything unless it was spelled out for him, or was accompanied by a free glass of scotch.

"OK, wise guys, who the fuck is Kepler. You got me."

"Johannes Kepler, of course," Brent nodded. "Lived around the same time as Shakespeare. A mathematician born somewhere in what’s now southern Germany. Well, southern West Germany."

The old man likewise nodded agreeably. Boadie was incensed by this delusional conversation.

"Right. All right. You guys, you and you, are fucking with my head. If you are some old dead German, why are you speaking English?"

"Because English is the language of the dead," answered Kepler.

"Really?" Brent wondered aloud.

"Oh naturally," responded the mathematician, "since everyone knows that Latin is language of the living. You both have experienced that, I must assume, or you wouldn’t be here."

Boadie looked deeply at the ceiling. He thought quickly about the ridiculous contract they had signed to allow this whole batty adventure to unfold. The writing on some of the pages was in some language that none of Gearjammer could understand. It might have been Latin. Or Swahili. Or Martian. The old man from the sarcophagus had a point, but there was no way to prove it either way.

"Well, then Shakespeare must be dead," Boadie mused. "Writing in English and everything."

"Not at all," replied Kepler. "I'm here, I am pretty much alive, obviously, and as your Dutch friend said, I lived around the same time as Shakespeare."

Brent grinned at Kepler's impenetrable logic. "I know even more about you. Your mom was a sorceress."

"Rumour."

"Sure she was. Otherwise you couldn't possibly be back to the living world almost four hundred years later."

"Four hundred years? Say, what year is it?"

"It's 1986," Boadie replied languidly. "And I think you're still at least half dead."

His eyes fell to Kepler's left arm. Kepler traced the drummer's gaze and noticed a lesion festering on his limb.

"True. The coach I employ for travel is not guaranteed to preserve everything. Quite sufficient to function, though."

Kepler extended his left arm, testing its strength.

"So. 1986. Is that Anno Domini?"

"Year of our Lord," Brent translated, again to Boadie's disappointment. "Why would it be anything else? I mean, before Christ, that would be a hell of a long time ago."

"This place was bathed in mystery even then," answered Kepler. "These coasts, all the way to Venice, are ancient and vital. Nothing changes the way it is. Why, I myself, as a fugitive from the Austrian duke, was doubly endangered when I fled to these parts and had to battle pirates. Ottoman pirates. Local pirates. Venetian, Tyrrhenian, Apulian, Sicilian, Neapolitan and Illyrian pirates. That's tough on a mathematician."

"I bet," shrugged Boadie.

"It all returns to the harmonies since, as you musicians must know, there is an inextricable marriage of mathematics and music. And the harmonies are what I learned from my dear mother. It was only jealousy that converted something so pure into the perfidy of witchcraft. I wouldn't expect each of you to comprehend that anyhow."

"I believe I do," offered the Dutch boy. "There were five of us who signed up to tour, but there are just four of us now. And if I remember my Kepler correctly, that would be the smallest number of sides and edges of any Platonic solid."

Boadie winced and blinked at the full-blown genius of the rhythm guitarist. He thought he detected a shine emanating from within the otherwise brainless musician. It rather frightened him. Up to this point, he'd always expected to be the alpha of the group. If Brent knew things he didn't understand, then the tyranny of ego and physical power meant less. And the physical power had already diminished itself considerably when the flailing monster had done the work of freeing this Kepler from his stone cocoon.

"Four sides to the tetrahedron. Very well, O Pupil," sighed the old mathematician. "With that in mind, however, it must be the one less pointed triangle that will conjure the magic required in this place. One of you is just an extra."

"I bet I know what you're thinking," Boadie rasped. "That dumb fucker is the right one and I ain't. I won't have it."

The drummer blustered in reddening anger. This mood deepened into fury as Brent simply stood there watching, admiring the way that Kepler approved of his new-found knowledge.

"I've had it with this fucking shit," roared Boadie. He shook a fist towards the pair and stomped out of the chamber. It was his careless, fleeting footsteps that Rebekkah and Cynthia had heard when they emerged from the adjacent room.

As soon as he left, the greying figure of Kepler waved his good arm in a solemn gesture towards the entranceway, sealing it as solidly as the walls.

"His sour disposition is terribly difficult for the rest of you, I imagine," said Kepler.

"Oh yes, it's so true," agreed Brent. "He gets upset at the slightest thing, especially if it gets in the way of what he wants to do. He always liked having Scott and me intoxicated, because it made him seem so much more reasonable. Truthfully, I never thought he was."

"You don't have to deny who you are or what you've done." Kepler wagged his head gravely. "There is always time for atonement while your heart still beats."

"Atonement? Well, that I don't get. I'm not some religious nut."

Kepler chuckled, his throat flapping and rattling as he did. "I don't mean some Christian thing. Atonement is not a great leap from tone. Tone is what I am, was, about. And many more before me. It was only the Renaissance that appeared to divorce music and mathematics from truth and honour. I was paid half of what a theologian would make as a professor at Tubingen. That's why I had to create astrological charts for royalty in my spare time. Even the great Newton was first a theologian and second a physicist."

"How can you know that stuff?" inquired the Dutch boy. "Newton was way after you."

"You still see time as something more than a matter of convenience. It only helps you arrange things. It has nothing to do with relevance. All these things are known and created without your participation. They're just arranged so you can protect your sanity."

"Arranged? By whom?"

"Ha! If I knew that, I'd be a demi-urge, wouldn't I? I am not a creator, but a simple lover of harmony. And you are Harmony."

Kepler nodded at the rhythm guitarist.

"If you look into my stone carriage, Harmony, you will find some clothes that are far more suitable for your calling."

Brent's ungainly soul had been transformed over the course of the entire episode. It was a sensuous replacement of his preferences for drink, loud music and ignorance, with rapidly growing preferences for consciousness, loud music and delightful wisdom. The emotional and intellectual healing had blinded him to the effective physical change, which happened more suddenly once Boadie left the room.

