12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - Epilogue

Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds
That lap against our side 

Moonlight Drive - The Doors (1967)

* * *

How best to describe what happened next?

It was as if the world had been holding its breath for two years, afraid of being heard by something terrible that had suddenly appeared. And then, just as suddenly, it could finally exhale, and take a deep, relieved breath of sweet, clean air.

The terror was over. The horror was gone. And the world would never know why or how.

True, some lasting damage had been done. The undead swarms created by the Red Queen stayed in the world, in spite of what had happened to her, and went on to cause numerous problems throughout Eastern Europe. Likewise, a number of demon-machines that were active when their misshapen master went back The Pit were also left behind, and either found new masters or went feral. The Holy See would never be quite the same again, thanks to certain obscene suggestions made over the telephone, and any number of strange, occult experiments would come back to bite the Soviets in the !@#$ for years to come.

(There was also a rash of dream-poisonings, some time later, when an overlooked pallet of bootleg Russian vodka was unearthed in Chicago, of all places)

But by and large, things returned to normal.

The barrier between Earth and Hell became strong, once more. Moscow no longer had a blood-red etheric glow, almost visible to the naked eye. Rogue magicians empowered by the negative vibes lost their mojo, would-be diabolists no longer enjoyed an unfair advantage, and the so-called Church of Satan (formed the same night the Supreme Six came through) lost any real sinister edge it may have developed as certain mysterious members dropped out of sight.

The shadows became less ominous. The light became that much more golden. The sunrise was truly gorgeous, once more, and the stars shone brighter at night.

SQUASH continued to be a problem, of course. There were more thaumathematical hi-jinx, ridiculous attempts at spiritual sabotage, and the like. But, by and large, it had had its last hurrah; it would never attempt anything that grand and dangerous ever again, either because the Kremlin simply would not allow it, or because its now-emasculated leader lacked the conviction.

Of the remaining members of the "Super-Lucky Six" -- as they would later call their fortunate band -- they maintained some degree of contact. Dr. Krwi and SPYGOD became better allies, and then friends, however tempered with tough love. Jim Morrison also aided the COMPANY on a few notable occasions, mostly involving strange magic and large parties. It's said that he and John were seen together in New York City, now and again -- talking philosophy in dark clubs or just tramping it up in the worse ends of town.

Doctor Power, on the other hand, remained somewhat aloof. He'd help SPYGOD out on a case or two, given his work with the Freedom Force, but wouldn't stick around long thereafter. He was also notoriously bad about taking phonecalls, much less answering them.

In fact, on the one, very memorable occasion that the other four got together, late in 1970, to stop something else from coming through into our plane, he was strangely nowhere to be found. It was as if there was something about what the six of them had done that he wanted to avoid revisiting at all costs.

Or maybe something in the future was concerning him.

* * *

July 3, 1971
Paris, France

It's early in the morning, and the Lizard King is getting ready to walk on down the hall.

He stares at the ceiling in his bath, his eyes unfocussed, seeing further than he should. His mouth is on fire with the blood he's just vomited up, and his nose still aches from all the heroin he snorted, this morning.

Pamela's in the other room, asleep. She begged him to call a doctor, the last time he puked, but he told her no. He said to just go to bed and sleep -- he'd join her, soon.

Of course, that was a lie.

He's known for some time how this song was going to end. He saw it before, down in that weird, domed room under Moscow. Every time the Demon Magician, Voland, threw the red fire at him, this moment in time became more certain a thing. More real.

It was just a question of how he would get from there to here, was all.

Not that he'd really been all that careful, between then and now. How could he? There was so much to do, the last few years. All those fights against the darkness, all those struggles against menaces too weird and insane to deal with.

(All those problems with the image his handlers helped him make...)

No. He can't think about that, now. He can't hate poor Ray-Ray or John, or anyone. There's no time for hate, now.

Not now that it's almost over.

He's known for for some time that the end was near -- little hints, here and there, that the world was beginning to reject him. The look of his bloated self in the store windows of Paris. His troubles with breathing, or moving. The spasms and the hiccups.

The blood he kept spitting up between drinks.

