Spawn # 2 Spawn: Born Again

# 2

by Brian Campo (bcampo@hotmail.com)

This is a work of fan fiction. Spawn and all related characters are owned by Todd McFarlane Productions, and I do not contest that ownership. This story is in no way official and it should not be taken as such. All characters in this story not owned by Mr.McFarlane are owned by me, though I would gladly loan them out if asked nicely.

Warning: This story may contain graphic violence, sexual situations and harsh language. If you shouldn't be reading it, don't.

Territorial Pissings

We think that we are so smart. We think that we know so much. We don't realize that what we think of as "The Real World" is only the tip of a vast iceberg. So many things are going on right below the surface and we have no idea There is more. So much more. We are sadly arrogant.
Strange frequencies flood the airways and no one even knows that they are there. Signals are broadcast from other worlds and even other dimensions and they go unnoticed by mortal men. They manage to go unnoticed because they are coded and scrambled so well that no normal communications device can detect them. But they are there, trust me. And there are ways to see them. All it takes is a special satellite receiver or a cable box with a special descrambler chip and you too can turn to the channels between channels.
For instance,
Channel 36.7 UET, Undead Entertainment Television, a channel created with the interests of spirits and ghosts in mind. One of it's more popular shows is Poltergeist Pranks, an hour long game show in which poltergeists compete to see who can drive a family out of their home faster. There are also travel shows featuring some of the nicest places in the world that a spirit would want to haunt.
Channel 54.4 Religious Programming aimed at ghosts who wonder where they will be going when they die this time.
Channel 17.5 Keep track of the soul market and be informed of all the latest in Murders and Aquisitions.
Now, turn it to Channel 63.2
ENN The Elysium News Network. Want to know to know what's going on in the afterlife? Want to know who's winning a war in some distant dimension? This is where you turn.

"Good afternoon." said the cheerful news anchor from behind her desk. "This is Milly Fontaine and your watching "Headlines." A snazzy title graphic popped up at the bottom of the screen and important sounding theme music accompanied it.
"First, our top stories. There's tension in Hades today as the Shit Shovelers that are condemned to spend eternity there are threatening to go on strike. Reporter Betty Cherub spoke to their leader Jimmy Hoffa early this morning."
Video of deceased Union man Jimmy Hoffa played. He was standing hip deep in a pool of burning shit with a shovel in one hand. A woman floated above the pool of shit with a microphone in her hand. A set of tiny wings that flapped on her back was all that was keeping her suspended in the air.
"Just what is it that you and your fellow Shit Shovelers want, Mr. Hoffa?" She had her shirt pulled up over her nose to block out the smell of crap and she sounded like she was trying to talk without breathing through her nose. Hoffa didn't seem to notice the smell at all.
"What do we want? Are you kidding me? Look at the conditions we have to work under! I mean, I understand that I'm condemned to hell and it's not supposed to be pleasant, but Jesus H Christ! Does the shit have to be on fire? Where is that written? And we want medical. And coffee."
"How close are you to an actual strike, Mr. Hoffa? And do you honestly think that it will help?"
"If we can get enough people to back us up I think we can make Hell a much better place to be. How soon? People are really unhappy down here, I'd say it's only a matter of days."
"There you have it, Milly, back to you."
Milly popped back onto the screen. "We put a call in to Malbolgia, Lord of Darkness and one of the rulers of Hell to ask how he felt about the threat of a strike. He had this to say."
A still photo of Malbolgia's ugly mug filled the screen and his voice crackled over what sounded like a bad phone line. "Strike?! Ha! Mr. Hoffa and his friends better just quit their bitching and get back to work or I swear to the enemy that me and my lawyers will eat them for breakfast and shit them out by lunch time. . . and I mean that in the literal sense. I'd also like to remind them that shoveling shit while standing on your feet is a privilege not a right."
Milly's smiling visage returned. "It looks like hell is no place to be right now. We'll keep you informed as the story progresses. Now we turn to our spiritual meteorologist, Chip Edwards. Hello, Chip. What can you tell us about all these weird going ons in New York?"
A man in his mid thirties wearing a hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts appeared on the screen. His hair was cut and combed to perfection and looked like it had been hair sprayed into place. He was standing in front of a screen that was showing what looked like a satellite photo of North America.
"Well, Milly, things are very strange indeed in New York right now. As you can see on these special satellite images, there is a bit of a spiritual storm brewing over that whole area. You got your good forces and your evil forces clashing and we get this big dark area of spiritual turbulence that you can see right here. The good news is that it doesn't seem to be moving or spreading to anywhere else. If you're planning on visiting New York in the next couple of days I'd pack a force field, 'cause you just might need it. Milly?"
"Thanks, Chip. We''ll be back after these messages."

