Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation

by Anthony M. Johnson

Chapter 13: Huir

  May 24, 2001

  5:00 P.m.

  Edge of Eden Wharf, Los Angeles, California

  “Rodrigo! You have nowhere left to run! Face me, you monster!”

  The elder man continued to move anyway, making his way towards the water as he grunted once more, his sprained ankle causing a flash of pain with every step he took. Only fifty, maybe sixty more, and he’d arrive at his destination, his saving grace… if he could keep the madman chasing him off for that long.

  “Idiota. Cuando estoy hablando, debe escucharme. Ya muy enojado; solo esta piendome por mas dolor.”

  “I can speak English, you burro. Stop talking; you are butchering my language.”

  Both Big Boss and Rodrigo stopped, their paths frozen as the wounded Latino finally turned to face his foe. Not that he was done, surrendering and giving himself to death; the crime lord had been through too much, sacrificed all he had just to get here. The angry one eyed soldier with the piercing eye patch would have to shoot him to get him to quit moving now.

  So instead of stomping forward, he slowly wobbled back step after step, one foot behind the other every five or so seconds as he spoke his piece, Damned Boss taking the sight in as the man’s dropping mustache bounced up and down.

  “You want to talk? You want to laugh in my face? Make fun of me before I die? What the hell is wrong with you, gringo? This some kind of superiority complex with you?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Rodrigo. You killed Latin cops, mutilated their corpses and broke their families. That’s the reason I drove all the way out here to see you dead; for the sake of justice and nothing more.”

  Rodrigo laughed, a devilish laugh enhanced as the moving sun began to cast its Orange fading light glinting through an open crane above and onto his figure. From where he stood, it seems their roles were opposite; the cruel soldier missing the eye, dried blood still painted around the empty socket, was the monster while he was the one that was wronged. No justice to him; simply punishment.

  So he made his point as he stepped back once more, nearly falling over this time as he realized the sole on one of his sneakers had broken in the blast. “And what gives you the right to judge, Gringo? Do you have any Latin blood? You can’t rule over a culture you have no part of.”

  “No?” The bearded man asked, his eyebrow arching as he balled his fists. “Soledad Ortega. Know who she is?”

  “Some sweet little girl you rescued from a burning building, wronged by my gang or La Mara 18?”

  “Better. My wife.” Big Boss replied, marching a few steps closer as he found his face turning Red. “My first love, the mother of my first borne daughter. She was from Cuba, fleeing to the US when Gerado Machado was forced from power in 1933. That was when I met her, married her, and became Española, Chicano, y Latino… the time when I realized that your culture is full of saints like my wife, and basura like you!”

  “Yet if I’m trash, you’re nothing more than the garbage man. So what if you married in; you didn’t know the kind of porquería we native Latins born outside of this country had to grow up with.”

  The native of El Salvador stopped his retreat, halfway to his goal yet forgetting his purpose as he found himself becoming engrossed into the verbal battle. With a snide and a growl, the man tore what remained of his tattered, singed shirt to reveal a hairy chest full of scars, a nipple missing with many spots of skin dead and lifeless, attached to the body without receiving any real nourishment.

  The story of the man’s whole body. Gesturing, Rodrigo coughed as the pain became more apparent in the soft wind blowing across the bay as he complained “See this, Gringo? This is the heritage of my people. I was born in a small village to an alcoholic, abusive, deadbeat father and a mother a quarter of his age with a serious crack addiction. When I came out of the womb, my asshole papa even used me to play hot potato with his buddies until I peed in their hands, the only time he held me for over four years.

  “Knows what happens then? You grow up malnourished, your mama’s milk poisoned by drugs and beer while your father either wastes the day away watching football, assuming he hasn’t left you and been replaced by some sex addicted boyfriend.

  “Want to know how I got this scar?” Rodrigo asked, pointing to a graying circle on his shoulder. “Dad wanted to know what it was like to brand a person.

  “How about this one?” Pointing now to his belly, the signs of stitching and rods apparent as a few ribs stuck out unnaturally from his side. “My tio gordo hated seeing other fat people, especially me. Started slapping me every time he saw my chubby belly until one day he was so mad he punched; broke three ribs, one of which protruded through my belly.

