The Lion, the Witch, and the Cage Fight

Part 2

Gu. That was the name of the thing that Marcelo had become a part of. It meant poison, and black magic. Both those words accurately described his fate.

Decades had past since the fight at Wupo Wo, or maybe it was only days. What was left of Marcelo could no longer perceive time in a conventional manner. Chunks of existence were lost in bleak gaps of consciousness—psychic voids shoddily patched up with memories that were not his own

Looking out through a thousand arachnoid eyes, Gu surveyed a large stone church, looking for cracks and crevices that might lead inside. Serpentine tongues flicked, tasting the air for a scent of he whom the witch had marked for death. Marcelo's fractured mind was split apart, amongst the hundreds of tiny creatures.

Noting the cross on top of the church, from too many eyes, and too many angles, Marcelo was met with heartache. He wondered if this feeling was the real reason fairytale monsters feared the cross. Maybe it didn't burn or offend, but served as a reminder of what they had been—of what they had lost.

She, the matron of Wupo Wo, desired the church. It was, to her, an eyesore on the face of Chinatown. Its European aesthetics and Middle Eastern religion were too cosmopolitan for her tastes. More importantly, the land was worth quite a bit of money. The true magic of Gu was not its ability to do harm, but how the estates of its victims fell into the witch's hands. She simply had to set the monster against any rival, and all that was his would become hers. There was enough of Marcelo left to appreciate the irony of this—that he, a devout follower of Christ, had become a manifestation of greed and covetousness, used as a tool for theft and murder.

Through his simalucri, Marcelo crept his way into the church. Tiny extensions of himself swarmed under the great doors, and slithered through vents and cracks. For the first time in his life, if this shadow existence could still be deemed life, he entered God's house as an adversary. He begged the Lord to keep him out, but no amount of silent prayers barred his entry.

The first fragments of his being entered the church. Sights that had always filled him with hope and inspiration now elicited sorrow. The saints, immortalized in stained glass, stood as colorful reminders of his damnation. Pews, empty at this late hour, were symbolic of the community he would never again know. And then there was Christ himself. His static sufferings portrayed in the stations of the cross were a negative image of Marcelo's own unending agony.

Wavering shadows and shifting candle light blanketed the place of worship. At the altar stood a man in holy vestments, muttering before the image of the messiah.

Marcelo wondered why the man was here, praying at such an odd time. Had the Lord warned him of his coming? Would his faith protect him? Marcus did not think so, but he hoped.

The gathered simalucri swarmed upon themselves. Their chitinous exoskeletons and leathery skins shed, allowing the soft ooze within to coalesce into an unholy mass. Gu's true, abominable form came to life—Marcelo's torso, grafted to the body of a chimeric beast.

Clicking of inhuman appendages against the stone floor echoed off the hallowed walls. Acid hissed from the corrosive slime he trailed across the stone. The priest turned to see what manner of visitor had snuck upon him. Too dumbstruck to scream at the sight of the vile, patchwork monster, the cleric fell to the ground in impotent silence.

"Forgive me father," Marcello hissed, making the sign of the cross with one of his bony pincers, before plunging it into the priest's chest.