By Brian "The Vibrator" Campo 3 26 98
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. Spawn and all Spawn related characters are owned by Todd McFarlane productions and I do not contest that ownership. This story is in no way official, and should be taken as seriously as kids playing Spawn in their backyards. Please, do not sue me, I am hardly worth it :) All other characters are mine, but I would be more than happy to loan them out if asked nicely.
Warning: This story contains harsh language and EXTREMELY graphic violence. If you are easily offended, or think your mom might drop a load of hurt on you for reading this, don't. Consider yourself warned.
"Christ!" said Ellie Macdougal. "If it ain't raining, it's pouring!"
The rain began to pour from the sky, drenching her treasured working clothes. Dark rain clouds had hung over Boston all day, and as evening had come on, they decided to make good on their threat and treat the good people of the city to a healthy down pour. Ellie stuck to the sides of the street, running from over-hang to over hang, looking for some dry space where she could hole up out of the rain until it had blown over.
The dirt streets were quickly turning to mud, and she was splattering some on her "nearly new" stockings. Uptown, where folks could afford horses and carriages, the streets were cobble-stone and didn't turn to soup every time the sky open up and dumped rain. No such luck down here. Ellie lived and worked in the slums of Boston, were the streets were muddy and littered with trash and if you took in too deep of a breath, you could smell the stench of the fish down by the harbor docks.
She was so concerned with her appearance that she almost walked right past the open door way thinking about it. Then she stopped and looked back at it. It was a narrow opening that was apparently the back door for a business the next block over. She couldn't see too far into the darkness in there, but it was dry and that suited her purposes. She stepped into the little doorway and turned to watch the other people slip and slide their way across the mud street. Some carried newspapers or parcels over their heads in an attempt to keep themselves dry.
Unsuccessfully, she noted.
Ellie looked down to see what the damage to her work clothes had been. From what she could see in the dim recess of the passage way, she was soaked through and through, but it wasn't anything that a night in front of the old wood stove wouldn't cure.
Ellie's work clothes consisted of a low cut dress that revealed more than enough of her ample, pushed up bosom and a garter belt with stockings. It was strange that she thought of them as her work clothes, though. The majority of her job didn't involve wearing any. They were advertising, really, something to get the men's imaginations going. Among other things.
Well, she thought, she sure wouldn't be catching anyone's eye looking the way she did. Until the buckets stopped dumping down it would be just her and her itch to keep her company.
At some point in the last couple weeks, Ellie had developed a rather persistent itch in what she referred to as her "crotchal area". She must have picked it up from one of her customers, which really just burned her hide. She would have liked to think that she could tell if a man was carrying around something nasty, just by the look of him.
The itch usually started off as just a little tickle, and once you got to thinking about it, it got worse. More often than not in some crowded place, where all she could do was grit her teeth and do an uncomfortable little dance.
Ellie wished that she could just take a little time off from whoring and give it some time to get out of her works, but she knew that Gilby, her pimp, would hear none of it.
While Gilby protected his women, he didn't take kindly to them taking any time off. His wasn't a progressive place of business with such things as sick leave. If you could crawl out of bed, you damn well better be out on the street, earning your keep.
Anyhow, seeing as how she was alone, she figured that now was as good a time as any to give herself a little much deserved relief. She turned from the doorway, raised the front of her skirt, reached under and used her long finger nails to take the edge off of her discomfort. If there was a heaven for crab infested whores, she thought, this is what it would be like.
A low coughing from the recess in front of her damn near made Ellie jump right out of her garter's. She quickly dropped her skirt with an indignant, "Jesus, man, you scared me!"
Whoever it was did not reply. She peered into the darkness, trying to discern the person who had made the noise. Among the crates and garbage she got the impression that some one was standing there.
"Trying to stay out of the rain, eh?" she said, trying to stir up some conversation. She thought she heard a faint chinking sound, like wine glasses in a toast or maybe chains rattling. Otherwise, again, there was no reply.
Ignoring her best judgment, she took a step towards the dimly lit figure. Hell, she thought, it wasn't like she was going anywhere soon. She might as well stir up a little business, if she could.
Her first impression of the man, as she took it to be, was of size. He took up most of the space in the narrow little passage way. Ellie was no dwarf, but when she stood up on her tiptoes she was still looking him directly in the chest. She reached out a tentative hand and touched his chest. Solid as your average brick under those clothes.
"Oh, my," she said. "You're a big fella', aren't ya'?"
He spoke. A voice like grinding gravel whispered, "Mary?"
It sounded almost like a question to Ellie. She put on her best naughty girl look and said, "If that's who you want me to be."
She stepped closer to him, and ran her hand under his cloak and behind his back. She felt a hand touch her hair, and it stroked her locks lovingly. She felt him lean down and press his face in her hair and inhale the scent of her.
"What would you like Mary to do for you?" Ellie asked. She ran one hand up his chest, toward his face. It slipped over his collar and was about to fall on the skin of his neck when suddenly his hand snapped up and clamped around hers.
"Wait!" it said, suspicion in it's deep voice. "You're not Mary." She couldn't see it clearly, but it seemed that his clothes were moving. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she could have sworn that his cloak was rippling and undulating in the dim light. She felt something very cold and maybe metallic touch her leg, and it snaked up her thigh like a dog's wet nose. She tried to squirm away from it but the hand that held her, held her fast. The man leaned down toward her and she smelled something very unpleasant.
A couple years back, a fever had swept through Boston and the death count had been very high. The bodies of those who had died from the virus had been dragged to an empty lot and set fire to. For the next couple of days, downtown had stunk like burning bodies and rotting flesh. That's what this man's men's breath smelled like. Like death, medium rare.
"You think I don't know who you are?!" it said, fetid breath blowing into her face, making her want to gag.
The quick crackle of lightening outside lit up the little passage way and just for the briefest of instants, she caught sight of it's face. No wonder it smelled like that, she thought. Part of her was thinking that, the other part was screaming in terror. That part wanted nothing more than to be away from this nightmarish monstrosity.
It's head looked like it had been subjected to being boiled in hot oil. It's flesh had been stripped of it's skin and parts of bone stuck through in places.
The part of her mind that wasn't screaming in terror was thinking, how can he pronounce the word, "Mary"? He doesn't have any lips.
He reached forward and grabbed hold of the front of her dress. His hands were incased in large gloves with spikes along the knuckles. The bodice of her dress ripped as it picked her up and threw her against the wall. The wind raced from her lungs and she could not get anymore in to replace it. The thing stepped toward her, it's huge boots crunching the garbage on the ground flat. She heard that chinking sound again, and out from under his over-coat, two gleaming metal skulls snaked out. Each head was on a length of chain that ran up behind the man's cloak. They seemed to be moving on their own. In her direction. They weaved back and forth, like cobras, darting toward her and then backing off.