  “You know why I’m missing this?” Morales said, rubbing the blank spot where his nipple should have been. “Because I mocked a gay kid during high school who just so happened to be the son of some drug lord. Comes to me the next day and says I’ll know what it’s like to be a homo after he makes me half a man.

  “This is the kind of caca I had to grow up with, Phantasmo. This is el mundo de los Latinos. Hell on Earth and nothing more.”

  “For some, maybe!” The soldier answered, more aware of the violence, rape and abuse that occurred once you began to move away from first world countries. It wasn’t just a Latin thing; this kind of madness was prevalent all over the world, from today and all the ways back to the death of Able. Some things the times refused to change.

  “But there are those who are good… who break the cycle. There are those who rise above the abuses, pain and damage done to them to be heroes, saints and teachers. For everyone one of you, there’s a Rigoberta Menchú-”

  “And for everyone one of her, there’s two of Pablo Escobar.” Rodrigo fired, turning around and pacing towards the ocean before he faced his opponent again, jabbing a dirty finger covered in soot towards Big Boss. “Why remember Simón Bolívar when we have Fidel Castro? Why talk about Diego Rivera when we can discuss Augusto Pinochet?”

  “Because only the wicked remember the wicked… the righteous and good focus only on that which inspires, even in their trials. I don’t think about the men I put down… only the men I help.”

  “And you think you’re better because of that, Phantasmo? Look at your own two hands; those are the tools of un santo. Only el diablo would be caught wearing those.”

  The golden fists, the mark of the mafia and all the other criminals that Damned Boss had put down. Though he only needed to take a few more steps to make a strike, the one eyed man found himself hesitating as he looked down, flexing his hands as he starred at the cruel and savage jewelry, meant to harm rather than show off.

  Yet as Big Boss remembered the sights and actions of the day, his anger only returned as he balled the Golden knuckles and prepared to strike. Turning his head high, the man bitterly explained

  “I may be unorthodox in my approach, but that doesn’t excuse you of a single thing. Dealing to kids, dog fighting, exhorting teenagers to do your work, kidnapping, butchering cops; not a single one of those things doesn’t deserve a death warrant, besides the hell hole that The Long Halloween is.”

  Rodrigo threw his hands up at that, circling about as he got ever so closer to the water. “And you blame me for that? Yes, there wrong. Yes, I did a lot of bad things. But when you’re born into evil, how can you ever be good? How can I be la major, when my parents are la peor?”

  “You figure it out. You be a cop. You do charity. Not every person born into despair will become a slave to it; some of the best of humanity come from such a state. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Genghis Khan, and Gaozu of Han were homeless at birth before becoming emperors of their nations.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Morales asked, waving the suggestion away. “Those three men were killers, violent rulers. Anything they did was worst tha-”

  “Finish that sentence and you condemn yourself forever, Rodrigo.”

  The one eyed soldier had enough. Though Rodrigo Morales was
just at the water’s side, he wasn’t able to make the plunge to make his final move; instead, picking him up by the collar, Big Boss pulled a punch back and slammed it into the drug lord’s mouth, knocking several teeth loose and breaking the jaw with a single blow as the man fell to the ground with a cry.

  “Hideyoshi was a womanizer, but at least he didn’t have wild orgies where he butchered dozens of people in the name of sexual satisfaction.”

  As Rodrigo tried to crawl away, hoping to plunge himself into the depths and off the twenty foot drop that was the edge of this section of the wharf, Big Boss immobilized him as he threw another fist at the back of the Latino’s knee, snapping the muscle and bones apart as it bent awkwardly away with a hard snap. The cry became a roar, Morales losing any sort of reverence as he lost himself to the pain.

  “Genghis Khan may have butchered his foes, but at least he didn’t betray his own people and pick them apart limb by limb like they were some kind of toy.”

