The Secret Life of Statues: Tools of Creation, #1

Also by Russ Viola

Reality's Insurgents

Found Objects

Tools of Creation

The Secret Life of Statues

Watch for more at Russ Viola’s site.

The Secret Life of Statues

By Russ Viola

Copyright 2015 Russ Viola

Cover Art: Matthew Britton

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Dedication

For my mom, who rarely understands me, but always loves me.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I'd like to thank the keen eye of my partner in crime, Anita Ziegner. Without her unwavering dedication to form and structure, this work would have never come to fruition. Editorial machete in hand, she's helped me blaze a trail through crowds of commas and hoards of hyphens to glean the gold that is hidden within the chaos of my storytelling process.

Big thanks go out to all the beta readers who took part in this first great endeavor. Your feedback brought me that much closer and helped shine light into the darker corners of my story structure.

Also author Robert Bevan deserves a back slap here for reminding me that if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself. In other words, stop waiting and get on with self publishing!

Finally a very special thank you to my Aunt Marilyn Viola. She introduced a young boy to the joys of reading genre fiction and gave him his first blank journal. There have been many journals filled and lost since then, but she was there at the very beginning.

Do you want FREE novellas, short stories and exclusive extra content from these worlds? Follow the link below to become a member of the Inner Circle:

http://www.russviola.com/mojo

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

Thrace stood up from his prone position, unfolding all five foot eleven of his wiry, half-starved frame. Moving like a puppet, he began to weave his way through the maze of alleys and back streets in Old Town following a peculiar siren song ringing in his head. The pulse led the way through the main square, past the food vendors and Astrological Clock and outward toward the Jewish Quarters. The oldest Jewish settlement in Europe... the Jewish Quarters of Prague have been a seat of mysticism and mystery since paint hit canvas in this part of the world.

Walking through the darkness, the shine from the streetlights on wet cobblestones painted a mosaic on his retinas. Thrace followed the throbbing inexorably on.

...have to find it. That will make this go away...will bring back the soft quiet in my head. I have to remember!!

Pain lanced behind his eyes and Thrace felt as if someone had pushed a dull piece of rusty rebar through his skull. He fell to his knees and elbows, head down, forehead touching the ground. This supplicant’s position had become second nature to him. It brought him a measure of emotional and physical peace. The pain subsided, replaced by the persistent beating, and something new, a memory.

He is in a graveyard with stones tilted at crazy angles. Old and worn, these sentinels of final rest become creatures in the half-light of his sight. Laughing and exuberant, he throws a spent wine bottle against a large tomb. He hears the laughter of the others, his friends. As he turns, stepping between two stones, hearing catcalls from the guys, he rounds on a shadow with eyes. The man is impossibly tall, long hair spilling from his hat, eyes flashing with a flat spectacled glassiness. The man-shadow opens his bearded mouth and brings his hands up to his face; he pukes up a glowing lump of something. Holding out both hands in an offering, the glowing lump beats in front of his face like a small heart. Its icy cold hotness burns Thrace's cheeks and forehead feverishly.

The clinking of coins in his hands brought him back. Thrace clutched the echo of warmth left in the metal, raised his head and met the benefactor’s gaze squarely. Something jumped from Thrace, from the given warmth in his hands into the dark eyes of the young man before him. The man smiled, tongue flicking out to caress his upper lip as if to lap up the last drops of the memory that had slipped from Thrace.

Mmm...thank you! And you tell the good Rabbi for me that this is my city. He would do well to keep his boy-toys and playthings in the place that I've allocated for them or I'll take that from him as well. Just because he can’t die, does not mean I can’t make his life a living hell.

You...you're Roshi? Thrace found the words in a half question.

Good boy! So, I see he didn't rot your whole brain with that shit he fed you. Well there's hope for you yet! Yes, I am Roshi, and I am the one who holds the power here in Prague now. Your master is old, past his time, and should have faded into antiquity ages ago. He has no real influence outside his bone yard, but keeps pushing his little toys off the edge of his bed in the hopes that they will miraculously come back on the other side. He should be content with what he has, but he's not. Now I should really eat you up...take you away from him to prove my point, but then I would not get my message delivered. So, you think you can do that for me, little buckaroo? Roshi bent over Thrace ruffling his hair with hollow affection.

Uhhh... ungh... muuh Thrace stuttered, the shushing pain returning to his head full force.

"Oh...fuck...he really did a number on your cerebellum didn't he? All right...look, I want you to take this message to the good Rabbi. More importantly, I want the good Rabbi to stop his shit in my town and behave, so since you seem to have some kind of potential to survive this sort of thing, I’m going to open your eyes to a new kind of way.