There's an old saying that goes something like this: "Anyone who says they aren't scared doesn't understand the situation." Cog understood the situation perfectly and he didn't mind admitting that it frightened him to no end. He was trapped, trapped in the world behind a magic mirror. He had been using the mirror the day before for divination purposes when someone or something had attacked him from behind and shoved him headfirst into it's not so solid surface. It wasn't until after he had recovered his senses that he realized just how dire of a predicament he had found himself in. There was another saying that he felt applied to the current state of things. Something about an unsanitary tributary and the lack of proper means of motivation.
This wasn't just the world behind the magic mirror. This was the world behind all mirrors, all reflective surfaces for that matter. For every reflective surface in the real world there was an opening here, a window giving a clear view of whatever was being reflected. There was an infinite number of these windows in the darkness surrounding Cog and they stretched off into the distance until they looked like stars. They came in every conceivable shape and size, some recognizable, but most not. There were windows that floated in the middle of the air that looked out into bathrooms. These were most likely medicine cabinet mirrors. There were round windows at Cog's feet that showed a view of the sky. Presumably, they were reflections from mud puddles. In some places there were towers of the windows, hundreds of them stacked on top of each other and reaching far up into the sky. Cog believed that these were windows in the side of a skyscraper. Other odd shaped windows were anybody's guess. A piece of broken glass, a shiny bit of metal, there was no way to tell.
There was no way to get through the windows. They felt as smooth and cool as glass, but they were much stronger. Cog had beat at one of them with his fists until his knuckles bled and hadn't even cracked it's surface. Then he'd taken off one of his boots and pounded on the window with it's heel. He might as well have been beating on a slab of granite. He had given up at that point, acknowledging the fact that he wasn't getting out that way. He would have to find some other way to escape.
He was going to have to find help. There was only one person that he knew of that would or could help him, and that was Al. No one else knew how to find his lair. There wasn't anybody else who could understand the magical nature of Cog's hideout and could be made to understand what Cog would need in order to escape.
The problem was that Al was not an easy man to find. He was an elusive creature that spent much of his time in hiding Over the last few years he had spent his time learning every nook and cranny of the Bowery. Combine that with the fact that he was a hellspawn and capable of blending into just about any background and you have the world's best hide and seek player. If he didn't want to be found then you weren't going to find him. Cog could only hope that Al was not in one of those moods.
So Cog searched for him, making his way from window to window. Thankfully, the windows did seem relative to their real world counterparts. Meaning that if two windows were twenty feet apart here there was a pretty good chance they were twenty feet apart in the real world, the way the crow flies anyway. The buildings and rooms he was glimpsing through the windows looked familiar and he believed that they were within the immediate vicinity of the alleys. With a little practice he found that he could navigate to the places that he wanted to go with reasonable accuracy.
It was four hours later, according to Cog's pocket watch, when he finally spotted Al. He was looking through a dirty, broken window pane into a basement that was filled hip deep with water and garbage. The hellspawn was at the far end of the room digging through a pile of refuse, and from his body language, Cog guessed that he was throwing one of his fits. Emotionally, Al could be very immature. He was brash, spiteful, and when he didn't get his way, he got very angry. He seemed to be searching for something right now, and Cog couldn't tell if he was angry because he couldn't find what he was looking for, or if it was something else.
He beat on the window, hoping that there might be some sound on the other side to catch Al's attention. Either there wasn't, or Al was making so much noise with his tantrum that he couldn't hear it. Cog cursed in frustration and wracked his brain for someway to catch that numbskull's eye.
In the basement, Al stopped slinging garbage and looked down at his feet. A moment later he bent down and pulled a metal crate up out of the muck. Apparently this is what he had been looking for, because he seemed to be calming down. Al hefted the crate up onto his shoulder and waded across the flooded basement towards the window that Cog was observing from.
Delighted that he had a chance to get Al's attention Cog began jumping up and down and waving his arms. Hopefully Al would catch a glimpse of movement and notice him in the reflection. No such luck. Al's thoughts were somewhere else as he walked right past the window and out of the room.
Panicking, Cog headed in the same direction Al had and to the next window. He saw a brief flash of red just as he got there, the tail of Al's cape as it disappeared around a corner. He ran to the next window but saw no sign of Al anywhere. He had lost him.
He pushed down the despair he felt creeping up, telling himself that he would find a way out of this. Just keep looking. Al would turn up again and he could try to get his attention then. Cog moved on, checking the windows.
A little while later he came upon a window looking out into an abandoned lot. It was filled with homeless people. They were packed shoulder to shoulder and trying for all they were worth to see over the shoulder of the person in front of them. What were they all doing here? A soup kitchen, maybe? A fight? He navigated to another window for a better look. He found one that he gave him a clear view of the object of the crowd's attention. It was a man, a young man dressed in a white button up shirt, a black tie and black trousers. He held a white leather bound bible in one hand and in the other he held to the handles to a plastic bag full of food from Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was smiling at the crowd of people and nodding.
Cog recognized the man. "You dirty son of a bitch." he said as he glared at him. What was he doing here? Up to his old tricks, no doubt. He absolutely had to find a way out now. And quickly. There wasn't much time.

