And Death Shall Have No Dominion

Act I

Faye Valentine knew death. It was a part of her job, a part of her life, as close to her as the beating of her own heart. She had seen more corpses in her life then some people saw in a thousand lives. Certainly more corpses than she ever wanted to see. But she had grown, for want of a better word, accustomed to them, accustomed to the ravages that death visited upon the flesh.

That was why, a moment after looking in apartment number 205, she was shocked to find herself vomiting on the plaid carpet that decorated the hallway. She glanced back out of the corner of her eye through the open door, and promptly vomited again, crumpling to her knees and leaning on the wall for support.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She had first heard of the murders while chasing down another bounty on Mars, a ship thief by the name of Lars Galliengher. She had cornered him in a hole-in-the-wall bar in downtown, and with the gun to his head, he had promised her information on a bounty that would be worth twice his. After she gave him her solemn promise not to turn him in, he had told her everything. An hour later, he was residing in the company of the police, and she was a few thousand woolongs richer. She couldn't afford to be picky.

Apparently, while hiding out in one of the slummier regions of Mars, he had heard a struggle in one of the rooms next to his, where a gang made their headquarters. He had chalked it up to another gang fight and ignored it.

When the wall collapsed, and the eviscerated body of what once was a person flew through, it became a lot harder to ignore. And he saw something through the crumbling plaster of the wall, something standing in the center of the room amidst a pile of corpses. It was human; at least, he assumed it was. It was very dark, and he was not in the best frame of mind for a scientific analysis, but it was shaped like a person, and that was about all he noticed before he ran like hell.

He had finished his story, and she had asked, as nicely as had been possible given the situation, if that was all he had. He had said yes, and smiled hopefully. She had smiled back.

Then she had snapped the handcuffs on.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Something moved in the dimness of the hall. Her head snapped up, and she brought her gun to bear on the approaching shadow.

Jet Black stepped out of the shadows. She considered shooting him anyway, just for the hell of it, and decided not to.

"You all right?" he asked, in that sympathetic way that made her want to blow things up.

"Took you long enough. Did you find anything?"

Ignoring the sudden change in direction, he sighed.

"Not a whole hell of a lot. The local police believe that someone, most likely a man, is wandering the slums of Mars, killing people. They've nicknamed him 'the Black Death.'"

"Catchy. Well, if they know about him, why aren't they here?"

"Because all he's been killing are poor people. They already have too many of those around here. So, unless he kills someone important, he gets nothing but the slightest attention."

Jet grimaced with disgust, then took a cursory glance through the open door into the room.

Under different circumstances, the look on his face may have been funny. At the moment, though, Faye didn't feel much like laughing. Jet turned away quickly and closed his eyes, trying to keep his gorge down.

"Did you find anything?" he asked, when he trusted himself to speak.

"No, I'm still getting past the throwing up part."

Jet nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped into the room. Faye followed, glad that she had already emptied the contents of her stomach.

If possible, it was worse inside than out. There didn't appear to be a single complete body. All that was left was pieces. Jet began to talk, realized he was making no sound, then tried again.

"Damn, this is horrible. If this was done by a person, he would have to be one of the most vicious bast-"

He stopped, and gave an apologetic glance back in her direction.

Damn him. Damn him and his sympathy.

She turned away from him, and saw the wall the killer had smashed through.

And wedged in one of them cracks were a few tufts of green hair. Very familiar green hair.

For the barest fraction of a second, her brain went into overload, and she nearly blacked out. With an incredible force of will, she looked away. Jet was walking out of the room, shaking his head.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We could have done something useful instead of looking at corpses."

Faye opened her mouth and tried to speak, then realized she would probably scream instead, and closed her mouth again.

They left. As the walked back down the stairs to their waiting ships, Jet wondered at Faye's sudden silence, but decided not to press his luck by asking the reason.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Awake?

Am I awake?

He walked down the crumbling sidewalk, eyes focused on the ground. He could feel something slip from him with each step he took, his essence, his life force, his…very sense of being. Each person that bumped into him prompted a massive thunderbolt of pain to explode inside his head.

He raised one hand in front of his face, unwilling to believe it was still there, still his. The hand shook and trembled as if it wasn't his hand at all. And for the barest fraction of a second, something flashed into his head, a vision of that hand tearing through flesh like butter, sending gouts of blood spraying like geysers into the cool night air.

Hurtshurtshurtsohgodithurts!!!!

He brought both of those sickening, murderous hands to his head and squeezed, squeezed as if he was trying to crush his skull and splatter his brain into nothingness. It-

"You okay, mister?"

The voice burned into his brain, a nail being driven deeper with each breath. He turned as quickly as he felt he could manage, stumbled, then got to his feet.

It was a kid. A boy, no more than ten, looking up at him with a mixture of worry and fear. He tried to smile. Honestly, he did.

It didn't work. What happened instead looked more like a grimace of agony, which was pretty much what it was. The kid backed up a step. He didn't blame him.

He tried to put a comforting hand on the kid's shoulder. It worked, until his hand went through the shoulder and cut the boy in half. Blood sprayed everywhere, coloring the sidewalk a ghastly crimson.

Spike Spiegel screamed.