The Death Panel

by Cheryl Mullenax (Ed)

  “You came to me for protection?” I said.

  Delilah laughed. It was bitter and rich, like a spoiled cranberry. I have to say, the bark of her snicker cut my heart in two. It was so snide, so arrogant.

  “You couldn’t help me,” she said. “I came to warn you. That’s all.”

  I sat up and slid my pants back on. “Consider the warning given, then.”

  “Oh, you want me to go?”

  “I think it’s best.”

  “So you get a piece of ass and then you kick me out on the street, huh?” she said. She was hurt, I could tell, but she was playing it cool. “What if I don’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “That’s your problem,” I said. I got up and walked barefoot across the living room to grab a bottle of whisky. I didn’t normally drink much anymore, but I figured this was a special occasion. I got it out of the cabinet, took the cap off, and swallowed a swig.

  I looked around. My place was okay, a bit small, but hell, in New York, that was the same story everyone told. I had a good life going. It was quiet and kept to itself, like I’d always hoped for. And now she’d come along, back into my world, sure to ruin everything.

  Delilah stared at me as I moved about the place. She smoked her cigarette and watched, not saying a word. Finally, I got tired of being looked at like I was in a zoo exhibit, so I sat on the couch and sighed.

  “Why are you still here?” I said.

  She thought on it a moment and then spoke between puffs. “Don’t you ever wonder why we broke up, Billy?”

  “Not really,” I said. “You’re a demon. And a bitch. I’m human. And a bastard.”

  “You’d think we’d fit well together, wouldn’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

  I kept quiet.

  “And it wasn’t just the sex. We had some laughs, too. But you were always my favorite human when it came to fucking. Did I ever tell you?”

  “Cut the crap. I’m tired and I’ve had a long day. So I’d like to go to bed, if you don’t mind.”

  “You were the best,” she said, ignoring me completely. “Still are. But things happen, don’t they? People and creatures change. That’s why we moved on. You went your way, I went mine.”

  I took another drink of whisky. At this rate, I was going to be drunk in another five minutes. It was probably for the best.

  “Some people, they can’t understand that, though, can they?”

  “What are you going on about? If you’ve got something to say, then spit it out,” I said.

  Delilah stared at me. She wasn’t mad, she was just looking. Her brown eyes peered through the swirls of curling smoke that drifted from the tip of her cigarette and circled her head like a wreath.

  “I never stopped loving you,” she said.

  The door exploded open and crashed to the floor. A big blonde guy, the same size as Dock Worker, flew through the opening. He was pale, almost white, thick with muscles, and brimming with power. He had green eyes that burned with hatred, boring in on Delilah with disgust and anger. In his left hand he held a short sword, polished and gleaming in the low light of the room.

  “Eddie!” Delilah said. She threw her arms up over her face and screamed.

  Eddie stomped into the room, his beautiful face an ugly mask of resentment.

  “Fucking bitch!” Eddie said. He swung the sword, the flat side of it slapping Delilah upside her head and sending her tumbling across the room.

  I jumped up, dropped the bottle of whisky, and rushed the guy, but I never stood a chance. He was too quick, too strong, and too full of wrath. He swiped me to the side with one brush of his right hand and it was like somebody had taken a concrete block and punched me with it. I fell and crashed into the cabinet, hitting my head pretty hard.

  What happened next I saw through a haze.

  Eddie pointed at me and screamed at Delilah.

  “Is he another one? You’re unbelievable!”

  “Please,” Delilah said. She held her hands up. Blood stained the side of her head where he’d whacked her with the sword, turning her blonde hair crimson. It trickled down over her ear and dripped onto her naked shoulder.

  “There is no more please,” Eddie said. “There is no more anything, ever again.”

  He chopped her head off.

  It was that quick. Eddie swung the blade and it sliced through her neck and bones and Delilah’s head plopped off with a loud pop and then fell to the floor. It landed on the crown of her head and spun in place, upside down next to where her body flopped.

