Post by Kurosawa Ryou on Feb 2, 2014 23:19:26 GMT -6
A fog clouded the cold damp streets of London while a lone figure traversed one of the cities dark alleyways. His every movement seemed labored, as he supported his limping form with a cane. Despite this he only stopped to prop himself against the wall a few moments to rest, while holding his coat close to his figure. A Siamese cat that had been following close at his heels looked up at him curiously before looking around with a hint of paranoia in her eye, “Master I do not find this course of action wise. You are not your father…” The man suddenly looked over his shoulder staring at the animal for only a moment before suddenly he pulled his sword form the cane and cut the animal down the middle.
He didn’t say a single word, and only watched his breath formed clouds in front of his face. Unmoving except to take his top hat off to wipe his brow, the figure spoke to the two pieces of the feline “Alright Hasameli you have had your fun, I already know you’re not dead.” The two pieces of the cat’s body, melted down into a black cloud that formed up into a cat like figure around the blade. Her head was still pierced by the sword, but the animals features remained that of smoke, “Now Master, you know you will have to do better than that to kill me, though the same can’t be said for yourself.”
“I am fine no thanks to you.” At these words he drew the blade form Hasameli’s head to return it to its hidden seethe, and then continued his forward movement down the alley which was nearing its end. It was not the kind of night they had been hoping for and the streets were still sparsely crowded with those going from place to place. The man’s only visible eye narrowed with a certain annoyance at the situation. This only grew worse as he watched Hasameli run out into the street, and melt into a drain unnoticed leaving her master with an amused retort, “So says the person with the bullet in his leg.”
There was a certain bitter truth to the words that brought a grumble form his lips. Being 3/4th mortal had always had its disadvantages if one considered the makeshift bandage on his bleeding leg, but at the same time… it had its perks. Limping out of the ally way and down the street it didn’t take him long to find the house he was looking for. In the process of walking up the stairs, the man felt a weight on his head, and knew that it was another of his companions, “Ikenga… I trust your sister has updated you on the situation?” The Cheshire-esque cat grinned widely at his fortune, “Why of course Master, but of course you know what such overuse of my abilities cost…”
“You’re only getting a pint of it, and I would prefer you did what you could to prevent my leg from getting infected.” The cat’s laugh pervaded the air with amusement, “Ah Master, now what would give you the idea I wanted such a silly thing like that to happen. But seriously I can only give you 10 seconds for that amount, so do act fast.” The familiar’s chiding was as annoying as it always was to the Frenchmen in part because of the creature’s accent. So he pulled out his pocket watch to get things back to business.
It was quite an odd looking watch, which was completely onyx with white lines running all over it. Symbols formed over its surface and softly began to light up and glow as the man his thumb on it. The cat climbing down off his masters hat and onto his shoulder in an almost spider like manner proceeded to his back as the animal seem to become malnourished. Its skeleton’s shape was very visible through its skin as it rested it head on the male’s shoulder. Large eyes glowing with the light from the watch, as the cat reached out and pressed the button to open it.
Then suddenly everything around them came to a halt, only the movements of the Frenchmen and his enigmatic cat continued. He pulled out what looked to be a few lock picking tools and went to work, and in only a matter of moments the door was open. Tucking the tools away into his pocket, causing the drips of a now immobile rain to splash against his skin, he stepped inside before closing the watch.
The house was completely dark, except for the lights that shown in through the windows. It was quite too, with the only sounds that could be heard was that of a ticking clock in the background and the floor creaking below his feet. Looking around the room the man noticed some light filtered down form one of the hallways. The very sight seemed to make the shadows around him dance with glee, before the Frenchmen leaned on his cane and mumbled to himself. Suddenly five bolts of silent blue electric current spread from the cane’s tip causing the shadows to recede as Hasameli flowed into the house through the key hole.
“Did you bring your sister Akadi with you Hasameli, or is she already here?” The Frenchmen scanned the room as he slowly started limping towards the lit hallway. Pulling a pistol out of his coat as he moved there was a new voice that quietly filled the air, “What do you think the answer to that question is Monsieur?” The weapon in his hand was quickly brought to bear on a nearby painting which now had an amused cat like face spread across its surface. Slowly the painting started to melt down the wall, like slow moving syrup that was the color of blood; it formed up into the shape of another Siamese cat. An amused laugh was the only answer she got from the demi-god, before jumping down to follow him as he crossed the threshold into the well-lit hallway.
It didn’t take him long to reach the source of the light, and at the same time his reason for coming to London. Sitting in the center of the room, was an old man who had fallen asleep at his desk. The moment the Frenchmen laid eyes on him, the shadows around his feet seemed to move again though now it seemed more forceful, and so was his reaction. Taking his cane and hitting the wooden floor with the tip, an action which had the result of stopping the shadows, but also making a sound that woke up the old man. His head barely made it off the desk before the feeling of a gun barrel pressed against the back of it, “Hello there Dr. Faust… Welcome back to the land of living.”
A maniacal laugh came from under the locks of raven hair that covered the Frenchmen’s face at the look of panic on the man’s face, “Don’t worry Faust if I wanted you dead… well I don’t need to tell you what would have happened.” Lowering the gun he limped over to a nearby chair and fell back into it. Only now did he let the exhausting nature of his journey become apparent, and the three cats make their presence known. With Akadi and Hasameli jumping up on top of the desk to sit beside each other, tails moving in unison as they both said, “Greetings again Dr. Faust.” Ikenga malnourished formed headed to a small coffee table next to his master, before slumping down on top and giving the demi-god a puppy dog eyed look.
Taking off his top hat with a sigh and completely ignored the fearful look on the old man’s face, the Frenchmen looked at the cat, “You know you’re going to be the death of me one day.” There was an obvious tone of sarcasm in his voice as he raised his ghostly pale hand, and extended his lithe pointer finger towards the cat. The creature’s eyes shown with glee and glowed red as it opened its mouth and began to suck on the demi-god’s finger. Slowly Ikenga’s body began to take its more plump shape again; the cat’s body expanding as it happily gorged itself. Akadi covered her mouth as she laughed, “Oh dear Charles you really spoil that silly kitty don’t you.” Hasameli joined her sister in laughing until the demi god looked at them with the only part of his face was visible through his curtain of raven hair. A single grey eye which seemed to show that even under his currently calm exterior, that there was a madness constantly shifting under the surface. The reaction was instant as the two cats stopped laughing, and Charles turned his attention to Dr. Faust.
“Come now old man, no need to panic I know you have seen them before. They are not going to harm you.” His words did nothing to soothe the other man’s fear, especially when Charles tucked back his hair over one ear to reveal his own Cheshire like grin spread across his face. Though the doctor regained his composure somewhat before saying, “It is not these minor demons that I fear Castex, but their older brother. Please don’t tell me you have brought him here?” Almost to as if to prove a point he tried to shoo Hasameli off the table, but his hand just passed through the cat, brushing puffs of smoke to the side. Laughing at his failed attempt to touch her Faust soon found himself faced with Hasameli’s disembodied head, “Now now Faust I can kill you just as easily as my older brother.”
“Hasameli! I told you to calm down.” Charles voice for a moment lost its calm nature, and seemed to turn to that of a growl. Even now though that large grin, and sense of amusement never left his features and as he turned back to Faust his voice held that same even if not ominous tone again, “Why of course Faust. He has always been here with me; ever since my wife died and you gave me that book and his knife… he has never left.” Almost as if to remind the other man of that day, Charles tucked his back behind his left ear to show the bandages that covered his missing eye. “Would you like to talk to him again Faust? I am sure he would like to taste some of your flesh as well.”
The old man sighed with a simple shake of his head, “That is quite alright Charles. I have seen enough of that thing to last me a life time. I have to ask though, how much have you given to him since that Charles? Is it really all worth it?” There was no reply from the one eyed manic, who just sat there rocking back and forth in the chair he sat in. The look on his face was one of pure annoyance with the old man who dared to question his sacrifices. A distinct tapping of metal on wood as Castex continued to fidget in his chair, “Sacrifice Faust? You know nothing of the word. Your silly ideals of sacrifice are nothing when compared to the actual act of sacrifice itself.”
