CHAPTER VII:

NATIVITY IN BLACK

(PART B)


Another wretched soul, this one a woman, staggered under the floating woman. This woman was seemingly entranced with the evil light- bulb, gazing at it with a reverence that suggested that something unprecedented was set to crawl out from it, an electric messiah to conduct humanity like a large computer chip board.

A small bird sat on the bull and seemed very agitated, leaping here, leaping there in small jumps, always on the head of the bull. It was apparently disturbed by the very sight of both the evil light-bulb and the lamp, as if one was not better than the other, as if both posed a threat to its well-being. The bull took no notice of his compatriot's anxiety.

The woman at the head of the tragic parade stopped to scream her lunatic chant once more, and Teru gasped as he noticed that the woman's tongue was not a tongue at all, but a dagger. Teru took a closer look at each of the members and found that the horse and the bull both had dagger tongues, for what reason Teru couldn't guess.

The last figure of this most motley crew was either a man or a woman set on fire; the flames were so large and red that Teru had difficulty in discerning the gender of the victim. Incredibly, despite the incredible torture that the person must have been going through, the person moved slowly with a weary expression on his/her face. It was as if that person had been burning for a long time now, had resisted it for so long, and then gave into the pleasures of the flames knowing that further rebellion was ineffective and fruitless. Teru found himself hating this person without understanding why.

The ensemble paced their way through the sand and past Teru and Flagg. Teru watched as they moved farther and farther away from him until they eventually became an ever diminishing dot. The dot eventually negated its own existence upon the horizon. Teru turned around to see that Flagg was picking his fingernails with a straightened paper clip the whole time.

"Um-" Teru began.

"Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica'", Flagg said nonchalantly. "You know it?"

"I do," Teru said.

"Hard to believe they're still upset about that bombing" Flagg commented. "I mean, it happened how many years ago? Live and let live, I say."

"Your compassion is remarkable, Randall," Teru said dryly. "I'll be sure to nominate you for the Noble Peace prize. And the citizens of Spain treasure you, I'm sure."

"Blame Franco, not me," Flagg said flippantly. "Although, it does make sense that they're here. The painting is all about chaos and misery. The Wastelands does tend to embrace such 'tragic' (and here Flagg grinned again) events."

"Somethings not right about the painting though," Teru said.

"Yeah?" Flagg asked, not really sounding all that interested. He reached for the next card as Teru spoke.

"In the original the light-bulb is darker and the lamp is brighter," Teru explained, "but here they both look dark. Do you think that means anything?"

And when that boy smeared the blood of the lamb onto his mouth, I knew, I knew that I had finally found my son.

"Maybe, maybe not," Flagg said apathetically. "Shit, I don't know. Look, lets get back to it, OK? I indulged you enough in watching those freaks because I knew you wouldn't be able to pay attention when the Flaming Torch over there made his way by you."

Twisting his eyebrow in irritation with one set of fingers, Flagg used the other to show the card to Teru. The card showed a large vertical granite structure against the background of night. To the right of the building, a man of apparent royal appearance fell downwards head first with a look of sheer panic spread across his face. To the left, a woman in regal garb fell head first in the same manner. At the top of the building was an explosion.

"This is, the, uh, Tower," Flagg said, clearing his throat. "It represents energy and upheaval. The astrological sign is very appropriate for you, I think. It's Mars, the Roman god of war. You know, he gets a bad rap most of the time, but he always struck me as a half-way decent guy. Bloodthirsty? Yes. Egocentric? What god isn't? But he could make death funny, and that is a highly valuable and underrated quality. And if you think Ares was destructive, you should've seen the guy who killed and replaced him. Fuck, that guy killed so many gods that-"

Teru coughed into his fist impatiently. Flagg gave him an irritated look but got the message.

"Right, this is the ninth card, so this card represents the environment of the question," Flagg said. "The question was 'What should Teru do about Kira?'. Now, having only recently seen you act like an infuriating prick, I sense that you are having some misgivings about hunkering down with Kira and forming some sort of reasonable dialogue. Of course, how will you, a mere mortal, ever get such a deity as Kira to listen to you? How will you indeed get the guy to even listen to you before he reaches all the way down into your throat and tears out your heart? It'll take some trick, some stratagem you've yet to invent. And that, my dear child, is going to take much, much more energy than you're used to."

"I will admit that my... questioning of Kira has been difficult for me," Teru said. "But given that the card is about the environment of the question, does it say anything about whether I should go through with this... encounter or not?"

"The Tower also refers to intuition," Flagg answered. "So my best advice on this one is to listen to whatever your hunches tell you to do. That's really all I can tell you."

Teru frowned at this advice. He relied upon intuition fairly often, probably no more or less than anyone else, but he wasn't exactly thrilled about something potentially catastrophic deciding the most difficult choice he ever had to make in his life.

Flagg picked the next card, his mood improving the longer the Tower was kept away from him. He arched another eyebrow at the selection, and then showed the card to Teru.

The card showed an eight spoked wheel situated in the center with various obscure symbols drawn all over the wheel. The wheel was set against a blue sky with gray clouds occupying each corner of the cloud. On the top of the wheel was a blue sphinx adorned in an Egyptian headdress. A red creature similar in appearance to the god Anubis rose with the wheel to the right. To the left, a yellow snake descended. There was also a yellow creature for each corner of the card, and each of them was reading. In the upper left hand corner was an angel. In the upper right was an eagle. In the bottom left was a winged ox. Lastly, the bottom right was a winged lion.

It was the Wheel of Fortune.

"This is the Wheel of Fortune," Flagg said, "and since its the tenth card, it represents your hopes and fears. Which is kind of strange, come to think about it, since this card portends good luck almost all of the time."

Flagg abruptedly leaned against one of his ribs with such force and speed that it made a loud crack noise. Flagg sighed in relief. Teru had unwillingly winced.

"But I think it makes some sense if you think about it a certain way," Flagg continued. "We've already covered that you're going to have to do something about Kira, didn't we? Well, this card does bring good fortune, but really only in regards to the choice itself. So if you decide to grow a pair of balls and lose that cunt of yours, Lady Fortune will be more than happy to reward you with a BJ."

"A what?" Teru asked.

"Right, I gotta keep forgetting that these people don't speak my lingo," Flagg muttered to himself. Then to Teru he explained: "Look, just show Kira you're not a complete pansy and good things will happen to you, OK?"

Teru nodded, but frowned. It sounded like Flagg was patronizing him, and if that was the case, then it was probably Flagg's own luck that he was telling Teru's own fortune and not Kira's. Teru knew from experience that Kira was proud and that while it probably took a lot to truly infuriate God, one could probably expect to find himself/herself unwillingly leaping into a wood chipper after having insulted Kira one too many times.

