Chapter 10
Patience is not one of my virtues. It has never been one of my virtues. Do I even have any virtues left? The detective will be allowed to live a few more days, at most, I decide when he is finished. Adrianne is away and I am still hungry for her, and I sate myself with the detective for a few days, even if he is lacking her…skill, her…finesse.
She finally returns, noting our broken toy, muttering to himself, and her face falls. I suppose she was looking forward to playing with him some more, but it doesn’t matter to either of us. She shrugs, and wanders off into the wasteland of the underworld to train.
The red sky welcomes her as she spreads her wings and takes off.
She misses having her body, I know, while she is away from Mictlan. The underworld is her true home now, and she is unable to possess a physical form when she is in the real world. She can affect some items, small ones, such as bullets, but little else. She can suggest things to those weaker-willed than she, but she cannot possess a conscious body.
I’ll have to get her to try to inhabit an unconscious body, or a dead one.
That would be fun.
As it is, she still makes a wonderful spy. I already know that the Quetzwhore has a new friend, and I wonder if she’s fucked him or if she’s still leading him on like the little prick tease I know she is? Adrianne admires his looks, but the one time she got near him, he seemed to sense her.
She steers clear of him.
I should visit him, when I return to J Street. I wonder what form of tattoo he would suggest for my azure skin? Perhaps a serpent, or one of those tribal designs that seem so popular?
My mind is wandering, again. I have to stop this. It’s an after-effect of the helmet, isn’t it? I sigh, and look back to the crumpled puppet, collapsed on himself in fear and shame.
The constant degradation the one-time detective has gone through has snapped his mind like a dry twig, rotting and blowing away in the hot wind of Mictlan. Once he realized there was no escape, save through me, he just…gave up. His mind shut down.
His mind shut down, much like mine did when the Quetz-spawned bitch shoved that accursed golden helmet of offal on my head like the executioner dropping the guillotine blade.
Hm. She hopes me dead, a vegetable-head in the least, and this one knows the truth.
The truth hurts.
Torturing, tormenting a dead man is no fun, I muse, smiling, as I pull Aquarius up by the back of his neck, to let him dangle helplessly from my grasp.
He has a dull idea of what is about to happen, I can feel the slight quiver in his form as he tries to salvage some of his shattered, ragged, tattered dignity. He’s going to die like a man after all, not the whimpering coward I expected.
He doesn’t even try to beg, which saddens me.
It doesn’t matter.
It wouldn’t have mattered.
No mercy for those who would stand against me, against Tezcatlipoca, against the legion of dark gods out there somewhere, waiting for their hour to come.
I picture in my mind’s eye the look in his eyes as they widen in absolute shock and horror as he sees my hand emerging from his still-very solid flesh. The very same flesh that he had probably commanded, in a last ditch bid for survival, to become liquid.
He gasps, and I can literally feel the pain crashing over him in waves, pain from a back pierced through, exquisite agony from the claws emerging through his shattered ribs and shredded flesh.
It feels wonderful. My whole body hums with it, with the power of his living blood.
No shift to his water-form can save him now, even if he could manage it, which I doubt. He’s dead, dying, already dead, he realizes slowly, dully, as blood begins to seep from the corners of his mouth. His voice bubbles as he tries to speak, a single “…why…” managing to escape his bloodied lips. I release his neck and he begins his slow, inescapable slide towards the ground as first his legs, then his whole body, gives out all hope.
I pull my hand back through the gaping wound I have created as he falls, grasping my prize as I stand. I hold his still beating heart in my hand lovingly, as I slowly clench my fist and squeeze the last vestiges of life from it. His warm blood oozes between my fingers and coats the rest of my arm with crimson, as I bite into the flesh in my hands, devouring it a chunk at a time…
I will enjoy having Adrianne lick the remnants from me later, but as for now, I enjoy the metallic taste in my mouth and the motion of the death-throes of the detective at my feet as his final spasms stir up tiny clouds of dust.
As he finally stills, with one last gasp and the stench of released human waste.
I feel myself growing hard and wonder where my lover is.
I think back on the detective’s friends. I have wounded them, sliced a section from all of their hearts with this single action. They will fear me again.
As they should.