Son of Satan and Grandson of the Messiah, Billy Lopez was born with a sordid lineage, an ancestry that has been veiled since birth. Now, he’s a wanted man, forced into a harrowing world of extreme plastic surgery, black market pornography and organized religion gone horribly awry. BLOPE is the classic ‘Coming of Age’ story turned on its ear and shoved to the ground.
Son of Satan and Grandson of the Messiah, Billy Lopez was born with a sordid lineage, an ancestry that has been veiled since birth. Now, he’s a wanted man, forced to flee the only life he has ever known… and where he’s headed isn’t pretty.
Born into The United Prefectures of America, a colony doubling as an experiment in severe racial segregation, Billy was destined for a life of state-controlled mediocrity until he let the most benign element of his forbidden heritage slip. As a white teenager surreptitiously raised in an all-brown Prefecture, his cover has been blown. He has to leave the upper crust privileges of F Prefecture behind and make his escape into M, a dirt poor, bone white Prefecture. One that isn’t listed on any map.
Forced into a harrowing new world of extreme plastic surgery, black market pornography and organized religion gone horribly awry, Billy has to keep his wits about him in order to keep his head on his neck. M Prefecture is best known for two things: cheap life and grisly death. Driven by the mix of divine and profane blood that courses through his veins, he strives to learn the truth about himself and his new surroundings, truths his sheltered upbringing kept hidden. What Billy finds out about M Prefecture is ugly. What he finds out about himself is downright disgusting.
Excerpt
CHAPTER 8 - AFTERBIRTH
63.8 MILES NORTH OF TIERRA PODRIDA, M PREFECTURE, THE UNION
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1993
Anna Masters wasn’t feeling well. Her soft, hazy sense of discomfort was the first thing Anna could remember feeling in months, maybe years. The physical pain wasn’t pleasant, but Anna had felt pain before. The emotional pain she was beginning to feel was something entirely new. Other feelings, bad feelings, came back to her as her brain struggled to break free from its drugged stupor. Anna knew she had done something... She was pretty sure it was something terrible.
She had served Satan little purpose over the last nine months, other than acting as a vessel to gestate his seed. Impregnating Anna had been quite the coup, considering her lineage. Now, with the child born and the child’s sacrifice having gone awry, she didn’t serve him any purpose.
Anna was stumbling through the parched flats of M Prefecture, completely nude. Her feet hurt. It would be a while before she was able to register that the elements were assaulting the rest of her body as well. Her feet were easy to pay attention to. They kept plodding on, one after another, headed anywhere, just so long as it was forward.
She didn’t notice the congealing blood that was slowly caking onto her thighs; she was too concerned with trying to straighten the horizon in her field of vision. Evil people. She had been dealing with evil people. Evil people who wanted to hurt her. But why? Left. Right. Left. Right. Keep going. Find somewhere comfortable.
Anna never found somewhere comfortable, but she did find a bare patch of ground. She made her way down. It was a coordinated effort until she was bested by gravity. She didn’t really feel it when she hit the ground, she was too disappointed in the diagonal horizon. Nothing felt better, but everything felt smaller, colder. Then, nothing was felt at all. The circles the vultures were tracing in the sky overhead grew smaller and smaller as they descended upon Anna.
Wilhelmina Hung was careening south towards Anna’s last known whereabouts, slung low on the back of her Taiwauto 600cc racing motorcycle. Wilhelmina and Anna had never met and never would, but their lives were about to be directly linked. All thanks to the four pillars of light in the distance – stretching down from the heavens to the cloud of thick black smoke hovering low over the horizon. Wilhelmina needed a change, it was long overdue. She would have given the pillars a curious glance followed by a wide berth if she had known of the change to come. But, Wilhelmina was a thief, not a clairvoyant and those pillars were beautiful, hypnotically so.
Things hadn’t been the same since Gary left. They made a great team during their time. With Gary’s brute strength and his long list of connections and Wilhelmina’s sly charm, they were adept at turning trouble into profitable adventure. When they rode together, stealing whatever wasn’t nailed down and selling their spoils to the highest bidder, Wilhelmina felt life was worth living, life was good. Now, life was only the best option because death was too frightening to face.