"But there's still the hopes and fears factor to cover," Flagg said, "and I think I've got those figured out too. See, your hopes and fears are perfectly reasonable. You hope to talk some sense into Kira, to step up his campaign a bit. But you fear that Kira will use your severed head as a soccer ball after he's done breaking both your body and your mind. Very predictable, very sensible. But you'll notice that the astrological sign is Jupiter, who just so happens to be Zeus, who just so happens to be king of the Greek and Roman gods. And isn't that what you want, Teru? To improve Kira, that god of gods? To make him into a god who sits and watches the world, proficiently not just adequately dispensing judgment whenever it's called for? I think you want that Teru, hell, I know you want that, but I also think you're afraid of all that power and pride attached to being Kira's aide. Power drove Kira astray, didn't it? And this is a major deity that we're talking about here! No one is immune to the sweet promises of power though, are they? You can control the lust if you try hard enough, but it's so, so easy to become yet another Tony Montana-"

"Who's Tony Montana?" Teru asked.

Flagg sighed. "Alright, let's try this one more time: it's so, so easy to become another Faust. It's so, so easy to become another Icarus. It's so, so easy to become another Lucifer. It's so, so easy to lose your head and allow your power to control you rather than the other way around. Get the drift?"

Teru nodded his head. He indeed got the drift.

"So if Kira wasn't able to use all that power... 'responsibly'," Flagg concluded, "then I would think that you yourself have a relatively pessimistic view of how you would scrupulously persuade him to wield it. Am I right?"

Teru didn't reply. He himself wasn't sure of what the answer was, of how he felt. There was so much that he had believed in that he felt was being corroded away with revelation upon revelation, and it would be a lie to say that Teru wasn't hoping to go back to that time when things seemed so clear, where Kira's law was infallible, when the world made sense. Teru found himself beginning to resent, if not outright despise, Flagg for forcing him to question his beliefs, Kira for being the catalyst for all this soul-searching, but most especially himself for having allowed himself to be entangled in something he now suspected to be beyond him.

"Well, well, well," Flagg said, sounding very pleased with himself, as he picked up the next card, "And here I thought that this day couldn't get any better."

Flagg flipped the card and showed it to Teru. The bottom of the card showed a naked young boy riding an impressive-looking stead. A brick wall stood behind the boy and the horse, and healthy, vibrant sunflowers grew from the granite. From underneath the horse arose a black cape of sorts that almost reached the top of the card. But out of all the card's unique attributes, the one that had to be the most arresting was the one that levitated near the top, that stared upon the world with an unmoved look of contempt and perhaps even revulsion. It was the face of a being that had been worshiped for centuries. It was the face of an entity that provided sustenance for an entire world, who knew that it provided such nutrients, and who took the time and energy to graciously point out this little detail to everyone it could. It was the face of the largest star known to man, a massive, astronomical creation of hydrogen, helium, and plasma, whose shining brilliance could be paralleled by none.

It was the Sun.

"Here comes the son, here comes the son," Flagg sang in a, thankfully, tolerable volume, "And I say it's alright."

"Beatles," Teru said.

"You got it," Flagg said proudly, as if he were a teacher who had finally become proud of his struggling student's accomplishment. "Glad to finally nail at least one pop culture reference."

"Most pop culture is nothing but inane material deliberately orchestrated by large-scale, multi-national corporations in order to divert the public's attention away from the real issues," Teru answered. "Marx was not off when he said that religion was the opiate of the masses. However, if Marx were still around today, I do believe that he would have replaced "religion" with "television"."

Despite Teru's relatively cynical outlook of the entertainment of the masses, there came onto his face a smile. It was not a grin, and it was not a smirk. It did not convey murderous glee, nor did it convey portentous delight. Indeed, it was just that: a smile. It was a genuine smile, dreamy and nostalgic, likely brought on by something soothing and comforting that Teru had just recalled.

"But since The Beatles, my favorite band, are now legend despite their impact on the world being more or less recent, I suppose it means that the masses are not as ignorant as some have said them to be," Teru said. "I don't listen to much foreign music, you understand; my country already churns out enough shallow, idiotic pop music as it is, so I'm rarely inclined to listen to the moron sounds that other nations have to offer."

"Someone here never heard of Iron Maiden," Flagg said under his breath.

"But The Beatles were always there for me, you know?" Teru continued, either not having heard Flagg's comment or choosing to ignore it. "I've never met any of them, but years of listening to them makes me feel as if I have. The only thing that I could ever thank my father for," and here Teru's demeanor darkened considerably, "would be for leaving all of his Beatles records and memorabilia behind when he abandoned my mother and I. Even without knowing who they were or what they were saying at such a young age, I felt a link with them, a connection that I don't think I've experienced without anyone else. I may not have known Lennon or Harrison, and I might not be friends with McCartney and Ringo, but what does that matter? No matter how depressed I was, no matter how many time I was assaulted, no matter how many times it seemed like my crusade to rid the world of justice was nothing more than a naïve child's fantasy, all I had to do was pop in the White album in order to feel better. Music may always be changing, but I don't think anyone is going to forget the contributions of the four men who made rock and roll a classy, heartfelt, and global sensation."

"A pity that Manson had to go and get them involved in that little crusade of his," Flagg grinned.

Teru's face fell and was replaced with his characteristic frown. "Do me a favor, will you, Randall?" He said. "Don't go mentioning that lunatic's name in conjunction with my heroes."

"Interesting," Flagg murmured with mock-curiosity. "And here I thought you would have idolized good old Charlie. After all, you two are oh so much alike."

It didn't take long for Flagg to realize that Teru's trembling and hateful expression meant that, had not Flagg knocked his lights out earlier, the subject of the tarot reading would probably have leaped on top of Flagg and used the spur of his shoe to slice his throat. Remarkably, Teru was keeping his cool despite his slight shaking.

"He and I are nothing alike," Teru hissed in a voice coated in poison. "Do you understand, Randall? Nothing! That man was a deluded thug who thought that he was the second coming of Christ! He brainwashed promising young men and women into becoming a part of his twisted-"

Are you always this happy?

Uh-huh.

What's the secret?

We found the truth.

What's the truth?

Charlie is love.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry, OK? It was just a joke. Just a joke," Flagg said, leaning back with his palms up in a submissive fashion and with an apologetic look to boot. Ordinarily, Teru would have found no reason to doubt someone's apology if they went this far with it, but a glint in Flagg's eye compelled Teru to suspect that his desultory guide wasn't quite as regretful as he claimed to be. "Anyway, switching gears here, but you know how Lennon said that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus H. Christ himself?"

"I recall something to that effect," Teru said, beginning to calm down.

"Well, that's pretty much what the Sun card is telling you," Flagg replied. "This is literally the best card in the deck, Teru. It's the Holy Grail, the Rosetta Stone, the frickin' Stairway To Heaven of the cards. The very best goddamn card. At the very least, it can soften all the negative effects of all the other cards we drew if not negate them entirely. Are you following me so far on just how incredibly valuable this card is?"

