The room was awash with shadows now, and John's eyes had turned from their normal hue to the blackness of his sorcerer's conscience. He pushed out with his will and The Skin Walker flew into the metallic corner of the wall with a satisfying crack.
“She betrayed you, Sorcerer, for me it was only politics. You understand that, don't you?”
“Betrayal by a friend is one thing; this is something completely different.”
“So I guess there is no point in calling it even?”
“Why, you scared of old John?”
The Skin Walker shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in a gesture of relaxation before he fixed his red eyed stare on John again. “Quite to the contrary; I'M JUST GETTING FUCKING STARTED!”
Rivvells and Blismasatakk circled each other slowly.
Blismasatakk wasn't sure; you never could be with this alien cunt, but he thought that Rivvells was smiling.
“Come now Rivvells; is this really necessary?” Before Rivvells could answer Blismasatakk leaped with speed and planted a head-butt on the semi-circular outline of his opponent’s forehead.
Rivvells felt the pleasure spread throughout his body and knew that it was doing some damage, yet the bliss contained in the feeling was making it difficult for him to think.
Instinctively he threw his left arm backwards through one of the walls many spikes, and the sudden flood of pain was enough to contrast the damaging pleasure he had felt moments earlier. With the spike sticking through his palm he wrenched the spike from the wall with ease and contorted his fingers so he now held the heavy metal as a weapon. As he clenched his fist, the back end of the spike twisted in an upwards curve, his strength bending the tool with ease, creating a secondary weapon out of the back of his hand. His mouth opened, from pin point to circle, in an unlocking twist to the left. He shut it and opened it again from the right.
Simultaneously, both beings charged.
As Reckwick made his move, something took over, time slowed to a mere millisecond and she was able to side step him whilst throwing a kick to his ankle. He toppled over. He rose to his feet smiling and this time when he charged he caught her and gave her fifteen rapid punches all about the face. Candy felt them alright, but not like she would have expected. Her gift of taking pain seemed to be in order and she struck out her knee and caught Reckwick in the testicles.
He reared back slightly and just the touch to that part of his body brought it all back, what he had done to Brekin and than rage rose and rose and mingled with Mephinie's rage at being touched and the love made it intertwine and she leapt up and grabbed Reckwick's face and bit hard on his lips until she had chewed them off.
Then she reached for her knife and was about to stab it into his throat when it fell to the ground.
"FIGHT TO THE DEATH. NO WEAPONS MATCH. CONTINUE."
Shit, though Candy. She hadn't thought. It would have been so easy. But the rage was still there and it coursed through her veins and Reckwick's head was pointed upwards towards her and again the rage so intense that she took her forefinger and stuck it into Reckwick's neck, just at his windpipe, not only crushing his breathing apparatus but piercing the skin so blood began to flow freely. He fell to his knees gasping. She kicked him in the ribs and he rolled onto his back. She stamped on his face and his nose caved, flattened, and then caved again into an inverted dent. She kicked him in the head, again and again and again.
Then she thought of Brekin. She thought how this man had wounded him and knew she would do the same. She went round to the back of him and with all her might punched the top part of his spine. She tried to watch him squirm but he could not. He was paralysed.
From atop Shub Niggurath looked down with only sorrow, but in her mind she thought she saw one champion being replaced by the next.
Candy drew out Reckwick's penis and began slowly giving him a hand job. She wasn't sure if it would still work, what with his current condition but it very slowly started to get hard.
Out the blood spewing from his mouth she heard him utter the words - “You bitch."
When it was hard enough she took it in her teeth and bit as hard as she could. It did not give, not at first, but she tried again and was rewarded with a spurt of blood. She continued and soon his appendage was in her mouth, detached. It took a moment for her to realise that Reckwick was screaming. She stuck his slowly softening penis in his mouth as far as she could to gag him and then moved towards his testicles. She took great delight in biting each one and seeing his face tense in agony as she did so. Soon she held them both in her hands.