As Harmony, she felt her breasts swell inside her confining T-shirt.

"I'll just sit over here while you change," smiled Kepler. "And don't think anything of it; it's not as though I haven't seen a naked woman before."

Harmony returned the friendly gaze of the old man and stripped out of her clothes.

"Are these, perhaps, what gave you the idea for describing the properties of ellipses?"

The voluptuous girl smoothed her hands slowly over a pair of large, weighty breasts protruding from her chest.

"Only when they're in motion," nodded Kepler. "Now please do get dressed. I may appear to be mostly dead, but I can assure you I am quite alive in all respects."

Harmony plunged her arms into the sarcophagus to find a white garment, embroidered at the edges with tiny beads in a recursive sparkling zigzag pattern. It was neatly pressed as though recently ironed, and fit her terrific curves with little adjustment.

"You look like a million ducats," sighed Kepler. "With such flawless skin, too, you would have been a duchess in my day."

"What's to become of me? And the others? And Boadie?" Harmony asked. "Not that I would complain about this, but I shouldn't want them to feel left out."

"If this is part of what I think it may be," replied the mathematician, "nobody will be left out."

-------------------

Who Is Mercy Wild? Chapter 5

-------------------

Boadie plodded heavily down the hallway, away from the restricted area where Brent, Terry and Johnny remained. He hadn't fully witnessed any of the transformations. He was furious and confused, seeking answers to questions he had not completely formulated.

His gait slowed gradually as the hallway stretched in front of him.

"I've just gotta find those couple idiots that led us up here. God damn the contract. This place is just a little too fucking weird to make it worth $10,000."

While rage led him from the chamber that sealed miraculously upon his exit, it was not sustainable as the corridor snaked in a confounding maze of angles, turns and arched portals. The stone floor began to feel spongy beneath his feet, the air moist and heavy, his throat parched, and his lips rubbery and tingling. The only feeling like it was travelling along a highway through Idaho after a gig where someone had slipped something into his beer. It wasn't quite like exhaustion or hallucination, but a combination of the two.

The floor began to deaden his heavy footsteps. Something glinted in one the corner of one of the many turns in the hallway. Boadie approached and stooped to see what it was. A pair of glasses.

"These look like Johnny's," he thought. He picked them up and continued, hooking the spectacles into the neck of his shirt. "Why would Johnny's glasses be out here? I thought he was back in one of the other rooms."

Swinging around to look down the passageway behind him, Boadie's view was obstructed. The walls and portals seemed to be changing even as he walked forward, preventing him from returning the way he came. He wheeled back to the direction he believed would take him to the owner of the castle.

Subconsciously, the big drummer noticed that the occasional yellow elephant, carved into the stone on the walls, marked the way. The haphazard procession led him, twisted, lost, to the same aperture in the stone that Johnny had peered through when they entered the castle. Even as the fair-haired keyboardist had glimpsed a robed man in the far side of the vast hall, Boadie noticed the same scene.

"I'm back here again. I knew I could find out what was going on. Those other fucking losers just don't get it."

Boadie stepped through the arched doorway, over which another Latin phrase proclaimed: "Sed suis quidem magistris alias probatissimis atque lectissimis didem incliniavit human de incredulitate duritia…"

As he walked into the room, he shook his head.

"I don't get it. I can read Latin. How the hell did that happen?"

The robed man at the far side of the room closed his book and turned to watch the American.

"What does it say? I mean, if you are truly able to understand Latin."

"Oh, something about stubbornness and disbelief."

"Scepticism. It's an official philosophical stance, you know."

Boadie glared at the confident forthrightness of the man in the robes and armour.

"So who are you? Are you the creep that runs this place? The one's been fucking with my mind and scaring the Bejeezus out of us?"

"Are you scared?"

"Not really."

Boadie glanced around. There was nobody else in the large hall. This regal-looking man was scarcely five and a half feet tall, a little old and tired looking, and definitely at a disadvantage if violence became necessary. All that in spite of the armour he wore.

"So who are you anyhow? Are you the one who's really hired us? I mean if you did…"

The red-robed man held up his hand to silence the drummer.

"One question at a time is plenty. To answer your first question, I am 'Stupor Mundi', the Wonder Of The World. Others know me as the Crimson King."

"Pht-ht-ht," exploded Boadie. "The Wonder Of The Fucking World? You look like a jerk in a robe to me."

"Stubbornness and disbelief," grinned Stupor Mundi. "You really are the alpha you think you are. As for hiring you, well, the contract belongs to the organisation rather than to me. Although, if you put it simply, I suppose you could believe, even stubbornly, that I indeed pay your salary."

"Well I thought it was someone called Mercy Wild. Who is that, then? Who is Mercy Wild?"

Stupor Mundi set his hand on the hilt of a sword hitched onto the belt holding his robe. Boadie hadn't noticed the weapon before, when he assessed the strength of this smallish Wonder.

"You are," smiled the Crimson King.

"I am what?"

"You are Mercy Wild."

"Hang on," Boadie began. "That makes no sense. If I am Mercy Wild, then I hired us. And, I mean, I am a guy, not a chick."

The word 'chick' emerged from his lips in a disorienting chirp. A change had overwhelmed him.

"The non-believers are always the most stubborn," said Stupor Mundi. "I ought to know. I wrote the 'Three Impostors', and I am a thousand times more stubborn than you, Mercy."

Boadie was deeply submerged within his new identity. Powerful and conscious, yet undeniably female. She heard the soprano voice of Mercy Wild escape her lips.

"What's the 'Three Impostors'? "

"Just a little tract. The essential premise is simple. All three major religions are based on deceit. Jesus, Moses and Mohammed were all frauds. Pretty simple, even for someone like you, to comprehend."

"What do you mean, 'someone like me'?" asked Mercy. She noticed that Stupor Mundi was now a little taller than she was. As Boadie, she was used to looming over everyone, but Mercy Wild could not have been much more than five feet tall.