Still heaving for breath, she back peddled along the ground toward the open door way. The man kept walking toward her, the skulls still extended out in front of him. As the light of the street fell on him, it revealed his cloak to be of a deep dark red color. Like blood, the part of her head that was screaming said and then resumed it's screaming.
Her hand squished on mud and work clothes or no, she slid out into it, into the relative safety of the open street. She rolled onto her belly and started to get up. Cold teeth of metal sank into her calve and she was yanked back into the darkness of the passage way before she could cry for help.
Sounds erupted from the open door way.
A dock worker on the way home to his wife and kids noticed her blood smeared foot sticking from the doorway several minutes later. Scared to death, he dropped the package of fish he was bringing home for dinner, and began to shout for help. Men from the saloon across the street came running over. People that lived nearby recognized the body as that of Ellie Macdougal, a local whore. They only recognized her by her dress, though, since her face and body had been ravaged beyond recognition. Ellie had been flashing her wares in that dress for a good three years now and never passed up the opportunity to tell some one that it had cost her a pretty penny.
A couple people said that they had seen Ellie step into the doorway, but they had seen nothing else. No one had seen anything.
Hours later, the mess was cleaned up, and the street was deserted. The rain had slowed down to a light shower, and it looked like that might let up later tonight. Uptown, lamplighters were making their rounds on stilts, bathing the better parts of the city in the warm glow. Downtown, however, the streets were bathed in darkness.
After the night's murder, people were sticking close to home. The few whores brave or abused enough to be on the streets were followed closely by their pimps. Ellie was the third victim of this vicious killer in only two weeks, and people were starting to take notice.
Out in the street, next to the crime scene, a breeze began to blow. The air grew tense and electric, and somewhere nearby, a cat wailed, as if in heat. If you had been standing there, every hair on your body would have stood at perfect attention. A couple inches above the ground, a thin glowing line appeared. It stretched vertically to the height of seven feet. There was a faint pinging sound, like a bell and the glowing line widened to reveal a compartment with three people standing in it.
A voice that didn't sound real at all said, "Thirty-first floor. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Earth, the Sol system in the Milky way galaxy, on the third plane of exist..."
"I think that'll do." said the woman of the bunch, a striking red-head dressed in a long johns shirt and leather riding breaches. A Colt forty five lay against each of her hips and in her hands she carried a Winchester repeater rifle. Tucked at a slant through her gun belts there was a foot and a half long Bowie knife. Pushed down over her red tresses she wore a beat up cowboy hat.
The man standing next to her stepped past her and through the opening. He was carrying a double barreled shotgun which he held at hip level as he surveyed the deserted street. His hat was a short brimmed derby that seemed to go well with his big side burns and bushy mustache. He wore a loose fitting, pin striped suit and had one six-shooter strapped around his waist.
"All clear." he said to his companions, who stepped out into the street to join him.
The second man looked like an escapee from some wild west show with his chaps and wide brim hat. He was a long tall man with a long-horn mustache that threatened to tickle both ears. Not only did he carry the standard six-guns at his sides, he had two hanging from shoulder holsters.
"Run a scan, Joseph." said the woman. She seemed to be the one in command here.
The man in the pinstriped suit reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, leather bound book. He opened the cover and a quiet beeping sound came from within. The device may have looked like a book but in reality it was a miniature computer with some very peculiar programs. His fingers danced across the screen concealed within the cover and a moment later he looked up.
"The scan indicates that necroplasmic activity occurred about eight paces in front of us."
They looked at the narrow door-way and they could see what appeared to be blood stains on the walls surrounding it.
The woman walked toward it, brandishing the Winchester in front of her.
"Careful, Amanda." said the other man, speaking for the first time. "It might still be in there."
"That I should be so lucky, Matthew." said the woman as she stepped through the doorway. The men saw a light from inside and Joseph went in with her. Matthew waited outside to keep watch. In her hand she held some thing that could be mistaken for a simple match, but it glowed ten times brighter. No matter how long she held it, the flame did not travel down it's wooden base. The walls inside were a mess of what appeared to be black fluid, but Amanda knew that was just a trick of the yellow light. The wet sticky mess on the walls would have been red in daylight. There were boot marks all in the dirt and pools of blood on the floor, but she knew that they had probably been left by clumsy investigators. She moved farther in to the passage way, gingerly stepping over the blood.
"Eureka." she said and squatted down next to an odd burn mark in the dirt. Joseph reached into his jacket and pulled out a crucifix with a short cord attached to the top. The plug at the end of the cord fit into a corresponding female plug on the top of his "book". He took the end of the crucifix and shoved it down into the center of the burn mark until the black soil reached the tiny Christ's chest. The book in his hand beeped to life and a weak glow escaped from between it's pages. The man opened up the cover and written across the tiny screen within was one word.
Hellspawn.
Amanda reached down and tapped the buckle of her belt. There was a quiet whistle and a tinny voice spoke from it saying, "Identify yourself."
"Angel, hunter class, Amanda." she replied.
"Voice print confirmed, Amanda. What is your report?"
"We just confirmed suspected Hellspawn activity here on Earth. We're going to transmit the Spawn's hellpower signature up to you. We need a trace for the entire city of Boston."
"Confirmed, Amanda. Wait for transmission."
The trace would use Angelic satellites orbiting the planet to scan for any and all use of hellpower matching their Spawn's particular signature. They could not just scan for hellpower in general. Energy left from hell power could taint areas for hundreds of years and there was no telling how many of hell's citizens had passed through the city in that time. They had to find their Hellspawn's particular signature to track it's activity.
Even though they could trace where he had used hellpower in the past, they would have to wait for him to use it again before they could locate him. In the meantime, they would start searching the places he had used it before and hope to come across him.
As hellpower was a finite thing, Hellspawn would generally use it sparingly. Hellspawn were extremely territorial and if pressed could protect their dens or homes with any means at their disposal. That included all sorts of mystical assaults. Chances were that the area with highest amount of hellpower activity would be near where the spawn was holing up.
Joseph's book clicked twice and a map appeared on the screen. Small red dots represented sites where hellpower had been used. Nearly the entire bottom half of the screen glowed an angry red.
Amanda could not drag her wide-eyed stare away from the screen. This isn't how Hellspawn behaved, she told herself. The most hellpower sites she had ever seen was about sixty and that was from a spawn that had managed to hide himself away for twenty years. The first murder had been committed only a few weeks ago and there were well over two hundred sites showing in downtown Boston. This was insanity.
This was how angels got killed. Hellspawn that were unafraid to squander hellpower.
Amanda walked down the street with one hand on a gun, and the other on the hilt of her knife.
She had transferred the Winchester to the scabbard that she hung over her back. She figured that if she were attacked, it would be a close quarters fight and a rifle wasn't going to do her a lot of good. Angels didn't have to worry about being attacked by humans all that much, but it was better to be cautious. Like the saying goes, "Jacob wrestled an angel, and the angel was over come."