Hang on, this may pinch a little," chuckled Roshi, as he gently cradled Thrace's head in his left hand and shoved his right thumb into his forehead.

Light exploded. Constellations were born, destroyed and born anew. Pieces of his past came rushing toward him, as Thrace started remembering.

The clock tower square in Old Town was bustling with people that mild October evening. Accordion music was echoing off the church walls with a blacksmith keeping time on his anvil. The tour groups were following bright umbrellas or little flags on sticks while the rest of Prague's tourists scuttled between them.

Sean took it all in as he sat in the open-air cafe on the square, drinking his beer and waiting on his friends.

Where are they? Probably still hung over from last night's pub crawl! he thought to himself.

He should never have agreed to this crazy plan of Scott's. Breaking into that old cemetery was going to be nothing but trouble. Scott and Paul were not going to be any help if things got bad with the locals, and they were probably drunk already.

Let's visit the creepy graveyard! Scott had said last night. Let's meet that ole Jew who animated that Golem in person! We'll have a ritual of our own and call up his spirit.

Could be fun, replied Paul in his standard nonchalant way.

And I, of course, had given in! thought Sean, thoroughly disgusted with himself. Why had I agreed to this? We are most certainly going to get caught and arrested for vandalism at least. I don't think they like Americans that much around here. Hell, they may even incarcerate us. Take our passports. Deny us the right to go home! That's it! I’m going back to the hostel. Those guys are on their own tonight. As Sean tossed some cash on the table and began to rise, a hand fell heavily on his shoulder.

Where do you think you’re going? Scott whispered, with a cheap Slavic accent.

Scott...I had just about given up on you. Where's Paul?

Down for the count. Hung over too badly for tonight's festivities, it seems.

So, it's off! Sean countered.

Nay, my chicken-shitted friend! We shall see, conquer and overcome the walls holding those poor Jewish souls in, and we shall liberate them to fly across this square! Scott's soliloquy was punctuated by a flight of pigeons rising from the clock tower to pass behind his head.

He couldn't have seen that. Weird. Sean thought.

I'm not going.

Oh, yes you are.

Oh no, I'm not.

Yes, you are Sean.

No, I'm not.

This went on through dinner, a considerable amount of beer, and halfway to the Jewish quarter.

Give me your hand Sean! Scott hissed, leaning over the wall of the cemetery, head and arm popping out of the gloomy darkness like some apparition.

Ok...ok...keep your pants on, mumbled Sean scrabbling on the smooth stone of the wall for purchase.

Look what I managed to not spill! Scott offered, as he uncorked and took a swig of the vino they had been sharing on the way over there.

Scott, this is nuts! What are we here for again? Come on, we've broken in, now let’s get out and head back to the hostel.

I’ll do ya one better, slurred Scott. Let's man up, grow a pair and find that ole Rabbi's tomb! This place is awesomely creeptastic and I wanna explore it a bit.

Give me that! I think you've had enough, and I’d like to get outta here before dawn! Sean took the bottle of courage with him and stomped away through the tombstones.

You whistle once you've gotten your rocks off and you're ready to go. I’m going to find an easier way back over this wall.

Wandering through the tombstones, passing from one silent sentinel to the next, cold stone warming to his touch, Sean was scared. He'd been in cemeteries before, even some unusual ones like in New Orleans where he grew up. They called them ‘Cities of the Dead’, row after row of little white 'houses' because down south you couldn't bury your dead below ground. They'd pop-up, just like a cork in the water and float away. Those tombs were eerie, sort of extra quiet, like that silence that runs under everything. As a child, whenever he had been to visit his grandma and grandpa among those old tombs, he was almost deafened by the silence, roaring in his ears like a rushing river. He remembered humming to himself...a low tuneless sound...just to fill his head with some sort of noise. He’d needed something, anything to fill that supernatural silence. Here, it was different though. This old resting place was much louder.

Alive, he thought.

That bothered him deeply. It felt like there was lost random noise here, a collection of sounds, groans, moans, muscles stretching, and joints popping. This place seemed to collect all the sound and activity of the city, not Prague as it is now, but maybe as it was. As Sean stopped at a tomb, swaying, he leaned against it and allowed himself to be swept away by the thrush and throb of the noise. This wave of oscillating sound transported him. It cleared his head and vision. It sharpened his ears and made all the colors around him in the night seem much more vivid.

It was in this state of heightened awareness that he first saw them, little tiny lights, almost like the fireflies of his youth. Slowly and gently, they flittered from stone to stone, dancing in the air above the tombs in a patterned and choreographed display of grace and beauty. Blinking on, then off, on, then off again, as they swayed around each other.

