Chapter 9: Whispers of a Dead God

The cathedral's holy font hadn't seen use in decades. Located in a small chamber behind the main altar, it was carved from a single piece of black granite that predated the building itself—some relic from whatever sacred site had occupied this ground long before Christianity arrived in Calathon. Now, filled with water blessed by the faith of the forgotten, it rippled with potential that made Arthur's renewed divine senses sing.

"You sure about this, lad?" Kael asked, his weathered face creased with concern. "Full communion with your god... that's not something you do lightly. Some champions never come back from that kind of deep dive."

Arthur knelt beside the font, watching his reflection waver in the dark water. The past few hours had been spent sharing what they'd learned about Alchemax with Helena and her people, planning their next moves, distributing the evidence Zara had stolen. But throughout it all, he'd felt the Keeper's presence tugging at his consciousness, urging him toward this moment.

"The infection in Lucy," he said quietly. "It wasn't random. The magical virus was designed with specific targeting parameters—it goes after people with certain genetic markers, certain magical sensitivities. But there's more to it than we understood."

Zara looked up from where she was interfacing her equipment with the cathedral's surprisingly robust electrical system. "More how?"

"The Keeper's been trying to show me something ever since we got here. Something about the true scope of what we're facing." Arthur touched the surface of the water, feeling the accumulated faith of generations flowing through the stone. "This isn't just about Alchemax. They're not the real enemy—they're a tool."

Helena stepped closer, her expression grave. "A tool of whom?"

Arthur closed his eyes, feeling the divine connection pulse stronger as his consciousness prepared to dive deeper than it ever had before. "That's what I need to find out."

DIVINE COMMUNION PROTOCOL INITIATED WARNING: DEEP SPIRITUAL INTERFACE CARRIES SIGNIFICANT RISKS CONSCIOUSNESS TRANSFER BEGINNING MAINTAIN FAITH ANCHOR: CRITICAL

The water was shockingly cold as Arthur lowered himself into the font. It should have been impossible—the granite basin was barely large enough for a baby's baptism—but as the blessed water closed over his head, he found himself sinking through depths that existed in spiritual rather than physical space.

The cathedral dissolved around him. The voices of his companions faded to whispers, then to silence. Arthur found himself floating in a vast space between spaces, where concepts took on weight and form, where faith became visible as streams of light connecting all living things.

And there, waiting for him in the heart of that infinite darkness, was his god.

The Keeper of Lost Things appeared not as Arthur had expected—no towering figure of divine authority or blazing avatar of holy power. Instead, he saw an elderly librarian in a worn cardigan, sitting behind a desk that seemed to extend infinitely in all directions. The desk was covered with objects: photographs with no one left to remember them, letters never sent, toys abandoned by children who'd grown up too fast, medical degrees from students whose dreams had been crushed by prejudice.

"Hello, Arthur," the Keeper said, his voice carrying the weight of millennia but also a profound gentleness. "I've been waiting to speak with you properly."

Arthur found himself sitting across from the god, though he didn't remember moving. "You're not what I expected."

"Gods rarely are. We become what our believers need us to be, and you need a teacher more than a warrior." The Keeper gestured to the artifacts scattered across his endless desk. "Do you know what these are?"

"Forgotten things?"

"Forgotten dreams. Discarded hopes. The pieces of people's lives that the world decided didn't matter." The god picked up a small wooden toy—a carved horse with one leg broken off. "This belonged to a child who wanted to be a veterinarian. She had the talent, the passion, everything except the right skin color and the right family connections. So she's working three jobs just to survive, and her dream gathers dust in a box under her bed."

Arthur felt a chill of recognition. "Like my medical studies."

"Exactly like your medical studies. You are my champion not because you were the strongest or the most faithful, but because you understand what it means to have your purpose stripped away by systems that value conformity over compassion."

The Keeper set down the toy horse and picked up something else—a photograph of a young woman in a police uniform, her face bright with hope and determination.

"Kael's partner," Arthur realized.

"Detective Sarah Martinez. She discovered what Alchemax was doing two years ago, tried to build a case against them. But she made one critical error—she believed the system would protect her if she followed proper channels." The god's expression grew sad. "She was eliminated not by corporate assassins, but by her own colleagues who decided her investigation was too dangerous to their careers."

Arthur stared at the photograph, understanding flooding through him. "The tracer Kael carries. It wasn't placed by the enemy during an attack."

