Irihi
Evildoer
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He was this close, he could smell it. Rough’s fingers traced the rim of the lowball glass, the ice within shifting with a muted clink. Neat, rocks, it hardly mattered with this swill. None of it mattered; the too-sweet rip of the bottom shelf whiskey, the stale smell that clung to his overcoat--how many packs of cigarettes burned to stumps this week?
What mattered was her; that fluffball in the corner, leaning over the stupid sod in the booth, stooping like a hawk about to eviscerate a rabbit, unawares.
She didn’t look like a raptor; no--all black and white with downy neck muff, lace, and fishnets in furred boots. She looked soft. She looked safe. She looked fun, with everything pushed up where it could shake and jiggle. And the rabbit, beneath her, was mesmerized by those pouting pale plush lips and the twinkle of mischief in those soulless black sclera.
Yeah, they don’t twinkle for you, kid; just what your worth to her. Rough raised a finger, and another pour of warm engine degreaser melted more of the polluted ice in his glass. It wasn’t a good idea--not when he was this close to his target; but the whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe three wrongs would make a right. If not, at least he’d get numb enough not to care.
Rabbit was doing a line. Rabbit was laughing. Rabbit was already dead, and hanging off her arm like a kill dangling from a game rack. Out the door they went, her tittering as her feathery antennae twitched, his deeper chuckles providing a counterpoint as some of the last air he’d ever breath fled his lungs.
Rough downed the still-warm spirit and pushed creakily away from the bar, leaving the smell of stale sweat and a couple of ragged bills behind.
…
”Hands!” The snub-nosed revolver glinted in the dim red light spilling in through the filthy window. ”Both of you! Where I can see ‘em!” Rough gestured with the revolver. ”Against the wall!
This was it! He almost couldn’t believe it.
Years.
Home.
Career.
Maggie.
All sacrificed on the alter of this case. Sacrificed discovering, tracking, pursuing, and--at last--trapping that thing; the bent and twisted sharp-toothed spider-like monstrosity looming over Mister Rabbit’s prostrate form. I’ve got you now, you bastard!
Moff girl had flattened herself against the wall, all four hands spread flat. She knew bullets. She knew them enough to fear them; the way they tore and took. Her black eyes were wide, her teeth were chattering. Rough would have felt sorry for her, if she wasn’t such a monster; if she wouldn’t have killed him in an instant--just like she had Mister Rabbit.
“Do anything but what I ordered.” Rough snarled at the thing looming over mister rabbit, black blood still dripping from its razor-sharp digits. “Pretty please.” His finger pressed on the trigger, twitching with the urge. They’d believe him; he still had pull at the station. They were both murderers, and if he spattered them against the wall in “self-defense”, maybe this thing--the talons lodged in his brain, the claws that had marionette his own hands while he ripped his life apart--would relinquish his strings at long last.
It wanted them dead; just like it had wanted that kid dead--that evidence planted, those defensive wounds unreported. Three flashes illuminated the room, accompanied by the sharp report of gunfire in an enclosed space.
“Just a little insult before injury.” A voice hissed, and it was not Riley “Rough” Callahan’s own. It was that thing
Inside him.
Now manifest in the world.
The blackness of the demon had bubbled to the surface of Rough’s skin, peeled a second head away, branching from his neck like some sort of grotesque man-hydra. The thing he’d tried to deny with drug and poison--the thing he’d tried to kill with toxic cancerous smoke, it was here. It had pulled the trigger and now it was tugging his aim away from the ichabod skeletal monster Mephisto had become, and toward his fluffy partner-in-crime. “But it will kill her. Let’s enjoy her death, together, Patron, before you accompany me.”
Two pale hands were raised, as if they could stop the inexorable winged leaden death. The other two covered those black murderess eyes. “No… please!” she squeaked.
“Fear not, my dear. I won’t drag you to hell, alone. Your brother is soon to follo--GAAK!!”
Abraxiel was wholly separated from his thrall now, his claws entwined lovingly with Rough’s gun hand’s fingers, in an external manifestation of the embrace with which the hellspawn had driven Sergeant Callahan’s life to wreck and ruin.
He was also looking a little pale.
Ashen, even.
Six unseeing eyes wide, six knobbly limbs contorted with lightning shock, six bladed tails likewise stilled, Abraxiel began to crumble. It did not take long, the cascades of desiccated grey ash sloughed quickly to the floor. Released, Rough stumbled aside, his nerveless finger twitching, sending another slug into the ceiling, where a shower of plaster joined the remains of the demon that were now but a small sad pile of ash.