  Rodrigo was starting to resemble something made of plastic. A single strike to the back broke the man’s spine, his body flinching with many awful spasms as the drug lord finally lost the strength to scream and began to lose consciousness. That was too good for the man; spitting on him, Big Boss picked his next target carefully as he commented

  “Hongwu may have been irrational, even psychotic… but he didn’t abuse pets! He didn’t kidnap children! He did what was best by his people!”

  The next hit was brutal, the seal to end the man’s life. Pulling his hand back, he dropped it hard as he slammed the metallic knuckles into the back of the man’s skull, caving it in and sending shrapnel of bone into the now fading crime lord’s mind. Whatever was left working before was ruined now; within a few minutes, Rodrigo Morales would be no more, defeated by the one eyed soldier who had systematically stole everything from him.

  Now was simply the final insult to the injury. Flipping and picking the limp, unconscious man off the ground by his chest, Damned Boss getting a full appreciation of the man’s scars as he felt the scars that marked the man’s chest, the one eyed warrior pulled his target’s face right up to his face as he took one last look, spitting and finally uttering

  “You’re no Latino. You’re just a stain, a forgotten memory that won’t even get a funeral. Tu no tienes valor. Tu no eres un hombre. Tu eres nada.”

  So Big Boss heaved, throwing the corpse off the embankment and watching as the limp form of the man fell, hitting against the sharp rocks below and breaking apart in a bloody mess as an arm came loose from the body. After that, he was nothing but food for the bottom feeders; all the pieces fell to the waves, leaving no more than a thin trail of blood that would dissipate in a few minutes as the body was lost to the ocean, disappearing as they sunk.

  All that the Damned Boss needed to see. Putting his hands together, he removed the Golden Knuckles stained with the deceased’s fluids as he pulled them from his hands, letting them drop over the small cliff to join the man they hurt as he uttered the prayer to end the proceedings.

  “Goodbye, Rodrigo Morales… May you enjoy your damnation, and the hellfire that is to come… I had no mercy to give you; I can only wonder if our God will after what you have done.”

  Taking his eyepatch, he pulled it free as Jack dropped that into the great Blue abyss as well, a glinting glass eye having been summoned sometime within the last few minutes in his anger as he tried to become a man of peace once more, arm shaking even after he released the Black patch. Too much evil, too much violence, and too much mayhem had occurred over this blasted mission, a simple cleanup operation that blew out of proportion as he let his emotions rule him.

  The retired veteran needed a break; he needed to see Padma, to beg her to stay with him though different as he was. He needed to take a year, maybe two off as he remembered who he was and what he was trying to become, to focus on his goals and-

  “Jacccccccckkkkkk…”

  “Oh, is this really happening? Because I’m going to really enjoy breaking you again if it is.”

  The man took a few steps away from the edge, watching as steam began to rise from the rocks below as the waters churned. A lesser, inexperienced man probably would have had to guess at the events that were about to occur; they wouldn’t be able to pierce together who, or even what, was going on.

  The soldier knew though. It was revenge, the return from the great beyond as the villain tried one last time to take the hero down. It even sounded like a ghost, the voice losing clarity and any resemblance to the living as its hard screech became more and more of a gurgle.

  “Jagggggggggg….”

  To summon a gun or no? The one eyed man decided to wait and see, going into a grappling stance as he held his form at the ready, his fingers outstretched and his feet dancing back and forth as he anxiously awaited the appearance of his foe. Would he be a vampire, a FTM to drown a second time? A golem, similar to the one Oliver had turned into hours before? Or would it be something unique and rare, a demon or other sort of biological monstrosity?

  It ended up being the latter. A long spear, a good ten feet in length, skewered the dock of the wharf as a Green beast of the ocean began to pull itself up, another needle sticking into the ground as Jack felt the area shake around him. Staying upward and focused, the bearded warrior simply kept on bouncing as he watched and heard the body of the monster pull itself free of the waves, getting doused with various droplets of water as his good eye watched on in intrigue.