Gary had been the only person Wilhelmina ever grew to be close with. She never knew her mother and had decided to run away from her father’s house in F by the time she was four. She didn’t have the nerve to do so until she was six. Her bravery didn’t last long once she stormed through the front door for the last time. Gary found her only hours after she left, chancing to drive past a little girl bawling by the side of the road. They spent the next seven years traversing the Inter-Prefecture Highways together.
A bright kid immersed in a violent, lawless underworld, Wilhelmina quickly took on her share of unsavory traits. She gravitated to thievery, out of necessity at first and for the thrill of it before long. She was good, too. Small enough to squeeze into places she shouldn’t, cute enough to get out of most jams, and backed by a burly enforcer to get out of jams where her cuteness couldn’t cut it. Wilhelmina grew to be a shrewd broker as well. She had a natural advantage when she was younger, the black marketeers she and Gary dealt with were immediately thrown off by having to negotiate with a foul mouthed, 75 pounder. Her favorite bargaining trick involved crocodile tears streaming down her cheeks and a lit stick of dynamite. It didn’t matter that the dynamite was fake; she always got her way long before the fuse had the chance to burn down.
When Gary was given the offer, he told Wilhelmina he couldn’t pass it up. Then, he told her that she didn’t want anything to do with it. He said this was the one score they couldn’t split and that he could never forgive himself if she had anything to do with paying for his end of the bargain. Wilhelmina wanted nothing more than to follow in Gary’s shadow, even if she didn’t grasp the consequences of doing so. He didn’t give her the option to tag along. When she awoke the morning after their argument, Gary was nowhere to be found. He left at a bad time; Wilhelmina’s Highway Star apprenticeship was far from complete.
She had picked up enough skill with a makeup brush to get past the Chantone sensors that separated the Prefectures, but without Gary’s connections, she now found herself two steps behind his exhilarating trail of larceny. Even worse than being cut off from his old associates was the psychological toll Gary’s absence took upon her.
Wilhelmina grew meek, knowing that she didn’t have anyone to back her up in times of need. Threats of violence became frightening, rather than laughably insulting. Fight was no longer an option; flight became her way of life.
Wilhelmina always held out hope that she would see Gary again. She grew to regret that hope once her wish was fulfilled, nearly two years after he left. As emotionally painful as Gary’s absence had been, his return was torturous. To say that Gary came back a changed man was an understatement. Physically, he was hard to classify as a man. He adopted a name that wasn’t suitable for a man, and in Wilhelmina’s mind, he adopted an outlook that certainly wasn’t befitting of a man. He told her he had to do bad things, things far worse then what she had been exposed to. She knew exactly what that meant. That meant murder. Gary taught her at an early age that no matter what, no one was to die because of their actions. A man can always get back what he has lost, but he only has one lifetime to do so. Nothing else was off limits. Wilhelmina took that ideal to heart, adopting it as a code.
Apparently, Gary didn’t feel as strongly as he had let on years earlier. He never said outright that he was in the business of taking lives, he never had the chance. Their final face-to-face meeting ended in a cloud of dust; an enraged Wilhelmina cut Gary off mid-sentence, gunning the engine of her freshly pilfered bike and speeding away into the distance.
Wilhelmina was still miles from the four pillars of light. Her excitement grew as she raced closer and closer. Whatever they were, Wilhelmina had a strong feeling that these pillars would be the key to finally shrugging off the weight of Gary’s absence. Their awesome glow offered her assurance that her days of small time burglary and a life on the lam were coming to a close. But, what the hell were they? Wilhelmina had seen her fair share in her travels, but never anything like this.
There was good reason she had never seen anything like the pillars; no one ever had. The pillars of light were a by-product. Beautiful, certainly, but nowhere near as interesting as the devices that created them, or the legion of men who wore the devices. The Four Friars, elite strike force of the Ashanti Orthodox, were headed back to Earth.
