Soul Census - War of Shadows - Book 1

Chapter 3.3: Baptism

Earth Date: 14th of August 1939 CE
Location: Locker Room, Soul Sphere, Earth

Maddock slammed the door to his locker as he had done for what seemed like months to him. However, they tell him that six years had actually passed topside.

Apparently, time in the Soul Sphere worked differently. Months down here turn into years for everyone else in the real world. It’s a good thing he did not have any family or friends up there. Come to think of it, maybe that was one of the reasons they drafted him. No ties.

So after months since joining these assholes, he had hoped that by now he would have cracked some heads or something. Instead, the days were filled with endless schooling about lost souls, poltergeists, demons, imps, ghouls, pookas, possessions, and other strange s*** he would prefer not to hear about.

Looking up, he wondered what things were like beyond the seashell ceiling. What was it like now in 1939?

He had been trapped down in the Soul Sphere too long-- he needed to stretch his legs out in the real world... the city, smell the air, bust some heads, and get some lady action. Enough was enough.

As he mulled those thoughts over, he turned around to see Wolfe standing at the doorway wearing a smug expression. Maddock felt like pasting him right there.

“You know what day it is?” Wolfe said.

Maddock squinted, caught off-guard by the question.

“I don’t even know if it’s day or night pal,” Maddock said. “How the hell am I supposed to know what day it is?”

Wolfe pulled something out of his pocket and dangled it in front of him-- it was a wristwatch.

“It’s your lucky day,” Wolfe said. “You ready to wear this?”

Maddock’s fuming stopped.

The wristwatch was a symbol, signifying the rank and position of a Census Enforcer. Finally...

He walked over and snatched it from him.

“No more schooling?” he said as he strapped it on.

Wolfe shook his head with a smile.

“On-the-job schooling from here on in,” Wolfe said. “The way you like it.”

“It’s about damn time,” Maddock said.

“Yes,” Wolfe said. “It is about damn time. Normally this takes a few weeks, but with you...”

Maddock stopped strapping his watch on and felt himself tense up. Another word from this wanker and he was going to be wearing this watch around his throat.

“Don’t bother putting the watch on just yet,” Wolfe said. “We have one more thing to do, then it’s official. Let’s go.”

Wolfe led him out into the main chamber, and then down a narrow passageway. Maddock noted that he seldom saw any of the suits walk through this way.

They reached the end of the passage and came upon a wall where two guards stood.

One of the men was of average height and build, wearing military-style brown fatigues, but was absent any kind rank insignia. He carried a bulky-looking rifle and a tight-fitting helmet that covered his face with a dark visor.

The other guard looked like something from a medieval story. A tall, fair-skinned and imposing figure with dark blue eyes and a full white beard. He wore a black outfit and gold bracelets. His long white hair draped down a black cape that hung down to his feet.

From his belt bulged the handle of an ornate-looking sword with encrusted, multi-colored jewels.

Of the other strange gadgets that hung from his belt, the one that caught his attention was a curved horn made of what looked like tree bark. The horn seemed to expand and contract on its own, like it was breathing or something.

They both stood impassively, one holding his rifle, the other standing with arms crossing his chest.

Upon approach, one of them gave Wolfe a silent nod and the two moved out of their way. Wolfe walked ahead to the wall, Maddock following.

As Maddock got near, he peered at the white-haired guard, trying to elicit a reaction.

The guard turned to him with a gold-toothed scowl, his hand now on the hilt of his sword.

“Tilbake bort for jeg skja-jre du apner liten gris,” he said.

Maddock felt himself tense up. “What the hell did you just say to me, bub?”

“Step away from him now agent,” Wolfe said. “Come this way.”

Maddock gave the guard a wink as he went past him. The guard’s glare followed him till he was out of sight.

“What did that bruno just say to me?” Maddock said.

“Nothing important,” Wolfe said as he pressed his hand on the wall-- it sunk into it, followed by his arm, shoulder and the rest of him. Wolfe disappeared completely-- one of those bubble doorways again.

Maddock walked up to it, and leading with his hand, pushed himself through-- it was warm and thick, like what he imagined quicksand might feel like. When he emerged on the other side, he joined Wolfe inside a small chamber. The room was completely alien to him, like nothing he had ever seen.

The walls were black and had a glossy wetness to them. As he walked in closer, he could see the walls were actually fleshy, like skin almost. They expanded outward and then inward-- throbbing like the inside walls of a heart. In concert with this movement, a rumbling sound filled the room, shaking the walls like a muscle spasm. In the center, a canal ran through the room from one wall to another, carrying a thick, black goo across. Weird stuff.

Wolfe walked up to the canal and pointed down to it.

“It’s time for your baptism,” Wolfe said. “Strip out of your clothes and get in there.”

Maddock remembered being told that agents would go through a ‘baptism’ before going on their first mission, but he thought that was just a metaphor.

