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“Have you ever wondered,” the captain started, ten minutes after their descent, and Evan braced himself for whatever nonsense his captain was about to say, “why these kinds of things always happen in a deep dark underground basement with nothing more than a crudely made altar, and not some sunshine greenery or some warm family gathering?”
“No,” he said.
“It’s giving poverty and disrespect and inconsiderate, you know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t. Can we please, for Mother’s love, focus on the mission–”
“If they want to have their evil boss descend,” the captain went on, “shouldn’t they choose a wide-open space with plenty of sunlight and fresh air and a nice view to a beach? First impressions are very important. Wouldn’t do to have the guest think poorly of the host’s hospitality.”
“Captain, please.”
“All right. I’m just trying to lighten the mood,” the captain shrugged.
They marched down in blissful silence for another two minutes or so. The staircase was dark, narrow, and damp, with the scent of something sinister lingering around their noses. It smelled like rotten flesh, blood, and an awful lot of vulgar smells that belonged to bodily fluids. For some reason, he felt as if the silence was intensifying the unpleasant smell and made the staircases appear even narrower.
“But can you imagine–”
“Captain!”
Luckily, they reached the final stair before the captain could say any more of her strange ideas that could get them exiled. It was, as the captain said, a deep dark underground basement with nothing more than a crudely made altar. Cliché, Evan heard the captain whisper under her breath. It was as big as, if not bigger than, the house it was hidden below. A big room with thick stone walls and no windows. The ceiling, walls and floor blended into almost perfect darkness. If it wasn’t for their night vision, he would suspect there to be monsters lurking in the dark, ready to jump at and devour them whole. There were torch handles on both walls, four on each side, and one in each corner. The altar—the only highlight of the room, a stone platform that reached waist height—was in the center. On the altar was a throbbing pile of flesh, organs, and bones, squirming and wiggling. Tiny hands and agonizing faces pressed against the flesh’s thin membrane but never fully penetrated. It was as if they were souls, tormented and trapped inside an evil cage made from their very bodies that were smashed and compressed together. And don’t forget about the stench. If the thing on the altar was alive, then the stench must be too. It crawled into Evan’s nose against his will and rooted between his nerves. It made him feel like beating someone, as if a wave of primal anger was evoked in him. He gagged, sour stomach acid traveled up to his throat, but he swallowed it back.
“What a nice gathering they were having.” The captain commented. She was referring to the bodies.
Why yes, the bodies. How could he have overlooked them? There were fourteen of them. None was intact. The condition of the bodies told him a ravaging beast must have had the feast of its life. It must have gnawed, bit, crunched and torn here and there. It must have savored its beastly appetite with the flesh and blood of these poor victims. Except, two of the bodies had bloody hands and mouths with little pieces of unidentified raw meat between their fingernails and teeth.
After confirming there was no hidden danger and it was safe to advance, they made their way to the basement. The captain walked toward the altar while Evan examined the peripheral areas.
“Hey newbie,” the captain called, “check this out.”
On the altar, there was a Tarot card: The Moon.
“Good news, newbie, case closed.” The captain put a hand on his shoulder as if congratulating him for a job well done. “The bad news is, you’re writing the report.”
***
When the two of them came out of that hellish place of what was left of an Evil God ritual— Well, an interrupted and unsuccessful Evil God ritual, high-order personnel of the church were already waiting for them. There were their fellow officials from the Church of the Earth Mother, clasping in dirt color priest robes, surveying the surrounding area. And there were… Nighthawks of the Church of the Evernight Goddess? Evan wanted to doubt his eyes, but the flamboyancy of their red gloves said otherwise. He preferred his church’s dirt color robes. More inconspicuous. And comfortable to wear, too. Among the reinforcements, two particularly good-looking people noticed them coming out and walked toward them. A golden retriever accompanied them on the side.
When Evan got a clear look at one of the ones that were approaching, he hissed to his captain, “Captain! Why is His Eminence here?”
“I don’t know!” the captain hissed back. “You’re freaking out? I’m freaking out, too!” The captain was the one requesting reinforcements from the higher-ups, but even she didn’t expect to receive this level of assistance.
His Eminence—Emlyn White the Hierophant—responsible for receiving sacred revelations from Mother and delivering them to the church, was rarely seen around here. You would often see him at the Grand Cathedral in Feynapotter, spreading the gospel of Earth Mother to his fellow Sanguines. Or roaming the wild West Balam’s central region where most of the population lived, and thus where the majority of extraordinary incidents happened. But not here. Not in this part of the world. He was too important.