She had sent Joseph and Matthew out on their own to check different hot spots, hoping that they might find where their little killer was hiding. They had been told, as she always told them on these hunts, that if they found anything, call her before trying to take on the spawn. She knew they weren't stupid, they had hunted all type's of Hellspawn from one end of the universe to the other, for nearly fifteen hundred years. You don't live that long in this business if your stupid. She trusted her helpers, and though it hadn't always been that way, they were the only two people that she would have at her back.
Suddenly she stopped. She had caught a scent. Her nostrils flared and she slowly took in a breath as she turned around. Yes, definitely something of hellish origins, but not her Hellspawn. She would have recognized his stench from a half mile off. No, her sensitive angel's nose was picking up a scent from a saloon across the street, and it was faintly familiar.
She crossed the street and entered the bar. Cigar smoke hung in the air in a permanent cloud, so thick that she could barely make out the dozen or so men that lounged drunkenly around the room. She made her way to the bar, where she cleaned off a stool and took a seat.
All sound had ceased when she entered the double swinging doors. She could feel a dozen sets of eyes follow her across the room, but it was just one set that concerned her. At the far end of the room was a fire place, and she had seen a very large man sitting there when she came in. Around the fire place, six dogs that she knew weren't dogs snoozed quietly.
"How come ya dress like a man?" asked a drunken voice from behind her.
Another one piped up from what sounded like the same table. "Don't ya know it ain't sexy to dress like a man?"
"Maybe she's one of them there Libyans." said the first man.
"What's that?" asked the other.
"You know, it means she likes girls, not men."
The chair back by the fire creaked in relief as the man sitting in it stood up and walked their way.
"It's lesbian, you dumb fucks, and she ain't one of them." He wore a wry smile. "She's premenstrual. Permanently."
Behind them one of the men whispered, "What does premenstrual mean?"
"It mean she's going to be a doctor." said the other.
The big man with the dogs pulled out a stool next to Amanda and began to sing as he sat down.
"I can hear the brush of angel's wings, I see glory on each face, surely the presence of the Lord is in this place." His voice was gravely and it butchered the tune painfully.
"Never took you for a big hymn fan, Shank." she said sarcastically.
"Oh, last month I was burning down a mission in South America and I barred the door with some nuns inside. They kept singing that song while the place burned to the ground around them. Hearing a song shrieked in agony tends to make a tune stick in your head."
"Didn't I lop off your head a few centuries back? How come your still packing a pulse?"
"Malebolgia is a big fan of my work, I guess." he said with a shrug.
"What are you doing in Boston?"
Shank turned to the bartender and said, "Give me some of your strongest stuff." The bartender slapped a shot glass on the counter and poured some foul smelling dark liquid into it.
"I was about to ask you the same thing." he said as he picked up the glass and tossed in the direction of the back of his throat. He smacked his lips a couple of times and growled at the bartender.
"What was that? Piss? Just give me that lamp over there."
Uncertain the bartender did as he was told and slid the kerosene lamp down the bar to Shank.
"Thanks.' said Shank as he unscrewed the top from the lamp and took a sip of the fuel inside. He cleared his throat with a twitch and said, "Now that's more like it."
Amanda watched his antics with half interest.
"I'm here doin' what I always do, Shank. Hunting vermin. So what's a high society fellar like your self doing in a shit hole like this one?"
Shank studied her for a minute and said, "I'm most likely hunting the same guy you are."
"Why would hell need you to hunt one of your own?"
"You just full of inquisitions tonight, aren't you?" He got a far off look in his eye for a second and a smile on his face, as if the word inquisition had reminded him of something pleasant. "Let's just say that one of our little spawns escaped the nest before he was supposed to."
"How did that happen?"
"Oh, some of the boys down there get a little over zealous in their games, and they accidentally chased him through a gate way to earth. No biggie."
"If it ain't no biggie, how come they got you hunting him?"
"Ah, they don't even really want him back. He wasn't working out as well as they hoped, so they just want his symbiote back. Waste not, want not, ya know?"
Shank had drank about half of his kerosene by now, and was really starting to get loose lipped. However, when she asked who the spawn was, he clammed up.
"I don't think you need any of my help on this one, Amanda. I wouldn't want you to get to him first, ruin that precious symbiote, like your kind are so fond of doing."
"Well," she said, getting up from her stool. "I can't be running into you every time I get close to this guy, so what say you and me have it out now. It'll make it a lot easier on the winner."
The bartender started to look really nervous about then, and kept reaching under the bar uncertainly.
Shank gulped down the rest of his drink and turned to her. "Now, Amanda, we was getting along just fine. I don't want to spoil this enchanted evening by having to kill you." He jabbed a thumb toward the dogs by the fireplace.
"I got six hell hounds over there that would eat you for breakfast and shit you by lunch time. What I propose is this: we both go our own ways and hunt this guy however we see fit. I'm willing to let you catch him if you get to him first, as long as you agree likewise. On the other hand, you try getting in my way, well..." he chuckled. "I don't have to buy no dog food."
Amanda considered his offer. "How can I trust you?"
He gave her his biggest grin and said, "Cause I'm the devil you know!"
By way of agreement, she stepped out of his way to let him past.
"Get up ya filthy bastards!" he yelled at the dogs and they got to their feet and ran to him. He walked out the door, whistling "Amazing Grace".
Joseph watched Matthew with a bemused smile and tugged at his mustache as the other angel looked at his little computer for the eighth time and spun around.
"He's landing right here." said Matthew, clearly frustrated.
The map of hellpower hot spots indicated that the very piece of floor that they were standing on was a favorite place for the Hellspawn to teleport to. Yet the boards below their feet were not marred with the usual tell-tale burn marks.
"Maybe you're looking at it upside down." suggested Joseph, who was getting a kick out of seeing Matthew squirm. Matthew gave him a look that, loosely translated meant, "Go join the other side."
They were standing in a fish cannery by the harbor, only a mile or so from a famous tea party someone threw one time. It was empty, as everyone had gone home in the early evening. This was the sixth place they had visited so far in their search for the spawn, but this was the first where they had found no burn marks. Matthew looked at the tiny screen and then turned around again.
Joseph was about to make another jab at his expense when their belt buckles whistled. Matthew gave his a tap. "Matthew, angel-tech."
"Voice print confirmed. We just saw some hellpower flare up."
"Where?!"
"It went up over on the north part of the bay... wait! It's flaring again! It must be teleporting. It's landing at... shit, it's right on your current location."
Both angels slapped leather, guns materializing in their hands quicker than the eye. They turned so that they were back to back and looked around.
"Are you sure it's on our location?" asked Matthew. "We don't have any thing."