Reaching over with right hand, Charles pulled his sleeve up reveal the thing which had been making the steady tapping noise. It was his left hand, or at least what had been his left hand. In its place was now a machine, with small metal bars connected together by joints, which dove into the fingers of the scale armor gauntlet. It was out of these that extended blades which were about the length and a half of Charles fingers. Plus just by taking one look at the weapons, it was obvious that they had recently seen use in combat… especially because of the dried blood spread across its surface. “When you have the willingness to sacrifice an entire piece of yourself, just to try and save something you care about, then we can talk about sacrifice Faust.” His words seemed to cause a certain feeling of heaviness to settle over the over the air between them.
“Now then speaking of saving things we care about… do you have what I came here to get Faust?” His words broke through the silence that had settled in the air between them, yet held underlying venom that didn’t help to calm the nerves of Dr. Faust. It was the whole reason that the demi-god had come to visit in the first place, seeking the only place and time which he stood a chance of killing Death. That was through the use of a person’s Necronomicon, or the book which tell you the exact time, place, and method by which someone would die. It was the only known way to figure when and where Death would appear. Reaching over to a nearby draw the Dr. slowly pulled out a leather bound book that was wrapped up in black string. Then looking over at Charles, while keeping his hand on the volume he spoke with a bit more authority in his voice.
“Now you know not to open this until the correct date, or else Death will figure out what you are up to. Really I am not even supposed to give this to you Charles.” The other man’s words seemed to do little more than amuse Charles at this point, “Well let’s be glad you don’t really have a choice in that matter. Now do tell me you got the correct one?” Words spilling from his lips as he tilted his head to the side and stared at Faust with that toothy grin, expecting no less than a positive answer. “Well actually Charles I ended up hitting a little snag there. You see finding the Necronomicon for a god is technically impossible. Your father’s book is so well guarded I don’t even think that you could get at it if you wanted to. If it’s any consolation though, I was able to get my hands on your mothers Necronomicon.”
The entire time Faust spoke, there was a constant sound of metal clawing at wood. Charles found himself in the situation of trying to control his constant burning anger at the human’s failure. It was one of which there was no consultation prize, because without his father’s Necronomicon, Castex didn’t think he would have enough time to prepare for his fight with Death. “Tell me old man, how much time do I have at least before I must face Death?” The look on Faust face showed that he understood the serious nature of the situation, especially because of Charles unstable proclivities.
“Well I would say that you have about 13 years, give or take a year. I won’t really know until it gets closer to the date, but I will make sure to let you know. I am sorry it is not what you wanted, but it is quite a fair length of time if you ask me. Considering your current abilities should be able to easily find plenty of ways to overpower death by then.” Running his fingers over his chin Charles considered the other male’s words, “Yes I guess you could be right, but I would also like know if you were able to take care of that other request which we had talked about?”
“Now Charles we already talked about that, I told you that I am not allowed to give you his Necronomicon. The historical significant of any changes someone like yourself could make are too widespread to consider.” As the last word trailed off from the doctor’s lips everything in the room suddenly grew very silent. The only the thing that registered in the dark corridors was the sound of the steady tapping of the demi god’s bladed finger on the chair. Shadows behind the Frenchmen’s chair began to move and dance. The edges of his eyes began to slowly cloud over with tentacles of blackness that traveled across the white of Charles’s eye like an oily substance. Until eventually the entire orb had been infected and in their place only two deep black soulless pits remained. A deep disembodied voice, which reverberated through the house, broke the silence, “Do you have a death wish old man.”
His swift reaction to the words was one that belied his advance age. Faust suddenly swung his hand around off the desk, and out of his sleeve popped a derringer. The golden weapon, which was adored with crosses, never had a chance to fire. As suddenly the very shadows from under Charles chair spiraled up out of the floor. Wrapping themselves around the old man’s wrist and violently slamming his arm into the desk in mere seconds. As the old man’s cry of pain turned into a scowl of defiance, a bump in the black tentacle traveled up from the floor to where the dark appendage held onto the man’s wrist. The disembodied voice spoke again, “Now Faust, there no need for all this fuss. Just give the young master what he wants and the pain goes away.”
Tightening its hold on Faust wrist the shadowy tentacle twisted the doctors wrist again, elected another pained reaction, but also words of defiance, “You know damn well I can’t do that you infernal beast. Your sense of historical balance is just as good as mine. So don’t feign ignorance for the sake of your sadist pleasures.” The word pleasure had barely left his lips when smaller whip like tentacles shot out of the main appendage to wrap around the old man’s neck. Slowly they tightened squeezing and chocking Faust, as the bump that was formed near his wrist split open at a gradual pace. Revealing to the world a large shining eye, with a deep black iris, while white around it seemed to glow as though by some internal light source. As this happened a large toothy grin that was shaped in an almost perfect crescent, and glowed with the same whiteness as the eye revealed itself.
“Oh silly Faust I haven’t even begun to indulge myself of my sadist pleasures with you. We can certainly go that route if you wish, but I am going to give you two choices. We can either do this the easy way, or the hard way? The choice is yours. All I want is for you to give Charles the location of Napoleon’s book.” Even though he couldn’t speak the look in Faust eye’s told the demon everything that he needed to know, “Well the hard way it is then.” So the nameless creature tightened both of its hold on its human victim. The noises of the old man struggling to breath filled the room, until suddenly the sluggish and distance voice of Charles said, “Just let him go Fear, you have had your fun. Besides he is no good to me dead.”
There was a moment’s hesitation on the part of shadowy creature. It’s large eye rolling backward to stare at Charles curiosity, as though considering withier not to obey. In the end though Fear decided to release his hold on the doctor, after which he rapidly melted away back under the chair. Like a stream running out into the ocean, the dark appendage along with the now closed eye, disappeared into the shadow under its master. The creatures disembodied voice leaving another sinister warning, “Be glad Faust the young master is more forgiving than I am.”
As Fear disappeared into the shadow, so did the writhing darkness within Charles eyes. The Frenchmen’s head slumped over; while he tried to regain his composure, and recover the energy he had expended putting the demon back its cage. Fear unlike the other demons, was no lesser creature that Charles’s offerings guaranteed instant loyalty. This one unlike the others had plans of its own other than simply taking Charles soul… Fear wanted his mind and body. So despite the loyalty that was demanded of the demon by Charles lineage, that didn’t mean it, would not try to tip the balance every time the young master called. Slowly yet surely, Charles came around, though one had wonder if there was really any difference.
“Fine Faust, we will leave this matter be… for now. I expect though to find that when I come back next time, you will have changed your mind. Remember, that Fear isn’t the only one who enjoys the taste of human flesh every now and then.” The three cats’ that were in the room with them all turned in unison to regard the old man with a hungry look, pink tongues caressing their lips in all at the same time. Even Charles himself joined his demon familiars in this display of hunger. The Frenchmen himself had discovered long ago that he shared the creatures taste for human flesh as a little something to spice up a meal every now and then. Castex had always found that there was an almost indescribable feeling of intimacy when it came to eating another’s body, and have become one with your own.
Sitting there in silence the clock in the hallway began to sound out the changing of the hour. A signal of another day passing as the cuckoo bird sounded out 12 times from within his home on the time piece’s peak. The sound made Charles suddenly stand up from his chair and grab the book off the table along with his hat, “Doctor, go to your basement now… hide and don’t come out for anyone. No matter whom knocks on your door, or how loud they scream, don’t open it.” With those words he left the room, hobbling down the hall on his cane. The two Siamese cats were following close behind at his heels, as the more Cheshire-esque disappeared into thin air as he floated after the group.
Charles didn’t even stop as he reached the front door and simply kicked it open as he continued his forward movement, slipping his top hat on his head. Only to stop right there on the very top step of the entrance way, as he found himself facing about twenty redcoats, all in line formation… guns aimed right at him. The threaten array of firepower before him, only made the demi god grin. The fact these men were not scared could meant only one of two things. They were either form a very elite unit, or these men had not been told what exactly they were going up against. Given the nature of things Charles was willing to bet on the former, “Alright where are you hiding you cheap little bastard? I know that one of you was sent to oversee this operation. Now show yourself, before I have Fear drag you up here.”