Even today, out with his old friend, Alain, that mustachioed demon had been mocking him. There'd been a laughing man with a crazy mustache on the way to the restaurant, laughing as he walked on down the road. There was the chance forming of hideous, prophetic words from noise when they went back out for another drink. And there'd been that leering face from that !@#$ movie he's watched with his woman, earlier in the night. "Pursued," it was called.

(Of course it would be, wouldn't it?)

"You know what you have lost here, Lizard King," Voland had sneered, just three years ago: "I'll see you in The Pit yet."

But the joke was on him, now wasn't it?

He wasn't put on this world to just die and go up or down. He was put here to go across, over and over again -- time to time, place to place, maybe even world to world. He was put here to be here when he was needed, and then charged with moving on when it was time.

And now -- now that his body was tired and used up, and someplace else needed him more than our world did -- that time was fast approaching.

So no. No hate. No regrets. No should have, would have, could have beens. No fear. No tears. Nothing to look forward to, here. Nothing to hold him back, anymore.

Nothing but the promise that his soul made, all those years ago, when he was young and fresh and had no idea of the great secret the world was keeping from him. Not until that trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and the dead Indians on the road.

Not until he saw his life reflected in the death of someone else, and the endless spirit came to claim him, adding his face to the ancient gallery.

A line from that movie echoes in his mind -- almost something he might have written, himself, once upon a time.

"Out back there was some cattle bones. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe, and then as I walked around the side, I came upon some unmarked graves. If that house was me, what part of me was buried in those graves?"

No part, really. This failing vessel is only flesh. There is nothing here to take with him, where he is going, except maybe a small remembrance of times gone by, and friends he spent those times with. The ones his future selves will remember. The ones his past selves knew were coming.

The moment, singular and eternal, that no demon can even hope to occlude.

So Jim Morrison looks across the worlds, and smiles at what he sees there. Another boy, looking his way, with eyes just like him. A man-child with a mind ready for the experience of the lifetime, and a soul empty and waiting for a promise.

His face ready to take its rightful place in the gallery.

Jim shuts his eyes. He breathes in. He breathes out.

And then he walks on down the hall. 

* * *

There is no question that Colonel Bulgakov is dead -- and good riddance to him -- but what is not readily known is exactly how he died, or when.

It's generally accepted that he died at some point during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It may have been in the early years, after the Soviets finally decided they'd had enough of SQUASH, and left them out to dry. It may have been near the end, as its former super-agent Boris Yeltsin -- who'd made certain they were no longer available at the table -- became a hero during the attempted coup.

As for exactly what happened? Well, one must realize that, in all such matters, truth is highly subjective. There are any number of accepted stories, all of which carry the requisite SQUASH poetry. And there are any number of reasons why this, that, or the other theory is more likely than its cohorts.

And one overriding reason why none of them really work. 

So, in spite of how amusing it would be to believe that he was dragged screaming and alive off to The Pit after a final summoning gone wrong, we should remember that he was too good a thaumathematician to have that happen to him.

(We should also remember that, following the debacle of 1968, he had someone else do the summoning for him.)

And, in spite of the deliciousness of believing that, the night SQUASH's replacement came fully online, he was crushed under several tons of rock and concrete when the Beehive was destroyed without warning, we should also remember that he had any number of escape routes, and means to avoid serious injury.

(Plus, if anyone could have crawled out of a cave-in and come back, it would have been him.)

And while one can't help but be amused at the notion that whatever dark bargain he made in order to escape death, all those years ago, just ran out of time, and he had to pay the bill at last, those who knew him have often said that was never a barrier. In fact, they say the deal had actually run out some time before, but he'd always found a way to extend his stay on the Earth by a decade or so.

(There always were so many young and foolish thaumathematicians, ever-so-willing to assist the Colonel in a "late night experiment.")

So no. None of those stories are adequate or sufficient. None of them account for the fact that, though he could be a stupid fool at times, and so arrogant that he had no idea when he was committing the most disastrous of mistakes until well past the point of no return, he could always find some way to get out of it. Even if that escape was aided by his enemies, if only by accident.