They hastily cupped their hands near their chest. The sacred prayer gesture of their church resembled a mother holding her beloved baby or a farmer cherishing his precious seeds. The young-looking Hierophant returned the gesture, while the Red Gloves next to him draw a four-pointed star on his chest. After exchanging simple pleasantries, the captain reported what they had found in the underground basement. To Evan’s surprise, His Eminence simply nodded. He then turned around and told someone to retrieve and seal the living pile of flesh and announced the closure of the case.
“Your Eminence,” he called as the Hierophant headed toward the unassuming house where the basement hid underneath, “are we really closing the case? Just like that?”
Not even a follow-up. No further investigation. No tracking, or divination. How could they know for sure that the threat had ended and there was no latent danger?
The Hierophant turned to face him. His eyes curled up into two miniature crescent moons. A confident smile hung on his lips. “The Tarot Club had helped us a great deal in stopping evil from staining Mother’s land. We shall do our due and have faith in their deed.”
Evan had never heard of that organization. Were they the ones who put the Moon Tarot card on the altar? How did they know about the ritual happening there? Who were they and why did they help, if they were really the ones who helped, preventing this could-have-been disaster? Question after question spurted into Evan’s mind.
“If you want to know more about the Tarot Club,” the Hierophant drew out his tone. He pointed to the Red Gloves standing next to him. “You can ask him. He named them. The matter remains urgent, I shall take my leave.” Then he hastened his steps.
Left behind, the Red Gloves looked perplexed as if he didn’t expect to be cued. Though, he soon regained his posture.
“The Tarot Club,” he said to the curious Evan, “is a neutral organization that often helps official Beyonders capture believers of malicious hidden existences and prevent evil rituals from succeeding or happening. Their traces can be found in many places in the Northern Continent, the Five Seas, or the Southern Continent.
“Because they mostly do no harm and are very hard to catch, we choose to quietly cooperate with them sometimes and let the cases they are involved in closed without further questioning.”
“But…what if they were the ones who had caused those incidents in the first place?” Evan asked.
The Red Gloves laughed, “Then that would be very stupid of them. Deliberately and abruptly ending a ritual you have started will anger the deity the ritual was pointing toward. Not to mention the materials and procedures required for each ritual are different. And they will make enemies of almost all secret organizations whose members they had helped us capture.”
“Evan,” his captain called. “Go back, write a Tarot Club report, and bring it here.”
“I must also take my leave,” Evan said to the Red Gloves. “Thank you for answering my questions, sir…”
“Leonard Mitchell,” the Red Gloves said and smiled. “And you’re welcome.”
When Evan returned to his captain, he wanted to ask her the remaining questions he didn’t get to ask the Red Gloves. Unfortunately, her expression told him he would not get anything useful from her. Instead, she said, “Ask Ramon for a template if you don’t know how to write one.” Ah, so she would just… outsource the task of answering questions onto poor Ramon then. As expected of his captain.
***
Evan came to a small and sparsely populated village. At this hour, everyone was already soundly asleep. It was dead silent. Only he and his shadow, lengthened under the crimson moon’s illumination. He made his way through the closely built, chaotically arranged houses of the villagers, and arrived in front of an old, seemingly abandoned warehouse that was overgrown by roots and vines and all sorts of vegetation. He walked to the side of the warehouse and shoved out a layer of dry, brown roots. There was a hidden door underneath, painted in the same brownish-red paint that made it blend perfectly with the surrounding wall and the roots overgrowing above. Behind the door was a staircase leading straight downward.
A big, looming half-giant—too large that the chair he was sitting on was holding for dear life—greeted him as he stepped into their hidden headquarters.
“Welcome back. Where’s the captain?”
“Staying behind with His Eminence and reinforcements to clean up.” The half-giant, called Ramon, looked up from the thick book he was reading. Evan felt slightly better seeing the surprise on that big face. “I need the report template for cases involving the Tarot Club,” he said.
Ramon raised one eyebrow and jerked his head toward the three bookshelves in the right corner. “Second shelf, third row, the first binder from the right. What did you find?”
“The Moon Tarot card, on the altar, next to an unknown Sealed Artifact,” he said. “Do you know much about this Tarot Club? Why are we dropping the case as soon as we see their… signature?” He was curious, and a bit annoyed. Mother knows how many months they had been observing this village that reeked of suspicious behavior and questionable religious practices.
“Because they are the Tarot Club. It’s standard procedure. What’s there to say?”
Evan took out the binder, flipped to the page where a report sample was attached, then walked to the typewriter placed on another table on the other side of the room, and started typing.
“Aren’t they a secret organization?” he asked.
“Being a secret organization doesn’t make them inherently evil,” Ramon said. “The Moses Ascetic Order used to be a respectable secret organization that once had decent morality and principles.”