  I wanted to scream but, just like Butcher, I couldn’t find my voice. I watched through tears and disorientation as Eddie, not satisfied with merely killing Delilah, set about destroying her body.

  He used his sword to cut her breasts off, carving each one free and then poking it with the point, skewering them both. He held them up in the air, looking at them, a delighted smile on his face. He swung the sword and the two globs of fat slid off and smacked the wall behind Delilah.

  Next, he sliced down her sternum, exposing her intestines and stomach, nudging the contents with the end of his sword like a kid poking a dead rat lying on the side of the street. He studied her organs, his head tilting to the side, that queer smile growing larger by the second.

  Finally, he reached her groin. Eddie took the sword and sliced around her vagina, pushing and grunting until he’d carved it out, a small rectangle of bloody pubic hair and glistening meat. He pushed the chunk around on the floor with his sword and then kicked at it with his boots. Eddie bent down and jammed the sword inside of Delilah, twirling it around and twisting it until he jerked it back suddenly. Her uterus popped out with a sick, wet gush of black fluids and blood. He held it up by the end of his sword and sniffed it before wiping it onto my floor.

  All this while, he never touched her. He let his sword do all the work.

  And all this while, I watched, my senses coming back to me. I pieced it all together, and came up with a desperate plan.

  “You’re an angel,” I said. I sat up and blinked, feeling the last of my bearings returning.

  Eddie spun and glared at me. He was crouched down, lost in his reverie when I interrupted him. Now he was angry again, his stare pinning me to the wall.

  “You’re next,” he said. He stood up and swung the sword a couple of times. It whipped and cursed the air.

  I got to my feet and stood my ground, even though I was trembling and more scared than I’d ever been in my life. Angels. They were a real bitch. I’d only run into a couple in my time, both when I went to Queens on some errand, and I found them to be real self-righteous pricks. They thought everything they did was mandated by God and that they could do no wrong. They were always so sure, so certain, that they wore on my nerves whenever I saw one on TV or bumped into one.

  They weren’t so hot, though, that they came to Brooklyn.

  That would be a violation between the two families and would be untenable. You see, God was a gangster, too, and he had his own crew of angels and they ran Queens. For a quick minute, back when the Big Event had just happened and each camp was staking out their area, a turf war almost broke out between Boss Satan’s group and God’s. A truce ensued, but it was tenuous at best. If an angel got caught running around over here, it would mean trouble.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “She broke your heart.”

  “You know nothing.”

  “Well, cry me a river. You think she didn’t break my heart?”

  “You’re just a human. You don’t matter.”

  “Or a bunch of others? Was killing her really the best idea?”

  “You are ignorant to the truth,” he said.

  “Maybe” I said. “What’s an angel doing sleeping with a demon, anyway? Won’t that piss off your boss?”

  “Shut up,” he said. He stepped towards me.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You slept together. For her it was a fling, something new to do.
She’d never slept with an angel before, so it was a kick for her. But you, you poor sap, you fell in love, didn’t you?”

  “She …” Tears filled his eyes. What makes an angel cry? Apparently, a broken heart. They were just like anybody else. “She was special to me. And when I told her, she laughed at me.”

  “She’s a demon,” I said. “It’s what they do.”

  “But that’s not all,” Eddie said. “She threatened to tell on me. She said she’d go to God and rat me out.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes. And they would have killed me, if they found out. They would pluck the feathers from my wings and banish me from heaven for all eternity,” Eddie said. Angels referred to Queens as Heaven. It was news to the folks that lived in Queens, let me tell you.

  “You don’t have wings,” I said.

  He glared. “It was a metaphor.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “So what did she want? Money?”

  Eddie looked at the floor.

  “It’s always money, isn’t it?” I said. “So you decided to kill everyone who knew her, just on the off chance she’d told them.”

  He nodded. “That’s why you have to die, too.”

  It was my turn to nod. I looked at the bottle of whisky sitting on the couch where I’d left it. The cap was still on. I looked at Eddie then at the bottle. He nodded. I walked over and picked it up, took the cap off, and took a long drink. It might have been my last taste of the good stuff, so I figured I should enjoy it. When I finished, I smacked my lips together, put the cap back on, and held the bottle out for Eddie. He shook his head.