Above it, where the core of the hellspawn had been hollowed out, a miasmic cloud boiled. It was tiny, the size and color of a Babylon candle flame. Yet for its diminutive nature, the dark dancing flame was captivating; it drew the attention of all those still alive in the place. The flame did not so much grow, as the world around it seemed to shrink. Indeed, reality itself felt the press of the titan. More plaster fell, the floorboards rattled and cracked out of place. The filthy windowpanes exploded outward in showers of razored shards.
Thusly, she arrived.
Irihi did not grow into the world; she crushed it down, with the very weight of her ancient arcane presence as she unfolded into reality. “Hmph.” She made a noise, too dismissive to be disgust, as she brushed an imaginary fleck of ash from her pale shoulder. “Disappointing.”
Sergeant Callahan--ex-sergeant, actually--was looking at his hands, his smoking revolver having fallen to the floor. He couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, but he could feel it--the vanishing of the demon. Light and life and love were flooding back into his world. “I’m… I’m free!” He whispered, awed.
Then, he began to swell--not with pride or happiness, but with agony; his body distending not unlike that of a humanoid puffer fish, his limbs cracking and snapping as they contorted, his mouth opening in a silent scream that did nothing to relieve the torment of exploding from within.
Until Irihi snapped her fingers, and he burst like a bubble gumshoe.
“Not just yet, dearheart.” She said, her words almost lost in the wet smack of the fountain of gore falling upon the wrecked floor. With a come hither gesture, she compelled the tiny blue fairy light of his essence to coalesce from the pile of viscera--that had heretofore continued it--and wend around her finger. Thin pale lips pursed, almost touching the ethereal soul. “When I have what I want; then I will let you go.” She said, and the light winked out as she blew a spell upon it, like a child snuffing a birthday candle.
Violet eyes narrowed as the Elfwitch regarded Mephisto. “Don’t play with your food.” She admonished him. “And stop tormenting the help.”
Shaking a little gore and a little ash from her stiletto heels, she stalked over to the quivering moth girl, still covering her eyes and cringing as she waited for the bullet. “There, there, dearheart.” Thin cold fingers caressed the feathery muffler about the girl’s throat.
“Fear not; we won’t let you die…” Irihi spoke a reassurance that sounded more like a threat. “...you’re much too useful.” She played idly with the girl’s silvery hair and watched her feathery antennae curl with terror at the nearness of death in Irihi’s touch. “Isn’t that right, Murphy?”
Irihi took a step back, knowing that the girl wasn’t going to be able to move her fear-frozen legs while in Irihi’s sphere of influence. When the mothwoman opened her eyes, she gestured to Mister Rabbit’s corpse. “Go ahead, dearheart. You can have the prime cut, this time.” Irihi’s lips twitched upward. “We’re celebrating,” she decided.
What mattered was her; that fluffball in the corner, leaning over the stupid sod in the booth, stooping like a hawk about to eviscerate a rabbit, unawares.
She didn’t look like a raptor; no--all black and white with downy neck muff, lace, and fishnets in furred boots. She looked soft. She looked safe. She looked fun, with everything pushed up where it could shake and jiggle. And the rabbit, beneath her, was mesmerized by those pouting pale plush lips and the twinkle of mischief in those soulless black sclera.
Yeah, they don’t twinkle for you, kid; just what your worth to her. Rough raised a finger, and another pour of warm engine degreaser melted more of the polluted ice in his glass. It wasn’t a good idea--not when he was this close to his target; but the whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe three wrongs would make a right. If not, at least he’d get numb enough not to care.
Rabbit was doing a line. Rabbit was laughing. Rabbit was already dead, and hanging off her arm like a kill dangling from a game rack. Out the door they went, her tittering as her feathery antennae twitched, his deeper chuckles providing a counterpoint as some of the last air he’d ever breath fled his lungs.
Rough downed the still-warm spirit and pushed creakily away from the bar, leaving the smell of stale sweat and a couple of ragged bills behind.
…
”Hands!” The snub-nosed revolver glinted in the dim red light spilling in through the filthy window. ”Both of you! Where I can see ‘em!” Rough gestured with the revolver. ”Against the wall!
This was it! He almost couldn’t believe it.
Years.
Home.
Career.
Maggie.
All sacrificed on the alter of this case. Sacrificed discovering, tracking, pursuing, and--at last--trapping that thing; the bent and twisted sharp-toothed spider-like monstrosity looming over Mister Rabbit’s prostrate form. I’ve got you now, you bastard!
Moff girl had flattened herself against the wall, all four hands spread flat. She knew bullets. She knew them enough to fear them; the way they tore and took. Her black eyes were wide, her teeth were chattering. Rough would have felt sorry for her, if she wasn’t such a monster; if she wouldn’t have killed him in an instant--just like she had Mister Rabbit.
