The beast flung Vain to the ground and reeled back, roaring in pain. Grazing the top frame of the doors, the creature loomed above the assassin and bared its teeth in a parody of a smile. A forked tongue darted out from a lizard’s snout, slipping almost instantaneously through its long, serrated teeth.
“Nice to see you, Dark Man,” it whispered sibilantly. “We were hoping you would come and entertain us with your screams. Your soul has developed a truly wondrous image; there is such beauty embodied in your evil. Wouldn’t you like to keep it? You have strayed from your true path for too long. It is time for you to return to us… return to us, or die.”
Vain darted to the left right when the creature pounced at him, slashing upwards into its ribs. The wound tore deep and Vain watched a thick green sludge drip from the gash before the creature covered it with its own clawed hand and howled into the bloody sky.
More cautious now, the beast crouched low to the ground readying itself to pounce.
“Please, please forgive me,” pleaded Vain, dropping to one knee and burying his head in his hands. “I’ll come back, just don’t hurt me.”
Confused by the assassin’s change of stance, the creature lowered its guard for a fraction of a second, just as Vain had hoped, and he leaped with lightning alacrity, sweeping both sets of claws forward and into the throat of the giant beast. The monster reared up to its full height, dragging the Dark Man off his feet with his claws still buried deep in its throat. He wrapped his legs around the creature’s back and strained his rapidly tiring muscles. The creature reached hopelessly for the assassin, but Vain swept his arms apart, slicing through the bone and sinew of the creature’s neck and completely severing its head.
The beast’s skull fell to the road with a satisfying thud, and Vain dropped to the ground. “I could get used to these,” he muttered, admiring his claws.
The body quickly dissolved into a thick sludge, sliding to the side of the road and joining the bloodied mess that already lay there. The Dark Man examined the head, its lidless eyes glaring balefully up at him, its mouth moving voicelessly, still trying to speak.
“Don’t get up,” chuckled Vain, “I’ll get the door.”
With a last look of anguish, the eyes finally went blank and the creature’s head also liquefied, but the assassin retained an odd feeling, like something still watched him.
Brushing aside the sensation, Vain crept warily through the towering entryway, into a giant, empty chamber, its gray granite walls seeming to pulse and flow, as though they were part of a living creature somehow aware of his presence. In the distance stood what appeared to be an elevator. Apart from that, the room looked vacant, and Vain cautiously made his way over, checking the floor for any hidden traps while edging around the outside wall. His feet sticking to the floor, the air clinging to him like syrup, he trudged on. By the time he made it across to the elevator Vain had beads of sweat forming upon his demonic brow.
Sweating in Hell, he thought abstractly. Who would have imagined?
Checking the elevator thoroughly for any possible ensnarement, Vain warily pressed the button and leaped back, expecting the worst. Nothing happened. The doors slid open with a low ‘ping’, and he carefully approached the empty elevator and stepped in.
Everything in Vain screamed trap, but with no option other than turning back, he swiftly pressed the button for the top floor. The doors slid shut with a gentle whoosh, and the elevator gradually began its ascent. Vain’s nerves began to settle and he leaned back against the wall.
Suddenly the lift stopped with a jolt.
What now?
Immediately the floor dropped, and he found himself momentarily suspended in midair while the lift plummeted for what seemed like an eternity. Just as quickly, however, it stopped, crashing him to the floor before instantly speeding off to the right, bouncing the assassin off the far wall. The elevator continued on this insane journey for an eon. Sometimes flying left, other times veering right. Up, down, shooting forward or flinging backward.
He quickly learned his lesson and held tightly onto the handrail, positioning himself in the corner, but the rail twisted in his grasp, transforming into snakes’ heads filled with venomous fangs. Vain had to fight off the vicious attacks while still grappling for balance in the disturbingly flighty elevator.