Stepping out from behind the formation of solider was a thin figure wearing a black robe, and white cape that folded up around its body. On the front of the black robe was a red cross that looked like four triangles pointing towards a circle at the center. Over its head was a black cowl, which it did not remove as a deep voice spoke from within, “Well Charles, it seems we have found you yet again. Now please do be a good boy this time and surrender. Things will go over so much easier for you that way, and maybe you can avoid torture...” The only answer to the request, was the soft sound of Charles’s laughter, slowly it ascended to bellowing heights, before settling back down again. Then he simply waved his hand dismissively while he started speaking, “I think you gentlemen ser….”
His words were cut off, by the noise of a gunshot ringing echoing up down the fog covered street, with the man in the cloak pointing a now smoking pistol at Charles. The demi-god stood there staring curiously at his would be attacker, through the hole that had been made in middle of his hand. Shaking his head the Frenchman sighed, “Very well…” So with a quick movement of his arms Charles flung back his duster revealing two large golden pistols strapped to the sides of his waist. They both looked ahead of their time, with six rotating barrels in a circle, and a clip attached to the bottom. The gold plating was covered in strange symbols, such a pyramid surrounded by floating orbs, and two faces trying to tear away from each other. His hand never reached for the handles of the weapons as Ikenga’s still plump form solidified itself out of thin air with his teeth sinking into the man’s neck.
The demon’s eyes glowed red, as did that of the demi god from who it feasting and as Charles coat fell back down into its normal position several things happened all at once. Up and down the streets, the glass lamps were busted as the fires went out leaving a shroud of darkness only made more intense by the fog. The only one left burning was the one next to the stair way on which Castex stood, casting him in an eerie light as Ikenga fell off his master’s neck. The blue with dark green strip cat lay on its back, plump and satisfied with all four legs up in the air, at the demi-gods feet next to four golden clips. A single brass casing laid on the porch for everybody that now lay in the street with a bullet between the eyes. The only person who still standing, was the figure wearing the black cloak.
A heavy air fell over the street as Charles stared at the bodies of the fallen soldiers. Not a single one had been able to fire a shot in retaliation. Clenching his injured hand, until his knuckles were white and streams of fresh blood flowed from his wound to paint across the pale skin. There was a growl that came from his throat when he muttered, “What a waste of such good soldiers.” Turning to look in the direction of the cloaked figured whose demeanor had not changed, Charles ran his tongue over his lips as a hungry look overtook his features, “I think I am going to have to enjoy a special meal with you my friend. We will have to honor their deaths after all, don’t you agree?” Walking slowly down the stairs, the demi-god stopped half-way down as he watched the other person walk around to put the bodies between them.
A distant and soft tune slowly filled the air, as the sound grew louder with each second. The deep voice floated out from within the depths of the black hood once again, as two old withered hands were brought together in a pyramid with fingertip touching fingertip, “I think will be declining that invasion my dear boy, because you see this is not over yet. We know about what your little pets can do Charles, but even they have limits… even you have limits. Now it is time to break them.” By this time the previously unrecognizable ever growing noise in the background had become quite clear. Ringing throughout the streets was the sound of bag pipes being played.
The Frenchmen’s face contorted to one of pure fury. His eyes buried with rage as his body began to quiver, as his eyes slowly turned black, “You will pay for getting them involved priest. I will slowly eat you myself… that much is a promise.” Looking away from the other man, and down at the ground in a almost solemn manner Hasameli appeared in front of her masters eyes. Sitting there at his feet that cat gazed up at him a hint of worry in her voice, “Are you going to be alright Master? We could always run, and then kill him later.” Reaching out to his familiar with the wounded hand, Charles spoke in a tone of resignation, “No… If we run, then they will capture Faust. I owe the old man that much.” No matter how much he hated what he was about to do, he owed Faust a lot more than he respected his enemy.
The sound had reached a fever patch as they soon began to appear out of the fog. The tall black fur covered hats with the sound of bag pipes, being the sign that men from the 42nd Highlanders had arrived. Charles like many others remembered his only worthy human adversaries by their moniker, ‘The Black Watch’. Seeing them being used by the unworthy piece of trash, which even dared to cloak itself in the robes of authority made the demi-god’s blood boil. They were the only human enemies that he treated with respect when enjoying the psychotic thrill that battle produced. He gave their wounded mercy, or even no quarter if that was the order of the day, but in the end the petty squabble here on the street tonight was above humans so willing to die.
“Hasameli my darling, can you please mask my pain? I always find you are so good at that.” The cat knew what her master meant by this and instantly jumped up towards the open wound in his hand, and turned into smoke just before she hit it. The demon’s black cloud entered the hole as though Charles hand had become a vacuum, and disappeared as though it had never existed. After a few moments every breath that the man took expelled a light cloud of dark smoke, every movement caused small puffy clouds of darkness to seep from his pores. His eyes clouded over with a constantly shifting fog, and tears flowed down dripping to the cement below. Coughing he spoke with voice of someone whose lungs had been ruined by a lifetime of smoking, “God damn… I forget how much it burns… No matter how much a razor cuts. You can never take away that burn. Is her infection near 100 percent Fear?”
Charles mouth moved, but this time it was the voice of Hasameli that came out, “Why of course Charles. You don’t think I have slowed down in my old age now do you?” The Frenchmen grinned in delight at the quip, as he continued to walk down the stairs towards line of men who had now formed up into new battle lines. There were more this time, at least three separate lines had formed to the front, and either side of Charles who simply sat down on the bottom step. The demi god muttered to himself quietly, “This is going to take a while… might as well enjoy the show before things start hurting.” He waited for the same song and dance to start, that he had done so many times before with men on a battlefield. The only difference was the lack of honor that involved in what was about to happen. Soon a Captain who was leading the men stepped out, and recognized the rumored ‘Demon Frenchmen’ who had been their foe for many years.
“By order of the King sir, you are to surrender yourself into custody. If you do not, we have permission to execute you.” The demi-god didn’t even look up at the man, and simply reached into his pocket, and pulled out a pipe. Not even bothering to grab matches Charles simply put the pipe into his mouth, and exhaled sharply, causing a burst of smoke and sparks to surround the smoking implement. The effect was instant as the Frenchman began to smoke from his now lit pipe, while staring at the Captain, “I don’t know what your superiors told you, but you are a couple hundred years too young to threaten me. Now I know you know who I am, so I am giving you the chance to run… and that goes for any man here. I will make sure no one who flees is shot, and their certainly won’t be any survivors to report your desire to live.” As Charles had expected not a single man faltered and so that told him all he needed to know.
“Make ready! Aim! Fire!!” Were the orders given by the Captain who refused to give in to the silly rumors surrounding the man before them. A thunderous roar could be heard as the men fired off their weapons in almost prefect unison and quickly began to reload as smoke filled the streets. Charles wasn’t exactly a hard target and even with the smoke, all they had to do was keep aiming at the same spot, waiting for the order to be given to stop. The Captain’s voice eventually sounded over the noise, giving the order to cease fire, and slowly brought the cacophony of gunfire to slow and steady halt. The sound of the last shell being fired gave way to an ominous silence and an slowly parting cloud of smoke.
As the area between the soldiers and the bottom step where Charles had sat down slowly became visible again, the men began to realize that not a single shot had found its mark. Floating in the air between them and the Frenchmen was every single round that had been fired at the demi-god. Charles himself though, had not budged a inch simply puffing at the pipe between his lips, as he waited to see if they were done before asking, “Are you all finished now? I will assume the answer is yes because of some of your slack jaw expressions.” Pulling off his top hat for a moment he examined it finding a few bullet holes, “Aw now why did you have to go and do that Fear? Now I won’t be able to look nice to our date tonight.” The Frenchmen dumped the bullets out of his hat and onto the ground, with the soft clang of metal on stone ringing through the silent air among the whispers of the troops in front of Charles.