"A power slut, to put it mildly," answered the Crimson King. "If you noticed, too, you still possess all the mindless controlling ambition that the American has. You are indistinguishable from him, to me, in many respects."

Mercy felt the Wonder's stare appreciate her figure.

"Come and see how you look, and perhaps more," teased the King. He held out his hand to grasp Mercy's, nearly pulling her towards a pool set in the stone floor. It was perhaps five feet across, elliptical, and shimmered in the combination of torchlight and natural fading sunlight from the lead-laced windows in the far wall.

Mercy looked at her reflection. The burly drummer from Idaho was lost in a petite young woman with flashing eyes and fluffy hair. She looked almost like a brown-haired Madonna wannabe, with exotic new wave hooker clothes, a little too much make-up, and Samantha Fox's ass.

"This is a power slut?" she asked herself. "I look like fucking Tinkerbell with D-cups."

"Do you like it, Mercy? I know your appearance sure does something for me. But I'll certainly give that a wait until I'm sure you completely understand your roles."

"I thought I, Mercy Wild, actually ran some kind of operation. If I do, then why the hell do I need you?"

"I find your profanity very refreshing," Stupor Mundi explained. "I would have launched a whole fleet to retrieve a harem full of girls like you. But you are entitled to know as much as you need."

The King guided Mercy towards a shadow-glazed wall and pointed at a huge painting hanging there. The sepia-tinged artwork showed a battle scene. It looked a little primitive to Mercy, with oar-driven vessels meeting in a slightly off-perspective panorama of water, fire, and blood.

"This is Lepanto. It's a naval engagement between the Ottomans and the so-called Christians. It happened in 1571. Although the encounter delivered up tens of thousands of slaves, its outcome was only notable for the prestige it gave to the Austrian duke."

"So you are from 1571?" asked Mercy. She felt a certain naivety at having to inquire about these details. In her subconscious, these were things she felt she ought to know already.

"No, but the time-traveller that your other musician friend is entertaining was born that year."

"Kepler?"

"Yes. I'm from a time long before that. Before the voyages to the Americas, before the Reformation, before the Crusade against the Wends, and before the wretch put me in the sixth circle of hell with the heretics. I am the least heretical man who ever lived."

"But you admitted," Mercy argued, "that you wrote about the deception of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. How does that make you not a heretic?"

"The Pope, in my youth, had me live with him in Rome. It was there I learned that he was an impostor too. I don't know how many times he fumbled under the cloaks of papal wisdom as I squirmed on his lap. Yes, Mercy, it's astonishing isn't it? Popes, grand viziers and rabbis acting as nothing more than men, grown-ups playing with their toys.

"While they played and pretended, I showed them just how venal and stupid they were. I captured Jerusalem almost on my own and without ever engaging the enemy in combat. This is what chained me to the heretics in that blasted book. When my adopted father tried to do the same thing, twenty-five years before I was successful, the Venetians tricked him into capturing Constantinople instead. They say you should never underestimate a Sicilian, Mercy dear, and I am a Sicilian."

"What are you hoping to accomplish by this?" Mercy asked. She was aware of Stupor Mundi's firm hand on one of her shoulders, creeping slowly across her back like a teenager in a movie theatre, making the first moves on his date. Still, it felt comforting; there was a confidence and authority in his words and actions that she found attractive.

"Not a lot more than what, in fact, has happened. I intend for slaves to be taken. I also intend to ruin the trading value of the Venetian florin."

"What's that do?"

"It just makes it a little harder for Venice to bankroll the Habsburgs. That blasted crowd was only a pouty-lipped mountain tribe in my heyday. Jethro Bodine and Jed Clampett. Making Ned Beatty squeal like a pig. Yeah, the Masters Of Europe."

Stupor Mundi mocked the Imperial family whose stamp on European politics lasted what seemed forever. They had dominated, affected or created practically every major world event from the creation of the Dominican Order to the ascendancy of Adolph Hitler. Their double-headed eagle could even be found nowadays, draped surreptitiously over crates of memorabilia in the catacombs of the Kremlin.

"You're kind of cute when you're angry," Mercy said. She drew a finger across the flushed cheek of the Wonder Of The World. "However, apart from making love to you--I'd do that in a split second if you want--I can't find any reason I'd want to have a part in your sort of crazy plans. I've read enough about time travel, and shit like that, to know you can't run around changing the past. Makes everyone nervous or something. It's all Rod Serling bullshit."

"Oh, Mercy, I assure you that you will participate. You are the director of those three girls. You wish to be paid, of course, you mercenary little wench. And I have a further guarantee. Come with me back to the scrying pool. You'll find me better looking in the lower light anyhow."

Mercy Wild felt the comfortably challenging tone of the Crimson King and believed it. There was something fiercely attractive about this lewd megalomaniac. He replied to each demand as though he expected it.

The reflection in the pool clouded and shimmered. Amid the murky fluid, Mercy saw an image form, of a long band of water dividing two parts of a continent. The image became clearer as a brief disturbance rippled through the pool. As through an enormous telescope, the vision zoomed in slowly upon a rocky promontory, and a red slate town whose docks crept into the sea.

"That is the town of Naupactus," Stupor Mundi said. "The point of land and the province behind it are called Lepanto, and that becomes the name of importance."

Mercy Wild shrugged within the Crimson King's tight one-armed embrace. As the pool focused in, closer and closer, a fleet appeared, then individual ships, beginning to move slowly in the harbour.

"That is the Turkish armada," explained the Wonder. "Preparing to sail. The key to my fortune and, if you will, our plan. Together."

"I still don't see the point," Mercy answered, "or why you think I have to go along with this, I mean, other than getting paid."

"There is a distinct urgency about this. The Venetians and Austrians won, of course, but the terms are not especially earth-shattering. They'll hold the town for a while but the Turks will come back. And Venetian pride won't even be damaged by their failure to follow up on their victory. How many times have they done that?

