Post by jordan on Feb 1, 2015 18:44:03 GMT -5
All Star Marvel Proudly Presents
Lucifer, the Hood, and a Whole Lot of Other Characters
In
Dark City
Chapter VIII
See What I See
By Jordan
*
Wednesday, 19.17 PM
Five figures hover over the schematics of a large, 108-story skyscraper mere hours before the biggest moments of any of their lives. Parker's green eyes stare intently at the schematics, trying to figure out the fastest route from the 39th-floor entrance and the 100th-floor office where Kingpin resides.
"Never once did you guys,"
"Think of figuring this out?" The Brothers Grimm speak, their voices melding together into once sinister, sarcastic tone. Parker just huffs, refusing to acknowledge them. "Is the plan at least,"
"Just run in and kill them, still?"
"Will you two shut up, you're starting to grate on my nerves." Parker sneers out, his voice sharp and disgusted. His entire life rests on tonight. Nothing else matters until this is finished. Suddenly, Lucifer's hand comes down on Parker's shoulder. Parker looks up into his mentor's eyes and sees alarm. "What is it?"
"Someone is in the hallway." Lucifer whispers, his hand slowly moving towards the small gun in his belt. Parker removes his attention from the schematics and places his hand on his gun. The Brothers Grimm disappear into the shadows, preparing to strike at any time. Olivier stands in full brutish manner, muscles flexed preparing for the worst. Lucifer walks cautiously to the door and turns the brass knob, pulling the door open.
In front of the crew stands a tall, lanky man, at least in his sixties. A long mane of silver hair flows down from his head. To most, they would not recognize this man. To Parker, he was a sight for sore eyes. Parker places his gun on the table with the schematics and dramatically throws his arms in the air. "Are any of our hideouts actually secret?!" He hollers as the Brothers climb out of the shadows.
"Hello, Silvermaine." Lucifer motions for Silvermaine to enter, and the old man obliges, taking an unwelcome seat at the kitchen counter. "Why have you come to us in this hour?" Lucifer asks, walking to the coffee pot and pouring the old man a cup. Silvermaine takes a sip before answering.
"Nafaria is planning something bad, and I'm not sure what exactly." Everyone's eyes go wide, staring at the old man, one of the most powerful men in the world, with his head hung low, his lips sipping at a small cup of coffee, and his words telling a deeper tale than Silvermaine truly means to.
"And why are you telling us, Silvermaine?" Lucifer asks, his ever distrusting eyes searching Silvermaine for nervousness and fear.
"Because we made you a promise, and you deserve us to live to that promise. We once had a theory of honor, it seems as though Nafaria has lost his way." Silvermaine's eyes focus on his cup of coffee as his somber voice clouds over his onlookers.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" Parker asks, confusion in his eyes.
"Nafaria is a great leader and he has been for some time, but he has lost his way. I cannot stand by a man without honor."
"Have you come to ask for our help in overthrowing Nafaria?" Lucifer takes the empty cup from the old man's hands and begins to refill it, until Silvermaine motions for him to stop.
"I'm not planning any sort of coup. I'm warning you. Hammerhead and I have every intention of following through with our arrangements with you, but Nafaria may not be so obliging. Watch your backs is all." Silvermaine's words ring in a crowded silence as he stands and walks out the front door.
"What now?" Olivier says, breaking the silence. Everyone's eyes are on Parker. What can he say? What can he do? Everyone wants him to be a leader, HE wants himself to be a leader. Now is his chance to prove to everyone that he belongs.
"We go through with the plan. We kill the Kingpin. We take his head to the Maggia. We make history."
*
Wednesday, 21.43 PM
The dense moonlight reflects hard off of the behemoth towering over the city, casting shadows onto the four five knights riding into to liberate the world from a vile threat. Cars race down the streets, beeping and honking and turning and cursing. The black ground speaks of vile and evil secrets and sins of the past, the present, and the future. The world prepares for blood to be spilt. From high above in a secluded office hovering over the city, a man watches on a small television screen. A large, hardy laugh escapes the lips of the Kingpin.
