“I love you,” Gordon whispered weakly.
Sin roared and tossed him aside, enraged by the sentiment. Grinding teeth frothed with putrid saliva he drove one ugly foot down onto Gordon’s leg, pulverizing the bones, rupturing the skin and the ground beneath it with an almighty thud. Gordon closed his eyes as agony overcame him but remained silent. It incensed the monster even more.
“You will beg!” he howled.
Leaning over Gordon, Sin scrawled one wicked claw down the old man’s narrow chest parting the pale skin like a hot knife would butter. Gordon winced but remained mute. Infuriated Sin carved another line alongside the first, pinched the strip of flesh between them and began to peel it slowly from the old fisherman’s heaving chest.
“Pain brother! Feel it! Know it! Know what all you have sent to me have known. Know what you abandoned them to, your children, your beloved pets. I will never tire of this. I will heal you a thousand times and each time you will know a pain like no other, a pain so exquisite no living creature could ever imagine it.”
Gordon writhed but remained voiceless.
“So strong brother. So brave. It will not last. You will cry. You will beg for death, for escape. It is a long way off for you brother. I will bring you to its door, I will let you feel it’s draw only to drag you back to find a new, more marvelous path back to its false promise. Again and again and again we will dance this dance until I tire of your suffering.”
“You can’t,” Gordon broke his silence with a faint whisper.
Sin howled sinister laughter. “You still speak as if your words matter! You are lost! You are nothing! I am everything!”
“We have a pact,” Gordon croaked.
“It is done. You are beaten. It is over Esha!” Sin spat the words into Gordon’s ashen face.
“I live,” Gordon objected. “So our pact lives.”
“You think I am a fool? You will not trick me into letting you die. No Esha, there is a long road of misery ahead of you and we will walk it together, one excruciating step at a time. You and I, my dearest brother, just like old times.”
“If you break the pact, then I will be free of it as well,” Gordon replied with a shrewd grin.
“No! You are finished! You can do nothing to stop this!” Sin argued but a trace of fear crept into his voice as his mind sifted through the consequences of Esha’s decree.
“You must let me die or the pact is broken,” Gordon tossed a big ugly wrench into the gears of Sin’s atrocious plan. “You cannot use your power as I cannot use mine. Healing me will be the end of you, not me. Heal me and I will do as I should have a long time ago.”
The demon stood staring at the dying old fisherman at his feet. He hated him so deeply and so completely. He’d longed for the chance to exact his revenge for his entire existence and now that the moment had finally arrived the bastard was bent on ruining it. “Fuck you brother! You are trying to scurry off to death like the coward you are.”
“We have an agreement. You must obey it,” Gordon muttered as his eyelids drooped.
“Obey! Rules mean nothing to me. Our agreement means nothing to me! I worked on breaking the bonds of our first pact from the very moment we made it! This one is no different! Wake up asshole!” Sin kicked Gordon hard in the ribs, cracking the bones and forcing blood to surge from the wound on His chest.
Gordon groaned, the pain too intense to stifle. Sin howled with delight and leaned over the old man until their eyes were no more than an inch apart, hoping to savor the depth of misery within them.
“I am sorry,” Gordon whispered.
“Yes, you are brother,” Sin replied, easing closer until his nose was a hair’s width from the old man’s. “You are a sorry sack of shit.”
“I am sorry I failed you,” Gordon continued despite the bottomless pit of hate burning in the looming eyes of his tormentor.
Sin ground his teeth in frustration, barely able to control the urge to sink them into the old fool’s throat and savor the taste of his death.
“I love you my son,” Gordon revealed his truth, using the last of his fading strength to lift his head and kiss Sin on the cheek.
Sin reacted as if he’d been shot. Stumbling backward, swiping frantically at his face as if the tender peck was a deadly splinter. “What are you playing at?” he cried.
Gordon studied the startled demon, his eyes brimming with concern, his love boundless and resolute. “Sorry. Know that…I…I forgive you.”
“I do not need it! I do not want it!”
Gordon closed his eyes, too spent to keep them open.