“Do anything but what I ordered.” Rough snarled at the thing looming over mister rabbit, black blood still dripping from its razor-sharp digits. “Pretty please.” His finger pressed on the trigger, twitching with the urge. They’d believe him; he still had pull at the station. They were both murderers, and if he spattered them against the wall in “self-defense”, maybe this thing--the talons lodged in his brain, the claws that had marionette his own hands while he ripped his life apart--would relinquish his strings at long last.
It wanted them dead; just like it had wanted that kid dead--that evidence planted, those defensive wounds unreported. Three flashes illuminated the room, accompanied by the sharp report of gunfire in an enclosed space.
“Just a little insult before injury.” A voice hissed, and it was not Riley “Rough” Callahan’s own. It was that thing
Inside him.
Now manifest in the world.
The blackness of the demon had bubbled to the surface of Rough’s skin, peeled a second head away, branching from his neck like some sort of grotesque man-hydra. The thing he’d tried to deny with drug and poison--the thing he’d tried to kill with toxic cancerous smoke, it was here. It had pulled the trigger and now it was tugging his aim away from the ichabod skeletal monster Mephisto had become, and toward his fluffy partner-in-crime. “But it will kill her. Let’s enjoy her death, together, Patron, before you accompany me.”
Two pale hands were raised, as if they could stop the inexorable winged leaden death. The other two covered those black murderess eyes. “No… please!” she squeaked.
“Fear not, my dear. I won’t drag you to hell, alone. Your brother is soon to follo--GAAK!!”
Abraxiel was wholly separated from his thrall now, his claws entwined lovingly with Rough’s gun hand’s fingers, in an external manifestation of the embrace with which the hellspawn had driven Sergeant Callahan’s life to wreck and ruin.
He was also looking a little pale.
Ashen, even.
Six unseeing eyes wide, six knobbly limbs contorted with lightning shock, six bladed tails likewise stilled, Abraxiel began to crumble. It did not take long, the cascades of desiccated grey ash sloughed quickly to the floor. Released, Rough stumbled aside, his nerveless finger twitching, sending another slug into the ceiling, where a shower of plaster joined the remains of the demon that were now but a small sad pile of ash.
Above it, where the core of the hellspawn had been hollowed out, a miasmic cloud boiled. It was tiny, the size and color of a Babylon candle flame. Yet for its diminutive nature, the dark dancing flame was captivating; it drew the attention of all those still alive in the place. The flame did not so much grow, as the world around it seemed to shrink. Indeed, reality itself felt the press of the titan. More plaster fell, the floorboards rattled and cracked out of place. The filthy windowpanes exploded outward in showers of razored shards.
Thusly, she arrived.
Irihi did not grow into the world; she crushed it down, with the very weight of her ancient arcane presence as she unfolded into reality. “Hmph.” She made a noise, too dismissive to be disgust, as she brushed an imaginary fleck of ash from her pale shoulder. “Disappointing.”
Sergeant Callahan--ex-sergeant, actually--was looking at his hands, his smoking revolver having fallen to the floor. He couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, but he could feel it--the vanishing of the demon. Light and life and love were flooding back into his world. “I’m… I’m free!” He whispered, awed.
Then, he began to swell--not with pride or happiness, but with agony; his body distending not unlike that of a humanoid puffer fish, his limbs cracking and snapping as they contorted, his mouth opening in a silent scream that did nothing to relieve the torment of exploding from within.
Until Irihi snapped her fingers, and he burst like a bubble gumshoe.
“Not just yet, dearheart.” She said, her words almost lost in the wet smack of the fountain of gore falling upon the wrecked floor. With a come hither gesture, she compelled the tiny blue fairy light of his essence to coalesce from the pile of viscera--that had heretofore continued it--and wend around her finger. Thin pale lips pursed, almost touching the ethereal soul. “When I have what I want; then I will let you go.” She said, and the light winked out as she blew a spell upon it, like a child snuffing a birthday candle.
Violet eyes narrowed as the Elfwitch regarded Mephisto. “Don’t play with your food.” She admonished him. “And stop tormenting the help.”
Shaking a little gore and a little ash from her stiletto heels, she stalked over to the quivering moth girl, still covering her eyes and cringing as she waited for the bullet. “There, there, dearheart.” Thin cold fingers caressed the feathery muffler about the girl’s throat.
“Fear not; we won’t let you die…” Irihi spoke a reassurance that sounded more like a threat. “...you’re much too useful.” She played idly with the girl’s silvery hair and watched her feathery antennae curl with terror at the nearness of death in Irihi’s touch. “Isn’t that right, Murphy?”
Irihi took a step back, knowing that the girl wasn’t going to be able to move her fear-frozen legs while in Irihi’s sphere of influence. When the mothwoman opened her eyes, she gestured to Mister Rabbit’s corpse. “Go ahead, dearheart. You can have the prime cut, this time.” Irihi’s lips twitched upward. “We’re celebrating,” she decided.