"Do you believe these bafoons, Dan? Think they can sneak into my home and spill my blood? Think that they can threaten me?! I'll show them what it means to make heads roll." The hardy laugh stops and is replaced by an angry sneer.
"I've got to say sir, you definitely shouldn't underestimate these enemies. They didn't manage to escape the onslaught that we threw at them." Fancy Dan coughs up, his eyes avoiding the Kingpin's.
"That was your incompetence, not their skill. They had an escape hatch and sniffed you coming a mile away. There is nothing special about these idiots." Kingpin sneers and turns back to his monitor. "Well look at that, they've made it inside. Only one-hundred more levels to go." Dan looks around as a strange breeze blows through the room.
"Did you feel that, Boss?" He asks, his eyes searching the windows ever though he knows that they don't open.
"It was just a breeze, Dan." Kingpin replies, his eyes glued to the monitors.
"These windows don't open, s--" His sentence is cut short as he kneels over in excruciating pain, a long black dagger sticking out a cavity in his chest, blood coughing up through his mouth, smothering an expensive satin carpet.
"Dan?" Kingpin turns his attention away from his monitors to find Fancy Dan's lifeless husk lying limp and motionless in a pool of blood on the Kingpin's satin carpet. His eyes narrow and his breaths shorten. "Who are you?" He asks, staring at Lucifer as he cleans his long black knife.
"You don't remember me from the bar?" Lucifer's mouth twists into an ungodly smirk, his golden eyes reflecting the dark shine of his polished black knife.
"You were with the kid." Kingpin rises from his chair, his hulking frame towering over Lucifer. "How dare you."
"Stop, please, don't embarrass yourself." Lucifer slides the polished black knife into a small sheath hanging from his right leg that turns invisible in the shadows.
"With one word I could have my men in here to slit your little throat." Kingpin snarls through clinched teeth.
"You saw what I just did to your best man. And he never even knew. You don't think I can do that to everyone else on this entire world, including you?" Lucifer's eyes stare deep into the Kingpin's soul, challenging him to attack. The Kingpin, reluctantly, returns to his seat, slouching back and tapping his index finger against the strong wooden arm of his desk chair.
"I haven't much time for this, so do what you've come here to do."
"You've resigned yourself to death so easily?" Lucifer asks, his confident gaze never fading for that of confusion. A hardy laugh escapes the Kingpin's mouth, rocking the room and possibly the whole tower.
"You said it yourself: You could have already killed me and everyone in this building if you wanted to. If you wanted me dead, you would've already done it. So what are you really here for?" Lucifer's eyes disengage from the mammoth of a man's. He observes the room, looking for any evidence of an escape hatch. His eyes halt on a small water dispenser in the corner.
"How often do you drink water?" Kingpin's brow raises at the strange question.
"Often enough, I suppose." Lucifer crosses the room in what seems like the blink of an eye and stands at the water dispenser, examining it closer. He presses down on the hot water dispenser and watches as the entire wall opens up and shifts inwards. Kingpin's eyes fly wide open as the man had so easily discovered his hiding place. Lucifer turns back to the Kingpin, his eyes full of a violent anger, the gold shimmering in the fake lights of the escape hatch.
"Here's what I propose," Lucifer crosses the room again in a second, his hands now laid out, leaning against the large mahogany desk. "You run away to through that hatch to wherever it takes you and you hide. I spare your life and fake your death. We take your gang, you get to retire early--and alive. Does that sound good?" A small smile breaks the look of confusion on the Kingpin's face.
"Why on Earth wouldn't you want to kill me?" Lucifer closes his eyes and lets out a sigh.
"I don't like to kill people. It isn't in my nature. It's why I use this black dagger. It saves me. It saves me from sin. But the Hood? He isn't quit the same. He isn't natural. He will shoot you dead where you stand without a second thought if you stand in his way." As Lucifer stops talking the gunshots begin. The two listen as bodies hit the floor just yards away, as bullets riddle the super powerful doorway made to protect the Kingpin. A bead of sweat breaks down the Kingpin's face.
