Thank God for the Sinners!

This is the third & final part of a new short story on Fickle Futures.

← READ PART II: Profit & Loss

“GOD damn the sinners.”
“God damn the SINNERS.”
“God DAMN the sinners.”

Mr. Ratsid was mumbling under his breath as they briskly strode from the cathedral offices into the icy cold streets of the late winter morning. A pale sun glowered at them through grey clouds, but all Mr. Ratsid could see was a dim tunnel ahead and the looming presence of the Cathedral of the Devout behind him.

“What do we do?” Mr. Clem asked earnestly during a lull in Mr. Ratsid’s muttering.

Mr. Ratsid stopped abruptly, paused briefly to consider, and spun to look up into Mr. Clem’s face.

“I tell you what we are not going to do, Mr. Clem. We are not going to panic,” Mr Ratsid said slowly, betraying only the slightest note of panic in his voice. “What we are going to do is get that sigil back, hand it over to the Archapostle, and buy our indenture,” Mr. Ratsid started walking briskly again as if he had never stopped. “But first we are going to get a cup of very strong tea and have a think.”

The DeutaromaTea Tea shop was a favorite of church employees to get away from their superiors’ direct scrutiny. However, in the late-morning, they crossed a deserted street and walked into an empty shop, ordered an Earl Gray for Mr. Ratsid and a Green Tea for Mr. Clem — Mr. Ratsid had no idea how Mr. Clem drank the stuff as it had the flavor of stale pond scum — and sat at a table for a think.

“Why don’t we just go and tell him he’ll be excommunicated if he doesn’t give it back to us?” Mr. Clem contributed this unhelpful thought to the brainstorming session.

“Describe to me exactly how that would work,” Mr. Ratsid said like a snake waiting for a mouse to get just a few millimeters closer.

“Well, like I said, we just go over to his shop and give him the regular guff about following the church protocols or he’ll be… you’ know… excommunicated,” Mr. Clem said seeming to doubt his own logic towards the end, ”and stuff.”

“And if he still refuses, which he almost certainly will?”

“We, uh, we could, um… we could just… kill him?” Mr. Clem said this last part as if expecting to get cuffed up side the head.

“And where in this brilliant plan of yours do we get the sigil back?” Mr. Ratsid said, his words dripping with doubt.

“We… we search the store?” Mr. Clem, relieved after not getting the side of Mr. Ratsid’s hand, almost sounded like he believed this was a good idea.

“We… search… the store,” Mr. Ratsid said slowly as if he was trying to calculate the stupidity quotient of Mr. Clem’s statement to the eighth decimal place.

Mr. Ratsid smacked him across the ear.

“Do you honestly think he’s just left it out in the open? Or did he put it in a cleverly hidden location with a big sign pointing to it saying ‘THIS WAY TO MY ILLEGAL SECRET STASH OF BLASPHEMOUS OBJETS’!?! I don’t think so.”

“And even if we did find it in his store, how do we explain the extra dead body at the mortuary? You know they’ve been cracking down on any extra-curricular excommunications, and if we tried to get an excommunication order, they would want to know why…”

But then, Mr. Ratsid began to stroke his chin.

“God be praised on this fine evening, Deacon Ratsid”, Mr. Jordan forced a relaxed attitude at having two deacons show up in his shop unannounced at closing time, ”What can I do for you?”

Mr. Jordan had heard the shop bell ring loudly and turned to see as Mr. Ratsid entering The Lord Saves Pawn Shop & Emporium. The door was shattered glass covered over every square inch in packing tape to hold it together. Mr. Clem loomed tight behind him, his red Deacons cap visor low and obscuring his eyes in shadow. Mr. Jordan could see that they were not in his shop to sell more trinkets.

“Well, Mr. Jordan, Deacon Clem and I have a bit of a problem,” Mr. Ratsid stated as if this problem was really Mr. Jordan’s problem. “It seems we have a report that you are keeping blasphemous items in your shop — strictly against the law, of course — but we know that this just must be a simple innocent misunderstanding, am I right?” Mr. Ratsid had forced the ball firmly into Mr. Jordan’s court.

Mr. Jordan looked coldly at Mr. Ratsid: coldly in look and frozen inside.