"Sarah placed it on him herself, moments before her death. Not to track him, but to ensure that someday, someone would find the evidence she'd hidden. The key to exposing not just Alchemax, but the entire network that protects them."

The infinite desk began to shift around them, artifacts rearranging themselves into patterns that told stories. Arthur saw the connections now—how Alchemax's board of directors connected to government agencies, how their research was funded by organizations that didn't officially exist, how their magical virus was just one weapon in an arsenal designed for a much larger war.

"The Janitors," he whispered.

"An apt name. They see magic as a contaminant to be cleansed from the world, a throwback to primitive times that has no place in their vision of the future." The Keeper's voice carried ancient sorrow. "They've been working for centuries, slowly erasing magical knowledge, eliminating bloodlines, ensuring that each generation knows less about the true nature of reality than the last."

Arthur felt sick as the full scope of it became clear. "The magical virus isn't meant to kill people directly. It's meant to justify a purge."

"Transform the magically sensitive into monsters, then eliminate them as threats to public safety. Clean, efficient, and with full legal authority." The god stood, moving to a section of the desk where newspaper clippings floated like autumn leaves. "They've done it before, in smaller scales. Salem was one of their early experiments. So were the witch trials in Europe, the pogroms, the residential schools that stole indigenous children from their families."

"But why now? Why this big a push?"

The Keeper gestured, and Arthur found himself looking at the city of Calathon from an impossible height—not just the physical buildings, but the spiritual infrastructure that connected every living soul. Lines of light linked communities, streams of belief and hope and desperate faith creating a network that pulsed with life.

"Because magic is awakening," the god said simply. "The younger generation doesn't fear it the way their parents did. Technology and mysticism are beginning to merge in ways the Janitors can't control. They know they have perhaps one generation left before their vision of a purely mundane world becomes impossible to achieve."

Arthur watched the patterns of light shifting across the city, saw how they concentrated in certain areas—the cathedral where his new allies waited, the underground communities where the forgotten gathered, the secret spaces where magic still thrived despite decades of suppression.

"So they're going to try to burn it all down at once."

"Forty thousand deaths in Calathon is just the beginning. If their experiment succeeds here, they'll deploy it globally. Every major city, every population center where magic persists. Within five years, they estimate they can reduce the world's magically active population by ninety percent."

The weight of that revelation settled on Arthur like a physical burden. Millions of people, transformed into monsters and then slaughtered in the name of progress and purity.

"How do we stop them?"

The Keeper smiled, and for the first time in their conversation, Arthur saw hope in the ancient god's eyes. "The same way Sarah Martinez tried to stop them. The same way every hero in every forgotten story has fought against impossible odds." He reached across the desk and placed his hand over Arthur's. "With truth, with courage, and with the faith of those who remember that every life has value."

The vision began to fade around them, reality reasserting itself as Arthur's consciousness prepared to return to his physical form. But before the divine realm disappeared completely, the Keeper leaned forward with one final message.

"The tracer Kael carries will lead you to Sarah's evidence. But be warned—the Janitors know you're coming now. They'll throw everything they have at you to prevent that information from seeing the light."

Arthur felt himself rising through the blessed water, breaking the surface of the font with a gasp that echoed through the cathedral chamber. His companions were immediately beside him, helping him out of the granite basin, their faces tight with concern.

"How long was I under?" he asked, water streaming from his hair and clothes.

"Three hours," Helena said, offering him a towel. "We were beginning to worry you might not come back."

Arthur looked around at the faces surrounding him—Kael with his gruff exterior hiding deep pain, Zara with her manic energy barely containing genuine fear for her friends, Helena and her community of forgotten souls who'd found sanctuary in this abandoned place.

"I know what we're fighting now," he said quietly. "And it's bigger than any of us imagined."

DIVINE COMMUNION COMPLETED MAJOR REVELATION UNLOCKED: THE JANITOR CONSPIRACY NEW OBJECTIVE: LOCATE DETECTIVE MARTINEZ'S EVIDENCE WARNING: ENEMY AWARENESS LEVEL CRITICAL

As Arthur explained what the Keeper had shown him, he watched his allies' expressions shift from concern to determination. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and facing an enemy with centuries of experience in eliminating threats.

But they were also fighting for something the Janitors had forgotten how to value—the belief that every forgotten soul still mattered, that every discarded dream still had power, that even the smallest light could push back the darkness if it refused to be extinguished.

It would have to be enough.