"What do I get from this? I've spent my life building this empire, and you want me to throw it away because some upstart idiot in a hood wants it?" Lucifer backs off of the Kingpin's desk, his eyes once more engaging the Kingpin's.
"See what I see." The Kingpin suddenly feels dizzy, his body goes limp as his mind is pulled away. He watches as hundreds of men go to war, as bullets and blades riddles the bodies of fathers, brothers, and sons. He watches as fires rain down from above, burning sinners alive. He watches as a darkness rises from the Earth and slaughters hundreds of angels, tearing their wings from their backs. He looks up and stares into God's eyes and sees...hopelessness...
"W-what was that?" Kingpin ponders, tears streaming down his face, his hands shaking and his body still limp. Bullets continue to fly as the two sides fight.
"That was the world engulfed in its untimely end. I am fighting for you, and without your help this will all be for not." Lucifer's words hang heavy on the head of one of the most powerful men in the city.
"W-what are you? W-who are you?" Kingpin's grasp on his desk is so hard the mahogany splinters and busts his skin, drops of blood slamming against the floor, knocking loud in a room full of silence.
"I think you know who I am." Kingpin's vision goes fuzzy, everything falls out of focus except for the man with the golden eyes, his long black wings extending out from his body, the tips touching against each side of the room.
"The...the devil..." Kingpin's voice is quiet in a room of buzzes and bangs.
"You don't have long to decide." Lucifer's voice comes out as a whisper and a hiss mixed together, with all the pain of a dying world. Tears stream down the Kingpin's face as everything goes black.
*
"What happened here?" Parker asks, his mouth hung in horror, his green eyes searching the blood-splattered room. His hood covers his face, his guns are still clinched tight in his fists. At his sides stand Olivier and the Brothers Grimm, all mouths gapping.
"He's yours." Lucifer exclaims from the Kingpin's old wooden desk, his golden eyes closed, focusing on something far and distant. At the center of the satin carpet lies a lifeless husk, motionless and limp. Its hulking frame covers most of the large office floor.
"This is..."
"His blood, yes. I killed him, you guys need to clean him up and get him to the Maggia, soon. Cops are already on their way here."
"What are you gonna do?"
"I've got business to attend." A gentle breeze and Lucifer disappears from the gathering. The four stand there in a crowded room, trying to figure out how to sneak the massive man's dead body out before the cops arrived.
*
One Hour Later
"I can already smell it." Jack Russoff says, the potent smell of iron spilling out into the hallway. His long trench coat drags through bullets, bodies and blood but his eyes stay focused on the large office door. "You sure you can stomach this, Zed?" Jack turns to his new partner who is quivering in his boots. Wearing a tight black suit and shinny leather dress shoes, Zed Kieline walks beside Jack. His eyes golden with a hint of black, his shoulders squared and his shinny black hair spiked at the tips.
"Y-yeah, s-sure." He stutters out, tripping over his own words like he trips over the bodies lying in the hallway. The two arrive rather quickly at the large door, Jack's eyes focused and Zed's distracted. One hell of a day for Zed's first. Jack turns his attention away from the door riddled with blood and bullets and focuses on Zed.
"When you walk through this door you will see things that you can never unsee. You will smell things that will stick in your nose until the day that you die. Your skin will crawl out of place and your whole life will be turned upside down. Your pretty little golden eyes will be forever changed, do you understand that?" Zed nods halfheartedly, refusing to make eye contact with his training officer. "Listen, your first wasn't supposed to be like this. If you want to turn around walk away, no one will judge you. No one will think twice. Not everyone is jaded by the evils in this dark city, and we like to keep it that way."
"I-I can do this. I'll be fine." Zed still refuses to look at his superior, but takes the first step as he pushes open the massive door and takes his first step into the blood-splattered room. His body lurches forward while his feet stay planted on the ground and he is forced to fight back vomit. Jack puts his hand on Zed's shoulder. The two look at the massive husk lying on the floor in the middle of the blood-stained room. Another office comes over to the two to stare at the broken body as well.
"It's the Kingpin, Russ. Estimated death was an hour and a half ago. A knife straight through his heart." Jack lets out a little laugh.