“No! No! Not yet! Not yet!” Sin cried, terrified of losing the satisfaction he dreamed of for so long.
*
Bobby danced nervously, his head spinning like a broken sprinkler, trying to keep track of Maria’s progress and Gordon’s death.
This is bad! This is really fucking bad! I wish I knew what those two are saying. Hurry the fuck up Maria!
“Okuma grows impatient,” Fujibashya spoke as he studied the drama on the next hill. “He will kill soon.”
“Who? What?” Bobby asked but knew exactly what the ninja meant when he saw Sin hunched over Gordon’s shirtless body, doing his best to deliver the pain he promised. “I can’t believe this shit! I can’t believe He’s just lying there and letting that sick fuck do that to Him.”
“He dies with honor,” Fujibashya replied, his admiration as genuine as his fear.
Great! That and a dollar will get him abso-fucking-lutely nothing!
“Dude, if He dies we all die, the whole fucking world dies and it ain’t going to be pretty, my ninja brother. It’s going to be ugly and painful and…well, it’s going to suck some serious balls.”
“Okuma promised freedom,” Fujibashya replied, exposing the truth behind his allegiance.
“Okuma? Him? The red guy with the horns, are you fucking kidding me? Dude, we’ve been through this already.”
“We will be free of Naraka,” Fujibashya explained.
Bobby shrugged.
“His world,” the ninja clarified.
“Free? He’s going to turn every world into a new and improved version of Hell or nakanakanara or whatever. You might be free but that doesn’t mean you’re going to escape.”
Fujibashya studied Bobby who held the killer’s eyes with his own. The warrior saw the truth in them, and the fear of what that truth meant. Fujibashya nodded slightly before turning to his men and grunting a command Bobby didn’t understand. The twelve assassins cleared his confusion right up, drawing their swords and racing silently toward Sin with deadly intent. “Holy shit dude, that’s crazy! He’ll chew them up like a fucking wood chipper. Your guys can’t kill him.”
“No, but we can slow him,” Fujibashya replied, bowed deeply, drew his sword and raced to join the battle.
“Oh fuck me,” Bobby sighed. “This is not part of the plan.”
*
“You betray me!” Sin roared, spinning to confront the approaching assassins.
None replied as they encircled the monster, readying to strike. Fujibashya stepped between them, pointing his blade at the beast. “You have no honor.”
“And you, my slanty-eyed, rice-dicked, little backstabber, have none either,” Sin growled.
Fujibashya stayed on course, Sin’s insults meant nothing to him. “You promised freedom.”
“You will be free,” Sin assured the warrior with a taunting smile. “Free to suck my dick. Free to eat my shit. Free to watch me rape your children and peel them like bananas. I did not lie, you’re just too stupid to understand. It must be the language barrier.”
“Okuma,” Fujibashya hissed Sin’s name in his native tongue, an accusation more than an introduction.
“Yes. Okuma, Shuten Doji, Emma-O, take your pick, you little shits do love your demons,” Sin replied, toying with the ninja. “Call me whatever you wish, it will not change the fact that you and your band of fools are doomed.”
Keep stalling
Fuji, keep that blowhard blowing.
“Come on then,” Sin beckoned with the curl of his finger, smiled then grew like Mario after a banquet of golden mushrooms until he stood at least five times the size of his former self. “Come on you little shit, let me show you what happens to those who betray me.”
Bobby wanted to piss and shit himself simultaneously. Sin was enormous, towering over Fujibashya, snapping his jaws and kneading the front of his kilt.
Run dude! Run! Make him chase you!
The ninja didn’t flinch.
Brave little mofos, or as stupid as rocks, maybe a little of both. This is crazy!
*
Fujibashya uttered a short cry, spurring his men forward. The battle burst to life. The ninja were lightning fast, their movements precise, their skills honed by centuries of experience, but it was all worth next to nothing. Twenty-five feet of muscle-clad, scale-armored, blood-thirsty madness was not their average foe. The ninja looked good at first, using their numbers to their advantage, lashing out from behind while those in front distracted Sin. Unfortunately, they only pissed the monster off even more.