"Are you hungry?" shouted Timothy Rice. He was standing on top of a pile of busted up concrete, waving his bible at the crowd gathered around him.
The crowd responded with a resounding, "Yes, Lord!" They were listening to him attentively, but their eyes were on the bag of food swinging from his hand.
"Do you feel a need deep down inside you?" he continued. "Is there a hole deep inside that just never seems to be filled?"
"Yes, Lord!" replied the crowd, with a few "amens" thrown in for good measure. The smell of Fried Chicken was over powering. People who haven't eaten properly in months are feeling a little faint, it smells so good. Stomachs grumbled.
"I'm not just talking about physical hunger. I'm talking about a hunger for the Lord. Do you feel it?"
"Yes, Lord!"
Timothy took a step down from the top of the rubble pile. "The bible says that the Lord has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty handed. Do you believe that?"
"We believe, Lord!"
"Do you think he wants you to be hungry like this? Do you think he wants his children to go hungry?"
"No, Lord!"
"Didn't he feed the multitude with loaves and fishes?"
"Oh, yes he did. Yes, he did."
"Do you believe that he loves you just as much?"
"Yes, he does."
"I'm telling you that if you believe in him he can do the same thing right here today. Do you believe that he can do that?"
"Yes, Lord! Praise you, Lord!"
"Then let's ask him." he said. Timothy tucked the bible under his arm and held the bag of chicken up in front of him. He closed his eyes and began to pray, "Lord, I am standing here on behalf of your children, your hungry children, and I am asking you to bless this food so that I may do your will and feed them. Please, Lord, don't let one of these people go away hungry today. In your name we pray, Amen."
"Amen" said the crowd.
Timothy squatted down and pulled the top of the bag open. The crowd pushed closer around him. "It's ok, everyone. There will be plenty. Just believe. You." he said, pointing at an elderly man at the front. "Barbecue, original, or extra crispy?"
The man seemed hesitant. "Extra Crispy, I guess."
Timothy used a napkin to fish out a extra crispy chicken breast and handed it to the man. "You come back in a few minutes and I'll get you some biscuits and Joe-Joes. What about you, ma'am? What kind of chicken do you like?"
The woman standing next to the old man shrugged and said, "Doesn't matter."
Timothy handed her a piece of barbecue and she headed toward the back of the crowd with it. He continued to hand it out as the people in the crowd pressed forward.. He preached to them as he put the food in their outstretched hands, and blessed them and told them how much the Lord loved them. People came back for seconds on the chicken and for side dishes, which Timothy gladly handed over to them. There was no way there could have been that much food in that one plastic bag, but somehow there was. He just kept pulling it out. The crowd ate until their shrunken bellies could take no more, and then they sat down on the bare ground to listen to Timothy talk.
"There's more if you get hungry again." he told them. "When you're a child of God, there's always plenty."