She threw them over the precipice.
Then she dragged Reckwick by the hair across the side of the arena, toward the great drop. "You killed my boyfriend you piece of shit."
She stamped on his left foot breaking it. "You fucked up my happiness."
She kicked him full in the face and he nearly tumbled over the arena.
The blood came out in thick red goops, as John coughed over his laughter. His left eye had been gouged and the upper right of his skull was on full view.
The Skin Walker stood chewing on the torn flesh. “So, Shaman. Do you have any last words before I take your tongue?”
John spat blood and shook his head.
The smile on his face was really starting to piss off The Skin Walker. “One or two. But old John, he got a question.”
The Skin Walker regarded him with a neutral red stare and nodded.
“Well, old John here, he was just wondering if you a Bob Dylan fan?” and with that the shaman erupted into blood showering laughter.
“Enough questions. Enough stalling. Now I take your tongue...”
“Whoa there Skin Walker. I always had you figured for an honourable kinda fucker. You really gonna deny a man of knowledge his last words?”
“Well, get the hell on with it, you know I don't have all-“
“Skin of my skin, flesh of my flesh, I take your skin by giving my breath,” the soft whisper was accompanied by a one eyed focus on the dead red eyes and a soft short exhaling of breath from John; air like mist, vibrating colours mingling into a deathly white that washed over The Skin Walker, illuminating the darkness within this terrifying creature.
“You see; the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.”
A look of confused shock passed over The Skin Walker's dead red eyes; then his skin began to disintegrate, and there was just muscle and bone, then redness so vast, shimmering amongst the shadows which danced around it. For the briefest of moments its chromatic essence seemed unsure, then it expanded with a blast which filled the room with the full spectrum of redness, before contracting into a single dot of colour; dead red. In the moment before it blinked out of existence John levelled his finger at it. “Pawn takes King; and chess ain't even my game.”
John crawled towards the door.
It was time to go find the queen.
In the Vacuum, both Blismasatakk and Rivvells had realized that they were pretty evenly matched. The only edge Rivvells had over the Bliss man was that he was in his own residence.
Once again he altered his eyesight and regarded Blismasatakk in the form of virtual particles. He had an idea. He doubted either could kill the either, even with his advantage, but if he could knock the Bliss man out then Mephinie would be happy enough. She had promised him a white rabbit for taking care of this. With the spike he motioned Blismasatakk to come forward, yet the blue skinned creature regarded him warily.
“We appear to have reached a standoff Rivvells. Why don't you get the fuck out of my way and I'll go get you a fucking rabbit or something.”
This hadn't been what Rivvells had been bargaining on, but it would do. He nodded. Blismasatakk sighed and moved towards the door. Rivvells was really looking forward to that rabbit.
As the Bliss man made to step out of the door, Rivvells used his mathematical magik to seal the doorway, a vacuum in correspondence with the Bliss man's virtual particles and spun on his heel with the grace of a ballet danc
er, catching Blismasatakk in the neck with the spike, spinning him in turn to face the opened vacuum sucker of Rivvells mouth.
Blismasatakk opened his own mouth in shock, and Rivvells sucked as much blissful painful energy as he could from the blue skinned monster, down deep into a pocket of space, back in Rivvells' home world, then planted the open void of his mouth the best he could upon Blismasatakk, and exhaled all the ecstatic brutality back into the Bliss man.
Blismasatakk eyes turned upwards, a look of wonderment in each pupil, as he slumped to the floor. Rivvells took a seat on the Bliss man's chest and slammed the spike through the blue skinned throat, nailing Blismasatakk to the floor. The Bliss man was far from dead, but Rivvells figured that would hold him for the next few hours or so.
Rivvells sighed and thought about white rabbits.
Shub Niggurath was out her chair watching with full attention.