It wasn’t until the yell of the Captain rang through streets that they all went quiet almost instantly, “I want silence now! Men fix your bayonets and prepare for close quarters. Demon Frenchman if we can’t shoot you then we can certainly try stabbing you.” Even with these firm orders though some of the men were showing signs of hesitation. There was one who even tried to run, but suddenly the man in the cloak pulled out a pistol and brought it to bare on the man and fired. Before the bullet could even reach its mark though, it came to slow halt before stopping in midair. Charles by this time had stood up as he laid his cane to the side, “Anyone else who wants to run, will not be harmed. My only prey is that man right there…” He said this while pointing at the cloaked figure, “Anyone who stays, I can only promise a slow and painful death.” Reaching out he gently flicked at one of the floating metal bullets, before looking towards the Captain, “Do you really think bayonets can harm someone who can do this?” Yet the cloak figure suddenly stepped forward, “Do not listen to him brothers. I can tell you right now that every word he speaks is a lie, and there is nothing to fear from his simple illusion. This… ”
Charles laugh echoed up and down the street in a voice that was not his own. It was very cold and calculating sound laced with and distinctly feminine tone, which fluctuated between itself and Charles maniacal sounding tone, “Fear my dear man. Do you even know what true fear really is?” The two voices spoke as one. Taking turns with every single syllable as Charles took off his coat and dropped it next to him, “You see gentleman there are two things I know very well. The first of those is Pain, such as the pain of being cooked from the inside.” About that he had taken off his suit jacket and laid that to side and began to pull up the sleeves to undershirt to reveal the fact that his skin was now covered in blisters. Third degree burns laced his arms which at some places were starting to peel off or even turn black, as though cooked by an open flame.
Charles though simply stood there grinning through lips that were starting to curl back like burning paper. As a stream of blood ran out from behind that mass of hair and dripped off his chin, the man began to walk forward pushing some of the floating bullets of the way. Suddenly a loud snap was heard and the man fell to his knees, blood running out of a hole in his leg that a broken bone stuck, “Even better yet what do you think it would feel like to have all 206 bones broken in your silly human bodies?” His smile seemed to grow even larger as he held out his hand, and suddenly all of his fingers went in different directions. The sound of the bones snapping at once had some of the soldiers stepping back as Charles wrist went limp.
“Ah is that fear I see? Oh that is delightful; because that is the second lesson I wanted to teach you. Because the second thing I know very well… and that thing is fear.” Then suddenly multiple cracks sounded out at once, as Charles threw up blood on the ground. His voice now had an added gargle to it, “Fear you for some of you silly humans’ lives at the very heart of the unknown. In every shadow, and dark place that is unknown to man, but there is also another place that fear dwells.” Then growing silent for a few moments the Frenchmen looked up at the soldiers slowly to revel that one of the bullets now sat in his skull were his right eye had been as another snap signaled the breaking of Charles jaw. Laughter began to spill from his mouth which now hung open and was filled with teeth that were stained red by the blood of his bleeding gums as he reached out towards them with his mangled hand, “Fear… resides in me.”
Once those words left him the sound of the Frenchmen’s other arm breaking resounded out as he collapsed forward onto the ground with a lifeless thud. Laying there unmoving, as a small cloud of white dust rose up out of his wounds in places his bones had broken. Puffs of, which escaped his mangled hand through the skin to join the small spinning cloud that was forming over Charles limp body. Faster and faster it spun until the white cloud formed a ring, that divided itself in two before hovering down to wrap around Charles wrists and slowly lifted his limp form into the air, with his arms out to the side. His one eye good eye suddenly popping back open to reveal an orb that was a mixture of blackness and red floating together, as his entire form started convulsing, with the sounds of a skeleton being snapped into pieces, before finally relaxing with his head slumped over.
The sight of the demi-god’s form mangling itself again had the intended effect of causing a slight panic among the men to whom Charles nickname was only rumor. Resulting in encouraging even more to run, as their Captain yelled out “Come back you cowards and fight or else you will all be shot…” A shushing sound interrupted the man’s words as he turned back to find that Charles was looking up again, with a clawed finger pressed to his blacked lips that were curled up in a tooth grin, “Now my dear Captain… let them run. You have bigger problems to worry about. You see I always did find the intact skeleton to be quite a hindrance…”
Stretching out his left hand towards the soldiers in front of him, “Though a broken one is quite a weapon…” Then three red tentacles made up of the demi god’s veins mixed with black shadows tipped with sharp point made of bones fired out of the hole in his hand. Sticking into three of the soldier’s bellies, as they tried to dodge the oncoming attack, while the Captain gave the order to fire at will. Charles laughter filled the air, as the bullets came to a halt before they could reach him, while grabbing hold of the tentacles extends form his palm. With a turn he whipped the men attached around and smashed them into one of the houses behind him, and let their now lifeless corpses fall to the ground, as he pulled his whips form their bodies and turned to face the rest of the soldiers. All of whom were all now slowly retreating in different directions, their Captain commanding them to keep up covering fire as they backed away.
Regarding them for a few moments, the Frenchmen’s tongue ran over his lips as a gleeful look planted itself on his features, “Oh now where do you think you’re going silly boys. Charles gave you the chance to retreat, but I didn’t say that you could go anywhere. Besides I don’t think my dear Master would appreciate any of you being able to track down his Mistress.” Again his body started to convulse as his was piled off his body, from his legs up in a spiraling motion. Then the and organ where sucked up to join the spinning mass that had formed over what was left of the demi god. His broken bone structure smashing together and creating a white cloud that floated up among other pieces of the Frenchmen’s ground up body. Every piece of him now reduced into a large red and black cloud that had bits of white mixed in.
A thunderous roar sounded from inside the cloud that steamed forward after the retreating soldiers. Barreling through the alleyway and sucking up those not lucky enough to escape out the other side. Their screams could be heard as they were grinded up on the inside of the cloud causing explosions of red on black as it grew bigger with every new victim. Streaming down the different streets and the giant cloud continued snatching up every solider it could get to. When it found the Captain the man was inside a build with some of his officers, firing out the windows at him. As it loomed over the structure pieces of the cloud twisted back together into the bone tipped tentacles and shot forward into the windows, dragging the men up and into the swirling mass. Before finally picking up the Captain and holding him up to examine the dying man, who weakly tried to raise and fire his empty weapon.
One of the tentacles gently reached up and pushed down on the weapon, as the Captain’s body went limp, and Charles unaltered voice echoed from inside the cloud, “Sleep now brave solider. You and your men fought honorably and their deaths were not your fault. I will return your body to your barracks, when I am done here.” Slowly the bladed appendage was pulled from the man’s belly as the tentacles held onto the Captain’s body gingerly, while the cloud lowered itself to the ground. Slowly reforming into the shape of Charles, cradling the solider in his arms, as the demi-god was put back together. The Frenchmen waited until he was fully formed, before gently setting the other male carefully down on the cobblestone street.
Looking down at his fallen foe, the demi face held at slight note of regret. Remarking as he shook his head, “What a waste…” His time for peaceful thought was not long, as the sound of a cocking pistol and the feeling of cold steel pressed again the back of his skull. The unmistakable slightly wheezing Spanish accent gave away the culprit without Charles even needing to turn around, “It seems you have done quite the job I expected making a mess of things. Oh thought I am sorry to say that I have just received word the Archangel has left Rome. It knows you’re here Charles, and it will catch you.”
“Well then I guess the chase is on then now isn’t it you silly human. Though please spare me the threats, I know what your precious toy can do.” Turning around to face the priest, Castex had an amused smirk on his blood smeared face and lips, “I can also deduce that your leaders just sent you here as a messenger boy to force it’s activation. Well despite that I am a man of my word, and I did say that you be my meal for the evening, though since you so interested in Fear…I guess you two can have dinner together.” With those words Charles turned and walked away from the priest as his shadow reach out for the man, who attempted to fire his weapon only to find it jammed. Whispering to himself the demi-god mumbled, “Idiot… there are shadows in gun barrels you know.” Charles shadow had formed into a giant circle at the humans as suddenly a single large glowing eyeball opened, staring at its prey as a mouth quickly opened and the man disappeared inside screaming. The demi god had only turned back in time to see the upper half of the man disappear into the gaping maw, his voice was cold and murderous as he gave Fear a command, “I want him digested alive… very slowly.”
