Demons – Chapter One: Stolen Weapons and Stolen Minds
Disclaimer: I don't own Schwarz, and I don't own America. And I'm glad that I don't own America's Most Wanted. I own everything else though since it's based in a made up city with a bunch of made up people who aren't even going to be there forever. And I actually built the house, thank you. In my head. Spiffy Co. synthesized, Spiffy Co. imagined. I own Spiffy Co. I am Spiffy Co. So stick that up your nose. And I have a patent pending for Schu-crack. It's not illegal neither. It's Spiffy Co. orientated as well.
The battle was ruthless. A dozen men maybe. All armed. Crawford fought them all though. His own power. His strength alone. And somewhere, where all was dark, a woman smiled.
It was another few days of solitude for Brad Crawford as he thought things through, trying to make sense of events. The attack of the night before had been only one of several since he arrived in America. Another one of his nightly hunts interrupted. He really hated it when things like that happened to him. After all, he was a very scheduled man.
Schwarz was of no help, all of them weak in their own ways. All of them still yet adjusting to the move, to the new and foreign surroundings. Like animals, he thought scornfully, a hint of amusement at the edge of his mouth. They're just like animals. They can't even exist without a proper master.
Crawford tapped his pencil absently on his pile of books. Even if he had the help of Schwarz, he very much doubted that he would be less worried and agitated. He tapped his pencil harder. And Schuldich would only get in the way. Just like he had last time, when they were in Japan. At least, Crawford reflected, unable to turn off the voice of his mind, this time I have the telepath properly distracted.
Yes, it was true. Schuldich was already working at peeling off the layers of reason the men of the Senate had – well, had, at this point. There wasn't much of it anyway. A nuclear war wasn't exactly what Crawford was looking for, but he was more than sure that he would get something very much like it. He hoped to get rid of the few southern countries he didn't particularly want to visit. Or perhaps whole continents. But it would be rather disappointing if absolutely nothing was left in the end. What kind of fun would that be?
Crawford tapped his pencil even harder as his thoughts headed back to the attack from the night before. The wooden writing utensil escaped his fingers and flew across the room, narrowly missing Nagi's new cat. The feline had been sleeping peacefully upon the computer monitor. He only noticed that when, in a fluster to leave the room, the fur-ball hissed at him angrily.
Crawford sighed and resigned to analyze the situation more determinedly. The assailants weren't dressed as if they'd come from any gang around this area. The men attacking him had faces like fighters used to combating an army at close hand. The faces were full of rage and the eyes were as mindless as those of zombies. They all fell too easy at Crawford's hand, in their senseless state. The only thing that really bothered him was that they were attacking him. And not to mention the way they fight...
Crawford stroked his chin. None of this could possibly make any sense at this point. He needed more evidence. He needed a drink. He needed food. He stood, grabbing his jacket, and left the new Schwarz mansion.
At first, he walked past the tree. Then, he doubled back to see Farfarello perched up on a limb, like a cat ready to strike. Crawford found his description of the Irishman amusing. He didn't have to ask what the younger Schwarz was up to. A churchbell tolled and the knifeman took of into the night. And so did Crawford, but in the opposite direction. Away from the house of God.
His hands were deep in his pockets as he strolled along the familiar streets. He'd grown up here. He'd been taken away from here. He'd been exploited elsewhere. And he committed his first murder in that Elsewhere. A real winter was creeping up on them. It was late October, and he was getting comfortable in his old home. Even though the worst of his life was not too far from here at all, he was what passed for happy in this place, in his mind.
He heard an sound and knew just what it was. A pack of wild people. Men, most likely. He would have guessed that they followed him, if they were not such a clumsy bunch. He heard voices grumbling, felt the eyes lock onto their prey – him. He only let out a long tired sigh. When will people learn? And he took out his gun. He wasn't in the right mood for exercise tonight.
He didn't make just shots in the dark, he made winning shots in the dark. He rotated on his heel, only able to take out several before he ran out of bullets. He put the gun away and prepared himself to fight hand to weapon. It wasn't a fair fight, but he was sure that his attackers had life insurance, at least, before they became the mindless drones they were now.