But the fact remains: Colonel Bulgakov is dead. One can only hope that he died in a manner befitting the amount of woe and ruin he caused the world -- especially his own country, when all was said and done.

And good riddance to all of that.

* * *

John vanished, as they always figured he kind of would.

It was back in 1997, during that one weird thing some people call a Crisis, and others call The Opportunity. He was helping contain the structural reality damage in Trenton, of all places, and he stepped out of sight to do something. He must have done it, because the repairs held, but he never stepped back, either.

No last words. No goodbyes. No cryptic remarks. Just the utter absence of a man.

(Not even Wayfinder could locate him. He said it was as though he'd just never been. And that spooked the old !@#$ like you wouldn't believe.)

SPYGOD's dealt with a couple other Grey Men since then, all wearing the same kind of weird, film-grey coats. None of them care to say where John is. When he asks them, they just ask "which John?" and then smile.

(Bastards)

But every so often, when he's alone or maudlin or both, SPYGOD gets the feeling that John's nearby, somehow. Even with the Chandra Eye, he can't see him, but he can feel him, somehow. And he can feel he's telling him to get a !@#$ grip on himself, because nothing ever got solved by whining about a !@#$ thing, now did it?

And he would be !@#$ing right. 
 

* * *

11/4/2012
Rezscow, Poland

The sad thing was that, if he'd just called Doctor Krwi at his !@#$ safehouse when he realized he needed him, this could have been avoided.

Around the end of October, SPYGOD realized he really needed to talk to his vampire hunter ally. He'd been avoiding it for a time, because they'd had a serious misunderstanding towards the end of the Imago Occupation.

(In other words, SPYGOD had been a !@#$ing jerk, and Krwi had called him on it)

But needs must as the devil drives, as they say. So he'd started calling him, using the line he'd had before the Invasion. But he wasn't picking up.

So he got his people on trying to roust him from whatever hole he'd dug himself into. He'd made threats and promises, and delivered on some of both. And his subordinates scurried this way and that, searching for a man who was very difficult to find when he did not want to be found.

He'd been using his cellphone, which could usually get him anywhere, but that cellphone had been burned some time ago. But there was another number, somewhere in SPYGOD's possession, that led to a safehouse in scenic Rezscow, where he liked to hide out between killing runs.

And if SPYGOD had just called the old man there, when he'd realized he needed his help, Doctor Krwi would probably still be alive.

But he didn't. And on the 4th of November, SPYGOD got a call from one of his COMPANY Agents, out in Poland, telling him to get on a transport and come to south-eastern Poland as soon as he could.

He needed his boss to come and tell him if the sorry, bloated, and hideously-mangled body he'd found in what appeared to be a vampire hunter's stronghold was, in fact, the man he'd been looking for.

Sadly, it was him. Doctor Krwi had been dead for at least a week, maybe longer. And he hadn't died easy or well from the looks of things.

He'd died slowly, and in pain -- a lot of pain, from the looks of him. One wouldn't expect any less, given the number of horrible and sadistic enemies the old man had racked up over several decades worth of fighting the bloodsuckers. Indeed, he'd often joked that, when they finally got him, he'd be lucky if they just tortured him to death instead of giving him the bite, just to get revenge.

(He'd also said something about having enough garlic in his veins to marinate a whole herd of cattle for stew, which was how he planned to avoid that threat.)

But that wasn't what got to SPYGOD -- seeing the man he'd called ally, then friend, then pain in the !@#$ in that sorry state. That wasn't what made him go insane with anger and tear the place apart. That wasn't what made him burn it to the ground when he was done, and stomp back to his transport ready to kill the next person, place, or thing that even looked like it was going to look at him funny.

No. It was the fact that, when he looked at what was left of the old man, he realized he'd been raped. To death.

And then he realized by who.

He didn't want to go into details. He didn't want to tell anyone what he knew, for fear of word getting out. The trial had already gotten that cat out of the bag, but he didn't need anyone to know just how active the culprit was in the world.

All he could do was give the old man the dignity of making sure his body could in no way, shape, or form be revived by his true enemies. It's what he would have wanted, and all he could have done for him.