"Must've been a huge fuckin' knife. Sounds more like a sword to me." The two share a small laugh and then move on to surveying the scene. Russ slips on a pair of gloves and touches the body. A black residue comes off on his gloves. "Zed, get over here." Zed jogs over from the large desk to his training officer. "Any idea what this is?" Russ asks, holding up his glove coated in the black residue. Zed shakes his head. "Neither do I." Russ pulls of the glove and slips it into an evidence bag before slipping another glove on. The two stand and walk over to the video cameras. "What can you tell us, Hollister?"
"Most all of it is deleted sir, except for this one scene." Hollister, a short, stubby man searching the footage says as he scrolls to the video. The three men watch in silence as a man in a red hood rounds a corner and shoots two guards down on the spot. His hoodie just slightly unzipped, a spiraling mark scrawled across his chest. As suddenly as he rounded that corner and shot two men dead in cold blood he disappears off screen and Russ is left with a look of amazement on his face.
"No." Russ mumbles under his breath, his eyes still plastered to the now black screen.
"What is it?" Zed asks, his golden eyes staring into the hazel, disturbed eyes of Jack Russoff.
"Evil, my boy."
"What kind of evil?" Russ steps away from the television screen and stares back at the lifeless husk that once was the Kingpin.
"It's the kind of evil that makes this dark city, my boy. It's the kind of evil that you have to fight with more than just a badge. It's the kind of evil that not even the angels whisper about. And it's real."
"Who was that?"
"That was the Hood." Russ leans over the body of the Kingpin, his mind still reeling from the latest discovery. In the background Zed stands plastered to his spot, his once fear-and-confusion-filled golden eyes are now lit up, his mouth turned up in a grin, the black ring that surrounds the gold in his eyes shines white and a slight breeze flows through the room. "Can you close the window, Zed?" No answer. "Zed!" Russ stands up and turns around to face his partner, shouting his command. "Close the damn window!" But to Russ's surprise, he is shouting into silence and seclusion. "What the hell happened to my partner?"
*
EPILOGUE
*
Tap, tap, tap. Was that the rain outside or someone at his door? Tap, tap, tap. A strange rapping bangs on Lucifer's beautiful stained-wood doorway. Who could be here at this hour? Standing from the plush, spinning chair behind his new office desk, Lucifer crosses the large room in the expanse of the gang's new tower. It's nice to be on top. Tap, tap, tap. In it a little past three in the morning, who is here? Lucifer grasps the brass doorknob with one hand and the handle of his black dagger in the other as he pulls the door slowly open. Standing before Lucifer is the soaking wet, somber man whom he raised--Parker Robbins. His head hung low, his lip quivering, large drops of raining falling slowly from his hood. "Parker?"
"I did, Lucifer. I did it." His voice trembles, his body shakes. What did he do? And what did it do to him?
"Come in Parker, take a seat." Lucifer motions towards his office and Parker walks briskly in, throwing back a chair and slumping down in it. Lucifer takes back his seat behind the best, just across from Parker. "What did you do?"
"I took all this money, Lucifer, and I bought a computer." Lucifer's brow raises in confusion. "I'm twenty-six, right? That's what I thought. So I went twenty-six years back and searched every single newspaper I could find for an abduction of any kind. I found one, in the middle of the night, a child with beautiful, emerald green eyes and a family who loved him so very much.
"And so I took all this money and bought a plane ticket and I flew to Moorsetown, Alabama, where this boy was abducted. I found the house where he was stolen from and I walked right in the front door, soaking wet from the rain. It didn't take me long to figure out what had happened there. I felt you there, Lucifer. I felt my family dead, and I felt the pain that they felt. You killed them when you took me. You killed my humanity twenty-six years ago." Tears fall down Parker's face, his body still shaking from both anger and cold.
"Son--" Lucifer starts, reaching out to Parker, who swats his hand away.
"Don't call me son! You had no right to do what you did!" Lucifer's golden eyes stare into the boys green.
"Forget this." Parker's vision goes blurry, his heart stops for just a second and his body slumps. A soft breeze rolls through the room and he disappears. "I'm sorry." Lucifer mumbles to himself in a silent, empty room.
