by N. P. Martin
My father shook his head impatiently. "August, you need to stop with this childish nonsense. You need to face the truth of things. Magic and power are all that matters. How can you not see that by now?"
“The only truth here is that you’re a monster,” I spat, staring hard at him, making sure he could see the hatred and murderous intent in my eyes. “You took them from me. You left me all alone in the world.” I lashed out at him again, only because I didn’t know what else to do. And despite only being in spirit form, I still felt the hurt in my belly as it twisted my guts. A hurt that seemed like it was there to stay forever, like a cancerous cyst that couldn't be excised in case its poison spilt into my bloodstream.
Which is why I blocked out the truth of what happened that night in the first place. Some memories are just too painful to bear.
“Your childish spats are becoming tiresome, boy.”
“Fuck you. I’m not your fucking boy. I never was.”
My father averted his eyes from me for a moment, perhaps hurt by that statement, though I doubted it. A man who would willingly sacrifice the lives of his family in return for power, wasn’t going to be hurt by anything so inconsequential as his youngest son disowning him. Despising him. “It’s not too late, August. You can still join me. It’s what I planned all along, to have you by my side.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Why would you ever think I would stand by you after you had my family slaughtered like animals? You’re fucking insane. You’ve always been insane…”
“I thought you would come to understand eventually. Clearly, I misjudged you.”
Well, thank fuck for that…
“Understand? Understand what?”
“If you have to ask, then you will never know.”
"Oh, I know, father. I know that you're just a power-mad psychopath like all the rest. I know that your soul is corrupt and blackened by your selfish lust for power."
"Selfish?" My father's face twisted up in a fury. "I gave you everything!"
"Yes, and then you took it all away like the tyrant you are! You should have had me killed that night along with Mother and Fergal and Roisin." Just saying their names filled me with sadness. "Why did you let me live? You should have just let that demon kill me instead of leaving me all alone."
“I was supposed to be with you, August. The demon betrayed me, kept me prisoner in his filthy domain in the Underworld.”
“It was less than you deserved. And did you actually believe that I would want to stay with you after what you did?”
“It didn’t matter what you believed.”
“Why not?”
He stared straight at me. “Because I was going to steal your physical body. I was getting old, and my body was becoming frail. I needed a new one. Yours, August.”
If I weren't a mere spirit, I would have thrown up right then.
Just when I thought this pretender couldn't get any more despicable…
Anger and pain coursed through me like twin streams of acid. "You want my body? Fucking take it then, you despicable cunt! Take it, and I'll rip myself apart just to kill you."
My father didn’t seem at all fazed by my outburst. He merely made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I have no need for anyone’s body now. I can take whatever physical form I want. Besides which, when Rloth comes here and grants me the power he has promised me, any physical form will be beneath me. I will exist in a place of pure power. A place where I can manifest whole worlds if I so desire. Or destroy them entirely.”
I had heard enough of his insanity. “Release me from this cage. Now!”
"As you wish," my father said. "But I wanted you to know the truth, and now you do." Sadistic bastard. He drifted close to me, and it was all I could do not to turn away in disgust. “But you should know. If you continue with this pursuit of yours, I will destroy you.”
Despite everything, it still hurt like hell to hear him say that. "You might as well kill me now then because I won't stop hunting you until you're dead, old man.”
He nodded and something of a smile came across his ghostly face. “I expected nothing less. You are my son after all.”
Then he waved his hand and disappeared along with the void we were floating in.
“Creed?”
I was still standing in the alley, Leona's voice and the noise from the street at the front of the cinema welcoming me back to reality. Leona was standing a few feet away, looking unsure if I was back with her or not. "Yes?" I said to her in a distant voice.
She looked relieved as she came up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Where did you go?” she asked. “You’ve been standing in a trance the last twenty minutes. It was like you were frozen or something.”
Shaking my head, I sighed deeply and said nothing. I was so gutted, I couldn't even bring myself to speak, least of all try to explain what had just happened.
Leona gently squeezed my shoulder. “Come on. I’m taking you to my place.”
It was the first good thing I had heard all day.
44
Scorpion
MY MIND WAS still reeling when we got to Leona's place. Actually, that's an understatement. It felt like a bomb had exploded inside my head, in the process dislodging and scattering memories and thoughts that I had kept safely locked away until now. And with my father's unveiling of his evil self and the revelations he chose to impart, it was too much for me to handle. Leona didn't seem too sure about how to be around me, considering I hadn't said a single word to her on the drive back. When we got inside the apartment, she told me to sit down on the sofa. Then she went to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of Glenfiddich and an empty glass which she filled with the whiskey. "Drink," she said, holding the glass out to me as if it contained some magical medicine that would cure all the bad in me. I looked at her blankly before taking the whiskey and downing it in one, handing her the glass back straightaway. "Okay, its like that then, is it?"
I nodded. “Its like that.”
"I'm going to make tea for myself. When I come back, you're going to tell me what happened."