But as they flew back to America, and every mile on the way, SPYGOD was forced to realize that he knew. He knew, !@#$ it.

He knew that, if he'd called the old man, they would have talked about this little problem with what he'd been feeling in the White House, lately.

If they'd talked about the little problem, Dr. Krwi would have known that he was in America, and not Poland.

If he'd known he was in America, and not Poland, he wouldn't have opened his door up and let his murderer in, because he would have known that something was fishy.

And if he hadn't opened his door up and let his murderer in, he wouldn't have spent the last however many hours of his life being !@#$ed in every single hole he had, plus a few more that his attacker decided to make with that blessed sword the old man used on vampires.

Every mile on the way home, he realizes this. It makes him sick. He tries to drink it away but it doesn't help. He wants to smash things but then he'll just have to swim home, and haul his Agents besides.

All he can do is tell himself that he's done being careless, now. He's done with failing to anticipate this danger that's out there, loose in the world.

And when he finally finds his Alter-Earther, he's going to do things to him that will make what he did to Dr. Krwi look like an overly-firm handshake.

Oh yes. He will.

* * *

 

There's also the matter about a conversation that took place between Doctor Power and SPYGOD, not too long after SPYGOD found out what happened to Doctor Krwi. In fact, it took place after a very fateful and tragic Thanksgiving at the White House, when SPYGOD had to deal with the source of that nasty feeling he'd wanted Doctor Krwi's help with. 

"Dealing" meant bringing in a special gun, which resulted in a very unfortunate death. It also meant that whatever political and personal currency he'd cultivated with the President of the United States of America -- both during and after the Invasion -- was completely gone.

And it also meant that, given how Doctor Power was responsible for what happened, SPYGOD had no !@#$ing compunctions whatsoever about making good on his long-standing threat to take Doctor Power's namesake away from him.

It was quite an impressive conversation, really, but there was only one way it could end. And that was with SPYGOD striding out of the Doctor's sanctum with a former superhero in tow, and telling him how and where to get help for his serious problems.

Not the greatest end to one of the few remaining members of both the Liberty Patrol and Freedom Force, one might say. But it wasn't really his end, either. Just another serious bump in a lifetime full of them.

That is, however, another story for another day.

* * *

As for the Hell Blazer -- no one's entirely certain what the entity formerly known by that name is doing, down in The Pit. 

He has not made contact, ever, and he does not answer when called. Not even Doctor Power could ever summon him up. 

It's almost as if he didn't want to talk to anyone. 

Some say he's biding his time until he can break the entire operation. Some say he's gone bad, like he said he would, and that the increase in vampire attacks is his doing. But you can never trust Demons, as they tend to tell you exactly what you want to hear.

SPYGOD still keeps his gun handy, just in case.

* * *

There's also the other four members of the Supreme Six to consider, down there in The Pit.

They are not happy demons, those four. They scream and howl at the barrier between worlds, scrabbling to get out and away. They dream of atrocities and grand unmakings. They promise pain and pleasure, knowledge and experience.

And they would burn the world, if they only had another chance to get out and play.

Will they ever have it? Who can say? A year doesn't go by that some !@#$head with more old books than sense doesn't try to raise them from their prison, the better to curry their favor. Sometimes these idiots even manage to raise one of them, though not fully and never for long.

But so long as the Hell Blazer doesn't care to move, and Behemot is stuck in our world, calling up the whole gang to effect a great and terrible change just is not going to happen. At all.

But still they try, because they're greedy and short-sighted and mad and stupid. And still they die, because they almost always get Voland, himself, and he's still really !@#$ed off about losing out on Morrison. And still nothing really happens to change the balance between good and evil, light and dark, and up and down in our world.

Hopefully it stays that way. We have enough problems as it is.

* * *

And what of Behemot, then?

The demon cat has lived in Neo York City, with SPYGOD, ever since the events of 1968. He drinks between three and five bottles of high-test, liver-rotting vodka a day, and goes through a can of high-quality cat food every so often, when he remembers he needs to eat, too. He used to spend most of his days sleeping on an AK-47, but when that was lost SPYGOD got him a better gun, and now he sleeps on that, instead.

