Darkroom Saga Omnibus 2

by Poppet

  When he enters my father, Alpha screams like I just cauterised his testicles. He’s screaming and screaming and fucking screaming.

  At this rate Pete is going to lose his wood real fucking fast.

  Peter-John, the pathetic cunt, strokes my father’s bald head, soothing him while doing the old heave ho. “I love you, Alpha. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

  Strutting to the front of the table, I examine my father’s face. He’s crying, sobbing, begging, “Please, no! No! I didn’t kill her! I didn’t! Daddeeeeeeeee!”

  My eyes near pop out of my head at this new revelation. Looks like dad was hiding some dark secrets after all.

  Playing on his moment of vulnerability, I insist, “You did kill her!”

  “I didn’t! Amy was like that! I found her like that!”

  But it becomes incoherent, the sobbing so severe that I think we’ve finally pried the fissure in his mind into a chasm. Good, that’s what I fucking needed.

  Looking up, I am satisfied, and to do justice I plant a bullet into each of Peter’s lungs. “Drop dead, you little cocksucker!” He pegs backwards, thumping the concrete floor with his skull. Inspiration seizes me and I snatch the whip from Jude. This little prick betrayed me. We were brothers in blood and suffering, and he betrayed me. Without restraint I unleash the whip to his face, over and over and over until optic fluid blesses his pasty skin, welts criss-crossing his smug visage. I will not permit betrayal again. If anyone crosses me, ever, I will hunt them down and destroy them! I am done being the kicking post.

  His dick is flaccid, coated in the foul emissions from my father. How the mighty fall. The book of the damned says as much. Pride comes before a fall, boys. You should have known that at the very least. How confident they were that I would never return to exact my justice. Practicing my aim I whip it, watching it jump with impact. It amuses me, so I do it again and again, laughing.

  How sad it is when you can’t scream because every molecule of air is precious. I have worn that crown of suffering and recall how it felt. He loses consciousness, it’s that fast when you lose blood pressure because of a punctured lung.

  Jude and myself remain immobile, waiting the ten minutes for him to be clinically dead. Fuck you! That’s what you get for planting slugs in my chest, blanks or not. Intention is everything.

  Moving to my father I remove the machete from my belt. Many a warrior will wax lyrical over the swords of finesse used by the Japanese, and I’m here to tell you a sharpened machete is just as efficient at severing an appendage.

  While his arms are secured outstretched I wield the blade, bringing it down on my father’s dominant side, severing his left hand clean off at the wrist. “If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. Matthew 5:30. That’s for what you did to Polina, father. You have sinned with your fists, with your feet, with your mind. The next time we meet I’ll destroy your mind, because it has caused you to do nothing other than sin, and cause multitudes of others to fall off that cliff with you.”

  Blood is gushing and I need to work fast. I need him to suffer, not perish. I will break his mind, so many ways. I am vengeance, Destroyer, and it is time for me to exact my craft on the head of the snake.

  Snapping my fingers to Jude, I grab his blowtorch which is more robust than mine. I will not let this man die because he has secrets I still need to exhume. Jude is cunning, and together we formulated this into the plan for when we discovered my father.

  Igniting the blowtorch I cauterise his stump; he’s succumbed to the agony, limp in his restraints.

  Jude lights a smoke while we wait for him to regain consciousness. I get on the comms, “Status?”

  “Jeez Victor, we all heard what you did.”

  “Good,” I smile nastily. “Status?”

  A voice tight with duress comes on, “She’s stabilised. We’re fighting for Sixty-six right now. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  I respond with, “Blood type?”

  “Hang on.” There’s a lot of mumbling when he comes back, “Aiden says he’s type O negative.”

  This makes me laugh because that band would kick my dad’s arse to kingdom come all over again. “All soldiers who are type O negative please report to the surgery immediately. I’m counting on you to donate to save a life, direct transfusion.”

  “Yes sir!” bellows a chorus of baritones.