He didn’t say a single word, and only watched his breath formed clouds in front of his face. Unmoving except to take his top hat off to wipe his brow, the figure spoke to the two pieces of the feline “Alright Hasameli you have had your fun, I already know you’re not dead.” The two pieces of the cat’s body, melted down into a black cloud that formed up into a cat like figure around the blade. Her head was still pierced by the sword, but the animals features remained that of smoke, “Now Master, you know you will have to do better than that to kill me, though the same can’t be said for yourself.”
“I am fine no thanks to you.” At these words he drew the blade form Hasameli’s head to return it to its hidden seethe, and then continued his forward movement down the alley which was nearing its end. It was not the kind of night they had been hoping for and the streets were still sparsely crowded with those going from place to place. The man’s only visible eye narrowed with a certain annoyance at the situation. This only grew worse as he watched Hasameli run out into the street, and melt into a drain unnoticed leaving her master with an amused retort, “So says the person with the bullet in his leg.”
There was a certain bitter truth to the words that brought a grumble form his lips. Being 3/4th mortal had always had its disadvantages if one considered the makeshift bandage on his bleeding leg, but at the same time… it had its perks. Limping out of the ally way and down the street it didn’t take him long to find the house he was looking for. In the process of walking up the stairs, the man felt a weight on his head, and knew that it was another of his companions, “Ikenga… I trust your sister has updated you on the situation?” The Cheshire-esque cat grinned widely at his fortune, “Why of course Master, but of course you know what such overuse of my abilities cost…”
“You’re only getting a pint of it, and I would prefer you did what you could to prevent my leg from getting infected.” The cat’s laugh pervaded the air with amusement, “Ah Master, now what would give you the idea I wanted such a silly thing like that to happen. But seriously I can only give you 10 seconds for that amount, so do act fast.” The familiar’s chiding was as annoying as it always was to the Frenchmen in part because of the creature’s accent. So he pulled out his pocket watch to get things back to business.
It was quite an odd looking watch, which was completely onyx with white lines running all over it. Symbols formed over its surface and softly began to light up and glow as the man his thumb on it. The cat climbing down off his masters hat and onto his shoulder in an almost spider like manner proceeded to his back as the animal seem to become malnourished. Its skeleton’s shape was very visible through its skin as it rested it head on the male’s shoulder. Large eyes glowing with the light from the watch, as the cat reached out and pressed the button to open it.
Then suddenly everything around them came to a halt, only the movements of the Frenchmen and his enigmatic cat continued. He pulled out what looked to be a few lock picking tools and went to work, and in only a matter of moments the door was open. Tucking the tools away into his pocket, causing the drips of a now immobile rain to splash against his skin, he stepped inside before closing the watch.
The house was completely dark, except for the lights that shown in through the windows. It was quite too, with the only sounds that could be heard was that of a ticking clock in the background and the floor creaking below his feet. Looking around the room the man noticed some light filtered down form one of the hallways. The very sight seemed to make the shadows around him dance with glee, before the Frenchmen leaned on his cane and mumbled to himself. Suddenly five bolts of silent blue electric current spread from the cane’s tip causing the shadows to recede as Hasameli flowed into the house through the key hole.
“Did you bring your sister Akadi with you Hasameli, or is she already here?” The Frenchmen scanned the room as he slowly started limping towards the lit hallway. Pulling a pistol out of his coat as he moved there was a new voice that quietly filled the air, “What do you think the answer to that question is Monsieur?” The weapon in his hand was quickly brought to bear on a nearby painting which now had an amused cat like face spread across its surface. Slowly the painting started to melt down the wall, like slow moving syrup that was the color of blood; it formed up into the shape of another Siamese cat. An amused laugh was the only answer she got from the demi-god, before jumping down to follow him as he crossed the threshold into the well-lit hallway.
It didn’t take him long to reach the source of the light, and at the same time his reason for coming to London. Sitting in the center of the room, was an old man who had fallen asleep at his desk. The moment the Frenchmen laid eyes on him, the shadows around his feet seemed to move again though now it seemed more forceful, and so was his reaction. Taking his cane and hitting the wooden floor with the tip, an action which had the result of stopping the shadows, but also making a sound that woke up the old man. His head barely made it off the desk before the feeling of a gun barrel pressed against the back of it, “Hello there Dr. Faust… Welcome back to the land of living.”
A maniacal laugh came from under the locks of raven hair that covered the Frenchmen’s face at the look of panic on the man’s face, “Don’t worry Faust if I wanted you dead… well I don’t need to tell you what would have happened.” Lowering the gun he limped over to a nearby chair and fell back into it. Only now did he let the exhausting nature of his journey become apparent, and the three cats make their presence known. With Akadi and Hasameli jumping up on top of the desk to sit beside each other, tails moving in unison as they both said, “Greetings again Dr. Faust.” Ikenga malnourished formed headed to a small coffee table next to his master, before slumping down on top and giving the demi-god a puppy dog eyed look.
Taking off his top hat with a sigh and completely ignored the fearful look on the old man’s face, the Frenchmen looked at the cat, “You know you’re going to be the death of me one day.” There was an obvious tone of sarcasm in his voice as he raised his ghostly pale hand, and extended his lithe pointer finger towards the cat. The creature’s eyes shown with glee and glowed red as it opened its mouth and began to suck on the demi-god’s finger. Slowly Ikenga’s body began to take its more plump shape again; the cat’s body expanding as it happily gorged itself. Akadi covered her mouth as she laughed, “Oh dear Charles you really spoil that silly kitty don’t you.” Hasameli joined her sister in laughing until the demi god looked at them with the only part of his face was visible through his curtain of raven hair. A single grey eye which seemed to show that even under his currently calm exterior, that there was a madness constantly shifting under the surface. The reaction was instant as the two cats stopped laughing, and Charles turned his attention to Dr. Faust.
“Come now old man, no need to panic I know you have seen them before. They are not going to harm you.” His words did nothing to soothe the other man’s fear, especially when Charles tucked back his hair over one ear to reveal his own Cheshire like grin spread across his face. Though the doctor regained his composure somewhat before saying, “It is not these minor demons that I fear Castex, but their older brother. Please don’t tell me you have brought him here?” Almost to as if to prove a point he tried to shoo Hasameli off the table, but his hand just passed through the cat, brushing puffs of smoke to the side. Laughing at his failed attempt to touch her Faust soon found himself faced with Hasameli’s disembodied head, “Now now Faust I can kill you just as easily as my older brother.”
“Hasameli! I told you to calm down.” Charles voice for a moment lost its calm nature, and seemed to turn to that of a growl. Even now though that large grin, and sense of amusement never left his features and as he turned back to Faust his voice held that same even if not ominous tone again, “Why of course Faust. He has always been here with me; ever since my wife died and you gave me that book and his knife… he has never left.” Almost as if to remind the other man of that day, Charles tucked his back behind his left ear to show the bandages that covered his missing eye. “Would you like to talk to him again Faust? I am sure he would like to taste some of your flesh as well.”
The old man sighed with a simple shake of his head, “That is quite alright Charles. I have seen enough of that thing to last me a life time. I have to ask though, how much have you given to him since that Charles? Is it really all worth it?” There was no reply from the one eyed manic, who just sat there rocking back and forth in the chair he sat in. The look on his face was one of pure annoyance with the old man who dared to question his sacrifices. A distinct tapping of metal on wood as Castex continued to fidget in his chair, “Sacrifice Faust? You know nothing of the word. Your silly ideals of sacrifice are nothing when compared to the actual act of sacrifice itself.”