Teru nodded almost dumbly, too encumbered by the ever increasing rate of his heart-beat to be able to formulate a verbal answer.

"Astrologically speaking, the sun is the strongest planet there is-" Flagg started.

"It's not a planet," Teru interrupted. "It's a star."

"And it is the force that gives and sustains life," Flagg continued, ignoring Teru's interjection. "It represents a person's true purpose in life. It is the creative force that runs our universe. It signifies the exact innermost essence of what a person tries to achieve in life. In other words, you may pass 'Go', you may collect $200, and you may skip jail."

"Why would I go to jail in the first place?" Teru asked with complete sincerity.

"... forget it," Flagg said. "All you need to understand is that, for whoever gets this card, it's smooth sailing from then on out. And since this is the seventh card, which is the outcome of this whole conflict, it-"

"Does that mean that I'm going to be successful in winning over Kira?" Teru suddenly broke in loudly. If his heart had been pounding before, then it was practically thundering with joy, threatening to reach a speed that even his impeccable body could withstand. Flagg could almost feel sorry for the poor dope; the kid looked so sure of himself now, so confidant, so optimistic, so much like the Teru that Flagg needed to use against Kira. Flagg would have lied to to Teru about his chances if he really thought that it would insure his victory, but knew that getting the little sociopath's hopes up could and probably would lead to overconfidence, which would probably lead to Teru being pushed in front of a bullet train. (And wouldn't Yagami come after you? Flagg thought to himself. You may be... hell, not even I know what you are, but even if I did and even if you did and even if Yagami did, do you really think that that would stop Yagami from trying to track us down? Even Dracula himself was offed by some asshole limeys, Randall, my boy.)

"... no..." Flagg said at last. He said it without feeling or attitude, uncharacteristic of him, but intended to lessen the impact on Teru.

Unfortunately, the impact on Teru was probably not successfully alleviated in any way whatsoever. His overjoyed face gradually fell until it resulted in a frown that was even more pitiful than before. The spark that had miraculously kindled in his eyes gave out, like a meteor burning away violently in the ionosphere. His body, then upright and tense with eagerness, sank into it's usual sense of low-valence pessimism and doubt.

Shit, he didn't want the kid to completely lose hope! He just wanted to bring him back to Earth a bit! An uncertain and apprehensive Teru was the last thing that Flagg needed. He needed to pump some confidence into the little fucker, and he needed to do it now.

"But that doesn't mean you won't actually win!" Flagg exclaimed. "It just means that it'll be, uh, it'll be difficult! But, believe me, kid, you are literally the only one who can come to some sort of accord with Kira, literally the only one who can save the world! It's your destiny, for fuck's sake!"

"Is that what the card says?" Teru asked quietly.

"Yes!" Flagg exclaimed.

"Then what are my chances?" Teru asked.

"Your chances?" Flagg asked, frowning, not knowing precisely what Teru was alluding to.

"Of contacting Kira and living to tell of it," Teru said.

Flagg rubbed his neck through his shirt, like a desperado in a spaghetti western or a samurai in a chanbara flick. "Bad new first," Flagg said after some time. "You've got at least a fifty fifty chance. You might actually have a sixty forty chances, a seventy thirty chance, hell, maybe even a one hundred percent chance at seeing Kira, but my magick isn't that good. Not even Aleister Crowley could look into the future perfectly, you know. I can see glimpses of what will happen after your oh-so-imminent encounter, but all I can see is humanity praising Kira with even more energy. Maybe that's because Yagami will go on vacation or something and let you hold his office a bit. Maybe that's because Yagami will survive and become an even stricter sadist after he... deals with you. I don't know."

"But there is good news!" Flagg said before Teru could form a response. "The Sun favors you. It doesn't favor Yagami. You've got the advantage there. And your relationship offers some unique... advantages and disadvantages." Flagg took off a hat and ran his hand through his thick, oily hair while his grin stubbornly recreated itself. "Ryuk told you that Yagami and you are almost exactly alike, right? Well, that may be so, but neither you nor Jim Jones seem to acknowledge that, if your relationship is anything to indicate. Really, you two should be like coffee and cigarettes, like salt and pepper, like, uh, Batman and Superman-"

"I've always been more partial to Batman," Teru said.

"Whatever!" Flagg said, waving away this minuscule objection. "Point is, you've been acting like the guy's sidekick when we all know that you're on equal footing with him. Yagami is the dominant participant in this cloak and dagger bullshit; you just so happen to be Yagami's dog, his lackey, his tool that he will eventually throw away when he realizes that he has no use for it. So instead of becoming distressed with what I am sure is soul-shattering information, why don't you stop acting like a punk-ass bitch and start using the hand you've been dealt?"

"I'm not sure I follow your meaning," Teru said without much feeling.

"Yagami has been Kira for so long that he's used to it," Flagg grinned once more. "And that's when dictators get sloppy. Believe me, I know. I've been there. It's when a man convinces himself that there's no one left to oppose him that he feels his greatest sense of peace and leaves himself open for insurrection. And you, what have you been used to? Really, not much more than being a scared little bitch. You're not proud. You're not confident. Both you and Kira are used to all this." Somehow, Flagg's grin spread even farther, as if he were letting Teru in on the greatest joke involving dead babies known to man. "Now I can't give you any specific directions on what to do. I may be one scheming son of a bitch, but I work best with the kind of sheep who obey FOX News and the Right Reverend I-Hate-Queers McGee. Yagami is simply not that. But he is a man not used to losing, and he is a man whose pride will probably fuck him over at some point. And you, you're a man used to being nothing more than muscle for a egocentric boy so full of himself that he can't see the forest for the trees. So while I can't give you any solid advice, I can say this: Yagami is proud. You're humble. He's like a father who thinks that his obedient son could never even lay a hand on him unaware that it will only be a few years before that son kills him off in order to get the inheritance. So do yourself a favor and use this opportunistic inequality to your advantage."

O, sir, content you. I follow him to serve my turn upon him. We cannot all be masters, nor all masters cannot truly be followed.

"I don't..." Teru said, running a hand through his comparatively silkier hair. "I don't know what to say to that. I really don't. I... I mean, I wouldn't even know where to start-"

"Like I said, I can only show you the doorway," Flagg said, reaching for the next card. "Whether you plan to speak with him earnestly yet respectfully or to torment him psychologically like that Jigsaw guy used to is all up to you."

Flagg looked at the card, and then flipped it to show Teru.

In the middle of the card was a cart that, once plain stone and cement, looked particularly attractive with it's adornment of regal and royal coverings and emblems. An equally majestic looking young man stood inside the cart, with an expression of passionate yet restrained determination. Though it was obvious just from looking at his clothes that the young man was of some noble lineage, he wore the armor of a medieval knight. Surrounding the cart were eight sphinxes, all with similar striped Egyptian headdresses and postures, but each distinct in appearance.