"You killed Brekin. So this is a little something for you," Candy undid her belt and wrapped it around Reckwick's throat in a noose like fashion then kicked him as hard as she could until he was dangling over the edge of the precipice. Again she slowed time somehow so that he was dangling there for only a millisecond in her reality but in everyone else's time reality he may have been there twenty minutes. She heard a voice call out.
"RECKWICK IS DEAD. CANDY IS VICTORIOUS."
She had hung him to death and now she dropped his body over the precipice.
Shub Niggurath held out her hand. “Come to me my champion. You have proved yourself worthy have you not?”
Suddenly Xcetral was at Candy's side along with Mephinie. “She is my champion. We have fooled you, old goat. Your champion is dead and you no longer have the strength in the council you had. A new alliance has been made,” said the Black God.
“Oh quite. Of course, one like myself would not have any way of knowing this. How could I? How possibly could I?” And then Shub Niggurath burst into the most horrendous laughter.
Candy looked about for John. He should be here now, with the demons.
She instead called them by name. "AGARES, GLASYABOLAS, I SUMMON THEE NOW." And there they stood.
Glasyabolas turned to the crowds and waved his hands and soon there was fighting amongst the entire audience.
Agares merely looked at Shub Niggurath. "So we meet again, Goat. Do you think you shall better me this time?"
Shub Niggurath responded by throwing herself at the wizened old man who cast a solid beam of blue light towards her.
Candy ignored all this. The questions had been going through her mind. How could I? How possibly could I?
She started walking to the goats chambers.
Meanwhile Glasyabolas had just about beaten the goat.
Mephinie watched on with great pity. It was a shame to lose brethren but hey, shit happened. She walked across to the Goat with her ablath and suddenly it shone with a clear white light. She stuck it in the goat's eye and the goat screamed as thousands of souls departed from her.
Mephinie felt a tug at her leg and looked down into John's good eye. “Fucked me over, bitch! Mephinie, Danu, CUNT! Call yourself what you like. Remember that favour I done for you all those years ago? Consider it undone.”
Candy first felt her souls returning just as she neared the door.
She felt it like a rush of pressure up her spine, invading her heart, then into her brain, and mind and consciousness. For the first time in two years she felt happiness return. She knew then that the goat was dead, that it would be alright. She would find John, and Faith and Marcus and they would go, just go, away to another part of the world and forget as much as possible.
Maybe she would smoke more crack. Maybe she would get clean, meet someone new, and have a baby. Had she really listened her thoughts so soon after Brekin's death she may have found them crass, but this is what her soul returned to her had done. It had made her a person again. She found Shub Niggurath's chambers and opened the door.
Strained politeness weighed heavily on her thoughts, a broken smile long forgotten; there is tightness in my chest that makes my organs bleed, like I’m crying inside, the bloody tears of a failed heart. Did I fail her? Does she hate me where ever she is, the pure hate, the kind born of love? My soul is awash in a river of consciousness, my mind attacked by a barrage of damaging questions. What does time tell exactly? Where we’ve been? The things we’ve done? What atrocities our future holds? Does it tell of the things we’ve seen? Believe me. We’ve seen a lot. And I don’t want to see any more. Oblivion beckons. It was all a waste of time.
There lying on the floor of the goat's chambers were Faith Emerald and Marcus. Both were naked. He was in wolf form and had been skinned. His fist was shoved up the vagina of Faith whose eyes had been gouged and whose heart had been removed and laid across the body of Marcus.
Candy saw the handgun lying on the ground and picked it up. It was the colt forty five, the white plated one, and she opened it to see six bullets sitting, intact.
What was once left is now gone. All that I belonged to is dead. I have my soul but this world is no place for a soul. John will be out there somewhere, but he will be fine. He is always fine.
Candy burst into tears which overflowed her hands and she coughed and retched until she felt in some way cleansed.