I said nothing as she walked away and I sank into the sofa, cradling my glass of whiskey in both hands, the alcohol doing little to alleviate how I was feeling; which was betrayed mostly, and sickened. Sickened that my own father could do such unspeakable things, that he was still doing them. This despite the fact that I thought he had been dead and gone for so long now, along with the rest of my family.
The family that he had killed.
My fingers wrapped around the glass so tightly I thought it would shatter in my hands. “Fucking bastard,” I said, my face twisting up in anger and pain. Tears were streaming down my face by the time Leona came back in and sat beside me.
"Creed," she said as if talking to a victim of abuse, placing her cup of green tea on the coffee table next to us. "Talk to me, Creed."
“He killed them,” I blurted out. “He killed them…all of them…”
“Who are you talking about?”
"My family! He killed my family…oh God…" I clamped a hand over my mouth, thinking I was going to be sick.
Leona put a hand on the back of my neck. "It's okay, Creed. Who killed them? Mr. Black?"
My head turned slowly to look at her. "My father," I said. "My father is Mr. Black."
Needless to say, she looked shocked and then confused. "But you told me your father was dead. That he died with the rest of your family when the demon killed them."
"He did die." I forced myself to drink more of the whiskey to try and stop myself from becoming a jibbering wreck, which wasn't my style, mainly thanks to my father, who was all about beating into me the importance of self-control at all times. I almost let go of myself just to spite him (I certainly fucking felt like it), but decided to spare Leona the song and dance, who didn't do so well with people falling apart in front of her (I remember she once slapped me across the face when I cried while watching an episode of Ray Donovan, telling me to get a grip). “Now he’s back.”
/>
“Why?”
“It hardly even matters why.”
Leona shook her head. "You're being cryptic. I can't help you if you're being cryptic. So Mr. Black is your father?"
“Yes.”
"That's…fucked up. That's some real Star Wars shit, right there. What did he say to you?"
I took a breath before answering her. “That he deliberately sacrificed my family…my mother and brother and sister…to that demon he summoned.”
“Jesus, Creed. I’m sorry.”
"He watched them die, Leona. I saw his face as that demon was—" I had to pause for a second. "He planned the whole thing, the destruction of his whole family. And for what? More power."
“But the demon killed him as well.”
“It betrayed him. He got what he deserved.”
“So how is he back?”
"He crawled his way back from the Underworld like some disgusting worm."
"And what did he want with you?"
I shook my head. "To remind me of what happened, of what he did. To hit me with some half-assed notion of me joining him. As if I ever fucking would. I mean, how deranged do you have to be? And that's not even the worst thing he told me."
“Really? What’s worse than killing your whole family?”
"He was going to let me live. You know why?" Leona shook her head, her face saying she was dreading hearing why. "Because he needed my body. His was getting old, and he was going to steal mine." A bitter laugh left my mouth. "You couldn't make this fucking shit up."
Leona sighed and rubbed the back of my neck, her touch the only good thing I was feeling right then. “I’m sorry, Creed. You don’t deserve any this.”
“Obviously the universe thinks differently.”
"Fuck the universe," she said, moving closer, taking my drink off me and placing it on the coffee table before kissing me, gently at first as I tried to decide if it was really the time to make love, before deciding that it was exactly the right time. What better way (so it felt) to get back at my father than to make love, despite the evil shit he had filled my head with, and despite his lifelong attempt to quash whatever love was in me?
Fuck you, father.
I pressed my lips harder against Leona's, and she responded in kind. It wasn't long before we were both in that blissful bubble where only the two of us existed and all the horrible things that had and were happening were forgotten about for a short time at least.
* * *
I woke up later in Leona's queen-sized bed after a brief, fitful sleep that followed the intense, almost desperate sex we had. Hard dawn light seeped through the cracks in the blinds, spilling over Leona's slender, naked form lying beside me. She was still asleep as I sat up and stared at her for a while, getting lost in the beauty of her curves and her athletic but still feminine musculature. Then there was the all black scorpion tattoo on her back, the claws extending over both shoulder blades, the thick tail unfolding down her spine, the stinger itself at the side of her fourth lumbar. It was a bold image, and a little unsettling the first few times you saw it. But when you got to know Leona like I did, you soon realized that the tattoo was entirely symbolic of who she is. Leona was a survivor, a fighter, a cunning hunter when she had to be, with a sting that hurt like hell and often killed if it had to. Yet despite all that ferocity, even scorpions had a caring side, and I considered myself lucky to be one of the few people she revealed that side of herself to. She was also funny in her own blunt, abrasive way. It still amazed me that she had a sense of humor at all, given the things she had seen.
Leaning over, I kissed her gently on the back and then slipped out of bed. In the living room, I gathered up my clothes which were scattered around everywhere, after Leona had hurriedly pulled them off me. After getting dressed, I went to the kitchen and made coffee with Leona's ridiculously expensive coffee machine, one of the few luxuries (maybe the only one) that she had in the apartment. Whatever she paid was worth it, given the brew it served up. I carried the mug into the living room, and opened the sliding door to step out onto the balcony. The cold morning air that was like a slap to the face at first, but invigorating once you got used to it.