When the doors finally opened, a bruised and battered Vain emerged, leaving a mess of brass snake-heads in his wake. He stepped into a completely different part of the tower – if he was still in the tower at all. The walls no longer pulsed and moved; these were a strange purple and plastered in pictures – photos of people.
Vain moved closer to one of the pictures. It resembled a crooked lawyer he had dispatched some six years before. Intrigued, he moved on to the next photo and the next. Each bore the face of one of his victims, staring out at him from within the frame.
“That’s right, Dark Man,” crooned an eerie voice behind him. “This is the house of your victims. We have waited here to reap revenge upon the one who maimed and slaughtered us, and now you have come as we were foretold.”
Vain whipped around. Dante’s grossly misshapen features glared at him. Clad in a tight leather vest that hung open to the waist, Dante’s skin seemed to have been flayed from his body, leaving only his face untouched. He wore nothing else apart from an enormous piercing through the middle of his bloodied genitalia, from which hung a massive lead ball that dragged his penis almost to the floor.
Behind Dante crowded other victims, more continuing to push in from behind.
“Who are you guys supposed to be, the fucking Village People?” scoffed Vain, scanning the motley group jamming the entryway. Although he could make out some of them, most were too horribly mutilated to even recognize any semblance of human features.
The creatures burst forth into the room, clamoring for the Dark Man’s soul.
Chapter Ten
Reflecting Evil
Sebastian awoke in a seamless room. He had no recollection of how he had arrived here. There were no entries or exits to jog his memory, no seams in the walls where a hidden panel might afford escape. The perfect prison. Sebastian gazed up from the floor, six surfaces of the pristine cube seeming to glow with their own inner light, a cold, lifeless brightness that brought no warmth.
Examining the room, Sebastian noticed something wrong. A strange absence, though for a time he could not identify it.
Suddenly it came to him. He could see and feel the walls around him, but when he closed his eyes it seemed they weren’t there. His special senses could detect nothing outside the space where he lay. At first he thought something inhibited his talents, but examining himself he found he could still see the health flowing through his body, waves of energy moving in rhythm with his heartbeat. Though he could find nothing explicitly wrong with him, without his talents he suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable, almost naked.
“Well, well,” a sickly familiar voice sounded through the walls. “Our little guest has finally awoken. I hope that your lodgings are adequate.”
The far wall rippled, flowing into a perfectly circular opening through which Empeth emerged. Beyond it, Sebastian could see only absolute darkness.
“You have been a very sleepy little boy, haven’t you,” Empeth said, standing menacingly over Sebastian. “Did the stupid Dark Man wear you out with his futile crusade to protect you from me? Ah well, you can rest now for a while, at least until your part in the rising of our Lord arrives.”
Angrily, Sebastian tried to stand, but found himself pushed back against the floor by an unseen force. His arms and legs lost all their strength instantly and he flopped like a captured fish.
“Ah!” clapped Empeth. “You have just discovered one of the many facets of your new prison. Any energy you use will be turned against you; whether physical or mental the result is the same. I’m rather proud of it.”
Sebastian cowered on the floor and said nothing. Energy quickly began to flow back into his limbs, but he remained
still and decided against trying anything again just yet.
“Well, I’m afraid I must go now,” smiled Empeth warmly. “Things to do and souls to shred, you know how it is. Bye for now, Avun-Riah. I’ll check up on you again soon.”
Empeth turned and stepped from the room; the wall shimmering smoothly back into place, once again seamless. Sebastian warily rose to his feet and found he could move freely about now, although he could only walk ten paces before reaching the end of the room. His frustration finally prevailed and he punched uselessly at the wall of his cell, only to be thrown across the floor, landing in a crumpled heap against the opposite wall.
Shaking aside his shock, Sebastian’s thoughts raced. Something very important had occurred when he’d hit the wall and suffered the resulting reaction, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Finally it came to him. He could move around the room while his movements weren’t of an aggressive manner. By punching the wall, his energy had been multiplied and thrown back at him tenfold. Though Sebastian knew the nature of the power surrounding him, confusion settled over him like a cloak. How could he use the knowledge to his advantage? He devised various tests to prove his theory, mental and physical, resulting in a splitting headache and a bruised body.
