October 29, 2009
9:02 A. M.
Cana Hair Salon, Pasadena, California
I never understood my father’s obsession with The Godfather trilogy. I must have seen it a few dozen times by this point in my life; almost once a month Gary would sit me down at night and tell me to watch, to learn, to develop myself and inherent my legacy. Gary wasn’t even Italian; Dutch blood in him, no Roman or Holy Empire to be found.
The catholic imagery was plain though. Especially the baptism scene at the end of the first movie. That still gives me chills to this day… so you can only imagine my horror at the kind of unholy rebirth Alucard gave me as I waited and feasted in that cell.
Jim Moriarty, for it was his face that was playing the rounds, was a dapper gentleman and clearly English in his look and attire. Wavy brown hair split down the center, the light fuzz of long side burns shaved along with any other indications of facial hair, his light gray suit and murky brown eyes gave quite a dapper look. Maybe he wasn’t as absolutely British as he seemed to me, but his voice and accent alone gave it away once he spoke.
As it did to Sky Bates. The hair dresser, having dressed in black and looking half a mess as she recuperated from the sudden death of her room mates, was doing far from well. She barely seemed coherent, but had to work if only to hold onto her job; stylists were a dime in a dozen, and no one would pass at a chance to let her go for someone they could pay half wages for in order to get ahead.
“Miss Bates. How are you doing this morning?” Mr. Moriarty asked as he approached her stall, the woman practically jumping off the ground as her frock shook. She’d been starring at a picture of her dorm mates, the last captured memory of them together, and had been quite displeased to be taken out of it.
“Sir. If you want a cut, I need you to-”
“Oh, no no no!” Jim played it on, trying way too hard to be friendly. He never was good at understanding how to mourn the dead. “I’m with the power company. Apparently your store has been expending a massive amount of wasted energy these last two weeks. Your manager said, since you’re free, you can help me check things out.
“Perfect place to take a rest, if you catch my drift.”
The zombie was walking away without another word, Moriarty pleased and scheming as they walked. Crossing the open floor, it was to a small closet that they went, full of but a few supplies and a large humming box with a few dents in its side. The reason why became clear as Sky, dressed in heels, kicked out and nearly put a hole through it as she complained
“Dam thing’s loud as an elephant and glitches up all the time. Hope you can fix it.”
“Permanently. I just need to get a measurement of the little old thing. Hold this for me, will you?”
Handing out a small remote looking device with a long antenna sticking out from it, Sky should have been suspicious and asked if this was safe as the English consulting criminal leaned down and reached into his inner suit pocket. Withdrawing a circular device, bearing the mark of the Degum Diamonds company, all he had to do is attach it to the outside of the generator and hit the central yellow diamond to activate it.
A moment later, right after he quickly backed away, a pylon emerged as the top slid open, humming with energy as Sky began to blink. The last thing she’d ever do as a burst of blue electricity shot out, coursing through the lightning rod she held in her hand that further amplified its power. To a FTM, this was a parlor trick; to a human, it was instant death as if Sky had been stuck by ten lightning bolts at the same time
Meaning the third roommate was dead before she even hit the ground, the flow ceasing after ten seconds as the generator finally broke. The whole of the building turned to dark, nothing to power it now that it’s battery was dead, as the receptionist was heard cursing and asking just how Sky could have messed things up so badly this time.
The receptionist was left to repent of those words as she found the corpse, Moriarty already gone.
November 7, 2009
8:04 A. M.
Dark Abyss, Portland, Oregon
“Why did you let me live?”
The days were mixed together, not only as I lived them but in the recesses of my memory. Dates are being supplied by Alucard, not by me. A flickering here, a conversation there, a feeling that I felt in a rare moment. That is what comes to me now, and then… perhaps that is how I’ve always lived.
“Could you explain that for me? I don’t quite understand what you’re asking.”
“You promised to kill me on the plane if I became a vampire. I wanted to die then, and I want to move on now. Now that Molly’s blood is on my hands… why am I still here?”
Alucard, the lantern just allowing his red eye to glow, assuming it didn’t shine from its own accord, glinted. “Because you’re still so much fun.”
“That’s not it. I’ve seen you murder, Alucard. There’s no better feeling for you than when you take a life. You’d drain me dry if you didn’t have another plan for me.”
“Well… than I guess I should just tell you.
“I know the truth about Gary. I know everything there is to know about him; I was just as involved with him leading Products for Patriots as I was with you, and I’ll be just as attentive to company affairs now that Sherry is in charge. I am aware of all your family’s dark secrets, your twists and betrayals, your cunning strategies and idiotic mistakes.
“I can absorb you, like you said… but I already know your memories. I already know how Gary beat you over the back with a belt, knocked you over the head with his hand and shocked you every time you made an error of judgement as you played chess. Why I need to understand is why.
“That can come only from your mouth. Why did you take the beatings, Seth? Why did you ask your father to teach you that way?”
I stirred in the darkness, a hairy beast moving about his cave. Normally, deprivation like this should make a man shrink in size… yet I was growing, stronger now than I ever was even in my prime. Even before the FTV began to destroy me from within.
“All you want to do is understand me? Then you’ll let me go?”
“I would, but Sherry still needs one more favor before I can pull the trigger. It’ll be a great start though.”
“Then look at my scars and tell me what you see.”
The heavy clothing I wore constantly wasn’t just to protect me from the cold. Throwing the tatters of my coat and gloves away, never to be worn again, the intrigued vampire was actually made to frown. Etched into my back were lashes upon lashes, repetitions of thirty-nine strikes delivered by a sad and angry father. In my hands and wrists were the scars of nails driven through them, imitations of a better man that I did not deserve to call upon night and day.
Horrifying to a man whose double life was a priest. “I… it’s not masochistic desires that drove you to this, but love? You repeated the sufferings of Christ? What on Earth have you done?”
“Perfectionists, in general, are dumb. They are trying to compensate for their inferiority and therefore, by obsessing over the minute, determine that they themselves are superior to what they really are.
“Did you ever consider what lengths a genius perfectionist would go to? What a man, raised in a gospel that told him to be like Christ, would actually do to achieve that vision? Do you think I would be satisfied in simply being good, honest, benevolent-”
“A good, honest, virtuous man would have never defiled his temple in such a way! This isn’t respect; this is satire of the worst kind. You didn’t improve yourself; you put on a mask and convinced yourself that you were a savior! This is a more terrible version of idol worship than any religion on earth has ever proliferated!”
Yet here I was, the living embodiment of Alucard’s fears. Standing to my full height, letting the scars stretch out across my torn flesh,
I pressed my long abdomen scar against the bars of my cage and let the vampire priest before me finally witness something that was beyond his comprehension. I savored the brief victory with the last and final retort of the day.
“Yet it was a Catholic who helped me do it, a Mormon who kept it secret, a Presbyterian who gave me the idea in the first place and a Baptist who praised me for it. All that I am is a creation of Christianity, Caesar. Everything that led me here is simply a product of my faith.”
The only thing that kept me company the following hours were the prayers to the almighty as the gray haired mercenary prayed for forgiveness… and protection against me.
Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation Page 46