"More to the point, however, is that this encounter requires your immediate participation. I have to get it done before St. Bartholomew's Day of next year."

"1987?" wondered Mercy.

"No, darling Mercy, 1572."

Stupor Mundi pointed at the pool. The vision was now close enough to show individual details. A single vessel filled the elliptical screen. Mercy peered at one figure in particular.

"You recognise her?"

"It--it--looks like Scott!" shouted Mercy.

A frightened girl, with perfect flowing hair and Scott's distinctive features, stood bound to the mast of the ship.

"What is this?" Mercy demanded. "Did you take Scott and put her there?"

"Oh no," countered the Crimson King. "All these decisions are your own. You have your contract with me and are bound, if you'll excuse the expression, by your own word. And that alone. You will obviously, however, now find that you have no other option if this rather fetching and helpless version of Scott is to survive the engagement. Otherwise I am certain she'll either drown if the ship is lost, or perhaps find a nice Turkish merchant-pirate to service in Antakya."

"Don't mock me. I know I signed a contract. I just never thought you were as deceitful as the impostors you claim to expose."

"But don't you see that I have no reason to proclaim anything apart from deception? I am not a religious crazy. I am a temporal potentate, without any claim that I am holier than thou. I've got to admit, though, that this is nearly the best $10,000 I've ever spent."

The vision wilted from the scrying pool as Stupor Mundi turned his attention to Mercy.

"You need some of this, don't you Mercy?" he beamed, caressing her breast through the flimsy top that scarcely covered her body.

Mercy Wild felt an excitement within her and a desperate need to satisfy this man.

"God damn it, I want something so bad," she purred.

"You know what I want too," grinned the King. He guided her back to the throne and sat there, allowing her to face him as his legs sprawled to either side. "We haven't the time to get me out of this armour, but I think you can help yourself no matter what."

Mercy whipped off the little jacket and peeled her top over her head while the Crimson King loosened his robe at the waist. He was ready for her. His thick cock rose from a tangle of red hair, and she was instantly on her knees, forming her hand instinctively around it.

Boadie's consciousness within her switched off completely. This wasn't for him anyhow. It was for them. Mercy felt enthralled by the sexual power that came with her body. She felt the meaning of 'power slut' as she ran the tip of her tongue along the shaft and teasingly rubbed it over her face.

"Mercy, don't tease me," grimaced the King. "Eat it, damn you."

He pulled her onto his cock with a firm hand on the back of her head. Her mouth was filled with saliva and the pulsing erection of the excommunicated, power-hungry man. Their gazes met. Hers, looking up at Hohenstaufen monarch, with a big cock threatening to gag her, and his, staring delightedly at the slippery lips of this immodest young thing, coaxing his sperm into her throat.

Mercy was, indeed, at risk of losing her oxygen supply, but she didn't want the Wonder Of The World to have the satisfaction of seeing her choke. A single blowjob became a portrait of each one's mastery of the other.

When he came, Stupor Mundi won the satisfaction of sending his billowing seed straight down her throat. Her victory came at the sight of the Crimson King sweating in the throes of orgasm like a common trick, controlled by lust, notwithstanding his pretensions to the status of Wonder Of The World.

"Shit, Mercy, you could make a living doing that." He adjusted his robe and patted some droplets of sweat from his forehead.

Mercy ignored her top that lay on the floor, simply choosing the little jacket to slip into. She snapped two buttons tightly at her waist and allowed her full breasts to jiggle barely covered, the opening showing skin from her neck to her navel.

"At $10,000 a pop, you might have yourself a deal," she laughed. "I'd love to retire in a year."

"Retirement? It's a shame you're really a corporate director and a drummer in a band, all at the same time, because the Mercy I know would never have stooped to do that. Now you start to understand why I love music."

Stupor Mundi stood up, resuming a more regal posture, and started towards one corner of the grand hall. Mercy followed him, still wondering what his final comment meant. She hadn't heard him discuss his preference for music. There seemed to be something he expected her to be like, and it wasn't on her knees giving him head.

"Where are we off to?"

"I'd say to your destiny but, from what I've seen, that wouldn't be quite accurate. The anterooms are this way."

Mercy followed the King. She expected a long, winding corridor, of the confusing sort she and the others had witnessed upon entry into the vast, perplexing castle. Instead, a heavy door led to a small vestibule, beyond which was the connecting corridor to the few rooms where the others had remained.

It was as though time had been frozen in the other parts of the building. Rebekkah and Cynthia, formerly Terry and Johnny, loitered near the sealed room that Boadie had first stalked from in search of answers. They turned to see Stupor Mundi and Mercy Wild.

"Look at you, Boadie," Rebekkah nearly squealed. "You look like you just swallowed your tongue, or something."

Cynthia, slender and modestly dressed in her floral design robe, joined Rebekkah in knowing giggling.

"Shit, I don't have cum on my chin or anything, do I?" asked Mercy.

"No, silly, but I can just tell." Rebekkah looked quizzically at the Wonder Of The World. "And with this old fart? God, Boadie, even I can do better than that."

Mercy Wild blushed. "First off, I ain't Boadie. I am Mercy Wild. And this so-called old fart happens to be the Wonder Of The World."

"Oh, I'm sure he is," Rebekkah yawned. Her own tryst with the repentant Suit Man seemed to prove to her that she could fare much better in attracting men.

"Prattling wenches," Stupor Mundi sighed. "Come, floozies, we must retrieve Harmony. Then your performance time will be anon."

The Crimson King went to the sealed room and effortlessly glided through the stone as though it was air. A short time later, both Kepler and Harmony appeared, frog-marched by the impetuous Hohenstaufen. If Rebekkah was astonished by Mercy's poor taste in men, she was appalled at the grey-skinned walking cadaver that hugged Harmony tightly as they met in the corridor.

"Is that you, Brent? You've got a corpse hanging off your neck, there, buddy."