  This was no mere FTM, though the virus that had infected the Salvadorian crime lord wasn’t any better. The Enhanced Evolution Virus, a sister to the FTV though known for having more… radical mutations… had somehow gone to transform Rodrigo into an oversized Spider like creature, with leg’s covered in protruding spikes and the tips of his feet sharp enough to pierce through the core of a diamond. Fouler yet, multiple pores through its system were draining the monster of some kind of acid, matching the color of its skin and burning holes into whatever it touched.

  I’m not sure I want to mention the face, but out of my duty to describe this tale in full I will. While the rest of the creature had mutated to fit the form of a arachnid, only parts of the head had done so; it’s mouth, while now mandibles, were also littered with human teeth now sickly and rotting, jagged and protruding in several different directions. So it was with the eyes; though it had the standard eight ocular holes, only three of them were that of an insect; the remaining five were blood shot and strained, no White left to be seen. Jack was simply glad the beast didn’t have a nose or ears; he’d hate to imagine what kind of transition that would have to go through.

  If Rodrigo was aware of his ugly curse, he made no note of it. Instead, pulling himself up completely onto the dwarf, standing about five feet over Jack’s head, the long creature about the length of several cars roared as it proceeded to stand on its back legs, throwing its arms high into the air as it yelled in triumph

  “Diiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeee…..”

  The enormous spider dropped, swinging it’s arms down as it expected to impale the puny human that had so unwittingly challenged it, a move that nearly worked. Had it been anyone else, the result would have been terrible; the lances would have impaled their target, assuming they didn’t simply crush him and pushed him six feet into the ground or cause him to explode from the weight of the attack, the monster weighing over two tons.

  Yet it was not meant to be; not against the one eyed man. As the two forward legs began to come near, the bearded man simply shouted a powerful spell, this time in a language that nearly everyone in the world knew. A single phrase, one embedded with a legacy of both triumphs and mistakes, all culminating as the word flew past the terrible monstrosity.

  “No.”

  It was enough. The several ton beast found itself struggling, it’s legs no longer moving forward or even anywhere at all as they were caught in the hands of the one eyed soldier, Jack holding the two appendages by grasping some of the t
iny protruding spikes that littered the beast’s legs. The animal roared, Rodrigo shouting some curse word unintelligible now due to the nature of his mouth, trying to lift the man off his feet in order to pull itself free.

  No escaping the hunter, grimacing as he pulled upward. Instead of himself lifting, it was the great beast that came away from the ground, moving through the air as it flipped over Jack’s head. Moving with the momentum, the one eyed mercenary allowed himself to fall backwards as he let the foul beast drop, the duo landing on their backs to varying degrees of pain. An expert in falling, the human found himself experiencing only the slightest of hurt from the wrestling move.

  The spider, however, roared as it struggled to correct itself, several cracks having spawned from beneath its back as its acid continued to leak about around it. Hissing and shouting, no longer able to say anything at all, Jack figured he’d summon a rifle to put it out of its misery when a long string of web shot out of its butt, nearly blasting into the soldier as it flew his way.

  Nothing a quick roll couldn’t help, the man dodging to the side as he watched the blob of web blow through his afterimage and over the dock, dropping into the sea. No ordinary web was this, for as it hit the water it immediately caused a small explosion, the webbing bursting into a hail of acidic droplets that caused the sea around it steam and evaporate, dark ghastly clouds rising into the air as the one eyed soldier wondered how bad it would be to take a hit from the odd projectile.

  Jack almost wondered if he should take a hit as a test when he turned to face his opponent and found him retreating, scurrying away on its spiny legs as it headed into the heart of the wharf. It wasn’t very stealthy, especially because of the damage it had took; it’s back was bleeding, leaving a stream to follow and making this more a chase than a game of hide and go kill.

  A chase the man knew he couldn’t win. Between the unique structure of its legs and how much bigger than him he was, the EEM Rodrigo had no problem taking the lead and using his strength to the most, suddenly leaping up onto a mountain of shipping containers full of cheap Chinese electronics. There it stopped, roaring again as it began to climb upward, hoping to reach the top of the twenty unit tower.

  “The EEV changes host according to their true nature, Rodrigo… That you’re a cowardly spider now just means you were one before.”