“Ummm… yes, as I mentioned to you earlier… purely for… umm… research purposes,” Mr. Jordan finally tossed it back back to Mr. Ratsid, not bothering to look at the warrant. It’s not like it mattered what it really said.

“Yes, yes, you did saaayyy that, but now I need to search the premises as per this warrant I was given by the Court of the Devout,” he waved the search warrant under Mr. Jones’ nose without mentioning that it was just for pre-Great Revival paraphernalia, a heavy fine but no excommunication, “but if you just wanted to bring me any of those blasphemous objects…” Mr. Ratsid paused for emphasis, “say for example a cross…” He let the words linger for a second as Mr. Jordan did not react. “I could see my way to simply accept that as a penitence for your transgressions, and move along with my business as a Deacon,” he made sure to emphasize his dominate position in this matter.

Mr. Ratsid looked obliquely at Mr. Jordan, not wanting to scare him away from the hook he was dangling. Mr. Jordan stood hard and still behind the counter, his back to Mr. Ratsid, not looking at anything but the infinite space in front of him.

Mr. Jordan had lost his wife during the Great Revival. The deacons had it on “good authority” that she had been part of a Wiccan cult while in college. The closest his wife had ever gotten to practicing magic was dressing up in a sexy Witchipoo costume from H.R. Puff n’ Stuff one Halloween. But there were pictures from the party, and even though she was obviously not even college age in the photo, that was enough for the Court of the Devout.

He gently slid open the drawer to his left and looked down at the picture of her from that Halloween. He kept it in a drawer to remind him of her and had placed the sigil right next to it. He had insisted on taking that picture, even though at the time there had already been a crackdown on blasphemous behavior, especially Halloween. Halloween parties were strictly prohibited, with a national curfew of 4PM on the thirty-first of October strictly enforced. Still, they had snuck out to a party.

After she disappeared, he hadn’t been able to function, thinking his wife was lying somewhere dead in a ditch or had run off with someone else. He had kind of hoped for that one. At least she would be somewhat safe.

They had thought the deacons would never come for them. They went to Church four times a week, which, while below average, was the minimum accepted amount of worship.

Most of his family and friends had been excommunicated, or at least that’s what he assumed when they no longer showed up at the shop, or the cafeteria, or the tea house. Or the church. He’d been expecting his own visit from the Deacons ever since Ms. Jordan had been excommunicated.

Took’em long enough.

With a smooth and practiced motion, Mr. Jordan pulled the Pre-Revival .44 revolver he kept next to his photo of Ms. Jordan and the Abrahamist sigil, placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. As he pressed, he remembered what his wife had told him everyday of their life together: “You’ll be the death of me.”

“Goddamn sinner,” Mr. Ratsid mumbled to himself.

“You still got some on your collar,” Mr. Clem pointed a large finger at a reddish glob of biological material on the collar of his golf shirt, something the Archapostle was sure to notice. Damn, that was all he needed.

They had finally found the sigil after over an hour of searching just sitting in the drawer the sinner’s body was slumped over. After slapping a wig they found over the head to cover the rather nasty two inch hole tunneling through it, they were able to get the body past the mortuary and out to the sinners pit and rushed back to the Church of the Devout hoping to catch The Archapostle before he left for the day, get their reward and buy back their severance.

It wasn’t that Mr. Jordan had blown his own head off — Mr. Ratsid got that all of the time when a sinner was cornered. But there was always some pleading, some begging, some… hope. There was nothing Mr. Ratsid could do, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. They were dead the moment the excommunication order was signed. He was the executioner, not the judge. But sinners might spend several minutes agonizing and rationalizing their special case before he would get to kill them. No, not with this one: wham, blam, no thank you ma’am.

“The Archapostle will see you know,” spoke the smooth but invisible voice of the Archapostle’s receptionist. It was an AI that handled every aspect of The Archapostle’s Office executive functioning, including reception. It was decided early in the Great Revival that all church administration needed to be handled by AI rather than living people in order to avoid the distractions and staff co-mingling that often occurred in church offices.

“You two are back soon!” The Archapostle spoke with glee, “And I hear you’ve brought another sinner to His glorious judgment!” Mr. Ratsid held the sigil in front of The Archapostle’s face who rapaciously snatched it and held it staring almost in disbelief.

“And many more to come!” he beamed at them.

“It was really no trouble Archapostle,” Mr. Ratsid said with a relaxed tone. Maybe too relaxed?