"This happens to be Kepler, the magnificent astrologer," cried Harmony. "He loves to titty fuck. Oh, right, you don't happen to have nice big ones like me."

"Big enough for the Suit Man," proclaimed Rebekkah. "At least he's alive."

The competitive chattering of the transformed Gearjammer irritated Stupor Mundi. He knew that the performance was required soon, and this distraction, of whose personal taste in men was best, was irrelevant to his purposes.

"There'll be plenty of time for you women to have your cock-sucking contests," he announced in a disparaging tone. "Right now you're under Mercy's direction--and mine, essentially. Mercy will know where to station you once you're outside. And that's right out through that door."

A door appeared at one side of the corridor, where there had been none before. Mercy and her charges were becoming used to these sudden changes in their environment.

The five, unaccompanied by the Crimson King, left the castle through the door. Once outside, the gloom of nightfall was no longer apparent. It was full daylight. The door sealed behind them, just after the Suit Man emerged.

"Hi Rebekkah," he said. "I hope you know that I would not have abandoned you to face this on your own."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"Girls, over here. Please. Get with it."

Cynthia noticed a cool, comfortable breeze whispering lightly from the north. She followed Harmony and Rebekkah to a small triangle of rocks. They were arranged very near to the edge of the high sea cliff. She looked to the south and there, although she could not recognise it, was the inexorable approach of the Ottoman battle fleet, sallying out of the harbour at Naupactus.

Mercy Wild knew what it was already. The time for the performance, she knew, almost instinctively, was at hand. She walked over to where Suit Man and Kepler remained.

"You will need these." She drew her hands from her jacket pockets, holding small balls of wax out to them.

Suit Man and Kepler took the items, each of them darting their eyes from her earnest face to her body. She knew they were looking at her breasts, but it not only didn't bother her, it felt quite good.

"Listen, you drooling idiots, warm these in your hands and stopper your ears with them." She folded each of their fingers over the individual balls of wax. "The performance is kind of private. You can watch, but no listening. Think of it as a lap dance for the ears."

The three women, arranged on the rocks, waited for Mercy to return. Harmony and Rebekkah were each nudged by Cynthia, who sat between them on the rocks. They, too, turned to observe the approach of the Turks. Mercy returned to see the trio looking at the water. She decided this was not the time to tell them that Scott was bound to the mast of one of the vessels.

The fleet had been approaching the island, almost dangerously close to the pounding surf that roared against the rocks below. As Mercy felt the time ripen, though, the armada began to turn away obliquely, setting further out into the Adriatic.

Was something wrong? She felt as though her directions needed fuel. That fuel was the Wonder Of The World. It wasn't she who was directing the three women; it was him, vicariously through her. That feeling grew stronger as the Ottomans veered further from the island, away from their position on the cliffs.

Cynthia felt the light breeze shift. It was now coming from the north-west. Now from the west alone. That sent a chill into her. She looked back at Mercy, who had a furrowed brow, straining as though to hear something, or to remember something.

At that moment, Mercy looked away from the Turks, whose oar-driven ships were extending the distance between themselves and the dangerous Corcyra shoreline.

From the north, as Mercy peered, a second fleet appeared.

"That must be the Austrians," she thought.

The newly arrived fleet manoeuvred quickly in a line taking them straight south along the Adriatic coast. They approached without any apparent knowledge of the Turks. Mercy wondered about that for a moment. From their perch above the cliffs, the group could not detect a line of scattered mist that lay across the sea, effectively concealing the Turks and even the dangers of passing too close to Corcyra.

"Rebekkah. Cynthia. Harmony. Are you prepared to perform?" asked Mercy Wild. She pointed at the rapidly closing Christian fleet. "That way. Clear your throats and sing, girls. Sing for our sake, for the sake of $10,000, for our dear friend Scott, and for all the men the world."

Kepler and the Suit Man had completely stopped their ears with the wax. This saved their lives.

The performance, for which they had been paid so well, was the ancient seafarers' curse of the Siren. Loud, obnoxious, and, more than anything, compelling. Luring the unready Christians closer to the shoreline. Closer than they wanted to be.

"It was the Christians you meant to defeat the whole time, Stupor Mundi," Mercy swore under her breath. She knew he could hear her. "You are a bastard heretic after all. I should have known. You're going to wreck everything, aren't you?"

Mercy stepped closer to observe the Austrians and Venetians below. As the Siren song screeched from three fresh throats, the Christian ships veered onto the shoals and sea-pounded rocks far below. Wood and human bone splintered in unison as the song pierced the air. Those who dove into the sea to escape the sonic fury were drowned in minutes, weighed into the depths by the armour that was meant to protect them.

A single priest aboard the Duke's flagship, steeled against this heresy by faith and allegiance, looked up, pointed, and shouted unheard oaths. The Siren song betrayed this one of the few souls sufficiently diligent to perceive the danger. The oarsmen of the battleship drove it directly into a white-capped swell that broke it upon a giant point of rock, splitting its keel. The deck, solid ground one moment before, disintegrated into a pile of lumber that dropped into the sea, along with the faithful priest who surfaced only once before a second swell drove a piece of timber through his skull.

When the last Christian boat vanished into the foam, as completely erased from view as the monster that had broken the lid of Kepler's sarcophagus, Mercy Wild raised her hand, automatically, to silence the Sirens.

The contract had been fulfilled.

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Who Is Mercy Wild? Chapter 6

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"When the meaningful words/When they cease to function/When there's nothing to say/When will they start plotting against you…"

Boadie rubbed his eyes, hearing Killing Joke blaring from the stereo speakers. He was awake in an instant, grasping at his chest, practically shocked to find that his body was not that of Mercy Wild. His vision stuck momentarily in a blurry focus, until he saw the winking light of the Atari monitor across the room.

He rubbed his eyes and his face, cast the bed sheets to one side, and climbed onto the floor in a single motion.