Christ, we have actual apocalyptic crap to deal with and here you all want to go playing cowboys and Indians!

I disagree. If we all join forces-

Which you'll lead because you're the genius of the group, right?

It doesn't take a genius to see that the world has problems.

Yeah, well, it takes a room full of morons to think that one man can solve them.

"This is the Chariot," Flagg said. "Basically, its your vehicle of change. It also stands for determination in general, and it can mean that the querent, that's you by-the-by, is assuming new philosophies and ideologies. How that could pertain to you is beyond me," Flagg added with more than a pinch of sarcasm but also with that accursed smile of his.

"The Chariot..." Teru murmured to himself.

"What?" Flagg asked.

"No, it's nothing," Teru said, not finding his present recollection to be all that pressing, yet yearning to share it with someone, to share it with anyone, to share it even with a warped deviant like Flagg. "It's just... it reminds me of an old story I read once. It was the Book of Kings, I believe. You know the one about the prophet Elijah and how he ascended into Heaven on a chariot of fire? Well, the card reminded me of that, that's all. Nothing important."

"You're probably wrong there, amigo," Flagg said. "As I recall it, Elijah handed over his gig to Elisha before he split. Not surprisingly then, the Chariot is all about new beginnings and successes." Flagg tapped the card against his mouth, as if deep in thought. "Now, could that story refer to you in any way, I wonder?" Flagg grinned. "Could there perhaps be a parallel between Elisha's position and yours."

Teru immediately caught on to what Flagg was insinuating. "Elijah gave Elisha his position out of his own volition," he countered.

"The Bible is a highly interpretative text despite what those loony TV preachers may tell you," Flagg responded. "But, and not to change the subject here, but I'm going to change the subject by saying that something is off with this card."

"What is it?" Teru asked.

Flagg tapped the card with his finger. "There's eight sphinxes in this card," he explained. "There's only supposed to be two sphinxes, one white, one black, both with the same headdress. Yet there's eight here, and, as you can see, they all look different from one another."

"What does that mean?" Teru asked.

Flagg frowned; he was not a man who took kindly to unexpected changes in his plans. "I'm not sure, to tell you the truth," Flagg confessed. "But I do have my suspicions, and that's better than nothing. The original two sphinxes are meant to carry the chariot, right? Well, it looks like there's going to be about eight of those freaks dragging your chariot there, kiddo. Which means (And here Flagg looked Teru dead in the eyes; Teru managed to resist recoiling from the gaze of those inhuman eyes) you may have very well acquire a team in the near future. And since this is the twelfth card, this should be taking place in the beginning of the second year, right after your confrontation with Kira, should you decide to halt your menstrual cycles and grow a pair."

The mentioning of a possible rebellion quited Teru into a contemplative silence once again. After a few moments, Teru spoke again:

"What if I die?" Teru asked quietly.

"Then Kira uses your team to insure complete and total obedience from humanity," Flagg grinned. "Not that would do anything different of course."

Teru's eyes changed from sullen to indignant. "I would use whatever alliance I possessed in order to bring peace and order to this world, not to impose tyranny," he retorted.

"Hombre, your team could turn out to be Judas Priest and your mission could turn out to be staging a Broadway musical adaptation of Fight Club, and that would interest me about as much as C-SPAN," Flagg said, drawing the next card. "Remember, I'm just the messenger boy. Whatever happens between you and Rob Halford stays between you and Rob Halford."

"I should probably be upset with you for that comment except I have no idea what you just said," Teru muttered.

"Right, shut the hell up and take a gander at this," Flagg said. He picked the next card, studied it briefly, shrugged as if his discovery was merely mundane, and then showed it to Teru. What Teru noticed first was the image set in the foreground, that of a fair maiden of an earlier time and another land either trying to pet or trying to force the jaws of a growling lion open. Why the woman was anywhere near the lion, Teru didn't know: there had to be saner, less painful ways of committing suicide. A unusual looking halo that criss-crossed around itself as if badly imitating the number eight and hovered over the woman's head. In the background of the card was a moderately high hill. Beyond that was a castle of the medieval European variety, consistent with the appearance of the woman.

"This is the Strength card," Flagg said, probably bored. "Under the more immediate circumstances, it doesn't say much more than common sense already has. It signifies patience, endurance, control, and, hold on to your seats for this one, boys and girls, 'strength'."

Flagg eyed Teru with something like a bit of apathetic pride, like a father yawning upon the news that his freakishly intelligent son has aced yet another test, hallelujah, amen, and may the lord be praised.

"I suppose that I don't need to tell you that you're much, much, much more patient than Yagami," Flagg said. "From what I hear, and I hear much mind you, Yagami was a lot better at calmly waiting for things to happen back before he took a healthy, young man's interest in forcing people to leap of skyscrapers. Of course, now the little bastard thinks that he's God, and if he's God, then good golly Miss Molly, then it would be sacrilege on the part of we mortals to expect him to act like a rationale adult. I trust that you recall how Yagami graciously imitated Scarface for you while you were in that phone booth."

Teru recalled it well. With something like a lump in his throat, he remembered feeling humiliated, ashamed, and terrified all during that one conversation. It was, after all, not all that easy to forget how Kira had run the emotional gamut from casual friendliness to paternal sternness, from kind understanding to unbridled fury. But most of all, Teru remembered the one dark corner of his mind that he had done his best not to acknowledge following that catastrophic exchange, a black dahlia coyly trying to grab Teru's attention from a field of white carnations. The white carnations were what the thoughts that Teru had been trying his best to believe in, all of which were excuses for Kira's behavior. A bundle of these carnations would have contained remarks such as Who am I to question Kira?, Kira is stressed out enough as it is without having to endure an obtuse fool like myself, and Kira is never wrong; there must be something about Kramer that I don't know, something that would shatter my heroic self-image of him if I knew it. The black dahlia, on the other hand, offered a starkly different message to any who deigned to stop and smell its rank odor, and it carried such messages in abundance.

The white carnations crooned their songs in tender, if not entirely woeful, tunes. The black dahlia, had Teru approached it more closely, would have likely grabbed his hair and pulled him close while it screamed that Kira was nothing more than a fraud, that the condemnation of someone like Kramer was the tell-tale sign that there was something rotten in the state of Japan, and that Teru was nothing more than a coward for abiding it all.

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom, how foul it is; what rank diseases grow, and with what danger, near the heart of it.

"If you do happen to... get Kira to listen to you," Flagg said in a voice better suited for discussing household chores, "then the card takes on a much more intriguing meaning. As this is the thirteenth card, it represents the middle of the second year, providing you live past Kira's attempts to feed you to a rabid pack of hyenas."

"What will happen during that time?" Teru asked.

"Oh, I would imagine that you would start screaming for mercy at first, then call Kira every name in the book before your flesh began to be torn-" Flagg started.