  The animal didn’t want to hear that. Jamming a frontal leg into a container full of cell phones, a mass of ring tones beginning to go off to the cues of Mozart and Rhianna as it lifted the several thousand pound block high, the forward doors opening and causing the products to fall in a rain fall of damaged packages.

  Not like the arachnid wanted the cellular devices anyway. Hissing again, it threw it’s arm forward as the container went flying at the advancing middle aged man, his face unchanging as he made his way to his target. It seemed his cockiness would cost him; as the rectangular block in Orange came closer and closer, whatever consciousness of the dreadful Rodrigo was sure that this would be the final note in the duet they had danced.

  Too early to call the dance. Just when it was on the point of impact, Jack threw his left arm out and backhanded the brick of tough metal, the cube accelerating even faster as it was oriented towards the ocean, wrapping and breaking at the part of impact. So strong, so deadly, so forceful was the strike that even though the shipping container bounced several times across the open wharf before it rolled into the ocean, the greatest damage was done by Jack. A solid hole, ten feet in diameter, had pierced the shipment’s side as it entered the waves, water swallowing it gladly as the man in a checker box collared shirt continued to advance.

  So the spider upped his barrage. Taking two, three, even four containers about him, Rodrigo threw each in rapid succession as he hoped to catch his foe off balanced, quicker to the draw than a man with a semi-automatic pistol. Even that was nowhere fast enough; Jack deflected the bloated cell phone shipments, sending PDAs and prototype smart phones into the seas as he deflected them away one after another, Hercules making his revival as he closed the distance on his target.

  Only there was no Hydra or Cretan Bull to fight, but just a mutated spider. Fearful of the opponent, the spider decided to use all its strength by impaling six containers around it, one for every foot as it lifted them above its head and spat, a glob of Green acid falling forward in a continued sign of his decreasing cognitive abilities. Nothing could be done to help it; no change, no vaccine, no cure to be had to rescue this departed gangster.

  All that Jack could do is put it down, something he intended to do as he watch his opponent continue to run out of tactics. Throwing all six bulky containers together, the blocks of mass produced devices clanged together as it once again seemed the one eyed mercenary had nowhere else to go, no protection or move to use to knock all six targets out of the sky. No, it seemed he was done for, the spider hissing in delight as he lost his tiny foe from view…

  Only to choke on its own stream of acid when the boxes bounced off its foe, a proactive shield of White light knocking these shipments away as Jack continued to march forward, only a few dozen feet away as the bearded man clapped his hands together.

  “Against any man or even vampire, you’d probably win... Of course, there’s exceptions… any self-respecting level six or seven FTM would have taken you out minutes ago... That you outclass any EEM I’ve ever met though is a compliment in itself… one you can take to the grave.”

  The spider, running out of space to retreat to save for the city itself, tried to take the offensive as it gathered more spit and fired, a massive stream of deadly acid flying from its mouth and towards the walking man like a ray of energy. Like the solid throwing projectiles that were the shipping crates of phones, it did little good; the acid went over the man’s head, melting the solid stone around him as he came closer.

  “I could have shown up with a AT field generating device as well… you may have drained my normal supply with your silly antics… but with that Black Box my techs made you would have had to use something even stronger than White Phosphorus rounds to get me… making another ten or so people that could have defeated you.”

  The arachnid would not go down, not like this. Opening its mouth wide, a string of web similar to the one it could fire from its back came flying out, an unnatural double ended Spinneret internalized within its systems. Launching forward, latching onto a crane a good thirty feet off the ground, the mutated Rodrigo pulled itself forward and up as it went slinging away, and putting distance from his target as Jack paused for a moment.

  Then the man laughed, keeping on his walk as he kept approaching the remaining cell phone shipments anyway, Jack explaining

  “My point is… you aren’t special. I can see that now… you’re just the joke of the day, the monster of the week, the filler villain to give the hero to fight on the weekly broadcast of some action show… you aren’t the main baddy or anywhere close to him. You’re just a pawn, one Volgin manipulated into drawing my attention here…

  “I’d feel sorry for you if you weren’t such a terrible creature. The EEV has the power to damn or save… and in your case, I’m sending you straight to Hell. Die, monster; you don’t belong in this world.”