"The thing should be standing on your head!" said the voice from the radio. They both looked up.
The boards at their feet thrust upward and the spawn burst through them with a crash. The two angels were thrown off of their feet. Joseph knew better than to look directly at the costume the spawns wore, but it wasn't easy. One of the symbiote's tricks is that it's constantly in motion on it's host, which distracts the eyes. This makes it hard to see the real attack when it comes.
Joseph saw Matthew move, all of a sudden, breaking himself from the symbiote's spell. He pulled the shotgun from his back and leveled it at the spawn's head. A deafening roar escaped the barrels and the spawn was suddenly no longer in front of them. Joseph turned toward a popping sound behind them and let loose with his six-guns. He fanned the hammer and he knew that at least three of the shots got through the symbiote's defenses. Matthew was yelling behind him and he could hear Amanda's voice over the radio on his belt.
The six-gun ran out and he snatched another from his collection. The spawn rushed at them, roaring in rage. Matthew had reloaded and raised his shotgun for a second time. The instant before he pulled the trigger, two skulls snaked out from under the spawn's over coat and lashed at Matthew's feet. The angel jumped over them and fired the scatter-gun at the moving shape that was the spawn. He landed on his feet and immediately cracked open the shotgun to reload.
Joseph watched in horror as the two skulls on chains that had missed seconds before whipped around and launched toward the back of Matthew head. Joseph whipped his gun up and took aim. Too late. The metal teeth sheared off the top of Matthew head. The angel fell forward with a splash of blood and brain matter.
There was a familiar ping to the right that Joseph knew would be Amanda's arrival. He turned back toward the spawn and emptied another gun on it.
The skulls were on a upswing and they were on course with Joseph's chest. He was reaching for another gun when he felt a gloved hand grab his shoulder and jerk him backwards. He landed in the elevator with Amanda standing over him with guns blazing. She kicked the close button on the door and stepped through it as the door shut, leaving him all alone.
Amanda launched herself at the spawn, guns kicking out death to the left and the right. The spawn stepped in close to her and she felt the fabric of her shirt tear as it swiped at her gut. A backward step is all that saved her from disembowlment. There was a sound like a inhaling of breath which was followed by a pop. The spawn was gone in a puff of smoke and flame.
"Shitmotherfucker!" she yelled, coughing on the smoke of the spawn's exit. She stumbled around the room, taking in the details. There was a hole in the floor, behind Matthew's corpse. She looked down through it and could see water splashing on pilings.
She got down on the floor and hung her head down through the opening. Back toward the shore she could see where the spawn had hollowed itself out a den in the mud and rocks that made up the shoreline. It had been living in this filth, she realized.
She got to her feet, and dusted off her pants. She stood for several seconds, considering what had just occurred, trying to piece together how two old hands at hunting spawn could get surprised so easily.
Dammit, they had had the thing at it's den! What was wrong with those two? She knew that it was just a screw up, and she couldn't be too hard on Joseph, but she had liked Matthew a lot. That was the problem with men. They never look up or down, they always expect the attack to come from right in front of them.
Well, one thing was for sure, the spawn would definitely not be coming back here. She had might as well clean up and make herself scarce. That gunfire might have attracted the wrong kind of attention.
She walked over to where Matthew lay and tapped her belt. "I need a lift."
There was a ping and the door slid open. She pulled Matthew's body into the elevator and the door closed with a whoosh.
Shanks wandered up through the headstones of one of Boston's potter's fields. This is where the people too poor to afford a burial were brought and dumped along with many others in to a mass grave. Sometimes, volunteers would make a cheap headstone with the names of all that were buried in each particular spot.
He stopped in front of one that was made from spare lumber and had about twenty names crudely scratched into it's surface.
"Here we are." he said to the dogs milling around him. He tapped on the ground and said, "Dig."
The dogs began to tear and rip at the ground, pulling up chunks of dirt and sod. Working all at once it took them no time at all to get to the first canvas wrapped corpse. Shank pulled it out and opened up the wrapping at the feet. He checked the toe tag and tossed the body over onto the ground nearby. He pulled out about six more before he found the one he wanted. Shank threw the body up onto the side of the grave and pulled himself up out of the hole. He ripped open the bag and called over the dogs. They growled and pushed each other aside trying to see what he had. One took a bite at it's brother and Shank slapped it silly.
"Pay attention ya' frickin' meat heads." he shoved their snouts into the bags and let them have a good whiff of the remains.
"The guy we're lookin' for smells just like this." He got up and patted a few of them on the back. They were shaking in anticipation of the hunt, and he couldn't blame them. There was nothing like the hunt to make you feel alive again.
"Go get 'im!" he yelled and the hounds of hell raced from the grave yard baying.
Morning found Amanda and Joseph in a home style restaurant in a middle class neighborhood. They were just finishing breakfast in silence, for Joseph had not quite recovered from last night yet. He sullenly toyed with the eggs on his plate, trying in his mind to see where he had gone wrong the night before.
He just couldn't believe how fast the Hellspawn had taken the offensive in the fight. They should have realized that he was under the floor. Amanda had told him repeatedly that he wasn't to blame, but he couldn't help feeling that he was.
She had finished her food a little earlier and was looking through the morning paper, thankfully leaving him alone to his thoughts.
"A-ha!" she said, leaning forward. She flopped the paper down on the table and pointed at an article.
"Grave yard vandalized" it read. Joseph didn't follow.
"I ran into Shank last night. He's got a new pack of hounds with him. I bet it was him that tore up the grave, probably looking for the old body of the Hellspawn."
"What good will that do? "
"Well, hell hounds don't track normal scents. They can follow the smell of a human soul. He was just getting them the scent of it off the old body." she tapped the paper. "I bet that one of the people in that grave is the Hellspawn."
" I'll go check it out." said Joseph. He thought that this might be a way for him to redeem himself. At least it would give him something to do, to keep his mind off of Matthew. He pushed the half eaten plate of food away, and got to his feet.
"Where are you going to be?" he asked.
"I'm working on a little trap for our friend. I might be off world until tonight."
He nodded and put on his hat before walking out into the morning sun.
The hunter known as Shank sat in the bar again, leaning back and taking it easy. Last night's hunt had been unsuccessful. The hounds had found scent spore all over town, but nothing that they could follow, because the Hellspawn was teleporting around so much. The spawn had to be running low on hellpower by now, he thought to himself. Pretty soon, they would lose the chance to reclaim the symbiote.
He hadn't told Amanda the whole truth about why they wanted the symbiote back. The real reason were those amazing skulls. None of the other symbiotes had ever developed the ability to manipulate the chains to this extent. The Hellspawn's suit had made a drastic jump in evolution, the equivalent of legs on a fish.
One that hell wanted, to use for breeding.