Father Superior was forced to deviate from the Ashanti Orthodox’s stated intent of awakening the Messiah, opting instead to increase focus on battling the ancient force of evil. Only Father Superior and Jonathan Wright knew of Clint Masters slipping through their grasp. The attention of an entire faith was turned to eradicating Satan; Wright’s failure was successfully swept under the rug. With no Messiah left to awaken, Satan’s death would have to make do as the crowning achievement of Father Superior’s holy career.
The Four Friars had been fitted with Halos, the net result of longstanding technological one-upmanship between Ghana and the Eternally Free Taiwanese. The Halos cast a golden sphere of light around the heads of each of the Friars, but life imitating art was the least of the Halos’ functions. Each Halo acted as a self contained stratospheric flight device. In theory, the ability to quickly travel anywhere in the world was to give them a decided speed advantage over Satan and the Knights in his Service. For the Four Friars, simple to use, incredibly accurate, intercontinental travel was an incredible boon. With the Halos, their quest to destroy Satan became more than just a hopeful mission statement.
Formed in the late 19th Century, the Four Friars were the Ashanti Orthodox vanguard in the fight against Satan and his forces. Theirs had been a legacy of failure. As an order, they had yet to confront Satan in the flesh. They were best known for repeatedly dying at the hands of the Knights in Satan’s Service. The Four Friars did not relish their sullied reputation; they preferred to be recognized for their piety and strict adherence to tradition. Since their inception, the revolving cast of battle tested Holy Men who comprised the Four Friars have been granted one of four titles – Prosperity, Peace, Abundance and Life. These titles were not assigned at random, as each title carried with it a specific set of responsibilities. Prosperity acquired and disseminated information, and acted as chief negotiator. Peace planned battle tactics. Life served as tracker and it was up to Abundance to kick in doors and knock heads together. As the members of the order fell in battle with the Dark Lord’s forces, new recruits were anointed with the names of the fallen as they joined rank.
Prosperity 3 was the elder statesman of the group and acted as their unquestioned leader, having served as one of the Four Friars for over half a century. At 67, his physical abilities had deteriorated but his first hand knowledge gained from surviving dozens of skirmishes with various Knights was said to be invaluable.
Peace 9, 40, was second in command. While he would never dare say it outright, he viewed Prosperity 3’s ‘experience’ as a career of incompetence. Not only had he been unable to come close to killing Satan, but Prosperity 3 had also spent decades avoiding a glorious death in battle. It was not a written rule, but as Peace 9 saw it, if you did not come home with news of your victory, it was best to not come home. The internalized lack of respect Peace 9 felt for his leader was nothing compared to his own self loathing. Peace 9 had been obeying Prosperity 3’s cowardly orders of ‘Retreat!’ for nearly 20 years.
The newest recruits, Abundance 12 and Life 29, rounded out the group. At 24 years old, Abundance 12 was in the physical prime of his life, and it showed, he was the tallest and broadest of the bunch. Life 29 stood on the other end of the spectrum. Only 13, he was naturally the smallest of the Four Friars, not at all physically intimidating but preternaturally gifted at following a trail. He wasn’t only a hyper-adept tracker, Life 29 was perpetually worried. It wasn’t that he was thrust into a mission better suited to someone twice his age that concerned Life 29, it was his title. As the 29th ‘Life’, he knew that 28 men had died manning his position before him. His was the unlucky title. Life 29 wanted nothing to do with Satan, at least not yet. For now, all he wanted was to make sure he wouldn’t be replaced by Life 30.
The inaugural mission of the latest incarnation of the Four Friars did not get off to a promising start. The devout had gathered en masse in Accra to watch the launch of the heroic men who were to forcefully rid the world of evil. The Four Friars patiently stood at attention, each tall, muscular member decked out in a loose, beige combat robe, Halo activator rings hovering an inch above their heads.
Father Superior issued quiet blessings to his Friars before addressing the crowd. His speech to his followers was brief; time was of the essence. He should have prepared a backup speech. The Halos’ first launch was an exercise in anti-climax. The Four Friars gazed towards the heavens as the golden spheres engulfed their heads. In theory, once the spheres were engaged, they were to soar into the sky. In practice, they stood looking skyward until the murmurs from the crowd grew loud enough to warrant drawing a curtain over the embarrassing display. The error had been one of simple oversight; Prosperity 3 had input the destination telemetry, but overlooked inputting the current location. He mumbled something about being old and the buttons being too small as an excuse. By the time the engineers had the problem pinned down, the opportunity for pomp had long passed. The Four Friars winglessly took to the skies with only Father Superior and a handful of technicians looking on.