  Clutching a dented box longer than several cars put together and twice as tall as he was, the hero swung it around just as the spider tried to fire it’s acid spray again, metal meeting liquid as it steamed and continued its course, undeviating as if a baseball thrown by a professional pitcher. It moved twice as fast too; the large Orange box crashed into the spider at over two hundred miles an hour, slamming the beast off the crane as it was finally directed outwards, several more thousands of dollars of technology to be swallowed by the Great Blue Sea.

  The spider was practically seeing Blue as it fell once more, it’s damaged back expanding even further as crevices spread out from its mass, a better web than anything itself had made. A failure as an animal and a failure as a Human; that was the thought it managed to creat
e as it regained some sense of consciousness, pain causing it to yell the word

  “Howwwwwwwww…”

  Jack had no reason to deny it the last piece of knowledge, stepping forward in tandem with every movement of his mouth, a step a word

  “I’m old… tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of years now… I lost count. What I do remember is the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, and the secrets I’ve learned… I’ve been to dozens of time lines, living from the day man and woman first fall on their home world to the day Christ comes to judge them… I’ve seen the plan of salvation run it’s cycle again and again, running its course and teaching me more a bit more every time…

  “So is it any surprise that I know how to strike with the strength of Superman… or that I can summon a shield that outclasses even that of the Aegis? There is no mortal or god, save for the Eternal Father, who has the power to strike me down…

  “Not even Volgin. I have a message to give him… but since you can’t speak, I’ll just have to do with a physical demonstration.”

  At last, Big Damned Boss broke into a sprint, rushing his foe head on in the final advancement. Knowing the end to be near, the animal used one last trick he hoped would be enough; dipping forward, bending its legs inward, the spider knelt down and let it’s back arch, it’s pores all directed forward as Rodrigo hissed one last time.

  At least his final quote was in his native language. “Sufre.”

  The command had the force of about nine different streams of Spider Acid to go with it, the holes in its back pumping out the deadly liquid like cannon fire as a tidal wave of the substance blasted into Jack’s figure. A brilliant move, really; the one eyed soldier knew, just before it impacted, that not only a level six mutant would instantly die from such a move, but some maxed out vampires in his inner circles wouldn’t be able to resist the blast either.

  Him though? Jack didn’t even flinch as his shield went into full effect, the light materializing as a see through bubble, allowing him to continue his sprint as he got closer and closer to the Green skinned monster, the protection only going away when the beast itself ran out of juice to spray.

  Which is when it struck, shooting outward and trying to eat the man whole as it mandibles moved to engulf them. Too slow for the hunter no longer holding back his power; Jack caught the hairy, slimy, stinking appendages just before they reached his chest, a few inches away and too close for comfort but still far enough to prove that he was never at true risk of suffering any battle damage.

  Unlike the monster, Rodrigo’s human eyes flickering as it realized its mistake. Just as it tried to pull away, the rush of pain came as a pool of neon Blood flew from the remnants of his jaw, the mandibles having been ripped from their sockets without much effort. The two backed away from each other at that, the spider reeling from its injuries while Jack admired his handiwork, some distance allowing them prepare for the next round.

  Offense was its only possible salvation, or so the EEM thought. Pulling only one foot off the ground this time, it tried to strike out as he threatened to pierce Jack through the heart, a rapier jousting a unprotected, unarmed opponent as it moved even faster than its mouth did.

  Useless when the man could see the move coming. Catching the spear by its spindles once more, all it took was a little grunt as the eight legged creature was crippled, relying on seven now as the man yanked and pulled the limb free of the round central body. The spider could only growl, yell, and utter words in whatever freakish language arachnids used to communicate as he collapsed, the pain too much for it to continue.

  Should have tried to flee, for Jack wasted no more time in making a buffet of the giant enemy. Finding the leg to be segmented, the soldier snapped the closet portion off and was left with a long, eight foot lance that was rather easy to manage, or at least in terms of his own divine super powered abilities. Taking the makeshift weapon like a spear, he chucked it forward without much time to aim as he simply hoped to pierce the monster, giving it a taste of its own horror.