It has to be the wine, he thought. This can't be real.

But, a calm had swept through his whole body as he began to viscerally feel the sound and movement around him. He reached his hand out toward the dancing firefly lights, beckoning. They multiplied and began to surround him, dancing in and then out, toward him, then away, staying just out of his reach. Sean was surrounded by the sounds of life, old life, and he understood. Those other cemeteries were quiet, because they were empty. This one was not. This one was full of life, of spirit. Then, he saw them. Illuminated by the fairy light, they were standing mere inches from his face, surrounding him, all arms and eyes and open yammering mouths.

He tried to call out to his friend Scott, to warn him that there really were things in the night. Hundreds surrounded them, maybe thousands, and these people might want them to leave. As he took a quick breath in, the lights rushed him. Impossibly fast now, they surged between his lips, tickling down his throat, filling his lungs with fluttery liquid fire. Coughing and stumbling back, Sean cast the bottle aside, smashing it on the stones. He heard Scott cackle from far across the cemetery. Sean spun toward the sound and cut between two stones, lurching in the direction of his friend and ran into the cold, brittle chest of a tall black clad man.

"Waaa...cough, cough." He couldn't get the tickle out of his chest. Frantic, he looked for a way around the man. To run or to hide, casting left and right, moving it seemed to him, in slow motion, he backpedalled away from the strange thin man in the dark coat and cap. The man approached as a nightmare, floating inexorably, his spectacles flashing accusations with bright, round flatness.

You have intruded on my people's rest. You have invaded my people’s homes. For this and many others of your people’s crimes, I will take a price, as is my right. You have it in you to become more than what you are. You will eat of his flesh, of the beginning, the Alpha, and you will become as he became. You will do my bidding outside these walls and you will help to bring Prague and the world back to the Work. You will bring the Work back to us.

With this, the gaunt man spit up a piece of phlegm into his hand...he molded and kneaded it while holding Sean with his flashing gaze.

Whispering names and prayers onto the lump, the Rabbi stepped forward and embraced Sean. Placing the Eucharist in his mouth, he pushed it down Sean's throat.

Thrace opened his eyes to Roshi's face looming over his. He was lying on the ground looking up into the Korean man’s dark eyes.

My name was Sean. I...I met the Rabbi Low's ...ghost?

Not his ghost, his Spirit, or Ka if you like. It's animating, well...it's animating what's left of his body, and some of that Clay of his sort of holds it all together. Roshi sat on the ground next to Thrace, drawing his knees up to his chest.

What did he do to me? A pained expression crossed Thrace's face as he remembered the fluttering, the chewing, and the swallowing.

Well, I think he violated you the only way that old pervert can these days. Roshi smiled wickedly, He probably fed you some of that clay too. It’s the clay he used to form the first Golem. Some call it the Clay of Life or Satan's Bowel Movement...whatever...it’s the stuff his Art allowed him to make in the way back, when Prague was still a young city and magic was a bit more common than it is these days. The Clay is sort of a medium for a kind of Source Energy. With it, he was able to create the first Golem to protect his people, and with it, he has been animating himself and others and protecting his people since then.

So, I'm dead? slight panic leaked into Thrace's voice.

No. Roshi tapped his temple with his index finger, You’re more than that now. Normally when he grabs people and shoves that shit in them, they go all 'mindless zombie' and do exactly what he orders them to, eventually they don’t have enough 'upstairs' to hold it all together, much less themselves. They're easy to fuck with. But you...you somehow didn’t. I been watching you for about three months now, and not only are you keeping yourself together, remembering bits of who you are, but you're doing something. Like when you touched that coin I gave you, I felt your will pushing up against mine...trying to get in there and do something.

But what...what am I doing? I remember touching people, when they noticed me...but...it's like I give them something. Whatever you did to make me remember has calmed things down in my head. It's gone quiet and it’s easier to think now. These last few months, it's been all I can do to get through a day with all the throbbing noise in my head. Now with the quiet, I can think, remember. Oh my God!! I hurt people!! I got into their heads and put something there and it hurt them!

But only some of them right? Roshi responded, a calming enticement to his voice. He wanted to know more, more about the Rabbi's plans. Why did he make this kid this way?

Yeah...uh...yeah...only some of them. When I 'see' them through their own eyes, and they see themselves through mine...it's like I put up a mirror that reflects the deepest parts of them again and again. I guess, they see and become the truth that they are. They express themselves fully. If they are bad at the core...they become bad...if they are good, they realize that goodness.