The only problem was that if the Hellspawn ran out of power before he could catch it, it would start draining power off of the symbiote, in the process killing it. Hell had been very clear on the consequences of that happening. The words merciless torture had been used, but that didn't worry Shank much. Merciless torture covered everything from lakes of fire to Malebolgia's breath.
There was nothing he could do for now, but rest and wait for dark, when he could take up the hunt again. He closed his eyes and began to hum a tune to himself.
"Where do bad folks go when they die? They don't go to heaven where the angels fly, they go to a lake of fire and fry, won't see 'em again 'til the fourth of july!"
It was shortly after the dusk when the killer awoke. He was sore from the gunshots he had taken the night before, but the wounds were healing, and at least he was no longer bleeding all over. He still mourned the loss of his safe little lair, but he had found a dry basement to crawl into early that morning.
He was still unclear as to who it was that attacked him. They certainly didn't look like any of the demons that he had encountered since he got to hell, but then again, he'd been seeing them in all sorts of disguises lately. He was very confused, that much he knew. He felt like he was trying to think with a head stuffed with wool.
He knew why he was here, he remembered the judgment, the awful voice that had filled his head with the words, "I never knew you." He remembered the long fall into a blackness that only the blind could put into words. He vaguely remembered the time before that, and he remembered that perhaps he hadn't been the best of men. But did he deserve this constant taunting?
They had learned of his love for Mary on his entrance to hell, and it became their favorite subject for a thousand little games they could play with him. They had used her to force him into some deal, which he could no longer remember, and he was sure that he hadn't understood in the first place. That was the other voice he remembered. The one that had cackled when he had to make his mark on the contract because he could not spell his name.
Yes, the games were horrible, but he was starting to get the rules. Don't trust your eyes. Don't trust your ears. Don't trust your own mind. Just strike out and hope that you kill them before they can get their claws into you.
It felt so natural to strike out. He tried once again to remember where he had learned to fight like this, but the cotton or fog or whatever it was that blanketed his brain was too thick.
He crawled back out through the window he had used this morning and studied the alley he was standing in. No one had seen him come or go, his new lair was safe for now.
He wandered the streets, avoiding the lamps and the light shining out of windows. He passed many people, leaving them unscathed, though he knew what they really were. He was willing to let them live, as long as they didn't drag him into their sick little games. One of them asked for a light, but a snarl was enough to send him on his way. He did not want to be bothered, and the less you spoke to demons, the better off you would be.
He looked up and noticed a large group of them gathered around the front of what looked like a bar. It didn't look like a trap, but it was always safer to avoid this kind of thing. He was about to turn into an alley when he noticed what all the people were watching. There were two men (who he knew weren't really men. Didn't they know he was on to them?) circling each other, jabbing and punching. This struck a cord in his brain, something that he couldn't put his finger on. He watched in fascination, and found himself knowing what each man would do. "Duck, duck, jab, right hook, watch his left" he found himself whispering.
Suddenly he realized he was very vulnerable out here on the street, so he pulled himself away from the sparring match and slipped into the alley.
"Hey, good looking." said a voice from the darkness.
He turned to see a beautiful woman step toward him Is that what Mary had looked like? He couldn't find the picture in his head to match the name. Could this be Mary? "Don't be stupid." said a voice in his head. "We've seen this game before." Still, he had to be sure.
"Mary?" he asked, a hint of hope in his voice.
"Hmmm," she said. "I can make you forget all about Mary." she stepped close to him and he got a good look down her cleavage. For some reason, her breasts ignited a flame of rage in him.
They were trying to do it again. "I know this game." he said to the demon and he reached for her.
"What are ya' doin', mother fucker?" she took a step back from him, but he reached out and grabbed her.
"I want to play by my rules." he said. The skulls exited his jacket with a hiss and rose to the same height as his head. It hit him like a bolt of lightening, he had never seen anything move so quick. He looked down and there was all of a sudden a knife in his gut. He slowly looked up in surprise and the demon had changed. It was now the woman who had chased him from his old lair. She smiled sweetly as she twisted the barbed blade in his guts.
"Got ya', asshole!"
Amanda had him. He was on the hook, now she just had to reel him in. The whore disguise had worked like a charm, and now she had her man. Usually, she was not this cruel, but this monster had killed Matthew, and she couldn't help herself. She slowly began to pull the blade back out and the creatures guts slipped out of the hole, each speared to an individual barb.
The blow came and she saw it just a second to late. One of his massive fists slammed into her head hard enough that she thought she would fall dead right there, and she didn't have time to recover from that one when another hit her chin. Six more hit in rapid succession, like a gatling gun. She spun back away from the blows, dazed and fighting to stay aware. He stepped closer to her, pushing the advantage.
From the opening of the alley, someone yelled. "It's the Slasher!" There was the sound of many feet running and the beating stopped. She opened her eyes and focused on her attacker. He was turned toward her rescuers, torn between killing her and running from the others. She lifted a hand that felt like lead and grabbed the knife that still protruded from his belly. She gave it a yank and it's entire length came out in a gush of blood and bile. The spawn screamed in pain and stumbled away. In it's sheath, the knife was only a foot long, out of it's sheath, it was a four foot sword.
Looking up and down the alley, the Hellspawn saw no escape. It took the only exit. It jumped straight up to the roof top above. It's footsteps shook the building as it raced away.
"Are you ok, lady?" shouted the nearest man.
She waved him away as she pulled herself to her feet. They watched, incredulous, as she crouched and leaped up the thirty feet to the roof top.
"Do they have springs on their heels, or what?" she heard one of the men below say.
The spawn was hopping from roof top to roof top a half mile away. Amanda broke into a run, racing to close the distance. She could not let this opportunity go to waste. The spawn was wounded, and that would make him sloppy.
She saw him stumble and crash part way through a roof top. His massive, 500 lb body was more than the shabby construction could handle. She gained 400 feet while he pulled himself up out of the hole and took off again. It was just a matter of time, she would catch him.
He jumped over to a higher building and sank his claws into the brickwork of the buildings side. She was closing in on him when he crawled over the top and disappeared.
Like on wings, she leapt off of the roof top and sailed onto the next. He was gone. She spun to catch sight of him and was grabbed by the collar from behind. The world spun upside down as she was lifted bodily into the air and slammed to the ground. The roof broke beneath her and she found herself falling into a well lit room. She caught glimpses of a stage and audience as she fell. She slammed into the seats in the audience, which busted out from under her.
Above her, the Hellspawn hung from what was left of the roof. It broke and he fell down to meet her. She broke free of the debris and stood up.
They had fallen into what looked like a opera house, which had suddenly gone silent at their entrance. All these theater seats were going to be a bitch to scrap in, she thought. She started jumping over the rows of chairs and shoving people out of her way. The spawn was not crawling over the seats, he tore through them, kicking them of off their braces and bolts with his huge boots. He reminded her of a charging bull.