Reaching over with right hand, Charles pulled his sleeve up reveal the thing which had been making the steady tapping noise. It was his left hand, or at least what had been his left hand. In its place was now a machine, with small metal bars connected together by joints, which dove into the fingers of the scale armor gauntlet. It was out of these that extended blades which were about the length and a half of Charles fingers. Plus just by taking one look at the weapons, it was obvious that they had recently seen use in combat… especially because of the dried blood spread across its surface. “When you have the willingness to sacrifice an entire piece of yourself, just to try and save something you care about, then we can talk about sacrifice Faust.” His words seemed to cause a certain feeling of heaviness to settle over the over the air between them.
“Now then speaking of saving things we care about… do you have what I came here to get Faust?” His words broke through the silence that had settled in the air between them, yet held underlying venom that didn’t help to calm the nerves of Dr. Faust. It was the whole reason that the demi-god had come to visit in the first place, seeking the only place and time which he stood a chance of killing Death. That was through the use of a person’s Necronomicon, or the book which tell you the exact time, place, and method by which someone would die. It was the only known way to figure when and where Death would appear. Reaching over to a nearby draw the Dr. slowly pulled out a leather bound book that was wrapped up in black string. Then looking over at Charles, while keeping his hand on the volume he spoke with a bit more authority in his voice.
“Now you know not to open this until the correct date, or else Death will figure out what you are up to. Really I am not even supposed to give this to you Charles.” The other man’s words seemed to do little more than amuse Charles at this point, “Well let’s be glad you don’t really have a choice in that matter. Now do tell me you got the correct one?” Words spilling from his lips as he tilted his head to the side and stared at Faust with that toothy grin, expecting no less than a positive answer. “Well actually Charles I ended up hitting a little snag there. You see finding the Necronomicon for a god is technically impossible. Your father’s book is so well guarded I don’t even think that you could get at it if you wanted to. If it’s any consolation though, I was able to get my hands on your mothers Necronomicon.”
The entire time Faust spoke, there was a constant sound of metal clawing at wood. Charles found himself in the situation of trying to control his constant burning anger at the human’s failure. It was one of which there was no consultation prize, because without his father’s Necronomicon, Castex didn’t think he would have enough time to prepare for his fight with Death. “Tell me old man, how much time do I have at least before I must face Death?” The look on Faust face showed that he understood the serious nature of the situation, especially because of Charles unstable proclivities.
“Well I would say that you have about 13 years, give or take a year. I won’t really know until it gets closer to the date, but I will make sure to let you know. I am sorry it is not what you wanted, but it is quite a fair length of time if you ask me. Considering your current abilities should be able to easily find plenty of ways to overpower death by then.” Running his fingers over his chin Charles considered the other male’s words, “Yes I guess you could be right, but I would also like know if you were able to take care of that other request which we had talked about?”
“Now Charles we already talked about that, I told you that I am not allowed to give you his Necronomicon. The historical significant of any changes someone like yourself could make are too widespread to consider.” As the last word trailed off from the doctor’s lips everything in the room suddenly grew very silent. The only the thing that registered in the dark corridors was the sound of the steady tapping of the demi god’s bladed finger on the chair. Shadows behind the Frenchmen’s chair began to move and dance. The edges of his eyes began to slowly cloud over with tentacles of blackness that traveled across the white of Charles’s eye like an oily substance. Until eventually the entire orb had been infected and in their place only two deep black soulless pits remained. A deep disembodied voice, which reverberated through the house, broke the silence, “Do you have a death wish old man.”
His swift reaction to the words was one that belied his advance age. Faust suddenly swung his hand around off the desk, and out of his sleeve popped a derringer. The golden weapon, which was adored with crosses, never had a chance to fire. As suddenly the very shadows from under Charles chair spiraled up out of the floor. Wrapping themselves around the old man’s wrist and violently slamming his arm into the desk in mere seconds. As the old man’s cry of pain turned into a scowl of defiance, a bump in the black tentacle traveled up from the floor to where the dark appendage held onto the man’s wrist. The disembodied voice spoke again, “Now Faust, there no need for all this fuss. Just give the young master what he wants and the pain goes away.”
Tightening its hold on Faust wrist the shadowy tentacle twisted the doctors wrist again, elected another pained reaction, but also words of defiance, “You know damn well I can’t do that you infernal beast. Your sense of historical balance is just as good as mine. So don’t feign ignorance for the sake of your sadist pleasures.” The word pleasure had barely left his lips when smaller whip like tentacles shot out of the main appendage to wrap around the old man’s neck. Slowly they tightened squeezing and chocking Faust, as the bump that was formed near his wrist split open at a gradual pace. Revealing to the world a large shining eye, with a deep black iris, while white around it seemed to glow as though by some internal light source. As this happened a large toothy grin that was shaped in an almost perfect crescent, and glowed with the same whiteness as the eye revealed itself.
“Oh silly Faust I haven’t even begun to indulge myself of my sadist pleasures with you. We can certainly go that route if you wish, but I am going to give you two choices. We can either do this the easy way, or the hard way? The choice is yours. All I want is for you to give Charles the location of Napoleon’s book.” Even though he couldn’t speak the look in Faust eye’s told the demon everything that he needed to know, “Well the hard way it is then.” So the nameless creature tightened both of its hold on its human victim. The noises of the old man struggling to breath filled the room, until suddenly the sluggish and distance voice of Charles said, “Just let him go Fear, you have had your fun. Besides he is no good to me dead.”
There was a moment’s hesitation on the part of shadowy creature. It’s large eye rolling backward to stare at Charles curiosity, as though considering withier not to obey. In the end though Fear decided to release his hold on the doctor, after which he rapidly melted away back under the chair. Like a stream running out into the ocean, the dark appendage along with the now closed eye, disappeared into the shadow under its master. The creatures disembodied voice leaving another sinister warning, “Be glad Faust the young master is more forgiving than I am.”
As Fear disappeared into the shadow, so did the writhing darkness within Charles eyes. The Frenchmen’s head slumped over; while he tried to regain his composure, and recover the energy he had expended putting the demon back its cage. Fear unlike the other demons, was no lesser creature that Charles’s offerings guaranteed instant loyalty. This one unlike the others had plans of its own other than simply taking Charles soul… Fear wanted his mind and body. So despite the loyalty that was demanded of the demon by Charles lineage, that didn’t mean it, would not try to tip the balance every time the young master called. Slowly yet surely, Charles came around, though one had wonder if there was really any difference.
“Fine Faust, we will leave this matter be… for now. I expect though to find that when I come back next time, you will have changed your mind. Remember, that Fear isn’t the only one who enjoys the taste of human flesh every now and then.” The three cats’ that were in the room with them all turned in unison to regard the old man with a hungry look, pink tongues caressing their lips in all at the same time. Even Charles himself joined his demon familiars in this display of hunger. The Frenchmen himself had discovered long ago that he shared the creatures taste for human flesh as a little something to spice up a meal every now and then. Castex had always found that there was an almost indescribable feeling of intimacy when it came to eating another’s body, and have become one with your own.
Sitting there in silence the clock in the hallway began to sound out the changing of the hour. A signal of another day passing as the cuckoo bird sounded out 12 times from within his home on the time piece’s peak. The sound made Charles suddenly stand up from his chair and grab the book off the table along with his hat, “Doctor, go to your basement now… hide and don’t come out for anyone. No matter whom knocks on your door, or how loud they scream, don’t open it.” With those words he left the room, hobbling down the hall on his cane. The two Siamese cats were following close behind at his heels, as the more Cheshire-esque disappeared into thin air as he floated after the group.
Charles didn’t even stop as he reached the front door and simply kicked it open as he continued his forward movement, slipping his top hat on his head. Only to stop right there on the very top step of the entrance way, as he found himself facing about twenty redcoats, all in line formation… guns aimed right at him. The threaten array of firepower before him, only made the demi god grin. The fact these men were not scared could meant only one of two things. They were either form a very elite unit, or these men had not been told what exactly they were going up against. Given the nature of things Charles was willing to bet on the former, “Alright where are you hiding you cheap little bastard? I know that one of you was sent to oversee this operation. Now show yourself, before I have Fear drag you up here.”