  “I love you guys,” I smile, winking at Jude who’s giving me the middle finger.

  Dad’s regaining consciousness. “I’m about to get busy again, but anyone with nothing to do I need you to evacuate and create diversions to keep law enforcement away from here, secure our escape path and the wings, and scramble the local’s communications asap.”

  Removing the headgear, I get comfy with dad. I untie him, flip him over, and burn through the rest of his tattoos. He keeps curling into the fetal position, making the task an ordeal, but when I’m finally through marking my territory I nod to Jude.

  Jude’s looking like one badass malicious fuck, twanging the garrotting wire between his gloved hands, and in methodical precision he neuters my father for fucking my wife.

  Grinning at Jude, I give him a wink, “I love you long time sweetcheeks.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” he smirks.

  We’re packing up, leaving my dad for dead.

  I pause on our way out toward the door, hissing in his ear, “I’m not done. I’ll leave you to heal, and then I’m going to come back to break you again. Everything you have is gone. I am the destroyer and today I have destroyed your world. I won’t be done until you are heartbroken-broken. Where’s your god now, dad? You are not god, you never were. You can’t even save yourself.”

  I leave the burner phone next to him, because I’m curious to see who he calls for help.

  We’ve cloned the phone. He can choose to die, or he can choose to continue this clash by making a phone call.

  I’m not done if he chooses the latter. I’m ready for the eternal battle with heaven. This is prophetic. Lucifer has waged battle in heaven before, except this time … he wins.

  I don’t look back.

  I’m never looking back again.

  ~ Chapter 18 ~

  Have compassion on me, LORD, for I am weak.

  Heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony.

  ~ Psalm 6:2

  Victor:

  BULLETING UP THE steps two at a time, discarding my body armour along the way, a sense of having been here before engulfs me. There’s just one minor difference, I didn’t hurt this angel.

  Washing up, pulling on my scrubs, disinfecting everything, I bomb into the operating theatre with my hair under a paper surgical cap, my pulse drumming a wild tattoo in my throat. She looks deathly pale, and I take over like I’ve been here from the get go.

  “Did you take x-rays?” I bark at the nearest body hovering with a suction tube.

  “Ye–”

  He’s cut short by Damon, who appears to be the man in charge. “On the board, behind the curtain.”

  Moving to it as Jude walks in while securing my mask, I’m grateful my father trained us all to be the best medical professionals around. He utilised it for all the wrong reasons but at least my three core disciples are here with me, and capable of performing the finer details of surgery alongside me. It’s not enough to save lives, we have to do more than that. We break ’em, we fix ’em. When it comes to me I fix them so they look as if they’ve never suffered a day’s hardship in their existence.

  Looking over the images on the light board I can clearly see which is Evan and which is Polina. She’s in bad shape, really bad shape. “Do we have enough blood for a sustained period under?” I demand again.

  Jude rounds the curtain, looking grim. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking reconstructive surgery asap.”

  “Her blood pressure is too low,” responds to my statement from the other side of the curtain dividing the sterile space.

  “How did she reac
t to the anaesthesia?” I ask whomever is speaking to me.

  “Not well. She needs time to stabilise 100% before you consider putting her under again.”

  “No.” I shake my head, knowing Shauna, knowing how many times I’ve done this. “Thanks for all you’ve done, I’ll leave you in charge of Evan, but Polina has bone shrapnel around her eyes. If we don’t take that out now she could go blind.”

  “That’s an old trauma, it wasn’t delivered today,” says to me from the resident fucking know-it-all.

  “Thanks for the intel,” I say sarcastically, rounding back around the curtain with Jude at my side, awaiting orders. Always awaiting orders. How the hell did I get so lucky? “Is she still prepped?”

  Some guy with raging brown eyes glares at me, his complexion discoloured with duress, giving me the evil gooly. “Sir, she’s still under the effects of the anaesthesia, but she needs time.”

  “She doesn’t fucking have time!” I snap at him.