Once a member of the Supreme Six, he is now known as Bee-Bee, as his owner won't have "Commie" spoken in his house.  If he misses being a prince of Hell, he doesn't show it. He seems content to laze around, and seemingly aspires only to stay drunk, or maybe get it on when his biological urges send him off to tomcat.

He will not come when called. He tolerates no petting or belly rubs except once in a great while, and then only from SPYGOD.  And no one !@#$s with that cat.

No one at all. 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Best of Tchaikovsky and having a number of drinks for absent friends)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 9

Now the entire herd had begun to wheel wider and faster along the bluff 

and the outermost ranks swung centrifugally over the escarpment 

row on row wailing and squealing and above this 

the howls and curses of the drovers that now upreared

 in the moil of flesh they tended and swept with dust 

had begun to assume satanic looks with their staves and wild eyes 

as if they were no true swineheards but disciples of darkness 

got among these charges to herd them to their doom.

 Cormac McCarthy -- Outer Dark (1968)

* * *

Moscow -- The Beehive
April 30th, 1968

And so it begins -- six against six, for the fate of the world.

Holy swords are swung against thrice-cursed spells and demon machines. Reshaped reality pitted against words that can destroy it. Spells cast against fate, fists raised against fear.

Life itself fighting against the darkness that would devour it, whole.

The battle rages throughout the Beehive -- its entire structure impregnated with the soul-gutting foulness of Hell. Its combatants hack, slash, and fire up and down hallways lined with sputtering meat-machines. They crash through walls slick with liquid darkness, tear up floors spattered with still-twitching human remnants.

With each step forward they bring back the light, but when they lose ground the darkness multiplies.

As the fight rages -- unheard, unseen -- its echoes bleed over into the world around it. Reality warps and bends under the weight of their titanic forces. The ether shakes, the heavens tremble, the walls between the realms go up and down.

And in the spaces between, dangerous things that don't belong in each others' company begin to mingle.

Ideas no one should ever have slip into the world like carrion birds, perching upon fresh minds to peck away at their goodness and decency.  Good people dream of bad things. Bad people dream of things so terrifying that they start awake lest they lose themselves in pure evil.

And those who do not care to wake go on to do terrible things, indeed.

The battle rages, and time ticks by. The hour draws close to Midnight, and all that fight there know that this conflict must be settled by then. Should the forces of light and life win by that point, all this darkness will be banished by the dawn.

But should their opposite number hang on -- even just until the stroke of the Witching Hour -- the world will be theirs for at least another year.

And what a terrible year that will be. 

* * *

The celebrated warrior-poet sings as he dances against their well-dressed, mustachioed leader -- his sword deflecting the demon's terrible, skull-shaped blasts of soul-warping energies. He laughs and gambols about the monster, ignoring the thing's threats as he slowly closes the space between them, ever-careful not to let the sickly red light touch his skin.

But with each step he gains, the radiance of the thing's power begins to weigh down on him. Before long, he realizes that he is seeing something else, there in the red-lit battlefield. He is seeing himself in those blasts -- older and wasted, his usefulness gone and his life a mockery of what it had once been.

Jim Morrison sees his own death in those spells, clearer and clearer all the time. And it takes every inch of will and power he has to ignore it and keep on going.

Especially since he knows that, with each burst of malefic power the demon throws his way, the more likely it is that this sad vision will come true.

* * *

Elsewhere, John steps in and out of reality as the wide-mouthed, motley demon screams salvo after salvo at him, destroying and reshaping the world as he goes.

One shout, and the wall where John stepped into a moment before is now bleeding and covered in filth. Another, and things that have no name in any living civilization erupt from the air and come to take him back with them, into the liquid dark.

Yet another, and the ground where he was about to stride is a deep pit filled with spikes, monstrous snakes and vermin slithering in the wet, corpse-strewn ground below.

He stays one step ahead of each attack, John does, but it's all he can do to defend himself. This Koroviev doesn't seem to run out of noise, and is beginning to anticipate his moves. Sooner or later, he'll catch him in mid-stride and nail him with a tricky reversal.

And then he'll be done, and that will be that.