Stepping out from behind the formation of solider was a thin figure wearing a black robe, and white cape that folded up around its body. On the front of the black robe was a red cross that looked like four triangles pointing towards a circle at the center. Over its head was a black cowl, which it did not remove as a deep voice spoke from within, “Well Charles, it seems we have found you yet again. Now please do be a good boy this time and surrender. Things will go over so much easier for you that way, and maybe you can avoid torture...” The only answer to the request, was the soft sound of Charles’s laughter, slowly it ascended to bellowing heights, before settling back down again. Then he simply waved his hand dismissively while he started speaking, “I think you gentlemen ser….”
His words were cut off, by the noise of a gunshot ringing echoing up down the fog covered street, with the man in the cloak pointing a now smoking pistol at Charles. The demi-god stood there staring curiously at his would be attacker, through the hole that had been made in middle of his hand. Shaking his head the Frenchman sighed, “Very well…” So with a quick movement of his arms Charles flung back his duster revealing two large golden pistols strapped to the sides of his waist. They both looked ahead of their time, with six rotating barrels in a circle, and a clip attached to the bottom. The gold plating was covered in strange symbols, such a pyramid surrounded by floating orbs, and two faces trying to tear away from each other. His hand never reached for the handles of the weapons as Ikenga’s still plump form solidified itself out of thin air with his teeth sinking into the man’s neck.
The demon’s eyes glowed red, as did that of the demi god from who it feasting and as Charles coat fell back down into its normal position several things happened all at once. Up and down the streets, the glass lamps were busted as the fires went out leaving a shroud of darkness only made more intense by the fog. The only one left burning was the one next to the stair way on which Castex stood, casting him in an eerie light as Ikenga fell off his master’s neck. The blue with dark green strip cat lay on its back, plump and satisfied with all four legs up in the air, at the demi-gods feet next to four golden clips. A single brass casing laid on the porch for everybody that now lay in the street with a bullet between the eyes. The only person who still standing, was the figure wearing the black cloak.
A heavy air fell over the street as Charles stared at the bodies of the fallen soldiers. Not a single one had been able to fire a shot in retaliation. Clenching his injured hand, until his knuckles were white and streams of fresh blood flowed from his wound to paint across the pale skin. There was a growl that came from his throat when he muttered, “What a waste of such good soldiers.” Turning to look in the direction of the cloaked figured whose demeanor had not changed, Charles ran his tongue over his lips as a hungry look overtook his features, “I think I am going to have to enjoy a special meal with you my friend. We will have to honor their deaths after all, don’t you agree?” Walking slowly down the stairs, the demi-god stopped half-way down as he watched the other person walk around to put the bodies between them.
A distant and soft tune slowly filled the air, as the sound grew louder with each second. The deep voice floated out from within the depths of the black hood once again, as two old withered hands were brought together in a pyramid with fingertip touching fingertip, “I think will be declining that invasion my dear boy, because you see this is not over yet. We know about what your little pets can do Charles, but even they have limits… even you have limits. Now it is time to break them.” By this time the previously unrecognizable ever growing noise in the background had become quite clear. Ringing throughout the streets was the sound of bag pipes being played.
The Frenchmen’s face contorted to one of pure fury. His eyes buried with rage as his body began to quiver, as his eyes slowly turned black, “You will pay for getting them involved priest. I will slowly eat you myself… that much is a promise.” Looking away from the other man, and down at the ground in a almost solemn manner Hasameli appeared in front of her masters eyes. Sitting there at his feet that cat gazed up at him a hint of worry in her voice, “Are you going to be alright Master? We could always run, and then kill him later.” Reaching out to his familiar with the wounded hand, Charles spoke in a tone of resignation, “No… If we run, then they will capture Faust. I owe the old man that much.” No matter how much he hated what he was about to do, he owed Faust a lot more than he respected his enemy.
The sound had reached a fever patch as they soon began to appear out of the fog. The tall black fur covered hats with the sound of bag pipes, being the sign that men from the 42nd Highlanders had arrived. Charles like many others remembered his only worthy human adversaries by their moniker, ‘The Black Watch’. Seeing them being used by the unworthy piece of trash, which even dared to cloak itself in the robes of authority made the demi-god’s blood boil. They were the only human enemies that he treated with respect when enjoying the psychotic thrill that battle produced. He gave their wounded mercy, or even no quarter if that was the order of the day, but in the end the petty squabble here on the street tonight was above humans so willing to die.
“Hasameli my darling, can you please mask my pain? I always find you are so good at that.” The cat knew what her master meant by this and instantly jumped up towards the open wound in his hand, and turned into smoke just before she hit it. The demon’s black cloud entered the hole as though Charles hand had become a vacuum, and disappeared as though it had never existed. After a few moments every breath that the man took expelled a light cloud of dark smoke, every movement caused small puffy clouds of darkness to seep from his pores. His eyes clouded over with a constantly shifting fog, and tears flowed down dripping to the cement below. Coughing he spoke with voice of someone whose lungs had been ruined by a lifetime of smoking, “God damn… I forget how much it burns… No matter how much a razor cuts. You can never take away that burn. Is her infection near 100 percent Fear?”
Charles mouth moved, but this time it was the voice of Hasameli that came out, “Why of course Charles. You don’t think I have slowed down in my old age now do you?” The Frenchmen grinned in delight at the quip, as he continued to walk down the stairs towards line of men who had now formed up into new battle lines. There were more this time, at least three separate lines had formed to the front, and either side of Charles who simply sat down on the bottom step. The demi god muttered to himself quietly, “This is going to take a while… might as well enjoy the show before things start hurting.” He waited for the same song and dance to start, that he had done so many times before with men on a battlefield. The only difference was the lack of honor that involved in what was about to happen. Soon a Captain who was leading the men stepped out, and recognized the rumored ‘Demon Frenchmen’ who had been their foe for many years.
“By order of the King sir, you are to surrender yourself into custody. If you do not, we have permission to execute you.” The demi-god didn’t even look up at the man, and simply reached into his pocket, and pulled out a pipe. Not even bothering to grab matches Charles simply put the pipe into his mouth, and exhaled sharply, causing a burst of smoke and sparks to surround the smoking implement. The effect was instant as the Frenchman began to smoke from his now lit pipe, while staring at the Captain, “I don’t know what your superiors told you, but you are a couple hundred years too young to threaten me. Now I know you know who I am, so I am giving you the chance to run… and that goes for any man here. I will make sure no one who flees is shot, and their certainly won’t be any survivors to report your desire to live.” As Charles had expected not a single man faltered and so that told him all he needed to know.
“Make ready! Aim! Fire!!” Were the orders given by the Captain who refused to give in to the silly rumors surrounding the man before them. A thunderous roar could be heard as the men fired off their weapons in almost prefect unison and quickly began to reload as smoke filled the streets. Charles wasn’t exactly a hard target and even with the smoke, all they had to do was keep aiming at the same spot, waiting for the order to be given to stop. The Captain’s voice eventually sounded over the noise, giving the order to cease fire, and slowly brought the cacophony of gunfire to slow and steady halt. The sound of the last shell being fired gave way to an ominous silence and an slowly parting cloud of smoke.
As the area between the soldiers and the bottom step where Charles had sat down slowly became visible again, the men began to realize that not a single shot had found its mark. Floating in the air between them and the Frenchmen was every single round that had been fired at the demi-god. Charles himself though, had not budged a inch simply puffing at the pipe between his lips, as he waited to see if they were done before asking, “Are you all finished now? I will assume the answer is yes because of some of your slack jaw expressions.” Pulling off his top hat for a moment he examined it finding a few bullet holes, “Aw now why did you have to go and do that Fear? Now I won’t be able to look nice to our date tonight.” The Frenchmen dumped the bullets out of his hat and onto the ground, with the soft clang of metal on stone ringing through the silent air among the whispers of the troops in front of Charles.