  None of us have time. We need to get out of here before some local arsewipe calls the cops over the loud noises and explosions coming from this ‘deserted’ building.

  Some do-gooder has assembled a chart for her already and I pick it up, perusing the info, then clip it back.

  I don’t wait, I open the drawer, extracting brand new utensils, slapping them on a tray and wheeling her under the lights next to Evan’s op. Glancing his way I see a kneecap that needs resetting, and severe lacerations.

  I should feel like a shitpie for not even glancing at his x-rays, but he’s not my main priority at this juncture. Bradley joins our table, acting as nurse while Jude assumes position as co-pilot.

  That means Stephen is left with the onerous task of keeping tabs on my father.

  I don’t have the luxury of time to debate the issues, I just get to work. I promised to rescue her and I’ll fucking do so. No half-baked military doctor is going to tell me otherwise.

  Jude checks her mask, the respirator, hooks up her IV, replaces the heart monitor, inserts her catheter, and starts the anaesthesia again. I check which one he’s using, almost shoulder thumping him when I see he’s chosen the one with the least side effects.

  Stilling my hands, stilling my heart, I start playing music on loop in my head, carefully placing the incision under her hairline, gently peeling away the skin of her face to address the hard damage beneath it. This vocation isn’t for the squeamish.

  If she didn’t have so many contusions this would be easy. Whoever it was who planted the first blunt force trauma to her didn’t have my finesse. You break them where no one can see, where skin heals easily. Nope, whomever did this wanted to scar her.

  Glancing at Bradley, I order, “Get me earphones and an iPod. I need Nine Inch Nails, NOW!” As he leaves I tell Jude, “We need to induce a coma. This is going to take more hours than she has.” Adjusting the lamp, I demand, “I need a scanner, and all you fine chaps who are no longer doing something, secure the perimeter. I need the next twelve hours uninterrupted stat, am I clear?”

  “Yes sir,” responds in my comms.

  Looking to sergeant fuckface who likes to tell the best of the best how to do their work, I snap at him, “You’re done here. Go rob a blood bank, NOW!” That’s what a GP gets when he tells a world leading surgeon how to get it done.

  His ire isn’t lost on me, but he’s forgotten just who the fuck I am. No one tells me what to do, and no one questions my authority.

  Ever.

  Jude is a calm vortex at my side, infusing me with the focus of a zen prophet. He holds the dish, monitoring her, freeing my focus for the arduous and painstaking task of extracting the finest bone fragments from her socket.

  “Stephen,” I command while dropping another shard into the bloodied kidney dish Jude is holding.

  “Vic?” he responds immediately.

  “Go to the top floor, open the safe with the code 666, get me the medical 3D printer stat. We need to replace bone around her eye. Keep it sterile, you hear me?”

  “On it!” bombs my eardrum with his urgent bark, his breathing already laboured and in my ear.

  I need to lose the comms and get music in my ears. I can’t do two things at once.

  So that would be an affirmative of me not being god’s son.

  •

  Alpha:

  In a watery world that fades in and out, I grovel, worming my way to the desk, curling into the cavity underneath it, and press the numbers on the phone. It takes all my energy and focus, using both my only remaining fingers and my nose, sweat from the agony blurring my focus, tears diluting them like anointing oil.

  “Hello?” answers. I manage to press speaker, dropping the device to slump heavily, catching my ragged breath.

  “Steve, it’s Chris. Unleash Cerberus.”

  He knows what that means. I don’t have the fortitude to speak long. I am parched, shaking severely with shock, knowing I need a tranquilliser right now if I’m going to get out of here without having a heart attack.

  His tone changes entirely, all business. “Where are you?”

  “Sinnergog. I’m severely wounded. I need extraction within the hour or I won’t make it.”

  “Level?”

  “Hell,” I say, grimacing.

  I’m in the deepest dungeon of Hades, and I don’t know if Steve understands enough of the threat he’s facing to extract me in one piece. We aptly named the deepest level Hell. My traitorous son would appreciate the irony of leaving me to suffer here.