By the time the entire song, "Requiem", subsided into silence, the drummer was completely conscious. He looked over at the desk in the corner where the computer sat. He didn't understand computers at all. Johnny had set up the system so that, as long as it remained on, it could activate the stereo at a pre-set time. It would play a random file that Johnny had composed or recorded.

"Space-age robot shit," was what the Dutch boys called it. Boadie stopped rubbing his face and considered his situation. He thought about what seemed to have happened over the past day.

"I am not Mercy Wild. I can't be. This is my room. My fucking stereo. Let's see, my records?"

He walked over to an impressive wall rack filled with LPs. He ran a finger along the cardboard ridges, reading some of the labels. This was most certainly his stuff. Big Black. Killdozer. Terveet Kadet. Even The Jesus And Mary Chain.

Boadie pulled out the Terveet Kadet album, "Halloween". His eyes ran down the song titles until he saw the song "Transvestite". Smirking at the irony, he returned the LP to the shelf.

"This is all my shit," he muttered. "That whole thing must've been some kinda cosmic mind-fuck."

He scanned the room quickly again, while retrieving a pair of jeans and pulling them onto his tree-trunk legs. As Boadie zipped up and fumbled for a T-shirt, his eyes fell upon a framed photograph sitting on the desk by the Atari. He moved forward, holding the shirt limply in one hand, and placed the other hand on the picture.

There was a cute blonde girl, smiling, with thick black ink forming an oblique frame within a frame. In the upper left it read, "To My Big Weenie…" And to the lower right, the invitation closed, "All My Luv, Cindy". The 'i' in 'Cindy' was dotted with a heart.

"Johnny? Cindy? Cynthia?" cried Boadie, in open disbelief. He paused for a moment and looked around the room, as though someone was playing a joke on him and was ready to leap out to laugh at his reaction. Nobody appeared, even after a few minutes, so the musician casually returned the autographed picture and finished dressing.

"Hmm, if Johnny's really actually a punky blonde cutie-pie with the hots for me, I could do a lot worse. Maybe not as good as ten thousand bucks but pretty damn good anyhow."

Boadie wandered out of the bedroom, searching for the kitchen. He was thirsty and felt like a good-morning beer might knock the cuckoo-birds out of his brain. The rest of the apartment was kept neater than he expected, and two huge shelves of books filled two walls near the foyer.

"Oh shit," he grimaced. "Does she live with me or something?"

He grabbed one of the books, Chester Wilmot's "Struggle For Europe" and found Cindy's curvilinear signature inside. Underneath her name was written "3^rd Year, Honours History Seminar."

"Still a freakin' brain surgeon, too. Why would a boy-genius, well, a chick-genius, want to live with me for?"

Boadie finally found the kitchen, familiar in most respects, yet cleaner than he'd left it before the contract to perform on Corcyra. He opened the fridge to find an amber bottle and popped the lid. Just before he took a swig, he looked at the label in dismay.

"Light beer, fuckin' light beer." He sighed. "I ain't sure this livin' arrangement is gonna be any good for my health."

The beer went down cold and easy. Boadie finished it and reached for another, removed the top, and headed for the couch.

On his way to his favourite beer-drinking spot, he heard a frantic noise at the front door, and the spitting image of Cynthia appeared. She looked indistinguishable from the transformed Siren, with a generous hint of Johnny's facial features, and a cute and boyish ass. She was somewhat breathless and animated, flipping her short hair about with each stride towards the couch, as Boadie flopped down upon it.

"Baby, I deposited the cheque and it's good!" she cried. "That's the best gig ever I thought."

Boadie didn't have to fake his surprise. "Gig, umm," he mumbled.

"Boadie, you promised no beer before noon," she scolded. "Has it fucked up your memory totally?"

The drummer set the beer aside on the coffee table. Cindy hopped onto his lap, waving a little bankbook in his face. He grabbed her wrist playfully, yet firmly enough to get the book out of her hand. He looked at the dates on the last two entries. They fit the scheme of things, as though they'd never been transported across the Atlantic Ocean, nor that the dials of time had been spun back to the Renaissance.

The balance had increased, in a single deposit, from $54.15 to $10,054.15. Ten thousand dollars.

A broad grin etched Boadie's face. Cindy leaned over him, her strawberry perfume swallowing the aroma of beer, and she planted a huge kiss on his smiling lips.

"I love you whole bunches, Big Weenie, 'specially after that great gig you set up," she whispered. "It was cool-o-matic excellent."

"Not that I mind," he laughed as Cindy straddled his hips, rubbing herself against his growing erection, "but the way you talk I really sometimes wonder if you ever passed college."

"You love it when I talk like that, sweetie," she purred, stretching to remove her flowery top.

"I love it even if you don't talk," he teased, grasping his meaty hands around her youthful breasts. "Now shut up and fuck me, Cindy."

She was high on the aphrodisiac of the big-muscled drummer and the huge success of the performance that earned them so much. She stripped both of them naked and remounted her husky band mate, inserting his hard cock into her pussy and riding him.

All thoughts of this being Johnny Fairmont were expelled from Boadie's sex-drenched mind as he drove upwards, again and again, into the squealing form of his girlfriend.

His orgasm blew deep inside her. Sweating and ignoring Cindy's exhortations to continue, Boadie's cock slipped limply out of her.

"I told you no beer before noon," she laughed, her disappointment disguised thinly.

"It's not the beer, Cindy. Believe me. You're fuckin' hot."

Before he went too far explaining, he realised this girl had no idea that she used to be Johnny Fairmont or that, as far as Boadie could recall, not even the most fanatical groupie ever found him to be that attractive. They were always onto the Dutch boys or the Terror. Whatever had happened, this part of the deal was right fine.

As Cindy dressed, still chirpy, Boadie reached for his own clothes. He moved the beer bottle out of the way to avoid tipping it over. The bankbook lay open to the first page of entries.

"Account Holder: Yellow Elephant. Group Co-Signers: Jefrey Boadie. Cindy Fairmont. Becky Mowatt. Scott Van Heusen. Harmony McArthur."