  It was fairer to say that it saw more than tasted, as the broken leg pierced through three of it’s Human like eyes, the creature partially blinded as it shuddered and shook, spewing even more of its melting liquid about it as it seeped down it’s resistant body and onto the wharf around it. So much blood and ooze had already been lost, holes ten to fifteen feet were beginning to form around it; a surprise in itself that it hadn’t broken the section it sat and rested painfully upon.

  Rodrigo’s misfortune as well, especially as Jack Wallace found himself in direct striking distance, his shield of light reappearing and forming the barrier around him once more as the acid continued to flow around him. Disgusted, the man grabbed another leg and began to drag the creature away, pulling him closer and closer to the ocean as the beast tried to break free once more, scared to pull to hard lest he became a six legged freak.

  What the one eyed man had in mind was worst. Facing the ocean, Jack turned and looked at his captured prey as he clenched his one hand tighter, the other going for a spindle that protruded as a sort of horn from the great spider’s head. Once that was in place, it was all over; just a final good bye, and to end the show.

  “Volgin… I’ll do you worst if you ever dare to have a body again.”

  Mad Jack played the ripper.

  The beast howled as the man began to pull, it’s pores tearing and widening when suddenly the whole frame of its form ripped in two, bisected and split awkwardly about the waist as the entire beast simply spilled it’s innards out. A stream of fluids and organs, some similar to humans and some more alien than a native of Mars would be, came flooding out as a stream of Green began to fill the crevices and leak down, heading off the wharf and into the sea as the magic bubble that Jack the Ripper found himself in protected him from the onslaught of gore, not even able to smell the stench or poisonous gas the emanated from the husk as the one eyed man found himself standing there, the two halves of the Spider in hand as he studied their interiors.

  Not much to see. Quickly growing bored, the man swung the pieces around and let go, the muscles and remnants of Rodrigo once again tossed into the ocean as the splattered with the water, the jet of water reaching higher than the concrete above given how heavy the pieces were. This time, there was no way to resurrect them; no way to bring them back, damaged beyond repair as they began to sink away and to the ocean forever. Down they went, never to be seen again, nothing more than food for the curious fish and bottom feeder that found it.

  All that Rodrigo, the rapist, kidnapper, drug dealing scum bag deserve. The sea was not often the burial site for the honorable, nor was it today; if the man who ruined the reputation of El Salvador, the Latin people, and even Humanity itself didn’t get a ticket straight to Hell, then Davy Jones would arrive and gladly take the prisoner for his own land of suffering. Wherever Rodrigo went, justice would be satisfied.

  Which was all that Jack could ask, especially as the last of the liquid seeped away and feel into the ocean. Besides a few dented containers, the broken crane, and the cracks around him, no evidence remained of the mutant monster that had assaulted the bay; there would be stories and investigations conducted within the hour, but the public would never know of the monster he had slain until the day he wanted the story released.

  While that day is today, Jack was simply glad at the time that he didn’t need to get someone like Constantine involved to fix the fallout. In fact, the case was finally done; no more men to hunt, no one else to kill, all of the harmed safely back in their homes and everyone either dead or the happy.

  A victory by his standards. With a few phone calls, he’d even be able to start investigating the trails Volgin left behind; for what it was worth, things did work out the better for Rodrigo’s infiltration. It cost a few lives, a few civilians who deserved to live out their days in peace…

  But compared to the people he rescued, the lives that would be spared with the Intel gained, even the vampir
es that had been taken out… there was no way to complain.

  Especially as Max bounded up to his master’s side, barking and calling his attention as the one eyed man looked and found him healthy. Scratching him behind the head, the master turned to find his safe keepers standing in the distance, waiting in a familiar Ford Falcon copy as they honked the horn and motioned him to come.

  “Hey Max, you hungry… because I’m sure am.”

  The dog barked, wagging its tail as it nodded. A fantastic way to end the day.