2
Macbeth
Zürich, Switzerland
Le Fleur de Lis Café
October 31st, 2014
Time: 12:30 AM
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– and it damn near ripped him apart.
Skinned him alive and then tore his entrails apart, limb-by-limb. When he screamed, his body screamed. Over and over and over. The angelʼs work slew his vitals, his carved his flesh into bone and then snapped it over his knee. Doubling over on the café chair, Macbethʼs insides: hollow, wretched, decaying, and black – Macbeth insides lurched against his chest cavity, and blood leaked. Raggedly; a storm before its calm. As his mouth bled, the saline taste hit the table; a crimson so dark it was almost a seamless obsidian, and as he sucked in air until his insides were struggling to withstand the pressure of his quaking chest...
...Orion sat and drank a Swiss espresso. Sipped it, actually. Like he was a pretentious British f*cker sitting on the bloodied English throne.
"What?" Orion spat, enjoying the sight of Macbeth's suffering. "Can Luciferʼs predecessor not handle a little turbulence?"
"Go to hell," Macbeth spat back, clutching his abdomen as sweat dribbled down his forehead and swarthy skin.
"Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. It isnʼt really fitting, you know. With the gut-wrenching sobbing, the...ripping of veins from live hearts, the blood from a babyʼs throat that etches itself into your mouth. But Iʼve heard that for you, it was a blast. A pretty and proper little masquerade for the Mad King. Isnʼt that splendid? You, coming back, just when things above and below are getting interesting?"
Zürich wasnʼt a bright city when Macbeth regained control of his motor functions.
There was no glistening river gilded by a golden sky. There was no cultural vibrancy, hushed French whispers and the wealth that jutted from the Alps like a lustful knife. There was simply an effervescent darkness that was glorious in its gore. It blanketed Orionʼs café, the once clouds that were crowned in white, the river Limmat and lake Zürich, the water a filthy black framed in cerise red. Sliding Macbeth a frothy espresso and blueberry pastries smudged with famous Swiss chocolate and mousse, Macbeth looked at the poisonous platter with contempt and stared at Orion with his angry, obscure eyes. The butter-knife from the pastry lingered nearby.
"I asked you a question, Macbeth. Most civil people would answer it."
"Most civil people don't answer to rhetoric, ye queerie piece oʼ crap," Macbeth growled. "I will repeat for your leisure, Orion. The f*ck do you want?"
"I told you I donʼt want things, Macbeth. I invest and I negotiate. And frankly, investing in you is worth my while."
"What kind of investment, for Chrissake, you cryptic sh*t?"
Orion took another languid sip, and stared at Macbeth with eyes so yellow, so golden, so cat-like they damn near glowed.
"Rumor has it that youʼve been searching for a bright-eyed vixen in Chicago? Bohemian and all?"
"What do you know?" Macbeth countered, coolly.
"Information comes with a price, Macbeth. Every good investor knows that."
"You do want something."
Orion smiled wryly.
"I suppose I do," he admitted. "But thatʼs another story for another time. Right now...all I want is transparency. A promise, that you will kill Lucifer. That you will slather yourself in hellʼs blood, soul, in its fornication and dine with the filth of your own kind if it means tearing him apart. That when it is time for the slaughter, you will cut down that cloven beast and milk everything from that pathetic excuse of an angel that soils all the hallowed ground he walks on. I need to know if he will die, slowly and brutally. If you agree to those terms, well, letʼs just say weʼre going to have tons of fun after that."
Macbeth laughed, leaning back and carefree. His eyes were cradles of his darkness, his hunger on a new track of discourse, and his mind was wary, but laughter...it was new to him. A fresh, delicious sensation. An artful one. Macbeth laughed, diabolically and maniacally, testing the different cadences and tones of his vocal chords. The dissonance was rich, the hate braided within delightful, and as he laughed, he stared.
"Youʼre funny. A funny, funny man," Macbeth said simply, sipping his tea. "Or dog, rather. I apologize. Itʼs been a while since Iʼve seen a mindless b*tch of God walk around this damned earth oʼ ours."
Orionʼs eyes narrowed.
"Are you done?" he asked in a dangerously low voice.
"Oh, irmão," Macbeth whispered menacingly. "Iʼm just getting started. You took her from me. You donʼt get to walk away from that."