  “You sure?” I said. “It may be your last chance.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that in a minute, you and I are about to have a little boxing match,” I said.

  Eddie laughed. “Why would I do that? Why wouldn’t I just cut off your head and be done with it?”

  “Because,” I said. “You want to beat me at something.”

  “How so?”

  “Before you lopped her head off, Delilah told me that I was the greatest lover she ever had. That would mean you come in, at best, second place,” I said.

  Eddie’s pretty face turned a violent red. He growled and I knew I had to tread careful here, but I was banking on his pride getting the better of him. All angels have a real big and bad problem with pride. If I could appeal to it, then I had a chance. If he saw through it, I was done.

  “That’s not true,” Eddie said. “She told me I was the finest.”

  I looked at her dead, devastated body and shook my head. “I guess we’ll never know,” I said. “But you’re an angel, you know the truth when you hear it. You look into my eyes and tell me: Am I lying?”

  He stared at me, transfixing me with his gaze. He searched my words and he knew I was telling him the truth. Angels can do that. They can separate lies from fiction like a homeless guy sorting cans out of a dumpster.

  I saw the anger flicker on his face and I knew I had him. He nodded slowly and turned, jamming the tip of his sword into the wall so that it hung there. I didn’t know a lot about angels and their swords, just stuff I’d picked up through rumors and drunken ramblings. I did know that they had the finest, sharpest blades on the planet, and that they were blessed by God so that no impure hands—meaning, nobody but an angel’s—could handle them. Their swords could destroy the unclean and the sinful with ease; Delilah and Butcher were cases in point. But I wasn’t interested in the sword, except that he didn’t use it on me. No, I was more interested in Delilah’s dead body.

  I put up my dukes and smiled, circling towards the door, to the vicinity of her corpse.

  “I have to warn you,” I said. “I was one hell of a boxer back in my day.”

  Eddie grinned right back at me; a smug smile that bled arrogance. “Your skills will not save you today.”

  “Maybe,” I said. Delilah was right behind me. It was now or never.

  I spun and dropped, sticking my fingers into her bloody uterus. I quickly wrapped it around my right fist like I was taping my hands for the gloves. Eddie stopped moving and stared at me, puzzled. I looked at him and smiled.

  I squeezed the uterus tight around my hand, wrapping it in layers so it would stay and not come off on contact. Then I stood up and took a step back, towards where Delilah’s head lay.

  Eddie lunged forward. Angels, like all the creatures that came through the rift, looked and sounded human, but they were stronger than us, faster than us, and deadlier than us. I barely blinked and he was across the room, his fist flying. It slammed my left shoulder and knocked me back against the wall. I fell, my breath gone, and sprawled on the floor.

  I couldn’t let him get so close again.

  He circled me, dancing in rhythm. He would have made a good boxer, I have to admit. He was agile, quick, and knew what he was doing. If I hadn’t been trained, I couldn’t have avoided that punch to the extent that I did, and it would have been my head smashed into the wall, not my body.

  I struggled to get up onto my knees. He could have finished me right then, but instead he chose to hot dog it. I’d really gotten to him, stabbed his pride. He wanted this to last. Maybe I’d pushed him too far.

  “Not done yet, are you?” I said, climbing to my feet. My shoulder was numb and I could hardly raise my left fist to give myself some protection. I don’t know when my smart mouth decided to enter the fight, but it was there now, so I decided to roll with it.

  “I am just starting,” Eddie said.

  “Come get some.”

  I laughed. He growled. He took a step forward and I spit straight into his eye. Eddie screamed and leapt at me again. This time, I was ready.

  I stepped back, had time to flash a grin, and then cold-cocked the bastard. I caught him with an uppercut so clean, so sweet, it would have knocked out any of the people I’d fought in the past. Eddie was an angel, though, so he could take a lot more punishment.