END
Lucifer, the Hood, and a Whole Lot of Other Characters
In
Dark City
Chapter VIII
See What I See
By Jordan
*
Wednesday, 19.17 PM
Five figures hover over the schematics of a large, 108-story skyscraper mere hours before the biggest moments of any of their lives. Parker's green eyes stare intently at the schematics, trying to figure out the fastest route from the 39th-floor entrance and the 100th-floor office where Kingpin resides.
"Never once did you guys,"
"Think of figuring this out?" The Brothers Grimm speak, their voices melding together into once sinister, sarcastic tone. Parker just huffs, refusing to acknowledge them. "Is the plan at least,"
"Just run in and kill them, still?"
"Will you two shut up, you're starting to grate on my nerves." Parker sneers out, his voice sharp and disgusted. His entire life rests on tonight. Nothing else matters until this is finished. Suddenly, Lucifer's hand comes down on Parker's shoulder. Parker looks up into his mentor's eyes and sees alarm. "What is it?"
"Someone is in the hallway." Lucifer whispers, his hand slowly moving towards the small gun in his belt. Parker removes his attention from the schematics and places his hand on his gun. The Brothers Grimm disappear into the shadows, preparing to strike at any time. Olivier stands in full brutish manner, muscles flexed preparing for the worst. Lucifer walks cautiously to the door and turns the brass knob, pulling the door open.
In front of the crew stands a tall, lanky man, at least in his sixties. A long mane of silver hair flows down from his head. To most, they would not recognize this man. To Parker, he was a sight for sore eyes. Parker places his gun on the table with the schematics and dramatically throws his arms in the air. "Are any of our hideouts actually secret?!" He hollers as the Brothers climb out of the shadows.
"Hello, Silvermaine." Lucifer motions for Silvermaine to enter, and the old man obliges, taking an unwelcome seat at the kitchen counter. "Why have you come to us in this hour?" Lucifer asks, walking to the coffee pot and pouring the old man a cup. Silvermaine takes a sip before answering.
"Nafaria is planning something bad, and I'm not sure what exactly." Everyone's eyes go wide, staring at the old man, one of the most powerful men in the world, with his head hung low, his lips sipping at a small cup of coffee, and his words telling a deeper tale than Silvermaine truly means to.
"And why are you telling us, Silvermaine?" Lucifer asks, his ever distrusting eyes searching Silvermaine for nervousness and fear.
"Because we made you a promise, and you deserve us to live to that promise. We once had a theory of honor, it seems as though Nafaria has lost his way." Silvermaine's eyes focus on his cup of coffee as his somber voice clouds over his onlookers.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" Parker asks, confusion in his eyes.
"Nafaria is a great leader and he has been for some time, but he has lost his way. I cannot stand by a man without honor."
"Have you come to ask for our help in overthrowing Nafaria?" Lucifer takes the empty cup from the old man's hands and begins to refill it, until Silvermaine motions for him to stop.
"I'm not planning any sort of coup. I'm warning you. Hammerhead and I have every intention of following through with our arrangements with you, but Nafaria may not be so obliging. Watch your backs is all." Silvermaine's words ring in a crowded silence as he stands and walks out the front door.
"What now?" Olivier says, breaking the silence. Everyone's eyes are on Parker. What can he say? What can he do? Everyone wants him to be a leader, HE wants himself to be a leader. Now is his chance to prove to everyone that he belongs.
"We go through with the plan. We kill the Kingpin. We take his head to the Maggia. We make history."
*
Wednesday, 21.43 PM
The dense moonlight reflects hard off of the behemoth towering over the city, casting shadows onto the four five knights riding into to liberate the world from a vile threat. Cars race down the streets, beeping and honking and turning and cursing. The black ground speaks of vile and evil secrets and sins of the past, the present, and the future. The world prepares for blood to be spilt. From high above in a secluded office hovering over the city, a man watches on a small television screen. A large, hardy laugh escapes the lips of the Kingpin.
