Home > Fiction > I Hate Rainy Days

I hate rainy days and I hate them all the more when they are in Manila. Here, the rain just lingers on, never really pouring, never really stopping—just lingering, like a woman’s pique when she is disappointed in her lover. It just lingers.

My name is Sebastian. Truly it is. At least, that is really my first name. I have gone by many other last names over the years and the years have been many. I am not from these parts, though I have chosen to make Manila my home. Granted, the situations I found myself in made my choice of this place eminently logical, desirable and reasonable, but it was still my choice.

I am lawyer by profession—does it show? I have put up my shingle here in the walled city—Intramuros they call it. For some reason, I like the sound of the name. It is so telling, so appropriate. I specialize in contracts and torts and my clients are the desperate. I do not know what they look like. You see, I am blind, but the contracts I deal with don’t need to be read and, like Lady Justice, I don’t care who my client is. If they need my services, I am here—that is, if they can find me.

I deal with the contracts that sign away the souls of their owners to the devil. I’m sure you’ve heard of such pacts, but what I’m sure you don’t know is that every such contract has a loophole that can be used to replace the soul back to salvation—that is, if you know where to find it.

I do. 

I am an angel and I have been doing this work ever since the Great War of Light in Heaven. I was a commander of a Legion then, but I lost them to the other side. So am I here, to undo what they would do, for this is their favorite ploy. I would do here on earth what I could not do in Heaven.

Especially now. 

War has been openly declared between Heaven and Hell and our forces are reeling, much to our surprise and consternation. The forces Hell has unleashed have cost us much in souls. Perhaps we are to learn humility from all this?

Bastet shares the office with me. Yes, that is really her name. No, we are not lovers. We are…er… colleagues. After Christianity spread, she found herself without an occupation. I found her during my sojourns in Egypt and, having nothing better to do, she attached herself to me. I believe that that is what cats normally do, so how much more for their goddess?

She assists me in the capacity of a secretary and researcher and she has lately—that is, within the last millennium, developed a taste for books. She has this knack for finding just the information I need, all straight from the original sources. When I ask her how she does it, she simply smiles her cat smile and replies that all ways are one to a cat. It makes me wonder where cats really go when they go out at night. She goes out often and always brings back interesting and intriguing bits of news to me.

She is lithe and petite. Her bones are fine and her muscles firm. By any standard she is beautiful—even a blind man can see that. I, on the other hand, weigh 360 lbs. And my bulk is considerable even if I do tower at 6"4’. I have tired many guises in the past, but I find this one to be the most practical. It causes my opponents to underestimate me. And that is most desirable.

I’ve just closed a case today and freed another soul from the clutches of Hell. I do not win all my cases and lately, the contracts I encounter have become more and more devious. Sometimes I wonder if my clients actually want to go to Hell. 

Bastet rushes into my office, and I can sense her concern and distress; her pretty eyebrows would be creased and if she had a tail, it’d be twitching. Is it because she wants to go out and it is raining?

"Sebastian, follow me. I have something to show you." There is an undertone in her voice that tells me all of this. Her concern has a tinge of fear in it. What she has to show me must be such that even a blind man can see it. I get my coat and my cane—I never could abide umbrellas—and she leads me out.

I hear rain. I thought cats didn’t like rain. Soon I’m drenched and damp and the cold seeps into my socks and my soul. She’s still holding my hand and her hand is dry. How does she do that? Could she teach me, perhaps?

We walk a short distance and she leads me to one of the many alleys near the office. I feel her cheek against my jowl—also warm and dry and she murmurs,

"What do you see?" There is anxiety in her voice.

I concentrate and an image forms in my mind. I see a body and a lot of contradictions. The body has been dead for centuries, but its will is leaving it only just now. Is it maybe because its head was taken off?

"A vampire?" I hear myself murmuring. ‘ is there a schism going on under the regime of Prospero Gallantes?

I sense Bastet pause and consider. I can almost hear her mind racing wildly. "If there is, it bodes ill for all. This was one of his trusted sergeants. But there is more."

She leads me on and soon we find another body. Also a vampire, but this time a lieutenant. I sense her agitation growing and still she leads me on—like Hansel and Gretel following a gruesome trail, except we are being led into danger instead of away from it.

