The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 53

The man glanced down at the warm, wet place growing on the front of Henrik’s pants and smiled to himself.

“This is the boy?” he asked in a deep, iron-hard voice that made Henrik have to remind himself to blink and caused the seven familiars to drift back up ever so slightly more behind Jit, as if they weren’t aware that his voice alone had bulled them back.

The Hedge Maid let out a short, grating, clicking sound.

“Yes, this is him, Bishop Arc,” the handless familiar said for her mistress after watching her speak in the strange voice.

Bishop Arc glared at Jit for a moment. His gaze lowered deliberately to take in her mouth sewn closed; then he again turned his terrible eyes on Henrik.

The whites of the man’s eyes were not white. Not at all.

They had been tattooed a bright blood red.

The dark iris and pupil in the field of blood red made his eyes seem as if they were looking out from some other world, a world of fire and flame— or perhaps from the underworld itself.

But even as frightening as the bishop’s eyes were, that was not the most disturbing aspect of the man. The most ghastly thing about him, the thing that made Henrik unable to look away, unable to stop his heart from hammering, unable to draw more than short, shallow breaths, was the man’s flesh.

Every bit of Bishop Arc was covered with tattooed symbols. Not simply covered, but layered over countless times so that the skin looked something other than human. There was no place that Henrik could see that was not tattooed with some part or element of strange circular designs, each one randomly laid over another over another and over yet another, all layer upon layer so that there was no untouched skin visible anywhere. Not one speck.

The top layers were the darkest, with those under them lighter, the ones under those lighter yet, and so on, as if they continually absorbed down into his flesh and new ones were constantly being added over the top of those already there. They had an endless, bottomless depth to them, a tangled complexity that was dizzying, as if the symbols were continually seething up from somewhere dark.

Looking down through the ever-deeper levels of designs gave the man’s skin a three-dimensional appearance. Because the layers made it hard to tell just where the surface of the skin actually was in all the floating elements, it gave Bishop Arc a shadowy, somewhat hazy, somewhat ghostly appearance. Henrik felt sure that if the man wished it, he could vanish at will into the fog of floating symbols.

Because of the way the underlayers were lighter than the ones on top of them, each symbol, regardless of how many layers down it was, was distinct and recognizable. The symbols were all different sizes, and from what Henrik could tell, endlessly different designs. Almost all of them seemed to be a collection of smaller symbols assembled into larger, circular elements.

The bishop’s hands and what Henrik could see of his wrists sticking out from his black coat were completely covered with the designs. Even his fingernails appeared to be tattooed beneath, with the designs visible right through the nail itself.

His neck above his tight collar was covered all around, as was his entire throat. His face— every part of his face— was covered with emblems by the hundreds, if not thousands. Even his eyelids were tattooed. Even the man’s ears, every fold and as far down inside as Henrik could see, were completely covered in the same kind of strange tattoos of circular symbols on top of circular symbols on top of yet more of the symbols.

While the bishop’s entire bald head was tattooed over with the designs, one dominated them all. It was larger than all the others. The bottom edge of that large circle crossed over the center of his nose and swept to each side beneath his eyes, going around just above his ears to cover the rest of the crown of the skull. Inside the circle was another, and between them a ring of runes.

A triangle sitting within the inner circle crossed horizontally just above the man’s brow. Smaller, secondary circular symbols floating outside the points of the triangle that broke the circles covered each temple with the third at the point of the triangle on the back of his head. The way it was laid out made it appear as if the man was glaring out with those haunting red eyes from within the circular symbol, as if he were looking out from the underworld.

In the center of the triangle, toward the front of the man’s skull, was a backward figure nine.

That large tattoo covering the top of his bald head was darker than all the others, not just because it looked to be the most recently added, but because the lines composing it were heavier. Even so, lying as it was over layers of hundreds of other random emblems, it was evident that it was merely a part of a much larger purpose.

All the tattoos, in all their many different designs, still seemed to be variations of the same basic themes. There were symbols laid out in circles of every size, even circles within circles within circles, with some of the symbols contained within those circles made up of other, smaller designs. Taken in totality, it was a profoundly unsettling sight to see a man so given over to such an occult purpose.

It all made him a very dark, living, moving, fluid illustration, with every design down through the countless layers clearly discernible. Henrik imagined that if the bishop were naked, he would still be totally hidden behind the veil of symbols.

The only place Henrik could see that was not tattooed with the symbols was the man’s eyes, and they were tattooed red.

Bishop Arc saw several of the familiars glance nervously behind him, back down the hall.

He smiled. “I didn’t bring her with me,” he said in answer to the unspoken question haunting their eyes. “I sent her on an errand.”

The familiars bowed their heads in acknowledgment and as if to apologize for being so nosy.

The wide eyes of one of the people woven into the wall behind Jit stared fixedly at Bishop Arc. Terror shaped the man’s expression and left him unable to look away when the bishop glanced up at him. The man swallowed over and over, as if trying to swallow a scream fighting to make its way out. All the people in the walls seemed incapable of making a sound, though this man clearly seemed like he was about to scream.

Bishop Arc lifted a hand toward the man trapped in the wall. It was not an overt motion to point at the man, but a casual gesture, a slack hand held out on a partially raised arm, fingers barely extended. Nonetheless, it was clearly directed at the man encased in the wall and unable to stop staring at the bishop.

“Be still,” Bishop Arc said in a low voice, hardly more than a whisper, but as deadly as anything Henrik had ever heard.

The man gasped, sucking in short, sharp breaths. He pulled in one last, long breath as his eyes rolled back in his head. He shook violently but briefly, then slumped, at least as much as he could slump, woven as he was into the tangle of sticks, twigs, and vines. After a final shiver, his whole body went completely slack. The last breath of air left his lungs in a long, low wheeze.

The bishop looked around at other eyes watching him from the walls. “Anyone else?”

In the silence, every eye behind layers of twigs and branches turned away.

Bishop Arc smirked at the Hedge Maid. “There you go. Freshly dead fluids for your little helpers here to suck out and feed you.”

The Hedge Maid’s big, black eyes revealed nothing. She let out a low, rasping squeal broken by several clicks.

One of the familiars, watching Jit speak in the strange language, waited until she was finished and then leaned toward the bishop, showing contempt on behalf of her mistress. “Jit wishes to know why you have come here.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He lifted his arm out to the side, toward Henrik, as he addressed Jit. “I have come to make sure that you complete the task I gave you.”

After a long pause, Jit gave him a single nod.

The bishop’s brow drew down, deforming the symbol on his forehead, pulling the center of it lower with his eyebrows. “Now, you have wasted enough of my time. I expect you not to waste any more of it. The boy is finally here. Get on with it.”

Jit watched him for a moment, then turned her attention to Henrik and motioned for him to come closer.