It wasn’t until the yell of the Captain rang through streets that they all went quiet almost instantly, “I want silence now! Men fix your bayonets and prepare for close quarters. Demon Frenchman if we can’t shoot you then we can certainly try stabbing you.” Even with these firm orders though some of the men were showing signs of hesitation. There was one who even tried to run, but suddenly the man in the cloak pulled out a pistol and brought it to bare on the man and fired. Before the bullet could even reach its mark though, it came to slow halt before stopping in midair. Charles by this time had stood up as he laid his cane to the side, “Anyone else who wants to run, will not be harmed. My only prey is that man right there…” He said this while pointing at the cloaked figure, “Anyone who stays, I can only promise a slow and painful death.” Reaching out he gently flicked at one of the floating metal bullets, before looking towards the Captain, “Do you really think bayonets can harm someone who can do this?” Yet the cloak figure suddenly stepped forward, “Do not listen to him brothers. I can tell you right now that every word he speaks is a lie, and there is nothing to fear from his simple illusion. This… ”
Charles laugh echoed up and down the street in a voice that was not his own. It was very cold and calculating sound laced with and distinctly feminine tone, which fluctuated between itself and Charles maniacal sounding tone, “Fear my dear man. Do you even know what true fear really is?” The two voices spoke as one. Taking turns with every single syllable as Charles took off his coat and dropped it next to him, “You see gentleman there are two things I know very well. The first of those is Pain, such as the pain of being cooked from the inside.” About that he had taken off his suit jacket and laid that to side and began to pull up the sleeves to undershirt to reveal the fact that his skin was now covered in blisters. Third degree burns laced his arms which at some places were starting to peel off or even turn black, as though cooked by an open flame.
Charles though simply stood there grinning through lips that were starting to curl back like burning paper. As a stream of blood ran out from behind that mass of hair and dripped off his chin, the man began to walk forward pushing some of the floating bullets of the way. Suddenly a loud snap was heard and the man fell to his knees, blood running out of a hole in his leg that a broken bone stuck, “Even better yet what do you think it would feel like to have all 206 bones broken in your silly human bodies?” His smile seemed to grow even larger as he held out his hand, and suddenly all of his fingers went in different directions. The sound of the bones snapping at once had some of the soldiers stepping back as Charles wrist went limp.
“Ah is that fear I see? Oh that is delightful; because that is the second lesson I wanted to teach you. Because the second thing I know very well… and that thing is fear.” Then suddenly multiple cracks sounded out at once, as Charles threw up blood on the ground. His voice now had an added gargle to it, “Fear you for some of you silly humans’ lives at the very heart of the unknown. In every shadow, and dark place that is unknown to man, but there is also another place that fear dwells.” Then growing silent for a few moments the Frenchmen looked up at the soldiers slowly to revel that one of the bullets now sat in his skull were his right eye had been as another snap signaled the breaking of Charles jaw. Laughter began to spill from his mouth which now hung open and was filled with teeth that were stained red by the blood of his bleeding gums as he reached out towards them with his mangled hand, “Fear… resides in me.”
Once those words left him the sound of the Frenchmen’s other arm breaking resounded out as he collapsed forward onto the ground with a lifeless thud. Laying there unmoving, as a small cloud of white dust rose up out of his wounds in places his bones had broken. Puffs of, which escaped his mangled hand through the skin to join the small spinning cloud that was forming over Charles limp body. Faster and faster it spun until the white cloud formed a ring, that divided itself in two before hovering down to wrap around Charles wrists and slowly lifted his limp form into the air, with his arms out to the side. His one eye good eye suddenly popping back open to reveal an orb that was a mixture of blackness and red floating together, as his entire form started convulsing, with the sounds of a skeleton being snapped into pieces, before finally relaxing with his head slumped over.
The sight of the demi-god’s form mangling itself again had the intended effect of causing a slight panic among the men to whom Charles nickname was only rumor. Resulting in encouraging even more to run, as their Captain yelled out “Come back you cowards and fight or else you will all be shot…” A shushing sound interrupted the man’s words as he turned back to find that Charles was looking up again, with a clawed finger pressed to his blacked lips that were curled up in a tooth grin, “Now my dear Captain… let them run. You have bigger problems to worry about. You see I always did find the intact skeleton to be quite a hindrance…”
Stretching out his left hand towards the soldiers in front of him, “Though a broken one is quite a weapon…” Then three red tentacles made up of the demi god’s veins mixed with black shadows tipped with sharp point made of bones fired out of the hole in his hand. Sticking into three of the soldier’s bellies, as they tried to dodge the oncoming attack, while the Captain gave the order to fire at will. Charles laughter filled the air, as the bullets came to a halt before they could reach him, while grabbing hold of the tentacles extends form his palm. With a turn he whipped the men attached around and smashed them into one of the houses behind him, and let their now lifeless corpses fall to the ground, as he pulled his whips form their bodies and turned to face the rest of the soldiers. All of whom were all now slowly retreating in different directions, their Captain commanding them to keep up covering fire as they backed away.
Regarding them for a few moments, the Frenchmen’s tongue ran over his lips as a gleeful look planted itself on his features, “Oh now where do you think you’re going silly boys. Charles gave you the chance to retreat, but I didn’t say that you could go anywhere. Besides I don’t think my dear Master would appreciate any of you being able to track down his Mistress.” Again his body started to convulse as his was piled off his body, from his legs up in a spiraling motion. Then the and organ where sucked up to join the spinning mass that had formed over what was left of the demi god. His broken bone structure smashing together and creating a white cloud that floated up among other pieces of the Frenchmen’s ground up body. Every piece of him now reduced into a large red and black cloud that had bits of white mixed in.
A thunderous roar sounded from inside the cloud that steamed forward after the retreating soldiers. Barreling through the alleyway and sucking up those not lucky enough to escape out the other side. Their screams could be heard as they were grinded up on the inside of the cloud causing explosions of red on black as it grew bigger with every new victim. Streaming down the different streets and the giant cloud continued snatching up every solider it could get to. When it found the Captain the man was inside a build with some of his officers, firing out the windows at him. As it loomed over the structure pieces of the cloud twisted back together into the bone tipped tentacles and shot forward into the windows, dragging the men up and into the swirling mass. Before finally picking up the Captain and holding him up to examine the dying man, who weakly tried to raise and fire his empty weapon.
One of the tentacles gently reached up and pushed down on the weapon, as the Captain’s body went limp, and Charles unaltered voice echoed from inside the cloud, “Sleep now brave solider. You and your men fought honorably and their deaths were not your fault. I will return your body to your barracks, when I am done here.” Slowly the bladed appendage was pulled from the man’s belly as the tentacles held onto the Captain’s body gingerly, while the cloud lowered itself to the ground. Slowly reforming into the shape of Charles, cradling the solider in his arms, as the demi-god was put back together. The Frenchmen waited until he was fully formed, before gently setting the other male carefully down on the cobblestone street.
Looking down at his fallen foe, the demi face held at slight note of regret. Remarking as he shook his head, “What a waste…” His time for peaceful thought was not long, as the sound of a cocking pistol and the feeling of cold steel pressed again the back of his skull. The unmistakable slightly wheezing Spanish accent gave away the culprit without Charles even needing to turn around, “It seems you have done quite the job I expected making a mess of things. Oh thought I am sorry to say that I have just received word the Archangel has left Rome. It knows you’re here Charles, and it will catch you.”
“Well then I guess the chase is on then now isn’t it you silly human. Though please spare me the threats, I know what your precious toy can do.” Turning around to face the priest, Castex had an amused smirk on his blood smeared face and lips, “I can also deduce that your leaders just sent you here as a messenger boy to force it’s activation. Well despite that I am a man of my word, and I did say that you be my meal for the evening, though since you so interested in Fear…I guess you two can have dinner together.” With those words Charles turned and walked away from the priest as his shadow reach out for the man, who attempted to fire his weapon only to find it jammed. Whispering to himself the demi-god mumbled, “Idiot… there are shadows in gun barrels you know.” Charles shadow had formed into a giant circle at the humans as suddenly a single large glowing eyeball opened, staring at its prey as a mouth quickly opened and the man disappeared inside screaming. The demi god had only turned back in time to see the upper half of the man disappear into the gaping maw, his voice was cold and murderous as he gave Fear a command, “I want him digested alive… very slowly.”