Boadie slowly put his clothes on, trying to appear as knowledgeable as he could about his surroundings, although the many subtle reminders of the voyage and the contract increasingly disturbed him.

Was 'Yellow Elephant' the name of his band? Scott's name was intact. Why? He loathed his first name, Jefrey. Why had his stupid parents spelled it with one 'f'?

"Boadie, have you seen my glasses?" asked Cindy. "I can't ever remember where I put them."

"Sorry. Baby." He tacked on the word 'baby', believing Cindy expected to be addressed like that. It flowed awkwardly from his tongue. Better get used to it. Cindy looked like she planned to stick around.

"Are you all right?" she asked, sitting beside him, mostly dressed in her jeans and a bra. "Something seems to be bothering you."

"Yeah, I guess you could say so. You do, um, history and shit in college, right?"

"Are you on glue? Major in history and minor in political philosophy. And now grad work in economic history."

"I got a question, let's say. What is so important about Saint Bartholomew? Like a day in 1572."

"Boadie!" She slapped his arm, teasing. "What's got you so fired up about history? I didn't even know you could read."

"Please, baby, just answer," he groaned. "I mean, if you know."

"Nothing that I have ever heard of," she replied.

"Don't think I'm nuts or nothin'," Boadie continued, staring intently into Cindy's eyes. "What about 1571. Something called Lepanto. Ever heard of that?"

"I've heard of it, sure."

"What was it?"

Cindy held Boadie's hand and stood up, bringing him along with her to the bookshelves. She took out a heavy hardcover. She grinned pleasantly at him and flipped the pages to a chapter entitled 'Harvest Of Blood'.

"If events normally occur in groups of three, then the eighth decade of the 1500's was a notable exception. The great Venetian shipyard, the Arsenal, exploded in a fireball when carelessly stored ammunition was ignited by accident. That was in 1570. The following year, when the Ottoman fleet set out from the harbour at Naupactus to challenge Venice in the Adriatic, a hastily assembled Habsburg force embarked upon a ruinous expedition to intercept it.

"Heading south towards the province of Lepanto, where the Ottomans kept vigil over Greek trade with the Levant, the Christians became lost in a sudden storm off Corcyra. Without the best Venetian navigators aboard, the largely Austrian force was swept onto the rocks and destroyed without the Turks' help. Thereafter no Habsburg armada would ever venture out to sea."

Cindy closed the book, concerned by Boadie's far-off gaze.

"I'm boring you. Obviously."

"Well naw, I don't think so, baby. I think that's plenty, though."

Whatever had transpired in his memory was interpreted by history as a natural event. The phone rang.

"H'lo," Boadie mumbled into the handset.

"It's Becky. Listen, can't make it to rehearsal tonight. Darryl and I made plans…"

"Rebekkah?"

Silence on the other end of the line.

"I hate that name, Jefrey," snarled the voice, pronouncing each syllable as though it was a curse.

"Oh, uh, sorry, I mean, you guys have fun," Boadie stammered. He put down the receiver.

"Why would you go and call her Rebekkah?" Cindy glared at him. "You know she hates that name. So what'd she want?"

"Not, uh, making it to rehearsal. Pardon me for being so ignorant, but can you answer a really, really dumb question?"

"No such thing as a dumb question," Cindy grinned. "Just dumb people."

"Seriously, and please don't laugh, but who, exactly, is Darryl?"

"Becky's fiancé. The lawyer. From Montana or North Dakota or something. Why would you ask a stupid question like that? From now on I want you to promise me no beer before noon. It's crumbling your brain cells, Boadie. I'm going to go shower."

Cindy turned away, leaving Boadie a little wiser, but not by much. He watched her butt as she left.

"What a cute little thing," he mused. "Lucky me, I guess."

The drummer conceded that he wouldn't be able to draw out any information from Cindy without raising her suspicions. Scott's name, however, appeared normally on the bankbook. He might be reasonably expected to understand what happened. The other three members of Gearjammer, or Yellow Elephant, were so completely transformed that their memories and expectations would be distorted. Their names already were.

"Cindy," he called into the bathroom as a steamy mist billowed from the screened bathtub. "I have to go out. Over to see Scott. I'll only be an hour or so."

Cindy rustled back the plastic sheet and called back to him as he shut the door again. "Better not be fucking that's skank's ass."

Boadie barely heard the sharp retort as the door clicked shut. He pulled on a pair of Doc Martens and left by the side door. The garage was where it was supposed to be. So was his car. The alterations to his environment were just enough to mystify him, yet insufficient to drive his sense of sanity away.

On his drive over to the bass player's house, Boadie peered through the vehicle's windows, looking for anything out of place. This was the same, ordinary, two-bit town he was used to.

The car stopped on the edge of the pavement, by the walkway up to the Van Heusen residence. The drummer switched off the ignition and walked to the door, knocking heavily upon it.

Mrs. Van Heusen, exactly as he knew here, answered the door. "Jefrey. You are here to see Scott? He's downstairs, you know."

She called out in a high pitch for her son, meanwhile guiding the bigger member of the rhythm section to the head of the stairs.

"He's probably all wrapped up in something," smiled Mrs. Van Heusen. "You can just go down. I know he'll be glad to see you."

Boadie hesitated before descending into the basement. He wondered if the ordeal of capture by the Turks had somehow caused irreparable injury. His mother's tone was unwavering yet consoling. Just like a Mom.

Once downstairs, Boadie found Scott's room exactly where he remembered it. But once he neared it, the subtle smell of lavender reached his nose.

"Oh, sheesh, this isn't…"

He knocked briefly at the bedroom door before opening it. There was Scott, magnificently garbed in clothing more appropriate for a teenaged girl.

"Brent was right, goddammit," he blurted. "You're all fuckin' pansied up."

"Boadie," smiled the transvestite, curled up on a fluffy pink bed, reading the latest issue of 'Trouser Press'. "Great to see you, buddy."