"I meant during the middle of the second year!" Teru interrupted.

"Oh... right," Flagg said. "Well, like I said before, I can only see brief glimpses of the future, not clear images of what will definitely happen." Flagg started digging inside one of his coat's interior pockets and finally produced what he had been looking for. After digging around a little more, he brought out a match, struck it against the stubble of his neck, and voila, fire was born. With this, he lit his joint. After taking a particularly long rip from it, Flagg motioned for Teru to take a hit from the gift of the Heavens. Teru waved his hand in denial. All of this supernatural brouhaha was draining enough; the pot would probably relax him, and relaxation was a great thing at times like these, but Teru's tolerance for cannabis was still premature, and the idea of his singing all of the Utada Hikaru songs he knew did not strike him as particularly appealing given his current whereabouts.

Flagg rolled his eyes, but continued speaking. "I can see... a tower." Flagg said at last, his persistent grin resurfacing. Teru was confounded; didn't the mere mention of a tower cause Flagg to act unnaturally trepid only moments ago? "And this isn't any ordinary tower either. I don't know what tower it is, but it's something big, something long sought after and kingly. Hell, it may even be godly." Flagg squinted his eyes a little more. "Oh ho ho, and I can see some of your allies too- Christ, and they say the Manson family was eccentric- and it looks like... yeah, they're going to help you summon something. Don't ask me what it is because I've only got a few clues at hand. Maybe its the tower. Maybe it isn't. I don't know. But what I do know is that I can see brief visions of this little Mickey Mouse club of yours putting in a helluva lot of energy, time, and tenacity in order to raise something, an unknown something, but a piss-your-pants scary something nonetheless."

Up with my tent! Here will I lie tonight— but where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that. Who hath descried the number of the traitors?

Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.

Why, our battalia trebles that account! Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength, which they upon the adverse faction want.

Flagg took another hit while Teru thought of another matter. Strangely, all this talk of allies, towers, and premonitions didn't do too much in the way of pumping his blood or racing his heart. As exciting as those things may be in the future (If I have a future, Teru thought nervously), things in the current... "world" were already gripping enough, what with having to choose whether to to challenge the most destructive and intelligent power on the planet and all. But there was something else that bothered Teru especially as he watched the smoke rise and dissipate around Flagg. It was probably trivial, but hey, it's not like there was any harm in asking.

"Hey, Randall?" Teru said.

"Yeah?" Flagg grunted, taking another hit.

"It must be over one hundred degrees out here," Teru said, "and even with the clothes I'm wearing, I'm still sweating something horrible. So how is it that you're wearing that heavy leather coat without looking uncomfortable at all?"

Flagg pondered this for a moment with a mercifully blank expression. Then his mirthful and insane grin reared its ugly head once more, and Teru dug his nails into his knees to keep himself from screaming.

"Let's just say," Flagg grinned, "that I'm used to... more hellish terrains."

Do you know what the most terrible thing about Hell is? It's not the fire. It's not the torture. It's the fact that God has closed himself off to you, that he refuses to be in your presence. That may not sound very devastating, but imagine all the times your parents have told you how dissapointed they were in you. Take that, multiply by the largest number you can think of, and you're still nowhere close to the agony you'll feel knowing that He wants nothing to do with you.

Teru now seriously considered the possibility that there was much harm in asking this question.

Flagg checked the next card, and, considering that his malevolent grin had not changed whatsoever, Teru assumed (If you "assume", you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me", Teru warned himself to little effect) that Flagg was either looking at something that pleased him greatly, that interested him greatly, or, more horrible still, accomplished both tasks. Eventually, Flagg graciously treated Teru to this clue of the mystery that was the future.

The card showed an extraordinarily beautiful man (Probably more attractive than me, Teru thought without envy) standing inside a pond so thin that it only reached the tip of his toes. His attire was dubious in terms of temporality and nationality, but like the other cards, it seemed to have been inspired by early European garb if not directly taken from that period. The next most striking feature were wings. White wings. Gigantic, glorious, white wings, and though many would have probably have thought that such a man could not be more awe-inspiring, the wings indeed made him so.

The man was an angel.

What's your name by the way?

Gabriel Sylar.

Gabriel? Did you hear that, Alejandro? He has the same name as the archangel! God must favor us!

That's right... just like an angel...

"This is the card of Temperance," Flagg said. "As you can tell, Michael here enjoys robbing the spotlight, which compels many an asshole to simply refer to it as "the Michael card". But for the sake of consistency-"

"The archangel who threw Lucifer into Hell?" Teru asked.

"The very same," Flagg replied. "Of course, it's not as if glory boy here is as 'majestic' as everyone makes him out to be. Hell, most don't know how it was Lucifer who freed his sorry ass from Sandalphon and-"

Teru gave Flagg a strange look, compelling the latter to cut his rambling short.

"This is one of those long stories that you're somehow a part of that I know nothing about, isn't it?" Teru asked.

"Oh yeah," Flagg replied.

"Then perhaps it would behoove you to shut the hell up about whatever insane cosmic warfare you have undoubtedly graced with your malignant presence and to stick to the matter at the hand," Teru said dryly.

Flagg muttered something largely inaudible (although Teru could make out the words "bastard", "hacksaw", and "forcible entry"), but continued with his divination. "Alright, you notice how Michael is mixing the liquids from two separate cups in order to create a third?" Flagg asked. Teru nodded in turn. "Well, that's because Blondie here is trying to combine two vastly different chemicals, the act of temperance. That's why the zodiac sign for this card is the Sagittarius, or, if you prefer Greek mythology, the centaur."

"The half-man, half-horse creature?" Teru asked.

"A-yep," Flagg confirmed. "The man part (*snort*) -sorry, Teru,- represents intelligence, civility, philosophy, and all that other boring bullshit that people pretend to have or practice in order to fit in. The horse represents all the fun stuff that humans do their best to suppress yet fail miserably at: greed, wrath, lust, and bombs that you can drop on other countries from a safe distance so you don't have to watch their skin melt off their bones. Point is, a person needs to balance both sides in order to function in society."

El, you really must try this because it's puerco pibil. It's a slow-roasted pork, nothing fancy. It just happens to be my favorite, and I order it with a tequila and lime in every dive I go to in this country. And honestly, that is the best it's ever been anywhere. In fact, it's too good. It's so good that when I'm finished, I'll pay my check, walk straight into the kitchen and shoot the cook. Because that's what I do. I restore the balance to this country. And that is what I would like from you right now. Help keep the balance by pulling the trigger.

"Yourself being the obvious exception," Teru noted.

Flagg chose to ignore this; its not like the little shit was that far off anyway. "Now, you might think that this is all obvious," Flagg said, "But as this is the fourteenth card draw, the implications become far, far more interesting. Temperance is going to be stressed in the later part of the second year."

"What happens then?" Teru asked.

