Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation
Page 18
May 24, 2001
1:24 P.m.
The Long Halloween, Los Angeles, California
“This still feels wrong.”
“It shouldn’t… any kind of monster who goes to a brothel in the middle of the day is a sick kind of beast… these aren’t humans in there, but merely their husks. Their souls are so tainted… judgement will have trouble telling them apart from the demon acolytes of the Devil.”
“From the way this day has been going, I would almost make the same judgement call about us.”
The three warriors were all preparing for their mid-day raid in their respective manners; Damned Big Boss, eyepatch already fitted over the dead eye, was sliding round after round into his shotgun now that his two backup pistols were prepped and ready. Max the mutt was perhaps the most active; he was pacing back and forth outside the Ford Falcon as he stretched his limbs, tilting his head back and forth as he adjusted the tactical knife between his teeth, sharp enough that it looked to be able to split an atom in half.
Fabio Lopez was dragging. He lingered as he filled extra magazines with the 9mm rounds he’d be using to massacre a crowd of people, all in the name of his so called god. Looking dour, the FBI agent tried once more to plea for mercy as he asked “What of Christ, then? Didn’t he forgive the woman caught in the act of adultery?”
“That tale is so complex… I could spend an hour telling you of its facets. The shortest version though… is that Jesus didn’t forgive her. She did not repent… so he could not forgive. He said Go, and sin no more… the only mercy in that was that Christ allotted her more time to wash her soul clean than she was initially given.
“Yet while we speak of Christ, another parable comes to mind… that of the plentiful farmer. In Luke 12, a rich man finds his crops have yielded great abundance… so in response he decides to build greater barns to hold them while he parties, telling his soul to eat and drink to its content, having worked many years.
“Yet in that moment he views his great works, the Lord, which is to mean both Christ and God, came to him… do you remember what he said?”
Fabio shook his head with embarrassment. “I can’t. Haven’t been to church since last Christmas.”
The Boss raised an eyebrow, only to let it drop as his voice kept its tone. “Then let this answer apply to you as well… verse twenty; Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
“Twenty one: So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Fabio sighed in silence, watching as Jack finished with his custom shotgun. Locking it back together and taking the safety off, the man aimed it out the window as he checked the laser dot sight and found it already good to go. He was done; now it was merely the agent they waited upon.
“There is no difference between the men in this club and the man in the parable… all of them had their whole lives to prepare to meet their divine Father. That they should be caught here when their souls are required… that isn’t a betrayal of mercy. Everyone in there is older than twenty five… that’s twenty five years to repent and make things right.
“Now that mercy had its fill, justice must be met… for the promise made to our ancestors in Eden is the same today. In the day you sin… is the day you’ll surely die.
“Whether you take part is no concern of mine… just know that I haven’t told you the whole story. Act on faith… and before the hours end, you’ll find why I am so eager to eliminate the monsters that dwell within.”
So remains the challenge. Would the Argentinian indulge in the execution, fulfill the call of justice as the master so thoroughly described? These were adulterers of the worst kind, the sexual deviants that liked to rape, abuse, and participate in all manners of orgies and sodomies that would make the pure in heart cry in horror.
Yet they were people. Didn’t mercy require that they be spared then? Didn’t it proclaim that they receive a trial, a jury, and a judgement defended by a lawyer unconnected to the case to decide the punishment? If they themselves hadn’t killed, would these people be so deserving of death?
In the end, it wasn’t a philosophy that won out but a reality. Damned Boss would take the lives of all those within, whether Fabio consented or not. It was simply a question of learning what the one eyed man knew, what made him so eager to kill, and see whether he agreed with it or not. Resigned to that, Fabio stuffed his extra magazines into his suit pocket as he left the car, adjusting his bullet proof vest as he looked at his commander.
“Fine. Lead the way. Teach me how the god of mercy can warrant a genocide.”
“With the worst that man has to offer.”
The Long Halloween is that sort of establishment that screams it’s sinfulness from the rooftops. With a tagline underneath it’s detailed sign of a half-dressed succubus holding onto a nearly naked vampire that read ‘Bring your inner Monster’, you didn’t need to think hard about what kind of place had tinted windows, neon red and pink lights and a wall of velvet awnings hanging about the three visible floors. Even the music, that awful eighties trash that provided a soundtrack to the various promiscuous flicks of the ages, just screamed of lust and infidelity as the smell of too much perfume and dirty beds hit the three approaching the establishment, a single entrance protected by steroid users occasionally known to use PCP.
One of the two, indistinguishable from his bald partner save for being slightly lighter in skin tone, held up his hand as if to stop what he thought to be simply more costumed visitors as he gruffly explained “No prop weapons can be brought onto the premises. We have our own you can use.”
“Really… then this is going to be easier than I thought.”
Big Boss wasted no second; the second guard’s head exploded in a rush of gore along with the first mere moments after the trigger had been pulled, the two falling down and painting their red carpet darker as the soldier stepped over their corpses, kicking the doors down and finally revealing the interior to the sex club.
There wasn’t much point to dressing up, save perhaps the masks that hid the patron’s identities. Every sort of sexual performance known and lost to the greater portion of man was being performed; naked patrons grinded and outright screwed each other standing as they danced about on a flashing paneled floor, a disco illuminating their lustful actions as a DJ operated a turn table and strippers pole danced to the musician’s side. Beyond the floor were various tables separated by booths, curtains available for those who wanted the privacy. Many of them didn’t, exhibitionists performing for friends or clients as they shagged and rammed each other hard, making use of every piece of furniture imaginable for the damnable actions that they performed on each other. Young and Old, Male and Female, Ethnic, Height, and Weight were simply variables, all expressed in the crowded floor that would have made Sodom and Gomorrah seem like a monastery.
That wasn’t the worst. Even after all of that, besides the moans, the filth, and the bruises that came during sexual intercourse, it wasn’t that which caused Fabio to see why his master was acting in mercy. It was the rape, the abuse, the victims present that made him realize the errors of his ideology; children, no more than seven or eight in many cases, were being sexually abused in this house of horrors. Women and men, bleeding from their mouths and various other portions of their mishandled bodies, were crying and cradling themselves after the treatment given to them. A few persons, so mistreated, even lay dead as their perpetrators continued to have a go at their corpses.
This was truth of sexual sin; this was the testimony as to why God in heaven so hated this category of evil. Even in the situations where it seemed like both parties consented, the play was conducted with parts that is recognized by only those who had to perform; in all cases of adultery there is the abuser and the victim, the rapist and the raped, the one in control and the one without it. Porn, Extramarital Sex, Masturbation, Rape, BDSM, and all the other types of abuse and so called ‘consen
sual relations’ were simply titles for a very dreadful, horrible action; that of abuse and slavery, of one physically making his pride known that the master is inherently better than the sufferer.
That was the repugnancy of sin. That is why the patrons deserved to die. That is how a future god could justify his holocaust of these monsters, satisfying the cries of mercy and justice. For these so called humans were no longer that; only the most base of animals would engage in this sexual deficiency, and on rare occasion at that.
So it was time to put them down. With a tear in the eye for those who suffered, Fabio raised his pistol and fired into the crowd, pulling the trigger again and again as he began to advance forward, yelling for hellfire to rain on these demons as he began his bloody crusade.