“The Moses Ascetic Order fell. They turned evil.”
“Because the God they believed in turned evil.”
“Who’s to say the God the Tarot Club believes in won’t turn evil?”
Ramon chuckled.
“What’s funny?” Evan asked.
“Do you know what God this organization is said to believe in?”
Seeing his puzzled expression, the half-giant gently fixed his glasses, then took on a lecturing posture. Clearly, he was enjoying a chance to show off his knowledge and discuss that knowledge with another person. Curious heads that strove to question and learn were hard to come by in this part of the world.
“The first Tarot cases happened in Loen,” Ramon began. “At the time, there were some rumors about a newly founded secret organization that uses Tarot Cards as code names. Members of the Aurora Order were seen asking people about the identities and the whereabouts of The Fool’s believers. The Fool is the first Major Arcana in a Tarot deck.
“Coincidently, not long after the official recognition of the Tarot Club, a new church was established with the quiet acquiescence of all major churches and had been especially active here in the Southern Continent and the Rorsted Archipelago. You know what church I’m talking about.”
It didn’t take long for Evan to fill in what the giant had left out.
“You mean, the Tarot Club belongs to the Church of The Fool? Like the Nighthawks, the Mandated Punishers, or us?”
“The Church of The Fool has never outright claimed to be in control of the Tarot Club,” Ramon said. “They don’t even say if their God, The Fool, is The Fool from Tarot. But I think it’s logical to assume so. Only Gods, or Godlike existence, can take in believers.
“I don’t know about other churches. But judging from our church’s attitude toward the Church of The Fool and how we always yield whenever there are traces of the Tarot Club, I’d say this organization and the Church of The Fool are related in some way.”
“You think they are an elite Beyonder team of the Church of the Fool?”
Ramon thought for a moment, then reluctantly answered, “Maybe. Or maybe not. You have seen our church working with other churches before, including the Church of The Fool. You don’t see us giving them any leeway, do you? The way the church treats cases related to the Tarot Club; I find it strange. My friend in the Church of the Evernight Goddess says it’s the same for them over there.”
Evan agreed. After all, being recognized as part of an official church, albeit a small and growing one, would make their life so much easier. Exchanging information with official Beyonders, access to operations and areas that required high-level security clearance, and collaborations. They wouldn’t have to worry about getting official Beyonders on their tails. And he wouldn’t have to type this unnecessary report.
His fingers pecked on the hard keyboard of the typewriter. Round, rigid letters came out in a neat straight line. He gave the report one quick read-over before returning the binder to its original location. Ramon got irritated when people messed up the order he had painstakingly arranged.
There was just one final question he needed to ask. Well, one final question to get out of his head lest he would be burnt with a dangerous curiosity that may or may not lead to him poking his nose into equally dangerous business.
“What, in your opinion, is the reason they remain hidden?” Not hidden as in a hidden organization. But hidden as in not showing their faces. Or interacting with other churches besides showing their goodwill by folding Evil Gods’ believers’ plans. Given their good reputation in the world of official Beyonders, it wasn’t like they would be chased and hunted down if they ever showed their faces.
“Isn’t that obvious?” the half-giant’s eyes lit up. “It’s likely because the members’ true identities are sensitive. That their power, their physical characteristics, and even their face are recognizable! They might even be well-known individuals in the political world or the mystical world.”
Evan pondered over what Ramon had said as he made his exit and returned to the site of the evil god ritual. What sort of recognizable characteristics could the members of this organization have, he wondered. And how sensitive could their identities be? Could they be aristocrats from a big country or even a member of the royal family? He had heard that many children from noble’s houses wanted to become Beyonders but didn’t want to limit themselves to the confine of a church. So they and their parents often turned to the more unconventional methods of obtaining potion formulas and ingredients. It would, indeed, be problematic if a noble young master or lady was found to be involved in an unorthodox secret organization.
Could they be wanted criminals? Evan wouldn’t be surprised to find one or two wanted criminals in a supposedly secret organization.
Could they be important figures in the mystical world? Like Grounded Angels, or Saint-level Beyonders? It was possible. After all, how could a secret organization obtain the recognition of so many churches if they didn’t have the power to back it up? But high-sequence Beyonders could be as many as wheat in the field and as few as… the people who believed in Frank Lee’s experiments. Evan shuddered. Why did he think of that taboo exile all of a sudden? What he meant was there could be as many high-sequence Beyonders as they wanted. How could they pinpoint an important figure among this sea of people?
He shelved his thought for another time. The captain and the rest of the reinforcements were waiting for him.