It could be different. I could live. I have my soul. But where do I go from here? Who to talk to about this? Not a shrink. Not cops. My friends are dead and my family have disowned me. If there is one thing I could take away from this it’s that nothing really counts, no matter what you do, it doesn’t matter in the end. From cradle to grave we live and we die and if we’re very lucky we don’t end up like me...
She put the handgun to her head and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
MEPHINIE
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN UNDONE?” Mephinie shouted and the sudden realization of John's intent, the life he had given her only daughter and had now taken back, and the anguished scream it brought forth from her, echoed in discordant harmony with the loud CRACK of nearby gunshot.
“I did you a favour. You fucked me over, so you still fucking owe me. Remember that,” spat John, a look of strange fear in his remaining eye.
Mephinie waved the ablath in John's face. “With this I fucking OWN you. Remember this!” The point pierced John's forehead, smashing bone and scattering brain.
Mephinie sighed.
Perhaps she had overreacted.
The Goddess walked into the chamber and saw the fallen bodies of Candy and Faith and the wolf.
She reached for her ablath. Rebirth would follow for these two women. She had promised them protection and known they would die. There would be no protection for them in this world. As for the wolf; she would get in touch with some old friends and see what she could do about maybe making his afterlife a better one. For all she knew he was already in a nice place. She started first with Faith. The ablath shone blue now, then red, then every colour imaginable.
Horus entered the room, and Mephinie regarded him with her purple stare.
The Egyptian prophet looked around and laughed, yet it contained no mirth to it. You do know that I prophesied this from the start?
Mephinie shook her head and laughed. Good for you hawk face. Now make like an Egyptian and take a walk. I got stuff to do.
Horus nodded. I know. Such a pretty nose.
Mephinie shook her head as Horus left the room. Pretty nose? What the fuck did he mean by that? Still... she did have a pretty nose.
Mephinie shrugged off the thought and returned her gaze to the scene in front of her.
Magick was taking place.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CANDY
The blackness was painless and soothing all at once. Only Mephinie and John had heard the shot. Candy heard only the sweet sound of nothingness. She saw only a white light and noticed she was naked. She felt no cold however, only a heavy tiredness.
She decided to lie down and take a nap.
; CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
JOHN
John awoke. He blinked a couple of times as his eyes adjusted to the light.
Surrounding him was seven of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
“Do you know where you are?” asked a pink eyed blonde.
John shrugged and gave a slight nod. “Guessin' Meph sorted me out good. Good thing too; she owed me one. Guess she was pretty pissed when she thought I'd taken back her daughter’s life, but old John ain't that kinda guy. Betting it made her think though – right?”
The pink eyed blonde nodded. “Mephinie was relieved to find out that her daughter lives on in the dimensional matrix. She extends her apologies for her over reaction and-”
John cut the pink eyed beauty off with a wave of the hand. “Seems she did me a favour. What's your name... no, let me guess. It's Cindy right?”
The pink eyed blonde nodded. “Yes, my name is Cindy. We have been instructed to service you in any way you desire. Do you have any requests?”
John lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. He wouldn't mind a taste of Cindy that was for sure. But first he had other tastes in mind.
He reopened his eyes and stared into the delicate pink of Cindy's.
“Can you lend me ten bucks for a bottle?”
TWENTY FIVE
BAD DREAMS AND DAYMARES
Candy stirred softly, the duvet snug against her skin. She felt rested. Her head eased into the pillow, and she stretched her arms above her head, in tensing relaxation. She wondered what time it was. She hoped she hadn't missed her first lecture of the day; the alarm hadn't gone off, so she presumed that it was still early, but it wouldn't have been the first time that she had forgotten to set it.
God what a horrible fucking dream.
The last she had remembered had been the light, so white, yet clear, the way she imagined the wind would look if visible to the naked eye. And the rest of it... she shuddered. Still, it was all just a fucking dream... she made a mental note to get some speed of Sarah; she'd had enough dreaming to last her as long as an ounce would last...
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