Spawn ascended the stairs in the old apartment building. On one shoulder he toted the metal crate he had located earlier. He was quiet as he ran tirelessly up flight after flight of steps. His presence was only occasionally betrayed by the chink of chain or the snap of cloth. Rats tumbled out of his path as he raced past, never even knowing he was there until he was only a step away.
At the top of the stairs was a door leading out onto the roof of the building and Al shoved his way through it. Once outside he heard the voices of the crowd gathered below the building raised in worship. He scowled in disgust.
"Fucking sheep." he muttered.
He made his way to the edge of the roof and dropped to a crouch. From this angle he would be invisible to anyone below, should they happen to look up. He dropped the crate on the tarred surface of the roof and flipped up the latches holding the top closed. The lid opened to reveal a disassembled sniper rifle. A quick once over confirmed that the insides of the crate had remained dry even though it had been under water for several months now. Al started pulling out pieces and assembling the rifle. It went together quickly, Al's hands slipping the parts together like it was second nature. Half a minute later he was slapping in the clip and pulling back the slide.
He raised himself up a little and looked over the edge of the roof. The preacher was going to be an easy target. He was standing on top of a pile of busted concrete and the nearest of the bums was more than five feet away. A nice clear line of fire with minimal risk of hitting someone else.
Al pulled out the tripod on the front of the rifle and sat it on the rooftop. He pulled the rifle butt up to his shoulder and sighted Rice through the scope. Rice's face loomed up in crystal clarity. His expressions were animated as he spat his sermons at the hobos around him. Spawn watched him talk and tried to fight down the anger he felt building up in him.
Rice had made a fool out of him. He had done something to Al the night before, paralyzed him somehow. It had left Al unable to move for more than an hour. By the time that the ability to move had been returned to him Rice had long since disappeared. So Al had waited for him for him to return to the alleys and planned how he would deal with the little shit. He didn't want to get into another physical confrontation with him. It might result in the same thing that happened to him the night before. He decided it would be better if he just handled it the way he would have handled it in the old days. With a bullet between the eyes.
Al steadied his aim and placed the cross hairs over the preacher's face. The vertical and horizontal lines intersected right over the bridge of the preacher's nose. Al flipped the safety off and put his finger on the trigger. Take a breath. Hold it. Squeeze the trigger. Good night, fucker. The gun kicked and roared.
At that instant Timothy Rice stopped speaking and looked right up at Al. He was smiling. A young woman at the front of the crowd jerked. Blood and brain matter exploded from the far side of her head. She toppled forward, splattering blood on the busted concrete at Timothy Rice's feet. As he looked down, Rice's expression changed from a smile to a look of sorrow.
Spawn stumbled to his feet and away from the edge of the roof. He was shocked and sickened. What the hell had happened?! He'd had Timothy dead to rights. There was no way he could have missed a shot like that.
What had he done?! He had killed one of the people he had taken under his wing to protect. His anger had got the better of him and now an innocent woman was laying with her brains leaking out of her skull. Al dropped his rifle and clutched at his temples in rage. Stupid! Stupid! Full of shame and self loathing, he ran to the other end of the roof and leaped into the air. His jump took him over to the roof of the next building where he landed with a loud thud.. From there he dropped to a fire escape and descended to the alleys below. He ran.