She reached the open space of the stage just seconds before him and spun to meet his charge. The theater crowd were headed out the back in a mad scramble, and Amanda could see police officers wading up stream through them. She had to make this quick before they could stop her from killing the Hellspawn.
The spawn was on her a second later and those lethal skulls were doing their damnedest to take her head off. She blocked them with her sword, rhythmically swatting one and then the other.
Enough of this shit, she thought, and reached out to grab one of them. It tried to turn back on itself, but she never gave it a chance. With a quick whack, she severed it from the chain. It let loose with a scream and writhed where it had fallen on the floor like a dying snake.
It took the spawn a second to recover from such a wound, and she used it to pull one of her guns. These were not the same guns she had used on him the night before. Amanda had had one of heaven's weapon masters build them and their even more incredible bullets that day.
She leveled the customized forty five at the spawn's chest and said, "Eat elemental fire, you monster!"
The first round had a very noticeable effect on the spawn. It stopped dead in it's tracks and looked at it's chest. The hole in his chest was burning a bright yellow, and was so severe that the spawn's healing powers were negated. The bullets were hollow points that were filled with elemental fire, one of the few substances that could destroy necroplasm.
It looked back up and jumped at her. Those fists went to work on her again, but she blocked out the pain. She fired again and again as it took her to the ground, each bullet putting gaping holes in it's torso. It grabbed her arms and pinned her.
It's face was only inches away and it's breath was enough to gag when it said, "Six shots, bitch! You're shit out of luck!"
She twisted her wrist so the gun was pointed at it's head. "Don't you know." she gasped back. "Every thing from heaven comes in sevens."
The gun roared and the seventh bullet tore through the side of his head. Burning necroplasm splattered the stage curtain. The curtains caught fire as the spawn rolled off of her. She crawled out from under him and picked up her sword.
"I give you mercy, you filthy beast." she said and put the blade against the back of it's head.
"Hey, thanks, I've been looking for this guy for days."
She spun to see Shank standing at the stage entrance. His dogs were circling her, growling and snapping their protruding bottom jaws. They were on longer wearing their canine disguise, they had shape shifted into their demonic forms, which looked like the cross between a pit bull, a wild boar and a pirhana. From their gaping mouths protruded jagged tusks, from which hung bloody chunks of flesh.
She looked around the room and noticed for the first time that the police men were all dead. They had been torn to bits. Her and the Spawn had been so distracted by their fight that they had not even realized what was happening around them.
Her eyes slowly scanned the whole scene, taking in the positions of the enemy. A gust of wind blew through the roof and breathed on the burning stage, igniting it further. A cloud of smoke danced between her and Shank.
"Step away from the spawn, Amanda. I need to take him with me. "
"I thought we had a deal." said Amanda.
"If you should have learned anything after all these years of hunting spawn, Amanda, it's that you don't make a deal with the devil. Any devil. Now get away from him or I give the dogs the word."
She was too close to just let this go. But what could she do? She stepped away from the spawn, holding the blade out where Shank could plainly see it.
"Fine." she said. "I am clearly outnumbered here. The spawn's yours." Which hound would get her first? She turned the sword slowly in her hand. There was one that wasn't pacing, it was actually looking right at her. Him. He would be first.
She slowly filled her lungs with air and mentally mapped out her body's actions for the next two seconds. Her body coiled, like a spring, muscles and tendons quivering with the power that was about to be unleashed. The big hell hound that was watching her sensed what she was going to do and it's ears flattened against it's hideous head.
The Hellspawn moved.
The room took a collective jump as the burning, bullet ridden monstrosity lurched to it's feet. The one eye that it was still able to use rolled in it's head, taking in the room in one sweep. The symbiote was jerking around on it's body, as if in shock.
Motion caught the corner of Amanda's eye, and she turned to see the closest hell hound jump. She reached in one hand and took hold of one of the tusks protruding from it's dripping maw. She spun with it, using the hound's own momentum and weight to sling it across the room, right at the spawn.
The spawn's symbiote snapped to life, it's one remaining skull lashing out at the dog. It's steel jaws snapped across the hell hounds throat, pulling out it's voice box and jugular. Filthy, black blood sprayed out.
A second later, the spawn was following up the symbiote's attack. It landed on the dog and started to pound on it with it's huge spiked gloves. Within five of it's split second strikes, the dog's head was reduced to mush.
Another dog barked out a cloud of flame and came in low, throwing it's tusk in a fashion that was intended to pull Amanda's guts out. It was moving too fast, and it was too close to slash at it with the sword within an instant. She hit a button on the hilt of the knife and the blade shortened to a quarter of it's size in an instant.
Then she prayed that the dog would jump.
That was what animal with four legs do, they like to jump at their prey, hoping for a throat grip. But by jumping, they leave their belly open to attack, and if your fast enough, you can beat them. Amanda was a blur.
On cue, the dog left the ground, and she stepped in under it. The rasp of steel and the wet slop of disembowlment. The dead weight of the dog started to fall on her and she pivoted, throwing her shoulder under it. She heaved the dog at the spawn, who had left it's own hound and was coming after her. The dead dog caught it in the chest and together they fell to the ground.
She turned toward where the next attack would come from, trying to place all the players in her mind, mapping out who would be coming next.
The spawn threw off the dog and was on it's feet in a second. All of these demon's were a distraction to what he was really after. He wanted the bitch who had blown holes in him. He lurched after her and she leapt over another dog, leaving the snarling beast between himself and her. His symbiote attacked it, skull ripping and cloak snapping at it's eye's.
The dog turned on him, eye's flashing a murderous red and it's jaw distending down to make room for the Spawn's head. Spikes thrust from the spawn's glove and it moved in on the dog. The spawn found itself snarling and roaring like the four legged beast as they locked in to each other.
His fists pounded, the jagged spikes of his knuckles tearing chunks of putrid flesh from the dog's body. He felt the bones crack under his onslaught and the dog's body lost all it's fight. The spawn shoved the dog's carcass away from him and found that one of it's tusks was buried in it's forearm. He slid the meat of his arm off the curved, jagged bone.
He started after the angel again, who had killed another dog and sent it sliding across the stage at him. He jumped over the carcass and slipped in the black blood that was smeared all over the floor.
Another dog was on him in an instant. It snapped at him and he thrust his hand between them to protect his face. White fire raced up his arm as the dog tore three off his fingers off. Enraged and blinded with pain, he thrust the palm of his hand into it's lower jaw, breaking the jaw and all the teeth in the dog's head. He didn't want to fight any more. He just wanted to be out of here. He reached down within himself and took hold of the pool of energy that was his hellpower.
He felt himself being ripped apart and he was suddenly on the other side of town. He fell into a mud puddle and lay still.
