by Jack Delgado
***
Dante woke sluggishly, painfully, against his will, his eyes grudgingly flicking open. He was stretched out on a white rectangle of hard, cold material, his arms at his side, his weapons gone. The sleepy tranquilizer warmth that had surrounded him faded as he came to consciousness, leaving the cold of the room behind to saturate him.
“Where am I?” he groaned hoarsely, twisting his head this way and that to try and see his surroundings. The room pressed in around him, hardly more than eight by eight feet, oppressively dark and close. Metal cabinets and countertops lined the walls, dull red crosses scattered here and there among the blank steel.
“A hospital?” Dante muttered, sitting up and rubbing his aching head, “I’m in a hospital?”
Of a sort.
Dante launched himself back, rolling backwards off the table and pressing himself up against the wall. He shook where he crouched, his hands crooked into claws, terror and a warrior’s instinct blending together at the sound of that unnatural voice.
Cool, languorous, sharp as a knife. A woman’s voice. But there was a non-substance about it, a sense of emptiness, an echo of something dark and endless.
Hmmm… A good choice, I think, it whispered lazily in the dark, There is strength in this one. Young, fiery, convicted. A warrior, through and through.
“Who are you?” Dante shouted, looking around wildly, “What have you done to me? If you want information you can bite my shiny armored-”
I do not require information from you, Dante Soldari.
Dante froze, his mouth hanging open as his eyes widened in fear. A black door had appeared at the opposite end of the small room and swung open, slamming shut as the voice finished its sentence.
“How do you know my name? Why am I here?” Dante asked the air around him, paralyzed, his eyes darting nervously around the room. The air seemed to be thickening, becoming colder and colder as it pressed in on him.
I know much more than just your name, runner. And I’m here to make you a deal, if you wish.
“Deal?” Dante repeated incredulously, “I’m not making a deal with someo- something I can’t see!”
Better that you don’t see me, little human. The voice sounded coldly amused, like an adult humoring a child.
Let me tell you something, Dante, let me get it out of the way. You’re dead, child. Your body was smashed to meat and bits when you fell from the sky.
“What?” Dante asked, confused.
But I can give you your life back, if you promise me one thing.
“I’m not dead!” Dante shouted disbelievingly, “It’s too damn cold for me to be dead.”
Indeed? What, exactly, did you expect death to feel like?
Dante opened his mouth to retort, then closed it slowly, without a sound.
“I’m dead,” he said dully, his voice hollow. “Fucking great.”
I offer you a second life, Dante, in return for one service.
“What do you want?” Dante asked flatly.
I want you to take down Elric Jahansson.
“Great,” Dante responded without hesitation, lying down on the table and crossing his arms, “Yes. Sign me up and do what you will. If that’s your price, I’ll fucking take it.”
If it saves Aaliyah, he thought, I don’t care what this thing does to me.
The voice sighed, like wind tearing through autumn leaves.
Poor child. Your mother is beyond saving. You will be the only one to walk away tonight.
“What?” Dante roared, bolting up, his face livid, “Bullshit! The pods weren’t after her! She- she wouldn’t have-!”
Right? he finished in his head.
The laughter that rang through the chamber chilled the runner to the bone, the eerie and unnatural sound of it creeping over him like hoarfrost.
Think, Dante. Use that big brain of yours. Do you truly believe, for an instant, that your mother would ever have abandoned you to save herself?
“No…”
Dante’s vision blurred as his eyes began to burn, his fists clenching as his face contorted in misery.
“No.”
He threw his head back and screamed, slamming his fists into the countertop with all his strength.
“NO!”
The voice chuckled again, cold and a touch ironic.
Excellent. Like a proper soldier, a proper son. Don’t you just burn for vengeance now?
“No. Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Dante whispered.
He stood slowly and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms and staring straight ahead.
“So, what are you going to do?” he asked emotionlessly.
I’m going to modify you, Dante. I’m going to change you in a thousand ways. Don’t worry; you get to keep that cute young face and that fit little body. I wouldn’t touch those, too well-done for a human.
“Believe me, from how you sound I wouldn’t want you touching me,” Dante replied tersely.
Laughter breezed through the room again on an icy gust, genuine amusement filling its sound.
“Anyway,” Dante continued coldly, “I’ve already got as many cyberenhancements as my body can take, I’m in peak physical condition, I have complete control of my GIACA… what are you going to do to all that?”
Oh, something very special, my gorgeous little ashen champion. You thought that was power? No. Let me show you true power.
Dante rose into the air and slammed back against the table, an invisible force pinning him down and completely freezing him in place. Pain flashed up his legs and his arms as a thousand tiny needles, conjured from thin air, buried themselves deep into his flesh and bones.
I’m going to make you a god, Dante Soldari.
A knife buried itself in Dante’s gut and slowly rose up, splitting him in two, searing agony fogging his mind and making the room spin out of control. Scalpels speared into Dante’s back, slicing through to his heart and his lungs. Dante tried to writhe, tried to yell for help, tried to do something, anything to save himself.
I know you have a question, child. All who come here ask it.
I am old, Dante. Old as the universe and tired beyond belief. I have many names: Ankou. Yama. Azrael. Osiris. But there’s one name all beings know me best by. One name all things call me, and fear to call me.
Dante fought to scream, to breathe, his eyes bulging out of his head, black and red creeping in at the edges as the agony raged through him.
And then the pain vanished, the knives and needles vanishing as quickly as they had appeared. A long, curved blade descended out of the darkness and buried itself between Dante’s eyes, splitting his skull and burying itself in his brain. Dante twitched and writhed, free to move at last, but he did not scream. There was no pain.
His eyes traveled up, up the dull, rust-flecked length of the metal. The blade was fixed on the end of a long, straight rod of wood, gripped by ten ghastly white fingers. Where those repulsive hands began were the thing’s arms, thin and pale, sickly-looking. The arms ended where a cloak of pure darkness began, flowing down onto the floor in a pool of liquid shadow. The vague outline of shoulders lead up to a hood, swirling in an unnatural wind, filled by the neverending void of the outer dark.
As Dante watched, the cloak and the hands and the arms began to melt, to flow down the haft, over the blade, into his brain and his body, filling him up to the brim.
We shall go forth and wreak our vengeance upon Elric Jahansson. We shall find the other of our kind, the one who sleeps in the darkness, and bring the tyrant’s world crashing down around him.
Dante’s mouth stretched open in one last silent scream, his eyes narrowed in fury and his fists clenched at his side.
And now, my little runner… Now you have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.