Chapter Four: Embracing the Darkness

"Dimitri." The boy stood in the wreckage of his childhood home. "My name is Dimitri."

The Crow squawked with delight and Dimitri looked at him severely.

"You brought me back? You want to me to- what? To get revenge. To find the man that did this."

Dimitri took off down the hall and dove outside, remembering as he moved through the orphanage every feeling he ever felt. He could still hear the cries of the children as they were helpless in their final moments, succumbing to the raging fire. The police were late. The fire department was late. Everyone had abandoned them. Children abandoned by their parents. Given to the Church when the State could no longer house them. Abandoned again and again by the peeking faces of families looking for that perfect cute child that never seemed to be them. Helplessness. He died helplessly, lost and alone. Dimitri would never feel that again, he would never rely on anyone again. He would be the one to look out for their souls, to give them the one thing the universe could provide: Justice.

And he had power. Dimitri climbed onto the roof of the warehouse next door and jumped from one bar to another, feeling the taughtness of his body, the pendulum swing of the perfect motion as he flipped through the air to catch a ledge and leap atop the roof with room to spare. The Universe had given him instincts he never possessed in life, strength and speed he could never imagine. He was indestructible, and could move as fast by foot as his feathered friend could fly at his side. Dimitri perched finally, looking over the town, the decrepit City he knew as a boy from his barred window at St. Helena's. The place that had failed them. The city so lost, they could let one hundred children burn and keep on moving. There was no shrine erected in their memory, no Children's hospital named after them.

He would remind them who they were. After he was done, his reign of destruction would be enough that they would never again forget the children of St. Helena's. Dimitri closed his eyes and thought about the bird over his shoulder. In a moment he was looking out once again, but the world appeared different. He was the Crow.

From the Crow's perspective they took off together, soaring over the cityscape, swooping down back alleys. The Crow knew where to fly, following an invisible line that led them to the a narrow side street tavern. They landed upon a window sill and a duo of drunken pedestrians sneered at them as they hobbled past. They looked inside, watching silently as several groups moved about, mingling and drinking. As the crowd parted, The Crow could see the man, a sliver of a person with a van dyke beard. He sat before the bartender, speaking softly. The man behind the bar poured a drink warily and the firestarter slid the shot glass between his hands on the bartop, before pounding it back.

The Crow cocked his head, to listen in.

"You should take it easy tonight."

The man with the beard flashed the bartender with a menacing glance. "You should really keep your opinions to yourself."

"I was asked by your father to watch out for you. He doesn't want any more, you know, problems. I don't want him coming down on me if you go off half cocked again." The bartender crossed his arms.

"I've got to go to work." The man in the Van Dyke said, slamming back another shot. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll know your place."

He pushed his way through the crowd and broke outside, shoving as many people as he could along the way out the door. The Crow stuck to the shadows, fading in and out of the lamplight down the street. The man in the beard walked strangely, with the same sort of randomness in his step as had appeared in his wavering tone of voice. He had an undeniable madness in everything he did, which made him unpredictable and scary. The kind of man that belonged under heavy medication or under the watchful eye of a psychiatrist, the kind of man that could light an innocent woman on fire and laugh about it, Dimitri was the one that had to stop him.

He would be doing the world a favor, and put a monster out of his misery with as much compassion as one would put down a rabid dog. Dimitri returned to his body as The Crow broke the contact. Somehow, the bird knew exactly where to go to find the man; he had proven himself more useful than a GPS tracking system. His abilities were Dimitri's greatest asset and there was no denying that The Crow was responsible for him coming back to the world of the living. If he were lucky, he could finish it tonight, and he would return to his slumber, to that dark place that was both lonely and reassuring.

Dimitri stood at the rooftop and ran, letting the power of his agile body surge through him and he coiled, jumping far from one ledge to the next, making the distance as easily as hoping from one step to another. His heart pounded as he felt himself coming close. The man with the Van Dyke was walking out of a small store around the corner from the bar. He was speaking in hushed tones on his cell phone.

"Yes, Father. Mr. Libitz said he would sell. Two more buildings and you own the city. I hope you remember which son it was that gave you this town. Not the one in your ivory tower, not him. The bastard one. Me." The crazy little man faltered emotionally as he listened to his father's response. "I don't mean that. I'm sorry father. I'm sorry father."