Scott flipped the magazine onto a pile of others and nearly jumped off the bed.

Boadie looked away from his bass player, casting his eyes upon a series of giant wall posters: the movie "Out Of Africa"; a framed and mounted portrayal of The Pogues' "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash"; another one of the Pet Shop Boys; and a large, live shot of Samantha Fox dancing in front of her band, all fluffy blonde hair and clothes that provoked and revealed.

Scott himself was all fluffy blonde hair, too, although it appeared to be a wig.

"Scott, my fuckin' God. I certainly didn't expect to see you, um, like this."

"Please, Boadie, call me Julia. I'm going through my Julia Duffy/Stephanie Vanderkellen phase right now." His eyes widened in mock emotional agony.

"Yeah, OK, Julia. Wait a second, your Mom's right upstairs. Does she, um, know about this?"

"Oh, of course, this isn't the Middle Ages or anything. It's perfectly natural for a transvestite to express herself in a wholesome and natural way."

Boadie looked past Scott at a magazine poster of George Michael and Wham! A wholesome and natural way? Wham!? He looked back to the Sam Fox poster. That was wholesome and natural. She looked a lot like Mercy Wild. A lot like he was on the cliff over the sea on the western side of Corcyra. Scott, dressed as Julia Duffy, didn't seem much different.

"Is there a problem, Boadie?"

"Yeah, there is. I'm a bit lost. I think I've got a problem with who we are and what we're doin'. I can't really talk it over with John, uh, I mean, Cindy."

"You were going to say Johnny," smiled Scott.

"You remember Johnny?" Boadie shouted, suddenly seizing Scott's shoulders. He let go in an instant. "Sorry, it's just that…"

"I was hoping it wasn't just me," answered the bass player. "But you, I thought, were going to be totally out of it. Do you know where we played last week? To make all that dough?"

"You know about the money."

"Oh yes, all of us had to sign the cheque. You and Cindy, me, Harmony and Becky. Ten thousand for basically one gig is hard to forget."

"You remember Corcyra, then."

"Corcyra? No, the governor's place in Helena."

"The governor? Helena is in Montana."

"Right. Are you on glue, Boadie?"

That was the same teasing remark that Cindy used. At this point, Boadie regretted that he had nothing to drink. His throat was parched.

"Governor Weimar's place," Scott continued. "I thought it was one of our better shows."

"Governor Weimar," Boadie repeated. "Are you kidding? That sure rings a bell. I don't suppose they call him Hoss, do they?"

"Of course they do. That's his name, I mean."

"Scott. Julia. Whatever. Hoss Weimar is supposed to have had something to do with Mercy Wild. With the Wonder Of The World, and that whole Siren thing in 1571."

Scott squinted through his carefully applied eyeliner and long, fake eyelashes.

"You must be on 'shrooms, buddy boy."

"It must sound nutty to you," Boadie implored, "but I know what happened. I know I was Mercy Wild. I know that Harmony, Rebekkah, uh, Becky, and Cindy were all in my band. And I know it wasn't called Yellow Elephant. And you, you, you…" The big drummer stood bolt upright and threw a pointed finger in Scott's direction time after time. "You are almost exactly the same. Except you're in drag."

Scott blinked in a dense fog.

"I'm not 'in drag'. I'm 'in my persona'. This is me. No matter what your deluded half-witted brain is thinking."

Scott detected his soft recriminations were only further confusing his friend.

"But hey, just amuse me. Tell me what you think happened. Why do you think we got paid $10,000 to play wherever it is you think we played?"

"I think there's a good chance that somebody changed history. And they used us to do it."

"So you're important enough a guy to change history?" Scott asked, as pleasantly as he could.

"I didn't," explained Boadie. "Mercy Wild did. Or Stupor Mundi did. They sure changed all you guys."

"Bear with me, handsome," urged Scott. He walked over to the far corner of the room and switched on the television set. He turned to a channel displaying the time and weather, noticing that it was nearly five o'clock. He flipped quickly to another station, then turned back and flopped on the bed, smoothing his slinky dress under his seat.

"With all due respect, Boadie, that's Mercy Wild."

The television displayed a newsy broadcast of regional events. The host? Mercy Wild. Boadie stared at the screen. In vibrant colour, a young, pert woman, almost exactly as he remembered himself in Stupor Mundi's scrying pool, introduced a list of human interest stories.

"This ain't possible," Boadie sputtered. "It's like too much a coincidence."

"I'm no big smarty-pants like your girlfriend is," Scott said, "but I don't see why you think anything you're seeing has anything to do with something that happened four hundred years ago. It's gone. It's done. You can't do nothing about it. You can't do nothing about Harmony running off and marrying some guy three times older than she is. You can't do fuck all about Becky falling in love with that lawyer, even if we know he's a pimp or a pusher or something. You just think you’re the number one all the time, Boadie. Like everything revolves around you. That's just foolish, I hate to say."

Boadie felt angry, sad, confused and elated all at once. Scott would have pummelled him with his fists before that damned contract was signed. Now he was hitting him with reasoning and, the worst thing was, it was making a hell of a lot of sense.

"I'm stubborn and I refuse to believe. That's what you're saying."

"Yeah," nodded Scott.

"And you're right on, um, Julia. And that's what makes me the alpha. I am the leader of the group."

Boadie rubbed his index finger across his upper lip and turned away from the transvestite bass player. The television set showed Mercy Wild interviewing a jackalope hunter from Minot, North Dakota.

"I'm the alpha, because I know."

 

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jacquie@sissy.net

Many thanks to the following contributors who, consciously or not, each helped tremendously with this little story [alphabetically in the traditional style]: Alyssa Palin, Maggie Finson, Melissa Virus, Pirategrrl, RJMcD, shalimar.

Certain portions of this story use direct quotes from "Mutiny In Heaven" by The Birthday Party. C. 1983

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© 2001 by Jacquie Windsor. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.