Hmmm...Saints and sinners, the Great Redeemer! Roshi laughed. Looks like you give people a lot for their five crown donation. Do you remember looking for something? Did Low ever send you out to find something? An object maybe?

The throbbing began again in Thrace’s head, this time ever so slight and in the back, but still there. This man is not to be trusted, it whispered to him. He wants it, but we must find it before he does. We must remember.

Thrace felt as if he’d suddenly strolled into the center of an old mine field. He had to get away from this guy as quickly as possible. The danger was palpable now. He wondered how he had missed it before. The way that Roshi’s skin almost absorbed the light and how his clothing bore no wrinkle or bit of dirt was unnatural.

I... I don’t remember. Look, thanks for the help, but I think I should be going. Gotta try to find my friends, gotta get back to...

What home? Roshi’s bark of laughter was harsh, You still don’t get it yet do you, kid? You’re not going home, not ever. You’re his now, and there’s only two ways out of this for you. You either get unmade or you bring me the Lattice. I might be able to use it to help you. Maybe I can undo what the old Rabbi did to you. I’m not making any promises, but without it, you’re pretty much screwed, doomed to do his bidding till you wear out or he tires of you. Now where is it? Roshi’s dead eyes betrayed the falseness of his smile.

I don’t know what...

Look, I’m being a really patient guy here. Roshi explained, rising to his feet. Maybe you don’t ‘remember’ where you put it. But the Lattice marks all who touch it. I know you’ve had it in your possession, and recently, so let’s try to remember. The threat in his words was now fully present as he loomed over Thrace.

I don’t want any trouble...I’ve got to go! Thrace/Sean exclaimed as he crabbed his way backwards up the sidewalk away from Roshi. He cast about for help, but there was no one on the street this late at night.

As Roshi approached him, Thrace/Sean saw something that froze his mind. Roshi’s body seemed to morph, to shift as scales replaced skin and his dead eyes turned into black orbs. One second, he was a smartly dressed normal human and the next, a creepy black-eyed lizard man. It was as if the two entities occupied the same body or the same space at the same time.

Terror flowed through Sean/Thrace, washing his bowels in ice water. He was undone, cowering against a building, hands reaching out, grasping at the stone around him and pleading for mercy to wake from this nightmare.

Roshi knelt over him, fetid breath whispering, Don’t fuck with me. Where did you hide it? I know you haven’t given it to the Rabbi yet, so where did you hide it?

Those alien black orbs staring into his, Sean/Thrace grasped the side of the building, the corner he had backed into, as if for support against his assailant. His hand touched the stone foot of one of the statues built into this niche-like portal. He looked up into the statues eyes, just for an instant.

Thrace felt the shock of something pass from his grey eyes into the eyes of the statue. Warmth, the briefest whisper of words, and an impossibly fast stone arm shot out. It caught Roshi by the throat, suspending him over the sidewalk.

Thrace stood, using the building for support, loath to let go of the comforting damp coolness of the stone. He looked up into the statue’s eyes, a big stone male, one of twins in this doorway holding up the mantle. He was dressed in a loincloth, long locks of hair flowed around his brow and down his shoulders. He was gifted with particularly strong arms and broad shoulders.

Thank you, the words whispered in Thrace’s head.

Roshi thrashed, grabbing the statues forearm. He kicked at the stone waist and in an odd marriage of rock and flesh they danced there. Then snap, almost as an afterthought, the great rock behemoth, perched above Thrace on the sidewalk, broke Roshi’s neck and dropped him to the ground.

Stunned, Thrace looked at his savior, then at Roshi’s dead body.

How...? Did I...? A league of questions raced up and over Thrace’s mind.

In his head, from the Statue came, You did Vater, and for that we owe you a debt. When it returns for you, I and my brother will do our best to protect you.

What do you mean, ‘When it returns’? Thrace asked aloud.

I simply killed the body that the parasite was inhabiting. If it is so inclined, it will come for you again, in another body. Said the statue with a deep voice, like the thrum of large machinery or the low grumbling rush of Niagara Falls. An old family vacation came rushing back, unbidden to Thrace. Cold Canada, the falls and ice... he was remembering more and more of his previous life.

Um...okay, okay. I gotta think. My god, he’s really dead! Thrace knelt by the man’s body, repulsed at the odd angle of his neck and head. I don’t know what...ahh...shit...I don’t... Tight panic settling into his chest, Thrace stared at the dead man’s face.

You must go, Vater. Others will come and take this body away to its proper place. You cannot stay here, and I will not reveal myself in the presence of others who may endanger me or my brother. The statue moved in a stutter stop way, as he looked