“Are you pulling my leg?” he said.

Wolfe shook his head. “If you want to go on a mission, you have to get past this first.”

Maddock looked around, half-expecting that the minute he got in a bunch of suits would jump out and start laughing at him.

“If this is some kind of joke Wolfey, I’m going to play some lovely chin music with your jaw-- you got that?”

“Save the punches for the demons,” Wolfe said, still pointing. “Get in there.”

Maddock reluctantly stripped off his clothes, glaring at Wolfe the entire time.

When he was done, he went over to the canal and sat at its edge, looking down at it. Whatever the liquid was, it was too thick and dark to give any hint of what might lurk beneath it.

Wolfe walked to the entrance wall, and dipped his hand into it as if to leave.

“Wait! What’s in there?” Maddock said.

Wolfe turned, still pushing his arm through the wall.

“It’s...” Wolfe started, staring out in thought as if trying to find the right words. “It’s the real you.”

He then disappeared into the wall, leaving Maddock alone in the room.

Maddock cursed at him. Just like the four-eyed bastard to leave him in here with no answers.

Now that he was alone, the thumping and rumbling made him feel uneasy. He sat at the edge of the canal, ready to roll into it. The black liquid seemed to invitingly stare back at him. Compared to the rumbling and beating walls, the liquid seemed tamer.

“Alright, f*** it,” he said, rolling into the canal.

The moment his skin touched it, he froze completely and could not even breathe. His body involuntarily went stiff, arms at his side and legs stretched straight out-- and then he dropped down into the canal with the buoyancy of a brick.

Underneath the black liquid, all sensation stopped-- there was no feeling, just a complete numbness. He felt as if he had no body at all, with only his thoughts to remind him that he was still alive.

As he helplessly stared into the black, something stirred above him. A disturbance in the liquid that emitted light, which then turned into images, figures and voices. A picture formed and it looked like a place filled with sand and sun... it was a desert.

A figure walked the sands-- a frail-looking man, wearing tattered rags that wrapped around his entire body. Only some of his face was visible, and the skin was like old leather. As he walked, pieces of the rags dragged behind him, leaving trails that stretched out into the distant sand dunes.

The man limped along, cursing in a language that he should not have been able to understood, but he did understand it-- it was Turkish, and the man... it was him from another life. It was the same images he saw when he first came to Census... in that room that he first awoke in.

With that recollection, a rush of memories flooded his mind-- memories of who he was, that Turkish man in the desert... Taylan Chagatai.

Taylan the man whose family was slaughtered by the Mongol invaders, only to later join them and pledge his life to the Kipchak Khanate-- also known as The Golden Horde. Batu Khan turned Taylan into an assassin, sending him to Acre so he could kill the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. He succeeded and escaped... only to become lost wandering this desert-- without water or food.

No reason for him to live now and he preferred death to being captured anyway. And die he did.

As that life memory concluded, he sensed another memory, something older-- another life before Taylan. But it all slipped from him before he could understand it, as he felt his body move again... floating up and out of the depths of the darkness.

Willem Maddock opened his eyes. He was in the strange room again, his naked body floating on top of the black goo in the canal.

Although he regained feeling in his body, he stayed still for a moment. He had to think about the man he was. He knew he was Willem Maddock, but he also knew he was once Taylan Chagatai-- a Mongol warrior who was a skilled assassin, swordsman, archer and rider.

“Take your time,” he heard Wolfe say. He had not even realized that Wolfe was back in the room.

“It’s difficult to sort it out at first,” Wolfe continued. “You have to align your mind to who you are in this life.”

Wolfe extended a hand to Maddock to help him up, Maddock took it and swung over and out of the canal. He stared down at his feet, noting that his body was completely dry.

“I was a Mongol warrior,” Maddock said, almost to himself. “I had a family... Ilayda my wife, and Tuana, Melis and Emin my children. Where are they now?”

“My advice to you, Agent,” Wolfe said. “Is to forget about them. Only keep with you the skills and wisdom-- forget the emotion. You are not a Mongol warrior, you are a Census Enforcer now.”

Maddock grabbed his clothes and got dressed.

“Alright,” Maddock said as he finished buttoning his pants. “But there is something that you have to get me.”

“What might that be?” Wolfe said.

“Tea... black tea,” Maddock said. “And something else...”

Wolfe cocked an eyebrow. “You want tea instead of coffee?”

Maddock cupped his hands together and rose them up, then struck down with a yell that sent Wolfe leaping backward.

“A scimitar sword,” Maddock said. “It’s been almost 700 years and I miss holding one.”

Maddock brought his imaginary sword up and then down diagonally in a swinging motion, then continued doing drills-- ducking, lunging, feinting and yelling.

Wolfe looked at him for a moment and shook his head.

“And for a brief moment, I thought you were becoming more civilized...”