Yet another body and this time one of Gallantes’s captains. Don’t misunderstand. There is no army here, only a clan held together by blood and fear and the iron will of their sire. But they might as well be an army.

"Bast, where are we?"

"Just entering Fort Santiago."

I suddenly realize where we are headed.

"The Camara Rojo?"

Her grip on my hand tightens and she virtually drags me into the ancient fort. The stairs are winding and along the way, I lose her. I grope my way downward and stumble across her shoes, then her clothes. Bloody Hell! She’s taken on the form of a cat, the impatient wench!

I pause and gather my will and images of my surroundings form in my mind’s eye. Holding my cane at ready, I advance. No one, but no one enters the Camara Rojo, the Red Room, uninvited, no matter if you be angel or goddess, no one interrupts vampires in their cups.

A yowl of pure fear leaps out at me and I break into a run, stumbling and tumbling as I lose my footing on the dank, mossy steps. I catch myself just before I hit the doors of that awful place. From inside I hear Bastet’s yowls and a part of me idly wonders what could frighten a goddess so. The other part is wondering the same thing, but its concern is a particular angel.

The doors burst in as I land a solid kick right in the middle. The stench of blood comes out in waves and my insides heave. It is old blood, stale blood, wretched, unrepentant blood, blood too stubborn, too proud to die. My shoes barely find purchase on a floor made slippery with gore, and the skin on my finger crawl as I feel the vicious, viscous wetness on the wall.

I steady myself by the door as my mind tells me the extent of the carnage: five of Gallantes’s aides, vampires who were with him when they first landed in Legaspi’s ship, lie mangled in their terrible feasting hall, their ancients insides strewn hither and yon.

Bastet is huddled in the corner, naked and trembling in fear, face cradled in her hands. She makes the soft, piteous, crying sounds a kitten make when it looks for its mother. She clings to me and I realize that it is not the slaughter that upset her, but its implications.

I wrap her up in my coat and we make our way out. Night has fallen and a bloated moon is just beginning to rise. We pause at the gates of this dead relic and I catch a glimpse of a figure standing on the walls. 

No, I do not catch a glimpse of him, his very presence intrudes upon my senses.

He stands tall, naked and proud and I see the iridescent tattoo of a bird with a fantastically long tail trail from his right shoulder straight down to his right buttock. His posture is statuesque and haughty and with studied disdain, he lifts his left arm straight up defiantly towards the top floors of the Governor’s Palace—the lair of Gallantes. Clenched in the fist of that arm, hanging limply like a poorly-made rag doll, is what is left of Cervantes de Salamanca, late the dear friend and trusted advisor of Prospero Gallantes, the self-styled Duque de Filipinas.

And I feel his rage. Surprise and consternation are mixed in with it in liberal parts, for here before him is the form of the man he calls Bernardo Carpio, part human, part diwata, once supreme datu of these islands, once friend now sworn enemy. This was the man whose trust he had betrayed all in the name of survival.

I sense Gallantes’s thought just as they occur to him and I see an inky black shadow mar the face of the moon. A huge bat-thing lunges out of the Palace and swoops down upon the tall figure upon the wall. Carpio is still, seemingly unmindful of the cruel claws aimed straight at his heart. The corpse in his hand suddenly bursts into flame just as the shadow envelops him.

I hear the scrape of claw upon stone and the naked sound of rage as the shadow resolves itself into the lean, elegant, almost effete form of Gallantes. At his feet, the remains of his advisor smoulder and sputter. Carpio is no where to be found.

Bastet whimpers and buries her face in my chest. I hold her close. She is too upset even to create the illusion of clothing to cover her nakedness—a favorite pastime of hers. I watch in morbid fascination as Gallantes screams his rage at the moon and then slowly fades away. I feel the hair at the back of my neck stand as I catch the ripple of fear that spreads through Manila’s dreams tonight.

Carpio has escaped his prison and will be gathering his people, scattered all these years. Gallantes will be mustering what there is left of the old, tired blood of his minions and clansmen. The war that was postponed for more than four hundred years will finally be fought out.

I let my sight go and in the dark, Bastet and I find our way back home. It begins to rain again. Still trembling, I put her to bed and she cries in her sleep. She’s always hated war and this one promises to be among the most cruel. I listen to the lazy patter of the rain on our tin roof. I’ve always hated rainy days and now a storm is brewing. 
 

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