He disconnected the line and leaned against a mailbox, looking depressed and drunk. His unfocused eyes looked across the road, to the man sleeping underneath the 10th street overpass. The area of the city had completely crumbled away under the vicious reign of mob bosses and economic depression. It was a land ripe for the picking, for businesses that wanted to recapitalize and for the cruelty of man against man. Dimitri watched his prey stalk the homeless man, watched him move slowly across the damp street, kicking aside beer bottles from his path as he removed a small orange squeeze bottle from within his long wool coat. The old man was filthy, covered in strips of cloth that were little more than illusion of warmth. His breath came out in cold hampered puffs of white fog, his lungs echoing in distress, a sure sign of emphysema. A man in his condition would probably not last more than a year at most in such a place.

But, he was seconds from death. A few more terrible breaths was all the he had left in the world. His sleep would be disturbed the intense feeling that only fire against skin could provide, to breathe in the ash of his own burning flesh before he passed on. Dimitri could imagine no worse a death than that, and having felt it once himself, would not allow it to happen.

Johnny Matchstick. He was given the name when he was eleven years old. Johnny never thought much about it, and he never denied that if fit his personality. He had been in love with the magic of the dancing flame since he was a very small child. Watching the element dance from place to place, living so briefly and for such solitary purpose as to destroy, fire was the ultimate entity. And Johnny knew he had to respect it, and revere it, and if he could, allow it to control him, to enter him and be his private god.

To honor his god, there was only one way to truly show the Flame who he was. It meant burning, searing flesh and charring the lifeforce of others. It made him strong, made his father love him, even if the man could never say it. He didn't like to burn buildings, a building could not scream or writhe or do the dance the Flame needed. A building never wanted the warmth of the fire and it did not fear the dark. A building had no soul to merge with others he collected. A building could be rebuilt, but not a body. It could not be pieced together, it would forever perish.

Johnny Matchstick unscrewed the top of his bottle and smelled the glorious scent of his special concoction, a perfect blend of accelerant and clean burning alcohol. It was a special blend of chemicals, done in the right measure that was completely untraceable by modern Fire Marshalls and CSI's. A gift from his father's company, a special product with only one purpose, the further exploration and spiritual enlightenment of the old man's bastard son, the one born from his Stripper mother, the first unwilling victim of the pyre.

The old man in front of him was an impure thing. A terrible deviation of the true spirit of what humanity could become, a wayward soul on the way to enlightenment. Only one thing could cure him of his filth, and the Christians had it wrong with their blessed tap water. It was fire, the burning tongues of the God's themselves.

The oldest religions in the world knew to respect the awesome creature. It was the symbol of man's progress from monkey to what they were today, and Johnny Matchstick, the first and only priest of his twisted mockery of a religion smiled as he squeezed the orang bottle, releaseing a stream of the pure chemical onto the man's tattered clothing. The kindling for his perfect flame, the catalyst for his final step into purity, was distributed all over his sleeping body.

Even if the man would not be able to thank him, his soul would be free, and would belong always to Johnny.

Johnny Matchstick never used matches. The little pieces of wood were always too easy to track, any good arsonist knew to use a butane lighter or a zippo. Johnny's was given to him by longtime friend and mentor, Joey Riguelo, the papers referred to him as "The Human Torch", responsible for the longest string of unsolved fires in the city's history, a record that Matchstick never wanted to take from him.

Again, he was never interested in burning buildings. If one happened to go ablaze, it was what the fire wanted, not something Matchstick planned for. Matchstick flipped back the top of the silver-plated Zippo lighter and spun the wheel by brushing his thumb over the flint. A small and perfect fire caught and stood straight up, wavering in the soft wind.

"I purify thee." Matchstick bent low and brought the flame closer to the sleeping indigent, feeling excitement, unable to contain the scary joy he got from doing what he knew must be done. He anticipated the sounds, the pure voice of the burning man, and as he reached his fingertips, with the flame begging to merge the old man's soul, the fire blew out.

Johnny Matchstick lit it once more, frustrated, rolling his thumb again over the flint. When it caught he rushed the flame, pushing it towards the old man, aching for it to happen, but the stray wind blew the yellow god away.

This time, Johnny turned to find a little face peering back at him, eyes wild in humor.

"Boo."