Free The Twins of Noremway Parish by Eric R. Johnston Page A

business with the angelic two-headed child?
    He still had to figure out what to do with the blood. As soon as everyone was gone, he locked himself away in the office just off the atrium near the cathedral entrance. The Book of Ragas was located on his desk. Above him was a painting of Ragas Moliere standing triumphantly over a dark beast of the Darkness. His pale complexion, flowing red hair, and strong build were displayed in exquisite detail. He wore a knight’s chest plate and armor covering both arms, which held the large Angled Cross above his head. The painting portrayed him as a warrior, although he most certainly was never a knight.
    Hours passed as he continued to look through the literature. What was he even looking for? Information on the fountain, the holy water, some damn thing; but he found nothing.
    As he was calling it a night, the office started shaking. Pieces of dust and plaster fell in slow streams from the ceiling and walls. All the lanterns within the office and out in the atrium blew out as the shaking intensified.
    He stood from the desk, holding The Book of Ragas in front of him like a shield. “By the power of Ragas, whatever demons fester here, be gone!” The shaking gradually subsided, but all was not quiet. The rumble was replaced by the cries of a child: a baby.
     
    The worship hall was now lit by an ever-present brilliance, gold mixed with red.
    He knew the cries were coming from the stoup, and so too must be the light. Upon approach, he found the wings of the angelic child spread wide and glowing red and gold. The water glowed with the same light. His hands shook. The wings folded in and out as if attempting flight. The flapping grew faster, stronger as the light in both the wings and the water grew brighter, redder. The statue of the two-headed child was screaming. The two-headed stone creature stared back at him, mouths wide, and crying. On closer examination, it no longer appeared to be made of stone.
    He’d never seen anything like it before. It was one thing to gaze upon its still, stone features; it was quite another to see it in the flesh. The wings folded back in around the screaming child…and then disappeared, dropping it into the bloody water below. Crimson water splashed out and dripped down the side, forming a puddle on the floor.
    He hurried to rescue the fountain child from the water, but by the time he reached the stoup he found his rescue effort was unnecessary, because it lay within a dry basin wrapped in a blanket.
    “ Oh goodness,” he said, and scooped it up. As he cradled and soothed it, simultaneously loving and loathing its repulsive nature, a wave of light-headedness washed over him, and he was again privileged with a glimpse through the story teller’s eye.
    ***
    He knew immediately where he was this time. He was underneath the Waterman House, of course. Whenever this vision came to him he remembered clearly the events from before, but somehow the experiences escaped him when they could be the most useful.
    Why?
    The narration, like a booming thought in his mind, started as if it had never left off.
    “ What is this curious turn of events?” the voice in the Darkness asks. “How are you able to manipulate this story from below? We have you. You shan’t be capable of this! Thanks to my travelling eyes, the three imps of the Rangment, I saw it clearly in my mind; the child was dying. It was dead. We had killed it. I saw it barely clinging to life as the friar put it in the water and watched it instantly dissolve…and then…that light. What was it? And now, just moments ago, a child emerged from the bloodstained water. Was it the child resurrected like a phoenix rising from its ashes, or was this something else? What sort of sorcery is this?”
    “ Do you mean to tell me that you are as confused as Brother Decon? I do not believe it,” I say.
    “ So it is you.”
    “ Of course not! Would I create such an abomination?”
    “ This ‘abomination’ is not