“Archapostle **TRIPPGOOD**, Deacon Ratsid,” The Archbishop spoke with the firm tone of a father who felt his son was getting too big for his britches.

“Please do not succumb to the deadly sin of over-familiarity with your superiors.”

“Yes, Archapostle Trippgood. Of course, Archapostle Trippgood. I apologize profusely for my lack of proper respect, Archapostle Trippgood,” Mr. Ratsid practically tripped over his words trying to apologize. Now was not the time to piss-off the Archapostle, not this close to buying his indenture back.

(The pansy little bastard.)

“Apology accepted,” The Archapostle said as his face softened into a forgiving smile.

“Just don’t let it happen again,” and just as quickly his face snapped back into his infamous glare.

“Now, let’s see… where’s this famous switch I’ve heard so much about…” The Archbishop pressed his finger to the control.

In the span of time it took for Mr. Ratsid’s eyes to bug out in shock and then lower to half shuttered disgust, the Archbishop pressed the switch to the right, and the sigil melted into a golden blob.

“OUCH!!!” The Archbishop, yelped in shocked pain, as the heat used to melt the sigil burnt his fingers.

“What is this, gentleman?” The Archapostle said to them holding the blob on the chain at them as an indictment.

“I asked for an INTACT sigil,” his face turned bright red as flecks of white foam flung from his lips.

“I! Wanted! It! INTACT!” The Archapostle pounded his fist on the table with each word.

“But Archapostle, you pushed…” Mr. Clem began to interrupt, but Mr. Ratsid stamped his foot to get him to shut up. The Archapostle was always right. Even when the Archapostle was demonstrably wrong, the Archapostle was always right. Arguing that the Archapostle was not right would only bring trouble and strife, especially when the Archbishop was foaming at the mouth.

Although it hurt like a bone was broken, Mr. Clem immediately stopped making any sound. Mr. Ratsid only did that foot stamping thing when it was deadly serious or profit serious. He was pretty sure this was about the slightly more important one. Mr. Ratsid had once mentored him that: “There’s no ROI for you on being dead.”

“Archbishop Trippgood, my most profuse apologies. The sigil was intact when we found it, but…” Think fast. Think fast. Think fast, ”we believe there’s an Abrahamist mole in the building!” Ok. That was… something. He could build on that.

“An Abrhamist mole, you say?” The Archapostle stroked his chin with a new interest, his temper dampened, “Yes, I’ve been concerned about that possibility myself,” Mr. Ratsid knew he was on the right trail.

”But what does that have to do with the sigil, Deacon Ratsid?”

“Well, sir…” he paused to collect his story.

”Obviously!” He said with relief, unable to completely hide that this obvious explanation had only just this second occurred to him.

“The mole got hold of the sigil while we were going through Cathedral security downstairs. We had no choice but to pass it through the security scanner,” he paused just a second to catch up with his story, ”and sometime during that… uhh… uhh… process, the mole got to it and flipped the switch!” That was just plausible enough for the Archapostle to buy it!

“Hmmm… yes.” He said taking in the scenario for a few seconds intently before his face brightened, “Yes! That makes complete sense!” The Archbishop pressed a button on his desk and calmly said, ”By order of the Archapostle, the entirety of the security staff are herby excommunicated,” he let go of the button, and then almost immediately pressed it again, “Effective immediately.”

“Yes, well, now that that’s all sorted out, it sounds like you two have a lot of work to do,” the Archapostle looked down at the documents in front of him. The two Deacon’s stood frozen in front of his desk, not sure how to respond.

“So, get to it. Those sinners in security aren’t going to excommunicate themselves. Chop-chop. No time to lose.”

Mr. Ratsid’s joyous relief at having the Archapostle decide that he was not the Abrahamist mole was only slightly outweighed by his crushing grief that he would not be paying off his indenture today or anytime soon.

The silver lining was that there were at least six dozen sinners to collect now. That would put a small dent in his indenture. And, of course, Cathedral Security always confiscated the best stuff.

“And Mr. Ratsid,” The Archapostle spoke matter-of-factly as the two left the room, silent except for the sound of Mr. Clem’s new limp.

“Yes, Archbishop?”

”Please wear a clean shirt the next time you have an audience with me.”

“Yes, Archbishop.”