He had no sense of time in the white cell. It never dimmed its permanently bright, lifeless light, and Sebastian had no way of telling whether it was day or night. He might have been there for hours, but it could have easily been days or weeks.
After almost giving up hope of finding a solution, one suddenly occurred to him. Summoning his courage, Sebastian quickly surged his power and held it. While holding that power in check, he added to it, making it swell and grow until he thought it would burst out through his chest. When he could hold no more, he quickly focused the energy on the point he wanted and concentrated all his thoughts on the image of the Dark Man.
With a roar, Sebastian released his power. Not at anything to do with the cell, rather he directed it inward on himself. At first it seemed nothing had happened and he thought perhaps he had again failed, but then he heard a noise like fabric slowly tearing. This quickly became a shattering of time and sound, which flung his mind free and hurtling through midnight.
Sebastian kept his thoughts concentrated on the Dark Man, and soon saw an image growing below him. Amid the carnage of a bloody and torn landscape, Sebastian sped toward an enormous dark tower that seemingly rose to incredible heights. The boy cringed, bracing for impact with the top of the tower, but he sensed no pause in his decent, like he had simply passed through a thick mist.
Opening his eyes, Sebastian found himself still plummeting, catching glimpses along the way of unspeakable terrors. Images of self-mutilation and horror burned into Sebastian’s mind as he fell, and he felt himself tainted to his very core for simply witnessing them.
Gradually his descent began to slow, finally stopping in a room full of monsters surrounding a creature of raw power. The demonic image chuckled harshly, chiding the awaiting horde, “Who are you guys supposed to be, the fucking Village People?”
The creatures closed in around the powerful demon, and Sebastian realized with shock that it was the Dark Man standing before him. Vain now bore the appearance of a monster from a child’s worst nightmare. Sebastian instinctively recognized the assassin’s soul image. If true, it meant the Dark Man had died, and Sebastian’s hopes for rescue were futile.
Swallowing his own distress, Sebastian looked to how he could aid his friend in the battle for his soul. He knew that Vain could take a lot of the creatures with him before he failed, but he also knew eventually the Dark Man would be overcome and simply cease to exist.
* * * *
Dark Man, you must listen to me, pulsed a voice inside Vain’s mind.
Who are you? he asked.
It’s me, Sebastian, pulsed the voice. Quickly, listen before it’s too late. In this place your mind can control your environment. You can alter what you are and –
The voice suddenly ripped away, but Vain managed to register what the words meant. Some twenty creatures were moving quickly toward him, oblivious to the silent exchange which had just occurred.
Focusing his thoughts, Vain concentrated before sending out a burst of mental energy that shook the very ceiling of the room. The wave passed through the group before him, stopping them in their tracks. Their skins began to bulge, quickening powerfully until their frames lurched outward in ways they were obviously not intended to.
Suddenly the ribs of the creature closest to Vain shredded through its thick leathery hide and it warbled in pain. Other creatures froze, shuddering momentarily, before they too witnessed their own hideous forms stretching and flowing like waves upon a rough ocean. Inner organs sprayed through hides stretched too tight and flew across the floor, bones cracking and splitting under the unnatural pressure.
The few remaining creatures stopped short, witnessing the violence rendered against their fellows. They surveyed the carnage before cautiously beginning to creep forward once more. Such was their lust for vengeance that they would risk their very souls to reach their clawed hands into the one who had sent them to this place.
Vain calmed his mind and once again concentrated on his method of attack. The creatures began to encircle him just beyond the radius of his previous mind blast. Seeing this attack would no longer be effective against the beasts, Vain paused and instead turned his attention onto himself.