They came at him, with pipes in hand, chains, throwing stars, sticks, twigs. Anything they could get their wretched hands on. A few charged him while the others watched, mad grins plastered on their faces. Crawford only had to step back for them to end up impaling one another with their sharpened tree limbs or lead poles. With a groan, they fell upon each other, and, bending at the waist and knees, they were still somewhat upright. Crawford swore he saw sensibility in their eyes for a moment. In the next, they were dead and gone from this world.
The others charged him, each ending up with a similar fate, a separate process. He watched each one lose miserably and result in death. He observed how they fought. They ran at him and flailed about madly, mindlessly, with a skill. He saw that they had no souls. He saw that their minds had been raped and stolen.
Crawford woke up in his office after that, from a blood coma. It was much like a food coma, but so much deeper. The warm salty metallic taste he hated so was just what he needed to feel better after a fight like that. He smiled in satisfaction of his full stomach, or wherever it was that the blood went. He stretched. The cat jumped down from his lap with a yowl. Funny, he thought, I like cats now that Weiss is good and gone. He stared out the window at the new night, raw in its darkness and cold.
There was a knock at the door. Crawford wrinkled his brow. What was he supposed to say at this point. Oh, yes, now I remember... "Come in," he said. No, it was more of a command. He commanded. The door opened behind him and then didn't close.
"It's all finished, Crawford." It was Schuldich, sounding resigned and lackluster.
"What is?" he asked. His mind was still overflowing with blood. Mmmmm...
"The Senate is falling over the edge that I put before them."
Crawford knew that metaphor. He couldn't remember at that point where he'd heard it from, but it involved putting an edge in front of someone, and knowing where it was so you yourself didn't fall in. The metaphor Schuldich used involved a trapping maneuver, spliced with going insane. Crawford had to think all these things through until his mind came back to him fully.
Schuldich had paused. "What now?" he asked.
Crawford swiveled in his chair to face the map on the wall. "Have the President bomb a few of those places." He pointed to the southern half of the map. "But not yet. I want to be able to stay here for awhile."
"Then... what should I do in the mean time?"
Crawford smiled to himself very faintly. Only he knew it, he was sure. He wondered faintly why Schuldich was succumbing to his orders with such little questioning. Perhaps he learned his lesson the last time. "Suicides. Maybe a few school shootings." He turned and stood. "Another good idea is perhaps to show people their desires, and then force them to indulge on them until they die from exhaustion or otherwise. But," he paused, "let's not rush things." He smirked. "I might even consider making this the center of our chaos-ruled world."
"I thought... that we didn't want a kingdom."
Crawford thought again how funny it was to hear questions from a telepath. "And we don't. We want the end of humanity. Only those able to survive the demons of Hell may be fit to join us."
"Recruits," Schuldich guessed shortly. He, of course, had no other way of knowing. Not with Crawford's mind barriers at such a full force, having to do with his newly acquired powers.
"If you want to call them that."
Schuldich didn't leave. He leaned against the doorway and watched Crawford. "I'm bored," he said. "Isn't there anything else for me to do?"
"You could kill them yourself instead of manipulating them from afar. It'll dirty your hands though. And chance getting us caught."
"We can get out of jail easily."
Crawford crossed his arms. "We'll have to be forced to leave our cushy location and run for Europe. And hope you have enough power to keep people from recognizing us from America's Most Wanted." He crossed the room and went to the window. "I need to fid out something before we can leave anyways." He looked back at Schuldich. "Have you been attacked recently? On the streets or anything?"
"Attacked, no. But followed, yes." There was an interlude of silence. Crawford thought he heard the gears of Schuldich's head moving, squeaking with the past's immobility. "I'm guessing you were attacked?"
Crawford nodded. "Keep your eyes out. I don't want to leave yet. I don't want to be forced out of my own country."
Schuldich agreed resolutely with an absent bobbing of his head. Up and down up and down. Then he left, not bothering to close the door behind him, leaving Crawford alone to contemplate at the window. And contemplate he did, practically throwing thoughts at the glass.
It was some moments later, when Crawford caught himself thinking too hard about nothing. A tree moved unnaturally, and outside the door, Schuldich snickered. "Get out of my head," Crawford commanded. His Voice boomed with the compelling power of a vampire, of the Gaki. I can't possibly be the Gaki. I'm not Japanese.
"No, but most of those are dead. No more Japanese vampires. You were only bitten by one." The voice in his head caught him off guard, as did Schuldich's tree games. It was not his own mind voice.