"Do you believe these bafoons, Dan? Think they can sneak into my home and spill my blood? Think that they can threaten me?! I'll show them what it means to make heads roll." The hardy laugh stops and is replaced by an angry sneer.
"I've got to say sir, you definitely shouldn't underestimate these enemies. They didn't manage to escape the onslaught that we threw at them." Fancy Dan coughs up, his eyes avoiding the Kingpin's.
"That was your incompetence, not their skill. They had an escape hatch and sniffed you coming a mile away. There is nothing special about these idiots." Kingpin sneers and turns back to his monitor. "Well look at that, they've made it inside. Only one-hundred more levels to go." Dan looks around as a strange breeze blows through the room.
"Did you feel that, Boss?" He asks, his eyes searching the windows ever though he knows that they don't open.
"It was just a breeze, Dan." Kingpin replies, his eyes glued to the monitors.
"These windows don't open, s--" His sentence is cut short as he kneels over in excruciating pain, a long black dagger sticking out a cavity in his chest, blood coughing up through his mouth, smothering an expensive satin carpet.
"Dan?" Kingpin turns his attention away from his monitors to find Fancy Dan's lifeless husk lying limp and motionless in a pool of blood on the Kingpin's satin carpet. His eyes narrow and his breaths shorten. "Who are you?" He asks, staring at Lucifer as he cleans his long black knife.
"You don't remember me from the bar?" Lucifer's mouth twists into an ungodly smirk, his golden eyes reflecting the dark shine of his polished black knife.
"You were with the kid." Kingpin rises from his chair, his hulking frame towering over Lucifer. "How dare you."
"Stop, please, don't embarrass yourself." Lucifer slides the polished black knife into a small sheath hanging from his right leg that turns invisible in the shadows.
"With one word I could have my men in here to slit your little throat." Kingpin snarls through clinched teeth.
"You saw what I just did to your best man. And he never even knew. You don't think I can do that to everyone else on this entire world, including you?" Lucifer's eyes stare deep into the Kingpin's soul, challenging him to attack. The Kingpin, reluctantly, returns to his seat, slouching back and tapping his index finger against the strong wooden arm of his desk chair.
"I haven't much time for this, so do what you've come here to do."
"You've resigned yourself to death so easily?" Lucifer asks, his confident gaze never fading for that of confusion. A hardy laugh escapes the Kingpin's mouth, rocking the room and possibly the whole tower.
"You said it yourself: You could have already killed me and everyone in this building if you wanted to. If you wanted me dead, you would've already done it. So what are you really here for?" Lucifer's eyes disengage from the mammoth of a man's. He observes the room, looking for any evidence of an escape hatch. His eyes halt on a small water dispenser in the corner.
"How often do you drink water?" Kingpin's brow raises at the strange question.
"Often enough, I suppose." Lucifer crosses the room in what seems like the blink of an eye and stands at the water dispenser, examining it closer. He presses down on the hot water dispenser and watches as the entire wall opens up and shifts inwards. Kingpin's eyes fly wide open as the man had so easily discovered his hiding place. Lucifer turns back to the Kingpin, his eyes full of a violent anger, the gold shimmering in the fake lights of the escape hatch.
"Here's what I propose," Lucifer crosses the room again in a second, his hands now laid out, leaning against the large mahogany desk. "You run away to through that hatch to wherever it takes you and you hide. I spare your life and fake your death. We take your gang, you get to retire early--and alive. Does that sound good?" A small smile breaks the look of confusion on the Kingpin's face.
"Why on Earth wouldn't you want to kill me?" Lucifer closes his eyes and lets out a sigh.
"I don't like to kill people. It isn't in my nature. It's why I use this black dagger. It saves me. It saves me from sin. But the Hood? He isn't quit the same. He isn't natural. He will shoot you dead where you stand without a second thought if you stand in his way." As Lucifer stops talking the gunshots begin. The two listen as bodies hit the floor just yards away, as bullets riddle the super powerful doorway made to protect the Kingpin. A bead of sweat breaks down the Kingpin's face.
"What do I get from this? I've spent my life building this empire, and you want me to throw it away because some upstart idiot in a hood wants it?" Lucifer backs off of the Kingpin's desk, his eyes once more engaging the Kingpin's.