Flagg squinted his eyes, as if looking at the card with greater scrutiny would make his visions even more vivid and clear (and, as far as Teru knew, this may have very well been the case). "The climax," he said at last. "You're going to take on your equal... but, and you can relax, it's not Yagami. It's more like someone who's a brother to you."

"A brother?" Teru asked, confused. "But I don't have any siblings."

"It gets even weirder," Flagg said. "He's pretty much your polar opposite, but he's also someone you admire. You don't know him, yet you know of him. And while you two are about as similar as night and day, you share qualities with him that no one else does."

So the Snake's finally come out of his hole! Are you ready now, my brother?

Why are you calling me brother? Who the hell are you!

I'm you! I'm your shadow!

"Can you see what he looks like?" Teru asked.

Flagg concentrated. "I can't see much," he confessed after a few moments, almost apologetic. Almost. "Most of its just black. But I can see an even greater blackness within that. It's humanoid, whatever it is. Except for those eyes." Flagg shuddered in what appeared to Teru to be partly intimidation, but mostly perverse eagerness.

"Now, I can't tell who it is you're fated to meet," Flagg grinned though Teru noticed that the smirk seemed a little more forced this time, as if Flagg was a boy trying to laugh off his friends' stories of haunted houses and loose murderers, that seemingly assured grin whose owner knew that it was largely bravado and that the avoidance of specters and serial killers altogether was ideal. "Again, he is very much like you, yet he is very different than you. Like you, he's forced to temperate his desires for peace and justice with his urges to just go fucking ballistic on anyone who so much as even looks at him the wrong way. But the man knows his Zen and his martial arts. He's more of a V than he is a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, if you catch my drift."

"I don't," Teru replied.

"Then suffice it to say that this guy is more inclined to... help people out rather than pummel your face in to the point where your dear old mother couldn't recognize you." Flagg grinned. "But don't let that concern you now. Kira is your immediate goal. Whoever, tall, dark, and spooky is, you won't have to worry about him until later."

"I understand," Teru said. "But all the same, I would like to hear whatever else you know about this man. For starters, how can I dispose of someone who is so much like me?"

Flagg stared at Teru like he was looking at an idiot. "Christ, here you went to college, and you don't even know the answer when it's right under your nose," Flagg tsked tsked but still with that same grin, which was now seriously beginning to irk Teru. "Look, all you need is do is beat this guy at his own game. If you make your temperance better than his, then you'll have him at a serious disadvantage. Apparently, this guy is like a walking tornado when he's pissed, but anger blinds like a motherfucker, buckaroo. Of course, you could always just write the prick's name down, but you probably won't-"

Flagg suddenly stopped speaking and cocked his head. His eyes narrowed and focused on a particular patch of sand close to the two. Following Flagg's lead, Teru also glanced at the patch of sand, but then did a double take.

The sand was vibrating, and the vibration was becoming gradually but surely greater.

Teru whipped his head back to meet Flagg's gaze. Flagg didn't look panicked, but he also didn't look like a minor inconvenience was interrupting their amiable dialogue.

"OK, Teru, don't freak out," Flagg said, grin now gone, "But I'm going to need to need you to run as fast as you can. Left or right doesn't make a lick of a difference. Just move!" Flagg's voice became louder, and Teru became more than perturbed when he noticed that raw panic was beginning to seep into Flagg's formerly professional voice. "Now! Move your worthless ass now!"

Teru complied with his guide's instructions, running as fast as he could to the opposite direction of where he sat. And the further that Teru ran, the more that he could hear the sound of whatever the hell it was that Flagg had heard (although he could distinctly hear Flagg half-scream, half-sing, "Run to the hills! Run for your lives!" for whatever asinine reason) Eventually, Teru ran to a point where he could no longer feel the vibrations nor hear the sound of the sound of the rising ground. Running as fast as he could (which, due to his superb athleticism, was indeed quite fast), Teru could not see that Flagg had run off in the opposite direction. However, whether the cause was Destiny or simply coincidence, both Teru and Flagg leaped and landed on their stomachs, holding their arms over their heads the moment they felt something of preternatural height and width break through the ground and rise upwards.

Teru and Flagg looked up from their respective locations. From where they were, they couldn't see who or what their new visitor was in fine detail, but they could tell that whatever it was, it wasn't moving and didn't appear to be hostile. The two gradually and carefully made their way to this mystery of mysteries, and the details of this intruder became clearer the closer to the two came towards it. Halfway to their original card drawing spot, Teru noticed that this new presence seemed to be stiff, rigid... and artificial.

Eventually, Teru and Flagg stood in front of this new uncalled-for guest. At first, Teru gaped while Flagg, surprisingly, only hmmed with a knowing look and tone.

"... you have got to be fucking kidding me," Teru said at last.

What stood in the sand, rising from the chest, was a naked, colored sculpture of a man looking downwards. The man was looking downwards, but his eyes were closed. The man had only a few sprouts of hair on his chest and long, effeminate eyelashes combined with a thick mustache and soul patch that gave both him a weirdly masculine and feminine appearance. Right below the man's gaze was a sculpture of the Death Note, and while the man's eyes were closed, neither Teru nor Flagg could shake the feeling that this man was blind to everything but the book in front of him.

The man's eyes may have been closed, but Teru who the sculpture was based off of the moment he laid eyes on it.

It was him.

"This dream keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it?" Teru asked no one in particular.

Dude, not even David Lynch's dreams are this weird.

Flagg rubbed his chin in thought. "Well," he said after a pause, "It's probably not the work of the pumpkin or the raven. They're not exactly the foremost authorities on modernist art, you know. Maybe it's that reject of a Keebler elf, Lucien, but I-"

"Perhaps you ought to stop talking about Narnia or whatever other godforsaken fairy land you and your enemies inhabit," Teru said calmly enough, but with a tired, flustered edge, "and perhaps you could start by telling me just why there happens to be a rendition of De Chirico's The Child's Brain with me as the subject."

Flagg came closer to the sculpture and stood looking at it for a few moments. Then he kicked it, not with great force, but enough to see if it was responsive at all. Teru almost felt offended in spite of his confusion. Thankfully, the Brain did not move; it was inanimate, not sentient.

"Not bad," Flagg murmured, still rubbing his chin. Teru thought that he looked like a gauche, insane art professor. "Not bad at all." Flagg suddenly snapped out of his introspection. "My bad", he said. "Why is the Brain here, and why does it look more like you? Furthermore, did Freddy Mercury get the idea for that oh-so-marvelous mustache of his from Chirico? Answers: I don't know, it's your dream, not mine, and Mercury was gay as hell." Flagg turned to Teru with another shark grin; Teru found himself experiencing the same unique sensation of being intimidated by Flagg and wanting to strangle him at the same time. "Lordy, lordy, lord, can you believe that Adolf Hitler hated this avant-garde shit?"