"Schuldich!" he reprimanded toward the door. His Voice carried once again throughout the many halls of the mansion. Though a part of him knew that it wasn't the soda-pop-orange-haired telepath.
"What?" The German stepped back into the room, an explosion in his mouth, at the tip of his tongue.
"That just now... was not you, was it?"
"What just now? The tree?"
"No, nevermind. You may leave." He kept his eyes intent on the world beyond the window. Still night. It will be for some time now. He better get out while he can.
Schuldich paused before he left again. "I'm worried, Crawford. About this. We all seem a little too content living here." His mind voice entered in Crawford's thoughts.
"We can own and keep a variety of weapons here, legally." He was speaking to nothing. Schuldich was gone. With nothing else to occupy him, Crawford opened the window. It was a good night to begin making negotiations.
The man cowered against the wall, shaking. "What do... What do you want?" His round, rimless glasses shook off from his nose. They fell to the floor and broke. Crawford stepped on the glass shards.
He waved his gun casually, in a wishy-washy manner, the manner of a man who wasn't entirely sure of what he wanted. He was having too much fun. Especially when he was pretty sure the man already pissed himself, he was so scared. "Well..." he mused, tilting his head to the side, his eyes rolling upwards. "I'm not sure. What do you have?"
"We have some... nice firearms... over there. They're... very accurate and powerful... A guy like you should... should be able to handle the kickback... right?" He stepped to the side to run. He was shaking and knocked down a rack of newly made gun barrels. He almost went down with them, but Crawford had grabbed the man by the shirt with his one free hand.
"You're not going to leave your customer to fend for himself, are you?" The voice purred into the old man's ear as Crawford lifted he shopkeeper off the ground. "I need something better than firearms. Something whose bullets can't be tracked. How about a... sword?"
The old man lifted a hand weakly, amidst sobbing, and pointed to the far corner. "My... best ones... They're... over there." He yelped out when he was dropped to the floor abruptly.
Crawford didn't walk away. "Alright," he said. "I've had my fun. I suppose I could let you go." He watched as hope restored itself in the man's eyes, and he felt the smug feeling of a white lie doing so much damage. "I'll end your suffering. Isn't that the greatest escape there is? Ultimate? No one and nothing can follow you there." His smile widened into a malicious grin when he shot the man. No use in using the blood. Crawford had no need for the blood of cowards. He was still full anyhow.
He crossed the room and went to the security office just to make sure everything he had killed was good and dead. He reached over the guards' heads with a gloved hand and pulled the security tape from the VCR. A little entertainment for Farfarello.
When he was back in the main room of the shop, he heard sirens, but knew that they weren't for him. He mused at how ironic it was that they were called sirens when the Sirens themselves lured sailors. He laughed aloud imagining a fat doughnut-bellied cop trying to lure criminals with his sirens. The sirens weren't for him anyways, he reminded himself. The future could tell you things like that. You just had to know where to look.
He walked to the rack of choice swords and picked out his favorite. It was a black bladed beauty. He grinned a little, nostalgia nipping at him. The sword was a samurai's katana. How Crawford wished that he could have fought Ran with this little piece spawned of something from Heaven and Hell. A demon sword, godly created.
He swished it through the air a few times. He was born with a feel for this sword, he decided. He chose a carefully crafted sheath for it, put it away at is side, and left the scene. As he left, he figured it humorous to see a well-suited man walking around in the middle of the night with a samurai sword at his side. He chuckled a little bit. Now that Weiss was gone, he developed somewhat of a humor.
As he knew it, the cops were not there for cries of help uncalled. They were not there for Crawford, no. They were in the middle of busting a high-powered crack house, the owner of it having sold something kids called Schu-crack. My neighborhood, the vampire thought as walked away, dragging his feet a bit. He was tired though morning wasn't mounting.
There was no attack that night, despite Crawford's creeping tension that he was being followed. He didn't want to lead whoever it was to his house. He was already pretty sure that they knew the way, but no chances could be taken, ever. Not on a night of one of his crime sessions – he didn't necessarily want to call it a spree. Not when he had his new sword...
He checked into a hotel. And he slept until seven the next evening, when it was just beginning to get dark.
To Be Continued...
(A/N: I want reviews. Please, be kind and give me reviews.)