"See what I see." The Kingpin suddenly feels dizzy, his body goes limp as his mind is pulled away. He watches as hundreds of men go to war, as bullets and blades riddles the bodies of fathers, brothers, and sons. He watches as fires rain down from above, burning sinners alive. He watches as a darkness rises from the Earth and slaughters hundreds of angels, tearing their wings from their backs. He looks up and stares into God's eyes and sees...hopelessness...
"W-what was that?" Kingpin ponders, tears streaming down his face, his hands shaking and his body still limp. Bullets continue to fly as the two sides fight.
"That was the world engulfed in its untimely end. I am fighting for you, and without your help this will all be for not." Lucifer's words hang heavy on the head of one of the most powerful men in the city.
"W-what are you? W-who are you?" Kingpin's grasp on his desk is so hard the mahogany splinters and busts his skin, drops of blood slamming against the floor, knocking loud in a room full of silence.
"I think you know who I am." Kingpin's vision goes fuzzy, everything falls out of focus except for the man with the golden eyes, his long black wings extending out from his body, the tips touching against each side of the room.
"The...the devil..." Kingpin's voice is quiet in a room of buzzes and bangs.
"You don't have long to decide." Lucifer's voice comes out as a whisper and a hiss mixed together, with all the pain of a dying world. Tears stream down the Kingpin's face as everything goes black.
*
"What happened here?" Parker asks, his mouth hung in horror, his green eyes searching the blood-splattered room. His hood covers his face, his guns are still clinched tight in his fists. At his sides stand Olivier and the Brothers Grimm, all mouths gapping.
"He's yours." Lucifer exclaims from the Kingpin's old wooden desk, his golden eyes closed, focusing on something far and distant. At the center of the satin carpet lies a lifeless husk, motionless and limp. Its hulking frame covers most of the large office floor.
"This is..."
"His blood, yes. I killed him, you guys need to clean him up and get him to the Maggia, soon. Cops are already on their way here."
"What are you gonna do?"
"I've got business to attend." A gentle breeze and Lucifer disappears from the gathering. The four stand there in a crowded room, trying to figure out how to sneak the massive man's dead body out before the cops arrived.
*
One Hour Later
"I can already smell it." Jack Russoff says, the potent smell of iron spilling out into the hallway. His long trench coat drags through bullets, bodies and blood but his eyes stay focused on the large office door. "You sure you can stomach this, Zed?" Jack turns to his new partner who is quivering in his boots. Wearing a tight black suit and shinny leather dress shoes, Zed Kieline walks beside Jack. His eyes golden with a hint of black, his shoulders squared and his shinny black hair spiked at the tips.
"Y-yeah, s-sure." He stutters out, tripping over his own words like he trips over the bodies lying in the hallway. The two arrive rather quickly at the large door, Jack's eyes focused and Zed's distracted. One hell of a day for Zed's first. Jack turns his attention away from the door riddled with blood and bullets and focuses on Zed.
"When you walk through this door you will see things that you can never unsee. You will smell things that will stick in your nose until the day that you die. Your skin will crawl out of place and your whole life will be turned upside down. Your pretty little golden eyes will be forever changed, do you understand that?" Zed nods halfheartedly, refusing to make eye contact with his training officer. "Listen, your first wasn't supposed to be like this. If you want to turn around walk away, no one will judge you. No one will think twice. Not everyone is jaded by the evils in this dark city, and we like to keep it that way."
"I-I can do this. I'll be fine." Zed still refuses to look at his superior, but takes the first step as he pushes open the massive door and takes his first step into the blood-splattered room. His body lurches forward while his feet stay planted on the ground and he is forced to fight back vomit. Jack puts his hand on Zed's shoulder. The two look at the massive husk lying on the floor in the middle of the blood-stained room. Another office comes over to the two to stare at the broken body as well.
"It's the Kingpin, Russ. Estimated death was an hour and a half ago. A knife straight through his heart." Jack lets out a little laugh.
