Pazuzu - Manifestation

PAZUZU – MANIFESTATION

NINTH REVISION

Matthew Sawyer

The first book in the Pazuzu Trilogy.

Pazuzu – Manifestation

Pazuzu – Emergence

Pazuzu – Abeyance

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Preface

Rage makes the priest's fat hands quiver. Captain Kanen became the victim of extortion, that or the lack of amphetamine makes him angry. Kanen tugs his collarless white shirt and finally removes his uniform's heavy black jacket. The UnChosen caste calls this priest's choice drug "Ape;" the street name for the stuff that typically turns users into anxious, howling gorillas. Such a consequence could never happen to a priest, an officer in the Church and a born member of the upper echelon of the Chosen caste. All the pomp and dignity granted to Kanen's position guards against such base lunacy. The unquiet phases of the chemically grown monkey would not drive Josiah Kanen into madness. The Church had promoted this middle-aged priest to the rank of captain because his genetically endowed discipline gave him immaculate willpower. Captain Josiah Kanen was, after all, born a Chosen. Birthright grants him authority over the Mortal God. 

Even so, the responsibility of rank crushes Kanen under stones. The duties the Church presses on this middle-ranked priest drove him to use the damned drug, rationalized the wretched soul. The problem with Ape wasn't the use of the drug, but rather the lack of using any once addicted. Sobriety-sharpened nails now press into his chest and head. From the perspective of his tormented rut, being clean banishes the blessing of knowing exactly what to do in any situation, and making sense of other people. Nobody listens to Kanen when he goes without Ape, they just babble and interrupt him when he speaks. Sobriety compromises his ability to control his god and the forsaken UnChosen dwelling within his squalid quarter by the Wall. 

Reverend Arnett, whom Kanen had assigned the custodianship of the Saint Erasmus parish, has been murdered in its church. The crime is unheard within the walled city of Capital, the Promised Land of the Chosen. The Wall protects the city from the ravages of heathen terrorists. No one passes through the Wall without the approval of the Church or its military. The Chosen exercise exclusive entrance into Capital. 

All UnChosen permitted behind the Wall live in desolate parishes like Saint Erasmus - a suitable batch of hovels for those spineless degenerates. Still, the status of the murdered victim raised the severity of the crime to an act of terrorism. The Church and its military's censors had debated if news of the crime should be made public, but the single body never makes a decision. 

One thing Kanen is certain - the presence of pagan tablets on the altar inside Saint Erasmus will never be reported to the public. The Church had immediately confiscated and destroyed the sacrilegious objects. Whatever the dead Reverend Arnett once planned with them was better left undiscovered. The blasphemous controversy went with him into death. Reverend Arnett had brought the awful fate upon himself. 

The phone rings in the midst of Kanen's coping with his lack of Ape, that and the murder of a priest that had been too curious with an archaic and forbidden religion. The man on the other end of the telephone line said "Sir." 

Reverend Benedict Ishkott called, again. The Aper was a non-commissioned bastard from the city of Gomorrah. Captain Kanen had just hung-up on the irreverent extortionist. 

"Why do you keep calling here?" Kanen shouts into the phone inside his casual, dark and private office at the Church. "Stop calling me." 

"Captain - Kanen," Reverend Ishkott stutters with the aggravated squall of an addict. "I know you don't know me from Adam, but you have something I want." 

"A demotion?" threatens Kanen. "How, in the name of the Mortal God, can you even dare speak to me with such lack of respect?" 

The two priests share an addiction to Ape, with a difference. Ape causes Reverend Ishkott to lose respect for his superior officers, sending him out-of-the-way to Gomorrah. The drug gives Ishkott arrogant hopes and ambitions - whereas Kanen has already gladly reached his own pinnacle.