  If I live I will crush him. I will destroy him.

  Steve hangs up and I know I can safely pass out now.

  If I make it, I make it. If I don’t, well they’d better pray that doesn’t happen because there are things no one knows, especially not my son Victor.

  Little prick.

  •

  Jude:

  Looking at Victor, zoned out with his earphones in, I say to my comms, “Did you gents hear that phone call?

  “Affirmative,” responds.

  “Secure the enemy, ready for assault, call in the understudy, take out everyone but his buddy and the pilot. Let them take him. Did any of you put a tracker on him yet?”

  “Injected it the second you left the room,” responds Barker.

  “Excellent,” I grin.

  While watching Vic reconstruct Polina’s shattered bones using medical grade hyperelastic bone and titanium prosthetic feed for the printer, I am in awe. This is new technology, used for the first time in medical procedures this year, and yet Vic is so on top of his skills that even when planning a war he honed this knowledge.

  I wonder if the idiot at the next table will use this to reconstruct Evan’s kneecap? The surrounding UV tubes make everything look a little eerie beneath the operating lights, but I know that more deaths are caused by unhygienic medical equipment than all the GSWs in the world. Alpha might be the world’s worst scum but he knew how to kit out an operating theatre.

  My martyr is a machine. He doesn’t falter, he doesn’t get distracted, he just keeps on peeling away skin, fixing everything underneath it, then replaces the skin, sewing it back with such tiny stitches that she’ll never know she had surgery.

  I have a new level of respect for the devil. He makes one shit enemy, but if he loves you there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you.

  We have a bond I’d liken to love. And he loves her or he’d have left her scarred and broken – but alive.

  Good. It’s different. I’m not sure how but this entire dynamic with Polina is alien. Victor didn’t hunt her, didn’t stalk her, didn’t destroy her – and yet he resurrects her.

  My thoughts are shredded with the incoming sound of rotor blades. Automatic gunfire ensues, and I start barking orders, securing the operating theatre and upper levels.

  If anyone interrupts this holy communion in here I will slay them with the viciousness of a psychopath. I’m done being the nice guy to assholes. My days playing nice are history.

  ~ Chapter 19 ~

&
nbsp; You Lord have placed the sun in the sky,

  yet you have chosen to live in clouds and darkness.

  ~ 1 Kings 8:12

  Stephen:

  THE LIGHTS ARE killed on every level but the uppermost where El Diablo works tirelessly on a woman who would probably prefer the peace of a merciful death.

  We have created the illusion that the Sinnergog is abandoned and vacant. We’ve killed the grid feed to every level but the guv’s because we have no intention of having some halfwit hitting a light switch and blinding us. Night vision is enough to snap your eyeball clean in two when someone hits the lights.

  We breathe as silently as we’ve been trained, we’re all wearing acid-proof soft sole rubber boots, for stealth. Ulfhednar is what Vic affectionately called us while doing manoeuvrers in the desert. We’ve trained tirelessly for this war and there’s no way we’re letting a feebleminded twattle mess with orchestrated perfection.

  Cameras record every location, the watchers are beyond the perimeter and within the walls, we’re everywhere like termites burrowed into bibles, ready to execute unprecedented annihilation if required.

  We wait in ambush, armed like we’re expecting the aliens to bring their A-game.

  “Doc Damon approaching with blood,” hisses quietly in my ear.

  Fuck. They need the blood, but the chopper has just landed on the roof. They’re going right past the OT where Vic and Jude are on swab duty, and we’ve done all we can to seal off the entrance so an outsider will simply take the stairs down to the lower levels.

  “Stall him. Let him in once these infiltrators are in the lower levels. Tell him if he makes a fucking sound I’ll cap him myself.”

  It feels like the entire building just inhaled when the metal door on the penthouse level clangs open. Feed from the mics provide us all the intel we need.