From Leona's swanky apartment building, I looked down to the street below and watched a road sweeper move along like a ladybug on a leaf, the vehicle stopping once so the driver could wind the window down and toss out a cigarette butt into the street he was supposed to be cleaning. Across the way in the tenement buildings, lights began to come on, and curtains were drawn open as the occupants rose to meet another day in Blackham. And rising behind the tenements were the skyscrapers made of steel and glass. Huge structures that almost made you feel like you were in some other futuristic city somewhere. Through the gaps in the skyscrapers, you could also see Blackham State University, the Gothic-style building that churned out the city's best and brightest (allegedly).
As I gazed out over the north of the city, my thoughts inevitably turned to Mr. Black. I refused even to think of him as my father. My father was bad enough when he was alive but however bad or manipulative he was while I was growing up, he was still my father, and I was loyal to him. I had no reason to be loyal to him anymore, though. The man who forced a meeting with me a while ago in Lafayette was not my father. My father was dead and gone as far as I was concerned, and good riddance. Mr. Black was just the evil shadow that endured after the demon tore my father apart, turning him into the monster that I had been hunting before I got hexed, and still hunted. That much hadn't changed, despite Mr. Black's true origins. I was still going to bring him down.
The question was though, how was I going to do it?
45
Bad Coffee Blues
I HAD JUST sat down in the living room when Leona came walking in, looking effortlessly sexy in her white silk dressing gown that just about came down to the top of her thighs. “How long have you been up?” she asked, sliding herself onto my lap and languidly kissing me.
“Not long,” I replied, gazing like a lost puppy into her blue eyes, which always seemed lighter in the mornings. “But in that silk offering I'd say it was getting shorter by the second, depending on which ‘up’ you meant, if the difference isn't something you can feel between your thighs at this very second!”
Leona sniggered and shook her head. “Bad boy…”
“I try,” I said after I’d finished kissing her, then my anxiety hit again and I went back to being despondent.
She smoothed my longish hair for a moment before hugging me. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it all out.”
I nodded as she pulled away. "I know." I didn't, though. So far, I had no idea of how I was going to stop Mr. Black, and his insane plan to bring forth an ancient, unimaginably monstrous being to eat the fucking world up. No idea at all.
"I'm making coffee. You want one?" Leona asked me.
“I’ll get it.”
She put a hand out to stop me. “No. Your coffee sucks, Creed.”
“I don’t make the stuff. The machine does.”
“There’s still a knack to it, which you don’t have.”
"What, like place the cup in the machine and press the button? Where's the knack in that?"
She was already off me, heading for the kitchen. “I’m glad you don’t approach sex the same way.”
“What do you mean?” I said in a serious voice. “Of course I do. Insert penis and turn on machine. What other way is there?”
Shaking her head, Leona laughed as she walked into the kitchen. “You are not wise.”
“Owls and old men are wise. I don’t want to be either.”
"Given your age, you're not far off the latter."
“Careful, Lawson. You’re no spring chicken yourself, you know.”
“I’m thirty-two years old,” she said, throwing me a look from the kitchen while she waited on the machine to fill her cup up.
I nodded. “I know. That’s nearly middle age.”
Shaking her head, she carried two cups of coffee bac
k into the living room, handing me one. “Shut up and drink your coffee.”
Smiling, I tasted the dark brew, then smacked my lips. “You’re right. Your coffee does taste better than mine.”
“You’d think with all that magic, that you’d be able to make a decent cup of coffee.” She lifted the remote control off the table and turned on the TV to the local news station.
I shook my head at her comment as I turned my attention to the news. Unsurprisingly, the conflagration at the Roundhouse Cinema was the top story. The news showed images of the building, now reduced to a pile of blackened, molten ash, as if the building had melted (which it had in a way). The onsite reporter mentioned the strange color of the flames but reported that it was due to a methane gas leak from the sewers underneath. There was no mention of any murders.“Brentwood’s done his job then,” I said. “Covering up the murders.”
“Are you surprised?”
“No.” Brentwood was good at his job, I’d give him that. It sometimes amazed me the things he managed to cover up from the media and the public at large. I often wondered if he was bumping off witnesses, because some of the events he was involved in were quite public, with lots of witnesses. “People believe what they want to believe, I suppose. An accidental fire is easier to process than sixty-seven people all having their throats cut by a mad…”
“A mad what?”
“I don’t even know what he is. A dark stain on the world.”
Leona said nothing and we sat and watched the rest of the news in silence, the only other noteworthy event being one of the city's biggest porn stars (Wendy Gush) dying on the job. I was acquainted with Miss Gush through another mutual acquaintance. I also knew the porn star practiced sex magic. The circumstances surrounding her death sounded a little suspicious to me. When (if) I dealt with Mr. Black, I would look into Miss Gush's death. For a porn star, she was quite an accomplished adept, surprising me with her command and knowledge when we'd last met a couple of years ago. I doubted the cops would look too deep into her case, so I would.