It was Orionʼs turn to laugh. With coldness, with calculation. A waiter filled a cup of Irish brewed lager to the brim, and the droplets were like gold; amber splashing the rills of the alcohol with a foamy ferocity, and in the haze of his hatred, Orion drank. Not for the taste, for the taste was only a molecular sensation of nothingness, but to contain his anger.
"You know, you laugh at me for hunting you down like cattle, but you...youʼre a different case, Macbeth. A different breed of seemingly heterosexual mediocrity. A laughing stock without any conception of who specifically is laughing at him. How can a man as consumed with the idea of his perfect wife as you are have no actual idea as to what said wife was doing? Tell me, how is that possible?"
Shame burned into Macbeth as he closed his eyes. A hollow trifle. With a whip that felt like steel, it crashed down and fueled the fire of a thousand suns. Chafing him, burning him at the stake. It was a primal feeling, a defensive one, one he kept buried. Orion scoffed at it, and as his tongue darted to touch the skin of the lager droplets, it felt like a blood pooling around their flesh.
"Marcella Evangeline DeMarcus, your kin you saw in Chicago, sheʼs quite a happy child. First in her class, just like her older brother Romeo. The werewolf gene forced maturity onto her after she turned eight. Every year, she grew two years older. It fostered this supernatural darkness inside her, drew anyone as far as the I-can-see closer to that exquisite energy. That rich blood that runs through her veins. She was a far-cry from her mother and father, the perfect genetic mutation without a trace of Latin and Scottish blood inside her. She was conceived in a human womb, by a human father, and she is not of their kin. but if there is anything she does share, itʼs their rampant s*xual appetite. The need to get filled for...theatrics, attention, wanton need. Tell me, does she get that from you or your delectable Portuguese toy, Macbeth?"
"You son-of-a-b*tch," Macbeth snarled. "You f*cking c*nt–"
"The convent didnʼt save her, Macbeth. And when she slit her wrists, mad with revenge after Lulach died, she wasnʼt talking to God, you bloody fool. She was talking to Lucifer. As his wh*re, his mistress. Consorting with him, feeding him his fill, and you never saw it. How?"
There was a tremor that ran through him. A chill, a jolt. Made him blind with rage, vehement with venom. The words flowed out of Orion with a viscidity of ichor, rich in their insults and rich in their language, and he hated it. Every syllable, every vowel, every word, the name Marcella DeMarcus. Marjorieʼs story. It burned, the poetry burned, kissed by Satan himself...and he just listened. To every clenched barb that spilled out of Orionʼs throat, and every ill word about the legacy that he worked so hard to keep intact.
"What?" Orion mocked. "No witty repartee? No blind arrogance? No seducing lies? Is this the part where I wait for you to f*ck me, Macbeth? Is this the part where you tear my innards apart from the inside? Like your precious Decarabia? Your dark flower brought this fucking world to its knees, and like always, Iʼm cleaning your damn mess. The fish always rots from the head, and she kept the fishʼs head on a pike by using you."
Macbeth said nothing.
"Strong and silent, good for you–"
"More. About Marjorie; about Marcella. I want more."
Orion crossed his arms over his chest, wings ruffling against the stark, parched air.
"Lucifer, Macbeth, I want Lucifer."
"My wife is dead. She was Count Léonʼs fury, a Portuguese prize to be reckoned with, and sheʼs dead. I buried her. I put her body in the ground. My body tasted her blood, and she drew it from the hand that fed her. I know that Heaven suspected she slept with various men, like the rebel Macdonwald. I know that because of her fear, her panic, her hesitation, her...callousness, her cannibalistic urges, her hatred, her cruelty, that she killed those babies for him. Burned Scotland, for him. That she crucified herself for him. That she surrendered the brilliance, and the independence, and the future I fell in love with to him. I know that. But my wife is dead, and you took her from me. The devil took her from me. I am not finished. Do you hear me, Orion? My wife is dead! And he took her from me."
Macbeth shook in his seat, his vision going black, and in the wake of his sadistic tears, the tears that made his back split open as it shook, he heard her. Her sweet voice, rough with the pain of the past. So saccharine, so sweet, Marjorie, his Marjorie.
Just like you took me from him.