"I can't say I blame him," Teru muttered, glaring at the sculpture. He didn't like it, he wasn't sure why he didn't like it, and he especially disliked not knowing why.

Flagg arched an eyebrow. "Huh, you never struck me as much as a closet Nazi," he said. "Now, as far as being a closet homo-"

"I am not a closet Nazi," Teru seethed, feeling angrier than he should have and knowing it. Why did that comment get to him so much? The idea of Teru Mikami, a sophisticated twenty first Japanese polymath who saw no real difference between the members of his pathetic species, being a Nazi was ridiculous. "I despise prejudice and bigotry of any sort. The Third Reich was right to want to build a classical renaissance society in the vein of Rome and Greece. Those ends were admirable. It was the means that were deplorable."

Traitors! I've been betrayed and deceived from the very beginning! What a monstrous betrayal of the German people, but all those traitors will pay! They'll pay with their own blood!They shall drown in their own blood!

Flagg held up his hands in a Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't shoot the messenger pose. "Easy there, Indiana Jones," he smirked. "I may not have been educated at whatever fancy school you've been at, but when I'm not so stupid as to actually think that someone Japanese would actually espouse the virtue of Mein Kampf. That would be like... that would be like a Jew secretly becoming a skinhead leader! No, wait. That actually happened. OK, that would be like the US and USSR employing Nazi- fuck, that happened too! OK, it would be like a dominant country training a band of fanatic terrorists who would later attack that same-" Flagg broke off, noticing Teru's penetrating glare against the sculpture. "Hey, Freud, you listening to me here?"

"Modernist art was based largely off of Freud's theory of the unconscious," Teru murmured. "His theory was that when we dream, the things that we repress come to life in ways we can't accept while awake."

"Maybe," Flagg said sitting down into his original spot, now under the gaze of the Brain, "and probably so too. But I find it hard to agree with anyone who thinks that wanting to bang your mother is a natural instinct."

"I'm not much for the Oedipus complex either," Teru agreed, sitting down as well, one eye on Flagg, and the other still suspiciously cast on the sculpture. Strangely, Teru suddenly thought of his father, but pushed that thought away as far as he could. That man might have done the dirty deed with his mother, but that didn't make him his father at all. No, that hedonist had irreparably negated his right to be a father the moment that he had deserted his pregnant mother.

I have no father, Teru thought with a bitter sort of humor. I guess that makes me a bastard, doesn't it? Kira, you sure do enjoy having laughs at my-

No, Teru corrected himself with widening eyes. Why hadn't he thought of this before? It was so bloody obvious! I do have a father, Teru thought. Everyone has a father. God. God is everyone's father. Kira is my-

You're not my son. You're just a little piece of competition. Bastard from a basket, bastard from a basket. You're a bastard from a basket!

"You know, as much as I enjoy watching other people go mentally masturbate," Flagg interrupted in a bored tone, "we do have one more card to draw and-"

Teru now focused his full attention on Flagg, and the look that he gave the soothsayer nearly him cringe.

"My apologies," Teru said calmly but darkly. His eyes did not shine red, but they shined nonetheless. "I was just thinking about how Freud might have been right about the primordial struggle between father and son."

Flagg stared at Teru blankly for a few moments, nearly bewildered by just how fucking ominous the kid's face at the drop of a hat. But then, as sure as the sun must rise, Flagg's trademark grin returned and not just for showboating: Flagg and his associates had finally, finally come across what they had been looking for for so long now. With that one single look, Flagg was now convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that the kid did indeed have it. Teru Mikami was truly the one.

What's happening to me?

You are the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I have spent my entire life looking for you.

"No harm done," Flagg grinned. "You're a deep thinker, a regular Socrates, and I like that. You don't get that very often, you know; most of the time you just get clueless sheep waiting for whatever president, king, or tyrant there is to point them in the direction of the nearest slaughter pen."

Flagg picked up the last card and held it upwards between his middle finger and his forefinger so that only he could see it. "We've only got one more card left to go," he grinned, "and after that, why, we'll resume our little journey on the yellow brick road."

Flagg gave the card one last final Well, no shit, Sherlock, how did you think this was going to end? Look and then showed it to Teru.

The card showed a skeleton dressed in a knight's armor and bearing a flag of some arcane emblem, riding atop a stern-looking steed. A king, woman, and child lied in front of this ghastly horseman, as if they had no choice but to submit to the unrelenting drive of this new visitor. Contrastingly, a priest stood tall and proud in the face of what was likely to be his untimely doom, heeding no danger, likely too certain of his own faith to tremble in fear of this grim reaper.

"Death," Flagg said with an air of finality. "Nowhere near as hot as the actual thing, but-"

"Randall!" Teru snapped. Flagg shook himself out of his verbal deviation, and saw that, despite the brave face that Teru was putting on, the kid was obviously becoming nervous about this talk of expiration and necrosis. "Please don't tell me tell me that I'm going to die sometime in the next year. I would like to live out the remainder of my life not knowing when I'm going to pass on, if you don't mind.

Can you imagine what it feels like to have someone sit you down and tell you that you're dying? The gravity of that, hmm? Then the clock's ticking for you. In a split second your awe is cracked open. You look at things differently - smell things differently. You savor everything be it a glass of water or a walk in the park.

"Ease up there, jefe," Flagg grinned. "The card of death doesn't mean a physical death at all, so you've got nothing to fear in that department. What it does refer to is is the very opposite of rotting sacks of worm meat: renewal, regeneration, and resurrection."

"How can the card of death refer to things contrary to it?" Teru asked.

But most people have the luxury of not knowing when that clock's going to go off. And the irony of it is that that keeps them from really living their life. It keeps them drinking that glass of water but never really tasting it.

Flagg tapped the card. "There's a story to learn from here, patron," he grinned. "See the king, the woman, and the brat. They're going to die. Doesn't matter when. Doesn't matter where. Doesn't matter how. They just will. The rich, the poor, the good, the bad, the strong, and the weak will all inevitably kick the bucket." Flagg's grin remained the same length, but a touch of sardonic glee was added to it. "But of course, Father Merrin here isn't afraid of meeting his untimely end. Why? Because he's a spiritual man. Because (and here Flagg wiggled his fingers in the air mockingly) he knows that when he dies, he'll just transform into something else. Could be an angel. Could be a demon. Hell, he may even be reborn as Robespierre during the French Reign of Terror. Point is, his story won't end. It'll just revive itself."

Nothing is permanent, not even death.

"The astrological sign, Scorpio, represented by the phoenix, only reinforces the most comforting of inevitabilities," Flagg continued. "As you probably already know, legend has it that the phoenix burns itself to death when it's old enough, to ride the lightning if you will, but then resurrect itself immediately afterwards from the ashes."

"But there's a more practical application here, I assume," Teru said.