Screaming in frustration Sin dropped to all fours. His back cracked and bulged as the bones inside morphed to support his new form. From beneath his tattered kilt two tails sprouted and quickly grew until it matched his body in length. A bony knot of destructive spikes capped each eagerly undulating appendage. The newly formed scepters slammed the ground in unison, as loud and threatening as summer thunder. A snout pushed from his face, the teeth inside multiplying in size and number to fill the drooling, expanding maw. More a beast than ever before, Sin snarled and snapped, spinning in a tight circle, rabid with bloodlust and eager to satisfy it.
Fujibashya and his men poised a moment to consider their new opponent. Not one showed the slightest sign of fear. Fujibashya attacked first. His men followed without hesitation. Sin pounced, pinning Fujibashya beneath the massive claws of one foot. Fujibashya slashed and squirmed, both were useless, the beasts’ armor too thick and his strength unbreakable. He made no attempt to kill the ninja, postponing the inevitable, forcing him to witness his clan’s gruesome defeat.
Ugly was an understatement, a major one, for what followed. To Bobby it looked like thirteen Chihuahua puppies trying to bring down a male grizzly in his prime, if said grizzly had two tails with minds of their own, horns, scales and a twisted, hate warped mind filled with a need to kill them all as horribly as possible.
Ninjas, whole and in pieces, flew in every direction in silence, depriving the beast the added satisfaction of hearing them suffer. Sin gored with his horns, shredded with his claws and minced with his teeth, devouring one of the brave fools who continued to fight even as he disappeared down the monster’s throat. The deadly mass on the end of each tail pulverized, leaving piles of meat and splintered bone as evidence of its victim’s futile plight.
You sick, heartless piece of shit! You’ll get yours asshole! You’ll get yours!
*
“Am I too late?” Maria cried.
Bobby whirled to find the Angel trudging up the hill toward him, the huge scythe plowing the field in her wake, her face was so twisted with fear and angst he barely recognized her.
Depends on who you ask I guess. There’s a few ninja over there who’d say so.
“No!” Bobby cried, running to meet her. “I think He’s still alive but we gotta move.”
Maria looked across the hollow at the corpse strewn rise on the other side, and the monster still busy creating more. “Oh my…what…why?”
“Fujibashya and his guys are trying to buy us some time,” Bobby explained the unexplainable, his voice laden with the respect the sacrifice deserved.
“Oh no! No! The ninja, he’s still alive!” Maria dropped the scythe and grabbed Bobby’s arm. “Do something!”
“No. We can’t.”
“What? Why?”
“We can’t Maria.”
“We have to!” she cried. “We can’t just let him suffer.”
“We can’t. It’s pointless, worse, it will waste all Fuji and his guys are dying for. They’re doing it so we have a chance to finish this, to kill Sin. If we charge in there all we’ll do is get ourselves killed and then it’s all over. Fuji knows that, he…he did it…they did it for us.” Bobby struggled to make his point and hoped Maria could understand it.
Maria turned back toward the horrific scene as Sin finished the last of Fujibashya’s warriors and turned his attention on their master. Clenching his gore covered jaws onto one of the ninja’s arms, he began to pull it slowly from the writhing assassin’s body. He dawdled over the task, relishing the pain, savoring every moment like a future serial killer plucking the wings from a butterfly.
“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore,” Maria sobbed, covering her face with her trembling hands.
Bobby knew exactly how she felt but refused to let her see it. “A little longer babe, a little more and it’ll be over.”
A loud wet pop reported the completion of Sin’s chore. The demon howled in rapture but Fujibashya remained reticent, refusing to heighten his killer’s enjoyment. The only sign of pain he revealed was the bulge of muscle in his jaws as they strained to barricade his agony from escaping.
“Poor little dude,” Bobby whispered, knowing what it was like to be at the mercy of someone incapable of it.
“They will celebrate him in Heaven,” Maria promised.
A lot of fucking good that’s doing him right now.
“Look!” Bobby cried, pointing to where Gordon was pushing himself from the blood soaked grass with what remained of his only arm.