"Must've been a huge fuckin' knife. Sounds more like a sword to me." The two share a small laugh and then move on to surveying the scene. Russ slips on a pair of gloves and touches the body. A black residue comes off on his gloves. "Zed, get over here." Zed jogs over from the large desk to his training officer. "Any idea what this is?" Russ asks, holding up his glove coated in the black residue. Zed shakes his head. "Neither do I." Russ pulls of the glove and slips it into an evidence bag before slipping another glove on. The two stand and walk over to the video cameras. "What can you tell us, Hollister?"
"Most all of it is deleted sir, except for this one scene." Hollister, a short, stubby man searching the footage says as he scrolls to the video. The three men watch in silence as a man in a red hood rounds a corner and shoots two guards down on the spot. His hoodie just slightly unzipped, a spiraling mark scrawled across his chest. As suddenly as he rounded that corner and shot two men dead in cold blood he disappears off screen and Russ is left with a look of amazement on his face.
"No." Russ mumbles under his breath, his eyes still plastered to the now black screen.
"What is it?" Zed asks, his golden eyes staring into the hazel, disturbed eyes of Jack Russoff.
"Evil, my boy."
"What kind of evil?" Russ steps away from the television screen and stares back at the lifeless husk that once was the Kingpin.
"It's the kind of evil that makes this dark city, my boy. It's the kind of evil that you have to fight with more than just a badge. It's the kind of evil that not even the angels whisper about. And it's real."
"Who was that?"
"That was the Hood." Russ leans over the body of the Kingpin, his mind still reeling from the latest discovery. In the background Zed stands plastered to his spot, his once fear-and-confusion-filled golden eyes are now lit up, his mouth turned up in a grin, the black ring that surrounds the gold in his eyes shines white and a slight breeze flows through the room. "Can you close the window, Zed?" No answer. "Zed!" Russ stands up and turns around to face his partner, shouting his command. "Close the damn window!" But to Russ's surprise, he is shouting into silence and seclusion. "What the hell happened to my partner?"
*
EPILOGUE
*
Tap, tap, tap. Was that the rain outside or someone at his door? Tap, tap, tap. A strange rapping bangs on Lucifer's beautiful stained-wood doorway. Who could be here at this hour? Standing from the plush, spinning chair behind his new office desk, Lucifer crosses the large room in the expanse of the gang's new tower. It's nice to be on top. Tap, tap, tap. In it a little past three in the morning, who is here? Lucifer grasps the brass doorknob with one hand and the handle of his black dagger in the other as he pulls the door slowly open. Standing before Lucifer is the soaking wet, somber man whom he raised--Parker Robbins. His head hung low, his lip quivering, large drops of raining falling slowly from his hood. "Parker?"
"I did, Lucifer. I did it." His voice trembles, his body shakes. What did he do? And what did it do to him?
"Come in Parker, take a seat." Lucifer motions towards his office and Parker walks briskly in, throwing back a chair and slumping down in it. Lucifer takes back his seat behind the best, just across from Parker. "What did you do?"
"I took all this money, Lucifer, and I bought a computer." Lucifer's brow raises in confusion. "I'm twenty-six, right? That's what I thought. So I went twenty-six years back and searched every single newspaper I could find for an abduction of any kind. I found one, in the middle of the night, a child with beautiful, emerald green eyes and a family who loved him so very much.
"And so I took all this money and bought a plane ticket and I flew to Moorsetown, Alabama, where this boy was abducted. I found the house where he was stolen from and I walked right in the front door, soaking wet from the rain. It didn't take me long to figure out what had happened there. I felt you there, Lucifer. I felt my family dead, and I felt the pain that they felt. You killed them when you took me. You killed my humanity twenty-six years ago." Tears fall down Parker's face, his body still shaking from both anger and cold.
"Son--" Lucifer starts, reaching out to Parker, who swats his hand away.
"Don't call me son! You had no right to do what you did!" Lucifer's golden eyes stare into the boys green.
"Forget this." Parker's vision goes blurry, his heart stops for just a second and his body slumps. A soft breeze rolls through the room and he disappears. "I'm sorry." Lucifer mumbles to himself in a silent, empty room.
END