  What he couldn’t take, what I’d hoped to be proven true, was the touch of Delilah’s dead uterus. When the bloody tissue scraped his chin, it tore his flesh off, scorching it in a brilliant blaze of green and red. And as my fist continued, grazing his left cheek, the uterus burned his flesh off there, too. Eddie fell back, howling in agony.

  I’d wiped off that smug grin from his face.

  How do you make an angel cry? I wasn’t sure, and when I was lying on the floor, watching Eddie take apart my ex, I tried to apply logic to the situation. Demons couldn’t stand the touch of something holy or pure; it burned and killed them. It stood to reason that an angel, therefore, couldn’t stand the touch of something unholy and impure. And I couldn’t think of anything more unholy and impure than the dead uterus of a demon whore. So I came up with the idea and bet my life on it. I’d gambled right.

  I couldn’t let up now that I had him shocked and on the ropes. He could go for his sword, or he could get so angry that he came at me, full force, no longer playing around and toying with me.

  So I moved into him, punching him over and over again with my uterus-wrapped fist, leaving behind bloody, blistering splatters. I gave him no chance to back away, to beg off, to push or punch me away. I struck him, again and again, wherever I could. My first blow took a chunk out of his right forearm when he brought it up to block me. My next carved a burn deep into his chest. Eddie screamed in pain. His eyes were wide and bright and so very full of fear.

  I was having the time of my life.

  I punched him in the mouth, his lips sizzling under my fist and his teeth blasting into the back of his throat. Eddie gagged and spat, real panic on his face now. I hit him again, above his left eye, taking his eyebrow and a good lump of his forehead with me.

  It couldn’t last forever, though. Eddie finally got his bearing and shoved me hard in my chest. I stumbled back and tripped over Delilah’s dead body and landed right next to her head, still sitting upside down, her eyes staring at nothing.

  Eddie stood a few feet
from me, breathing hard. He had the wildest, most hateful look in his eyes. The skin on his forehead had melted and slid down, making his left eye appear hooded. Despite my own pain, this made me smile. Regardless of the outcome, his pretty face was ruined forever.

  That was enough to send him over the edge. Eddie screamed and dove for me.

  I bent down, stuck my hand inside Delilah’s dead mouth, grabbed the lower jaw, and scooped the head up. I swung it around, bashing the side of Eddie’s head as he flew at me, shattering Delilah’s skull. It exploded in a mist of blood, bone, and brains.

  Eddie screamed again. This time, though, it was a mix of desperation, fear, and blind agony. The bits of Delilah’s head that came off from the blow and stuck to his head acted like an acid, boiling and burning Eddie’s skin. Blisters popped up all over, rupturing and pouring out thick, yellow pus. He stumbled and fell against the couch, his screech so loud and so high-pitched I thought it might shatter the windows.

  I stood and watched, fascinated and repulsed, as the blood of a dead demon whore melted parts of his face. My hand trembled as I held the only part of Delilah’s head that was left, her lower jawbone. It gleamed in the overhead light, the few remaining teeth not scattered on the floor or imbedded in Eddie’s skull rattled in their sockets. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I let my instinct take over.

  Eddie fell from the couch onto his back, one visible eye glaring at me, full of loathing. I stepped over him and squatted on his chest as he continued to writhe in pain, the left side of his face gone, revealing a shining white skull underneath. The right side of his head was caved in, burbling and stewing, a cauldron of melted flesh and broken bone.

  “It’s too bad, Eddie,” I said. “You should have left well-enough alone.”

  I rammed the jawbone through his throat, pinning him to the floor. Eddie gagged and struggled up against me, but most of his strength was long gone now. He was a shell of his former self, but still, he bucked and clawed and nearly tore one of my ears off.

  That’s when my own anger took over, and the next few minutes are a blur to me. I remembered punching his face, over and over again, with my uterus-wrapped fist. Smashing, bashing, crunching, I drove hook after hook after jab until there was nothing left of Eddie’s head but a red smear across my floor. What had been bone and eyes and sinuses and brains mixed together, becoming a paste under my hammering fist.