There were tears running down Timothy's cheeks as he sat cradling the woman's shattered head. He looked at the shocked and weeping faces of the people in the crowd and said, "This is what you get. The word of God states that the wages of sin are death. You've been following a creature of sin. Every one of you. You look to him when you need something rather than looking to the Lord. You ask for his blessing for everything you do in your lives. You've put him before the Lord. This is what it gets you. The wages of sin are death and you're going to start getting paid in spades. Is that what you want?" He shouted the last sentence at them, sounding almost angry.
"No, please no." muttered the people in the crowd.
"It doesn't have to be this way. If you turn your back on sin and give your heart to the Lord then you can have life. Eternal life."
He put his hand against the gaping exit hole in the side of the woman's head.
"I feel the spirit of the Lord moving upon me." said Rice. "He's telling me that he's not done with this young woman yet. That he's still got wonderful things planned for her. He wants her to live and all we have to do is ask. I want everyone to close your eyes and when I say these words, just repeat after me." He closed his eyes and whispered, "Please Lord, if it is your will, let her live."
There was a low drone through out the crowd as the people repeated the words.
For a moment nothing happened, then a man standing nearby shouted, "Oh, Sweet Lord! Look!" The people in the crowd pushed forward, trying to get a better look. They could only catch glimpses of what was happening from in between Rice's splayed out fingers. The woman's head was mending itself. Her brain was reforming and the skull and scalp was starting to grow back together.
"That's right." said a smiling Timothy Rice. "Just believe."
As the wound sealed close, the woman twitched and took in a deep breath. Her eyes opened and she looked up into Timothy Rice's face. She looked confused.
"What happened?" she asked.
"The Lord smiled on you." said Rice.
A cheer went up from the people surrounding them and the sounds of praise and worship filled the Bowery.

Cog had found Al again. As he watched him through a window he couldn't help but shake his head in disgust. He was throwing another of his tantrums, kicking piles of garbage, then picking up an old tv and throwing it against a wall. His costume was reacting to his anger and the cape and chains were writhing around like it was looking for a fight. This was what he had to work with. A hellpowered, fit throwing brat.
There was no point in even trying to wave Al down. He was just too distracted with his tissy to notice anything. He would have to try something drastic. He was going to have to risk using magic, something that could be very dangerous in a place like the one in which he was trapped. What else could he do?
He put his thumb and middle finger together and raised them up so that they were level with the window he was looking out of. Then he turned his head, closed his eyes and whispered, "Etnamulli." Even though his eyes were closed he still saw white as the spell made a flash of light burst from his finger tips. Blinking away the spots in his vision, he looked out the window to see what Al's reaction had been. It had caught his attention. He had stopped his fit throwing and was looking around for the source of the light flash. Now, now was his chance. He waved his arms like a mad man and jumped up and down. Al's gaze went right past him. Then stopped and came back. He leaned forward as if trying to get a better look. Cog beckoned for all he was worth.
"That's right, you stupid son of a bitch. It's me. Come on, a little closer."
Al stepped closer. He looked confused as hell.
Cog opened his mouth wide and inhaled on the glass, steaming it up. Quickly, he wrote in the steam with his fingertip: IT'S MAGIC. I'M STUCK. NEED HELP.
Al read it, took a moment to realize that it was backwards from his side and then nodded that he understood. He raised his arms and shrugged as if to say, "What can I do?"
Cog wiped away the steam and breathed on the glass again. This time he wrote. GO TO MIRROR IN MY LAIR. A few seconds later Al nodded and took off running. Cog ran too, as fast as he could back to the mirror he had come in through. He reached it before Al because his route was a much straighter line. He figured it would take Al few minutes to get past all the traps and security measures. He clenched his hands into fist and danced a happy little jig. Finally! He would be back in the real world. He waited patiently and before too long, he saw Al come walking towards him. Cog grinned and promised that he would never say another bad thing about the man.
He exhaled on his side of the mirror's surface. In the steam he wrote: REACH IN.
Al hesitated for a moment and then slowly stretched one hand toward the mirror. The clawed ends of his fingers went right through the surface. He jerked his hand back in surprise, but then reached in again, this time a little more confidently. When it was in all the way to his elbow Cog took hold of it and pushed it back the other way. Al took the hint. He wrapped his fingers around Cog's wrist and pulled. A moment later Cog was falling out of the mirror onto the floor of his lair.
"Thank god." he said to Al as he got to his feet. "There's trouble. The people of the alleys are in danger."

NEXT: Promised Land