“My Lord,” Maria gasped in a mix of joy and anguish.
*
Gordon surveyed the grisly scene then looked toward Bobby and Maria. He smiled, despite the pain and the fear, He smiled.
“Dude’s fucking nuts,” Bobby said without thinking, as usual.
“Bobby,” Maria scolded, as usual.
Bobby realized Gordon was preparing for his last stand. “This is it! Gordo’s going to distract him, we have to do it now.”
“No! Bobby…Bobby I can’t,” Maria sobbed.
“Yes you can babe,” Bobby coaxed. “Dig deep, find your inner badass.”
“No, I mean I can’t. I’m bound.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“I can’t Bobby, it’s in our Laws.”
“Laws! Really? Those fucking Laws are going to get the big guy killed!”
“No Angel can kill Sin. It is not a choice Bobby, it is not breakable. Even if I wanted to, which I do, I mean I really, really do, I couldn’t. It’s part of the package, part of the deal, like your robe is part of yours.”
This can’t be happening. I gotta go face this prick one on one?
“So I’m just going to stroll on over there and lop his fucking head off all by myself?”
Maria had no answer. She just stood there looking useless and guilt-riddled and beautiful. Bobby looked away, he loved her too deeply to watch her suffer.
He studied Sin’s huge scythe.
Even if I could sneak up on him, what the fuck would I do with that thing?
“Fuck fuck fucking fuck!” it wasn’t Shakespeare but it was all he had.
*
“Leave him. Your fight is with me.”
Sin, enthralled with the torture of the nearly limbless ninja, froze. With the tenderness of a lioness tending her cub, Sin took Fujibashya’s head in his jaws and turned to face the old fisherman. Gordon looked at him with empathy. Sin growled and stalked toward him, his tails dancing menacingly, drool and blood oozing from his muzzle.
Gordon stood his ground. “Leave him, it is me you want.”
Sin growled again then shook his head violently, like a dog with a new toy. Fujibashya’s body tore from his body, flew over Gordon and crashed to the ground with a lifeless thud. Sin tossed the ninja’s head high into the air, opened wide as it fell, and swallowed it whole with a shiver of delight.
“You are lost,” Gordon whispered sadly.
“No brother, I am not. I am all I have ever been. And soon I will be all I have ever wanted to be,” Sin spoke, mangling the words, his muzzle created for killing rather than speaking.
“You are lost,” Gordon repeated as his tears flowed.
Seeing Him weep, Sin howled in ecstasy. Love, the weakness that infected the old fool, made despising Him so much easier, and torturing Him so much more enjoyable. “You are the one who is lost,” he said once the laughter faded.
“Finish me then,” Gordon commanded. “Do what it is you’ve waited so long for.”
“Don’t worry brother,” Sin sneered and moved closer. “I will.”
Gordon waited, swaying as the last of his strength ebbed.
“I wonder if you will feel it if I eat your guts?” Sin pondered. “I wonder if I take your eyes if those useless tears of yours will still flow.”
“Feast on me. Blind me. Do as you wish but if you do as this abomination then our pact is broken, and all you will accomplish is saving me and damning yourself.”
“Still playing by the rules? You fool.”
“Yes, if I were not, then I would simply heal and strike you down. I should never have given you a second chance. I should never have created you in the first place!” Gordon cried while bawling, openly and unashamed. “I see now there is no other way to end this other than to destroy you.”
“Did the mighty Esha just admit He was wrong? Did you just realize you were and never will be my equal? You will never again command me. You will never again look down at me. You will never again do anything but die.”
Gordon wobbled and almost fell before somehow regaining his fragile balance. Sin saw it and realized very little time remained to revel in his brother’s death. He wanted so badly to draw it out, to wallow in His agony, again and again, until it bored him. Esha’s warning, however, could not be ignored. Breaking their oath would undo all he accomplished. His hunger, his selfishness and his greed could and would cost him his triumph if he allowed it. Howling in disappointment, Sin morphed back down to match Esha in size.
Death Sucks Page 52