Amanda was faintly aware of the spawn's exit, but her attention was on Shank and the last dog that was able to fight. At this point she was pissed. She had lost the spawn after she had fought it to a stand still, and it was all the fault of the son of a bitch across the room. She slammed her knife home in it's sheath and pulled out her remaining gun. The last dog started it's charge and she leveled the barrel on it.
"Come and get it." she said.
It's mouth opened and out rolled a ball of flame. The heat rolled by her face as she pulled the trigger. The gun roared and the slug caught the dog right between the eyes. It stumbled and slipped, falling onto it's belly. By the time it slid to a stop at her feet, it was quite dead. A thin tendril of smoke drifted lazily from the brim of her hat.
She turned slowly to face Shank, who was holding his jacket back to expose his guns. She realized that the night might be taking a major turn for the better. Shank was thinking about going up against her. She dropped the gun down by her side and tilted her head at him as if to say, "Are you really that stupid?"
He stared at her for a second and then raised his hands above his head.
"No harm, no foul, Amanda. We can both walk away from this. "
"I remember why I took your head off last time, Shank. You're a prick." She raised the pistol, and thumbed back the hammer.
Behind her she heard a sigh and a thump. Her heart jumped in her chest and she turned her head to see what it was. The dog that the Hellspawn had wounded had finally fallen dead.
Amanda turned back to Shank, but the hunter had taken the chance the hell hound gave him and disappeared. She stood of the burning theater, trying to catch her breath.
"Shit." she said.
A short time later, her belt buckle whistled and Amanda weakly tapped it.
"Amanda, angel, hunter class."
"This is Joseph, Amanda. I think we know who our spawn is."
"Let me guess." she said. "He was a boxer."
"How the hell did you know that?"
She lay in a pile of garbage out back of the opera house. Her face was a mass of bruises, each one angrily punctuated by cuts where the spikes on the spawn's gloves had cut her flesh. Her nose felt broken and her ribs grated sickeningly every time she took a breath.
Worst of all, she had let the spawn get away.
She sat topless on a metal table in Elysium, with her arms raised above her head. Joseph slowly and gingerly wound a binding around her ribcage. They had set her ribs the best they could, and at least she could move without a spasm of pain. Joseph had insisted that they at least try to patch up some of the damage from this last scrap before he told her any thing about the spawn.
He had confirmed that she had been right, that they had found an extremely likely candidate in the mass grave. There were also dog tracks all over the vandalized site.
"What do you think you're looking at?" she asked, making him jump. He tugged on the binding and she winced in pain. He had been taking in an eye full of her naked breasts.
"Sorry, Amanda. I was human once, you know."
"Just yanking your chain, Joey. We've all been human at sometime or another." She called him Joey sometimes, because that was the closest she could come to showing affection. She knew that Joseph had been hiding his feelings from her for a long time, but her work didn't allow her to have those kind of relationships. Suppose she had felt that way about Matthew. If she hadn't been careful to distance herself from the people she worked with, she wouldn't have been able to finish the fight when she lost one. Maybe someday, when heaven was content that she had paid her dues, maybe they had a chance.
Joseph had brought her some clean clothes and she started putting them on, slowly to be sure. She picked up her hat, pulled it down over her blackened eyes and said, "So, what have you got?"
Joseph studied her for a minute, and resigned himself to telling her.
"Our guy was a boxer. His name is Jack Kemp . He was a irish immigrant who came to America as a teen. Found he could make money in the local bars as a brawler. After a couple years of getting punched in the head, he started getting sloppy at fighting."
Joseph looked at her intently, hoping she might derive some insight from that last comment.
"His bosses didn't want to let such a bad ass go to waste so they put him to work as a muscle man, breaking legs, snapping necks."
"How did he die?" she asked.
"That's the tricky part."
The young woman sat down and her face filled the screen. Joseph and Amanda sat in a booth on the Outer edges of Elysium in what was basically an inter dimensional conference room. They had had to grease some palms to get an interview with one of the souls in paradise, but it was worth it if this woman helped them catch Jack Kemp.
"First of all," said the young woman. "I thought that I had seen the last of this mess at the Judgement. I was found innocent and my record was cleared. What is this about?"
"Relax, Mary." said Amanda. "This is not about you. This is about the husband you had when you were alive. Jack."
The girls face turned pale, and she looked sick. There was no way in hell that Jack could touch her now, but old habits die hard.
"What is happening? " Mary turned to the man sitting just off camera, who Amanda knew would be her lawyer.
"Mary, you must understand, you are completely safe. There is absolutely no way that he can reach you. What we are worried about, is he's back on earth and he's killing women. We need to know everything you know, and we need to know how he died. The court records are sealed, since they found you innocent, so I need to hear it from you."
The poor girl was visibly shaking. What did he do to her?, Amanda asked herself. She was pulling herself together, though. That's what the survivors did, they got their shit together and did what they had to do.
"Jack was a bruiser by trade and he liked to bring his work home with him. You don't know how many times I woke up in the morning looking like you do, Miss...?"
"Amanda."
"Yes. He beat me every since we got married until the day he died. He told me it was because he loved me and wanted to help me get my shit together. I would never learn how to keep the house clean if he didn't knock me around to keep my mind on my work. If food was late or burned, he beat the hell out of me. If the dog next door howled and kept him awake, he beat the hell out of me. It's no wonder that he was such a good fighter, he had plenty of practice at home."
"How did it end?"
"I lost my baby. I took a thrashing one time too many. I crawled out to the outhouse to pee where I figured I would piss blood, and I dropped my unborn child out of my womb into the shit below. I had to pull it back up by the umbilical cord. I sat there and wailed in a shit house, clutching a shit covered fetus, and I knew right then that he was going to die. If he didn't, I would."
Mary was starting to cry now, and with good reason, thought Amanda. She was glad that they had let this girl into heaven, she had already seen enough of hell.
"That stupid son of a bitch," Mary continued. "He should have never let me see where he kept his guns stashed. I waited 'til he fell asleep that night and I went and got one of them. I stuck it right between his eyes and I splattered what little brains he had all over my freshly washed pillowcase. He never even woke up.
I was arrested for murder, and the jury just couldn't stomach the fact that I shot him in his sleep. They didn't realize how big Jack was, and that there is nowhere I could have gone to get away. On september 26 of 1898 I was executed for the crime of murder. They hung me."
She wiped her eyes and sniffed loudly. "Is there anything else you need? I want you all to listen to me. I was found innocent in the highest court there is, and I earned my peace. Please do not come looking for me again."
She reached down by her feet and picked up a slightly premature looking baby who was cooing happily. "This is the baby I lost in life, I would like to be left alone with her in peace."
"Mary, I understand how you feel. If there had been any other way, I would have left you alone. Thank you for your time, you'll never hear from me again."
The screen clicked off and Amanda and Joseph were left alone.
"This guy's got to die." said Amanda.