After all, he reasoned, everything about this place was simply mental. His arms weren’t really arms; they were merely projections of what his soul thought he should look like. This explained the horror of his original countenance; his mind recreated what his soul felt. Vain used this knowledge to reshape his exterior facade to something more appropriate for the situation.
Vain sensed his form shifting and altering, like shedding a large wet fur cloak and redressing into a wetsuit. Where there had been gangrenous flesh before, now his muscles rippled beneath thick black leather. He tensed the tendons in his hand and watched deep ebony claws emerge from beneath the skin of his fingertips. Curiously, both his claws and skin seemed to somehow avoid the light. Not a shred of reflection came from any part of his body. He smiled a dark grimace of midnight fangs, lifting his gaze back toward his enemies.
The creatures in the room stood stock-still in awe of the transformation. Obviously, none of them had witnessed this before and they stared in undisguised wonder at this towering black demon standing before them in all its mesmerizing darkness.
Not waiting for the creatures to recover from their shock, Vain shot forward like a bolt of black lightning and severed the head of the largest beast. Without pausing, he leaped high and pounced from the wall to decapitate another creature in a spray of gore. On his returning arc, Vain swiped his right arm, slicing cleanly from the top of Dante’s head down through his chest, exiting in a bloody wash from his groin. Vain landed lightly on all fours, Dante’s body standing still for a moment, finally collapsing to the ground in six sections like a carved ham.
A beast wielding four grotesquely muscled arms, a new-born baby’s head dangling at an obscure angle from its shoulders, ran awkwardly at Vain. The assassin leaped nimbly backward in a complete somersault. Halfway through the flip, seven inch claws pushed from his toes and sliced all four limbs from the beast’s torso. Instead of blood, a thick, lumpy white paste pumped from the wounds, and the baby’s head wailed a child’s cry of shock. Ignoring the woeful shrieks, Vain stepped forward and thrust his left hand through the beast’s chest, emerging from its back clutching its severed spine.
Ripping his hand backward from the creature’s chest, Vain turned to see which beast would be next to attack. A look of fear flashed across each of the hellish faces staring back at him, and slowly they began to retreat from the room. Vain glanced about warily, wondering at the sudden change in the ferocity of beasts that had only a moment ago been crying out for his soul.
When no more attacks came, Vain rel
axed slightly, but still moved cautiously toward the doorway, expecting an ambush. Peering around the corner, the hallway beyond appeared empty. Confused, he stepped into it, retracting his claws.
Vain moved down the long, empty corridor toward the single door at the end. Along the wall stood a full-length mirror, reflecting Vain’s new appearance when he passed. The vision made even the dark-hearted assassin shudder.
Towering over seven-feet tall, his reflection was one of the ultimate night-hunter. Immaculately hairless, ebony perfection returned Vain’s stare from the mirror. He gritted his teeth. They too were black, as was the entire inside of his mouth. Eyeballs, dull orbs of midnight, stared emotionlessly back at the assassin.
One of them winked. Vain retreated in shock, and the figure in the mirror stepped forward.
“Well, assassin,” the reflection snarled in several voices at once. “Don’t you like what you see?”
“What are you?” growled Vain, readying himself for an attack.
“We are you. We are us. We are the ones you have just faced, but now we are one. We are Legion, for we are many.”
With the last words, the mirror shattered outward, and the assassin leaped back toward the entrance of the room. But where the doorway should have been he found only a seamless wall blocking his way.
Legion stepped confidently from the mirror frame and into the hall. “Don’t you want to play with us now, Dark Man? Is it you who wants to run and hide? Well, we promise to show you the same sympathy you showed us.”
Vain crouched low and pounced high into the air, aiming a lightning thrust at Legion’s throat. The beast easily sidestepped the strike and hit Vain in the chest with a crushing blow that sent him flying through the air to land in a crumpled heap at the end of the hall.
The pain isn’t real, it’s only in your mind, Vain thought to himself, climbing back to his feet. Shit, if this isn’t real, why does it hurt so much?
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