"As sure as bees don't have knees, there is", Flagg grinned. "This is the very last card, so the card will take effect at the end of the second year. That is, if you do manage to overcome your evil twin brother, clone, cylon duplicate, or whatever the hell it is that you're destined to fight. And if you do happen to best this prick," Flagg said, his eyes dancing with berserk merriment, "then something incredible could very well happen to you, my cully. What it is, I've got no clue. But it'll be like a wretched little caterpillar becoming a butterfly, mark my words and mark them well or you'll be get your ass dropped on the highway to Hell."

Flagg suddenly rolled onto his back and then flipped forward onto his feet, seemingly without effort. Teru wasn't surprised; when it came to Flagg, there came a point where you eventually accepted the fact that the man (for lack of a better term) was always in the process of revealing new tricks and secrets.

"Time we were on our way, hermano," he grinned. "The reading is now officially over, and idle hands are the ones that give the devil handjobs, as they say."

"Yeah, I recall you saying that after my reading, we were going to have to go visit a cave," Teru said. "But why are we going there? Are we going to meet someone or something?"

"Well, we're not off to see the wizard," Flagg said stretching in a way that reminded Teru of a very limber (if not heinous) cat. "But we are off to see someone in that same vein. Only, once you pull back the curtains, you may very well claw your eyes out right afterward."

Teru's stomach dropped. There were only two people who could have caused him to resort to such grisly actions, and Flagg was enough of an unscrupulous opportunist to feed Teru to the wolves if it suited his agenda.

"Kira?" Teru asked, his voice wavering.

"Nope, nope, and nope," Flagg grinned in spite of Teru's growing horror. "It's someone much, much worse than that."

"Randall..." Teru started, his voice suddenly much thicker and tense than it was moments ago, "For the love of God... I mean, you can't... you just can't-"

"Sorry there, Mister Tambourine Man," Flagg grinned. "But hey, you can't tell me that you didn't know that you were going to have to meet him at some point. Besides, the order's already been given. Not like I can renege on my promise now unless I want sulfuric acid poured into all of my orifices."

"Whatever you want, Randall," Teru croaked. "I will give you anything you want so long as-"

"Teru, I may not be Einstein, but I'm not Forrest Gump either, and the last thing I'm going to do is cross … that... 'thing'" Flagg said, beginning to frown at his inability to describe this much-feared individual. The frown shortly turned itself back into that same deranged cartoon grin, yet Teru's growing terror was not directed towards this. "But hey, look at it this way. If you're too pussy-footed to even see this guy, how the hell can you ever expect to even look into Kira's eyes without trembling like some little bitch?"

Teru knew that Flagg was right. Teru knew that facing his own personal nightmare was something that would probably empower him (if not eviscerate him). Teru knew that surviving this encounter would probably give him the strength that he needed in order to seek out Kira and then... do whatever came afterwards (Hopefully they could... talk it out. Or something. Teru hadn't thought that far ahead.).

Oh God, but this was different. This was an exception. This was the exception. This was death, evil, sadism, and nightmare incarnate all rolled into one horrifying amalgam, waiting for Teru to step into his private quarters before he subjected him to an infinite horror that no language could ever clearly express.

It had been a set-up this entire time. Teru had been meant to play Orpheus from the very beginning. And here, dressed aptly for this darkly comedic tragedy, was Randall Flagg, ready to add yet another name to his ever-growing list of aliases, this time as Charon, the ferryman to Hell.

"Well, then," Flagg grinned with a twinkle in his eye, "time to pay the Dark Man a visit."

I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.


And now, as a treat to everyone who has patiently waded through this deluge of bombastic prose, it is my pleasure to give to you something that can take your minds off the sordid facts that our planet is dying, that mainstream music is largely bollocks, and that Guillermo Del Toro is no longer working on The Hobbit. Go ahead and weep at that last one. I can wait.

OK, that's enough time. I'm sure you all cried, not just me. I'm sure of it.

(A beat)

OK, so then (sniff) without further ado, I bring you...

OMAKE!

I'm sorry, Mr. McGruder

(Panel shows both Ryuk of Death Note and Huey Freeman of The Boondocks in a middle default camera view)

Ryuk: Yeah, so that's the Death Note. With it you can kill pretty much anyone you want.

(Next panel is a close-up on Ryuk, but we can see a little of Huey writing in the Death Note.)

Ryuk: Thing is though, you gotta know the suckers' first and last name in order to-

(Next panel shows Huey handing the Death Note to Ryuk)

Huey: I'm done. Do you have another one?

With Apologies To Aaron McGruder

(First panel shows Huey working on his Death Note, seated in a leather office chair towards a desk. Michael Caesar is right behind the chair.)

Caesar: Are you still working on that Death Note?

Huey: Yep. How do you spell "Van Pelt"?

(This panel is just a beat)

Caesar: You're going to kill off Lucy from "Peanuts"?

Huey: The football thing... it bugs me.

Even More Apologies To Aaron McGruder

(This panel is the same as the first one of the previous comic: Huey is still in his chair at the desk, he's still writing in the Death Note, and Caesar is still behind the chair)

Caesar: Is Osama Bin Laden going to make the Death Note?

Huey: I don't know. It's just... he's so easy to hate, you know? So easy to kill. I want to challenge myself. I want my killing to have more effort than that.

Caesar: Kill outside the box?

Huey: Exactly!

Seriously, I Can't Apologize Enough

Huey: You know, I'm starting to run out of pages here. I don't think I'm going to be able to kill everyone that I want to.

Caesar: Huey, maybe it would be more healthy to write about people you would like to see live.

Huey: I did. It fits on this post-it note.

(Huey hands Caesar the post-it note; Caesar doesn't look surprised at what he sees.)

Caesar: Wow, with room to spare.

Huey: So should I write down the entire Hilton family or just the father?


WORKS CITED:

Antichrist (Movie)

The Last Temptation of Christ (Novel/Movie)

From Hell (Graphic novel)

Time Bandits (Movie)

Hour of the Wolf (Movie)

Dead Man (Movie)

The Stand (Novel/Graphic novel)

Angel Heart (Novel/Movie)

The Exorcist (Novel/Movie)

The Sandman (Graphic novel)

Batman: Heart of Hush (Graphic novel)

The Mist (Novella/Movie)

Scalped (Graphic novel)

Devil May Cry 4 (Video game)

The Dark Knight (Movie)

Antibodies (Movie)

Helter Skelter (Movie)

Othello (Play)

The Watchmen (Graphic novel/Movie)

Julius Caesar (Play)

Richard III (Play)

Spawn (Comic book/animated series)

Heroes (TV show)

Once Upon A Time In Mexico (Movie)

Metal Gear Solid (Video game)

Y: The Last Man (Graphic novel)

Downfall (Movie)

There Will Be Blood (Movie)

The Matrix (Movie)

Saw II (Movie)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Movie)

American Psycho (Novel/Movie)