In Elysium, the two angels stood at the door of the elevator to other worlds. She was making Joseph go over his side of the plan for the eighth time.
"Do you have everything you need?"
"Amanda, I'm not going to drop the ball. I'm as ready to take this son of a bitch down as you are."
"all right." she said, "I'll go get him. Drop me on the site where he teleported after I lost him last night." She stepped into the elevator and descended to earth.
She stepped out into the alley and spun around making sure she wasn't stepping into a trap of some sort. Nothing in sight. She gave a tentative sniff, and immediately caught it's scent. She walked in a circle trying to decide from which direction the smell was coming from. It seemed to be wafting from farther into the alley.
She tip-toed her way toward the source of the scent, each foot carefully placed to avoid any tell-tale noise. It began to get very strong and it became over powering by a small window near the ground. He was in there, she was sure.
She unsnapped the strap holding her winchester in it's scabbard and quietly slid it out. She cocked it, each click like a scream to her. The gravel under her feet scrunched noisily as she squatted down onto one knee.
She took the customary big breath and started firing into the window. She had fired and cocked the gun five times when the wall in front of her exploded onto her. The Hellspawn tore through the brickwork like it was made from paper. Amanda was delighted to see that he looked worse than she felt. None of the wounds that she had given him with the special bullets had healed. All this she noticed as she was thrown across the alley and into the opposing wall. Stay on your feet she commanded herself, or you're dead.
The spawn was still getting his footing in the rubble when she said, "Come and get it, you ugly bastard."
He lunged at her, but she was quicker than him. She was past him and down the alley while he was still catching his balance.
"Come on!" she called over her shoulder. "You'll never catch me if you just stand there."
It started after her, big feet thumping like an elephant's on the dirt. I hope he's as slow as he looks, she quietly wished. She kept far enough ahead of him to stay out of danger, but just far enough ahead to egg him on.
They crossed the street in a flash, her skipping lightly over puddles while he tore through them at full bore, splattering mud in a large spray. He was pissed, she could tell by the way that with each step he let out a grunting roar.
Another alley, this one had some crates that she could throw in the spawn's path. It cursed as it fell over them, and rolled to it's feet. That's not going to help his disposition, she giggled to herself. More alleys, more streets, they crossed town on a path that only she knew where it lead.
She started to realize that she might have a problem. Here cracked ribs were starting to ache more and more with each breath, and each breath was becoming a little harder to draw in. She was faster than the spawn, but he was going to be able to run longer. How much farther?
As if an answer to prayer, she caught a glimpse of the gates ahead. "Potter's field" they read. She crossed the last three hundred yards gasping and trying to keep her head from spinning. No time to stop yet, she raced through the gates and up the hill.
She saw Joseph standing by a grave, and she headed in his direction. When he saw her coming he set something on top of the gravestone and stepped back. A door opened behind him and Joseph disappeared.
As she got closer to the gravestone, she saw the name Mary Kemp among the many inscribed there. She ran past the stone and turned to face the spawn. It was coming up fast. Matthew's book sat open on the grave, and she grabbed it and held it open in front of her, the screen pointed at the spawn.
"That son of a bitch." said Mary from the little screen in the book. The spawn stumbled in surprise, nearly falling on his face. "He should have never let me see where he kept his guns stashed." The spawn stopped all together, and stared amazed at what was in Amanda's hands. On the screen, Mary continued.
"I waited 'til he fell asleep that night and I went and got one of them. I stuck it right between his eyes and I splattered what little brains he had all over my freshly washed pillowcase." The thing that used to be a man named Jack Kemp fell onto his knees, all the fight leaving him in a flash. "He never even woke up." said Mary.
Amanda set the book on top of the grave and left it open for Jack to see. She started the recording over, so that he could hear the whole thing. When she raised the infant up, he sobbed.
"What have I done?"
"That's not all." said Amanda. "You've been killing women."
"Oh my god." said the spawn. "This isn't hell, is it?"
The angel shook her head, no.
"I never even realized. They had these games they played. They used her all the time. I thought the game was still going."
"It was. Just a different game. I'm sorry, Jack, but I can't let you go on living."
"What are you?" he asked, looking at her, really looking at her for the first time with his one good eye.
"I'm an angel. We fight Malebolgia and your kind. He wants the suit your wearing back, but I can't let him have it. Try to understand. "
"I don't have much time left any way, do I?"
"No, you've been using up your energy like there's no tomorrow, and I don't think there's much left."
He nodded, as if he might have been thinking that. "How do you want to do it?"
"I have to take your head. It's the only permanent way" She pulled out the Bowie knife slowly, revealing it's four foot length. "Please don't make this any harder than it has to be, Jack."
He thought for a moment and said, "You'll be doing me a favor." He leaned forward on his hands and lowered his head, exposing his neck to her. She walked over next to him and placed the blade against the burnt flesh of his neck. She raised it expertly, and braced for the single blow.
Suddenly, she was spinning away, her breath gone in a rush. Something had hit her in the chest like a hammer. As she hit the ground she realized that she had just heard a gunshot.
Her hand went to her chest and came away covered with blood.
"Son of a bitch." she wheezed. She dizzily scanned her eyes for the shooter. Jack was looking up and she looked in the same direction.
Shank was walking their way with a very large rifle and a grin on his face.
"Two points!" he said. "Nothing but chest."
She fumbled for her guns, but her hands would not listen to her brain. Shank was chambering another round. Only one chance to get out of this alive.
"He's from hell, Jack." she whispered. "If he catches you, you lose the game."
The spawn looked at her and nodded. As it got to it's feet she saw that his hands begin to glow.
"Run away, little angel. You wouldn't want to burn your wings."
The glowing in his hands grew brighter as he started toward Shank. Shank noticed it too late.
"Hey! Stop right there!" He leveled his gun on Jack.
Jack kept coming, his body glowing like a light bulb. Not much time left, thought Amanda. She slapped at her belt, missing twice. Three times the charm, it whistled.
She took in as deep a breath as she could manage and said, "Amanda, hunter class, I need a lift!"
There was a ping and a whoosh right next to her head.
Shank fired, pointblank, at Jack who swatted away the gun barrel and enveloped Shank in his massive arms. Rough hands grabbed Amanda's shoulders and dragged her into the elevator.
As the door started to close, she saw Jack's waning hell powers go super nova and the sky turned white. The doors sealed just as the wave of white hot heat struck them. The roar of the explosion shook the elevator cabin and knocked Joseph off of his feet.
A second later and they were worlds away. She had won, she told herself, but this victory tasted bitter sweet.
That's my story. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
If you have any comments or cursewords, contact me at bcampo@hotmail.com If you liked this story, you might like my others. They are posted at Bad Monkey Comics!! If you want to read other stories from the Image Universe, or maybe even submit a story, visit The Image Comics Fan Fiction Archive