Wilhelmina reached the smoldering church before the Four Friars had the chance to land. She stood in silent admiration at the base of the light pillars, trying to determine what they could possibly be. A cry pierced the air, snapping Wilhelmina’s attention towards the church’s scorched remains. The sound was unmistakable; there was a baby amongst the wreckage. The time for wonder was over, instinct and adrenaline took hold.
She revved the engine and roared between two blackened, sagging beams that looked as though they could snap in two at any moment. The fire had died down inside, but it was still incredibly hot. Wilhelmina’s neck to toe, white leather motorcycle suit and matching helmet only made things hotter, but they did provide protection from the embers that rained down from the creaking, moaning roof.
The bone-white baby, still coated in the goo of afterbirth, lay wailing on a stone slab, encircled in pools of black wax. His tiny, wrinkled arms were clasped like a vice over his heart, grasping the tip of a dagger nearly as long as the child himself. Wilhelmina reached for the handle, the infant loosened his grip and allowed her to toss the dagger aside. His cries ceased as she cradled him in her left arm and sped outside, eager to avoid being crushed by the fire-decayed wood overhead. She stopped short, no more than 50 feet from the church. The pillars of light had faded, replaced by four men in tan robes, their faces obscured by glowing golden orbs.
The Halo devices allowed the Four Friars to talk to one another while remaining practically silent. Their words were clear as crystal amongst themselves, but registered only as a barely audible hum to Wilhelmina.
“We are too late. It is clear we have failed.” Prosperity 3 announced to his brethren. “Worse yet, it appears the initial reports were correct. Satan has fathered a child.”
“We have not failed.” Peace 9 countered. He was furious, but tried his best to hide it. If it weren’t for the old man’s technological incompetence, they could have finally had Satan in their grasp! “We have been given an opportunity to strike a fierce blow against Satan’s forces. The child must be destroyed! Abundance, seize him!”
Abundance 12 strode towards Wilhelmina, now clutching the infant to her breast. Prosperity 3 grabbed hold of Abundance’s arm before he could get too far. Wilhelmina, still astride her motorcycle, trembled visibly even as Abundance was held back from her.
“We shall do no such thing.” Abundance stepped back in line as Prosperity overruled Peace 9’s command. “Our orders were to destroy Satan and the Knights in his Service. Those are the only orders we shall follow. Despite his lineage, the child has done no wrong. The Four Friars will not be responsible for his death. Nor shall we be responsible for the child’s life. This young woman will watch over the child in our stead; she is to become a Sister of Joseph. Come now, lower your Halos. We must begin.”
The Four Friars tapped a combination of buttons on their activator rings, some Friars more resentfully than others. Their golden orbs faded from view. Wilhelmina was relieved to see that these odd figures were in fact men and not some otherworldly sphere-headed creatures, but she was not relieved to the point of complacency.
“Who are you? What is going on here?” she blurted, her terrified sobs muffled by her helmet.
Their response was just as bizarre as their arrival. They were chanting. Wilhelmina’s frustration and confusion quickly lifted as they droned as a group, replaced by a feeling of serenity beyond anything she had ever experienced. She could not make clear the words that were being chanted, but their intonations went beyond comprehension. The effect was one of compulsion.
Suddenly, Wilhelmina wanted nothing more than to protect this mysterious child. She had a burning desire to take him home and provide him with an inert, sheltered lifestyle, one devoid of conflict. She knew that she was to contact these men, these Four Friars, if anything was to stand in the way of her new wishes. Before she could ask any more of the Four Friars, their heads were once again covered by golden orbs and they were ascending towards the heavens, swathed in pillars of light. Wilhelmina Hung kicked her bike awake and began the long ride back to F Prefecture, where she belonged and where the child in her arms most certainly did not.
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