The SaintSlayer: Lazarus.

Part 9 - Quoad Substantiam

Breakfast was served, the buffet table was set at the end of the rather small room back to back with the kitchen, chafing dishes, filled with freshly scrambled eggs, and although bacon wasn't part of a traditional Argentinian breakfast, there was plenty of it for Bishop and his team. The croissant was still fuming as it had just been baked, the buttery, flaky crust had been golden toasted to perfection, sided of course by creamy homemade dulce de leche. 

Through the window on the mezzanine, the subtle breeze, blowing the dried leafs away, having them land gently on te sidewalks made Avenida de Mayo look even more magnificent.

Their table was on the corner, just by the window, the wind blew on the green curtains softly, renovating and blowing away the stench of alcohol and cigarettes their pores still exhaled from an unusual night of earnings at the floating Buenos Aires Cassino. All three of them.

Anna was the team's doctor, a pathologist, she held a P.h.d in human biology, she was a third party contractor, like most of them employed by an European Institution to assist in the congregation cases. She and Bishop had been working together for nearly two years now. She was the closest thing he had to a friend. 

Anna was Scottish, from Glasgow, she was forty-two years old, straight black hair, dark almond shaped eyes, circled by mild crow feet. She had wide hips, accentuated by tight skirts she knew how to wear.

Out of the three, Chen was the only one who hadn't met Bishop yet. She was the new I.T. "guy", she'd been drafted freshly out of college in Shanghai, Lazarus was her first assignment and she didn't know what to expect. As a matter of fact, she had never even heard of Leviathan before, it was odd, all the secrecy around the institute, but the pay was good,  therefore, questions were not asked.

Bishop stepped into the small cafeteria, decorated just like the old french cafés from before the second great war. The wooden floors varied in different and beautiful shades of brown, tan and caramel , Windsor chairs smoothly crafted out of Beech wood gave it a final touch to the cozy warm breakfast room. 

The clock on the wall above the breakfast bar showed 07:30AM. He looked pale, bags under his eyes drooped slightly, having nothing but black coffee, no sugar. He sat on an empty seat beside Anna.

" - Gee, looks like someone didn't get their beauty sleep boss."

" - Yet, I look stunning, unlike you Joe." Bishop replied, while taking his sunglasses off, rubbing his eyes with his thumbs and middle finger.

Joe was the muscle, kinda like a bouncer, and boy did they need one, members of the congregation, in particular those associated with Bishop were constant victims of assault, of all sorts, from egg throwing to flying bullets and homemade bombs. Joe Pataki was a bulky man, short but stout, former military now on contract with Leviathan.

" - Ahhh, excuse me sir, I was sitting there." Chen approached looking down on Bishop, while pointing at the phone she'd left on the table.

" - This is Yn Chen boss. The new Barney." Joe smiled while speaking with his mouth full of medialunas.

Barney was their old techie, nice British lad who couldn't stand being bullied by Bishop anymore.

" - Seat was empty." Bishop snorted.

" - Yes sir, I was by the buffet." Chen stuttered a bit.

Anna looked at the petite woman hinting she should sit somewhere else. She moved slowly pulling a chair and sitting alone right behind Joe.

" - So Father, what is the secrecy behind this one? Anna always called him Father.

Michael had four maroon envelopes under his arm, he passed three of them along the table, throwing the fourth over Joe's head hitting Chen in the face, knocking out her glasses.

" - What is this?" Joe asked.

" - Your mission, should you choose to accept it double-o seven."

" - Getting your movies mixed up there Sir, that's from Mission Impossible." Chen yelled from across her table.

Bishop raised his head, he never did get along with the I.T. folk. His eyes pierced Chen like two bone marrow extraction needles.

" - But...ahhhh, I am sure, they... overlap somehow..." Chen cleared her throat before finishing her sentence. "Sir."

" - Quoad Substantiam?" Anna questioned, she looked surprised.

" - What is that, Quoad Substantiam? Chen asked while standing with her knees on the seat from behind Joe.

" - First degree miracle...However unlikely, it means someone has raised from the dead." Anna replied while licking a teaspoon she stirred her coffee with.

" - I thought you guys dealt with this all the time, why the surprise?" Chen continued, a little confused.

" - Yes, every year, thousands of alleged resurrection cases surface, but they are quickly disproved by doctors, proven that no one was really dead, or simply proven to be a hoax plain and simple. Now, technically, when a pledge comes our way, it's already exhausted all mundane possibilities, which means, they, and by they I mean doctors and local experts, and even the church found no way of discrediting it. All the usual suspects have already been ruled out." Anna pedagogically explained.

" - So it is a miracle? It's true then..."

" - Don't be ridiculous Yang, there is no such a thing as a miracle. There's never been, there will never be." Bishop mocked her, while tapping his pockets for a cigarette.

" - Yn, my name is Yn sir, not Yang." Chen responded.

Bishop snorted, taking off his sunglasses.

" - Does it matter?" Bishop shook his head, before proceeding.

" - Does it really matter, Yn, Yan, Yang, Wong, or whatever the fuck your name is, will it change anything, will it make it more or less of a miracle if I call you by any other name?" Chen's eyes widened at what was the rudest comeback she had ever heard.

Michael stood up, he walked by the buffet, he got a coffee refill, his head pounded with every beat of his heart, he tried holding the cup by the handle, but his shaky hands spilled coffee all around the tray. He reached inside his pants pocket, grabbing a tiny bottle of scotch he'd snatched from the service cart after leaving his room, he looked sideways, worried someone might have seen him, but his team seemed to busy trying to console Chen, and make her understand it was not personal, it never was.

He dosed his coffee with a little bit of Jack, or maybe he dosed his Jack with a little bit of coffee. He looked up, gargling for a second, that's when he saw him, the boy, must have been about twelve, pitch black hair, bangs covered his forehead, staring directly at Bishop, just outside the balcony window, Bishop's heart raced, he felt the pressure on his neck, as if he'd been choked. Most of the times Bishop couldn't really tell if the people who'd seen were real or not. 

He remembered having a full debate once with a colleague while he was still in seminary school, over the inconsistencies of the bible, such as the fact that if Adan and Eve were the only two people on Earth at the earliest moments of creation, and having had two sons, humanity had to have begun at incest. Only to realize, his colleague, who fought tooth and nail for the literal fairy tale version of creation was nothing but a product of his mind, an elaborate hallucination that followed him for years. 

But that one, that boy... that one he did know well enough to right off the bat to realize, it couldn't have been real, he had seen that little boy before, last time, nearly thirty-years ago, the day he died.