Still, John didn't get to where he was without knowing a thing or two about a thing or three. He's beginning to think he can see the flaw in this !@#$ demon's M.O. He's beginning to think he might be able to beat him.

He's beginning to think he can win through, provided he's willing to risk losing everything.

* * *

Meanwhile, Dr. Krwi is having the time of his life.

The wall-eyed, fang-mawed fool he's been accidentally pitted against is actually scared of him. Azazelo keeps calling up machine after machine, invention after invention, mechanical being after mechanical being. And every single weird, walking contraption that he sends out to deal with this angry, screaming Polish vampire hunter is being sliced to pieces or shot apart.

There was a case, not long ago, when Krwi had to go after some aging, decrepit vampire queen in her castle, down in Italy. The old hag had a taste for necromancy, and had ensorcelled an entire graveyard full of old, moldering bones into her service. So there were skeletons everywhere on her estate -- standing guard, disguised as statues, or wandering the halls like silent courtesans, awaiting an audience with their betters.

Such a sight might have been enough to keep the authorities far away, for fear of their souls. But to a man who routinely fights things that could turn him into one of them with one, solid bite, a legion of clattering, slow-moving bones was no more threatening that being mauled by a small puppy.

The memory of crashing through those skeletons -- one swift, sharp swing of his sword at a time -- is coming back to Krwi, now. He laughs at this paltry and feeble attempt to remove him from the world. And he relishes the thought that, once he gets to the end of this demon's stockpile of twisted, demonic machines, he will take the beast's head from his shoulders just as easily. 

(And, not long after, he'll find a way to do the same with that English revenant, who robbed him of his true target.)

* * *

"Traitor!" Hella screams, slashing at the Hell Blazer's leather armor with her claws as he grapples with her atop his demon motorcycle, careering through the circular, black stone hallways surrounding the central dome.

"!@#$!" he shrieks back, trying to punch her in the face with a flaming fist.

"Idiot!" she replies, ducking and trying to reach up for his heart.

"!@#$!" he swears, laughing as he hand breaks against something under his armor.

"I should never have made that deal with you, ungrateful whelp!" she howls, stepping backwards as her hand knits itself back together.

"I should never have made it with you, you withered, fang-faced tramp!' he proclaims, stepping forward and pointing an accusing finger in her direction.

"You would have made it with someone, you spoiled creature!"

"They'd have served me straight!" he shouts, running forward to punch her with a fiery fist: "Better than you, anyway!"

"Oh, yes," she sneers, ducking down and kicking him in the crotch so hard he flies off the back of his bike: "Just tell yourself that, you sorry thing. Some other demon would have given you a better deal, surely."

"Any other demon would have been pleased with what I've done!" he shouts, going down the back, whipping around the bottom, and then leaping back up the front, the better to kick her in the back of the head: "Any other demon would have appreciated what I had to offer!"

"Any other demon..." she says, putting her head back on straight: "Would have wiped their !@#$ with your soul after !@#$ing all over your sorry little contract!"

"I gave you my life, my soul, my servants!"

"You gave me nothing!" she spits, pointing her finger in his face: "And in return, I gave you the opportunity to impress me. And what have you done with it? Become some kind of ridiculous hero out of spite? Aided our enemies in order to get revenge?"

"You betrayed me!" 

"No," she insists, standing her ground: "You betrayed yourself! You were a !@#$ed fool who !@#$ed himself to join into my service, but was too eager for power to read the fine print. Just like every other idiot who sells himself to us!"

"You..." He starts to say, but falters. The flames in his hands die down. He steps back as if reeling.

"I'm sorry, does the truth hurt?" she sneers, clearly amused to see him having second thoughts: "You have no right to be angry with me, late Lord of Puddock Manor. You are unworthy of Hell, and not welcome in Heaven.

"You are pathetic, and I will deal with you the way I should have done a long time ago!"

And then she lunges at him, teeth suddenly so large that they can't quite fit into her mouth.

* * *

Within the dome, SPYGOD and Behemot rest on the floor, coming back around to full consciousness.

They tried, really. They did. You have to give them that, at least.

They fired bullets at each other until their guns were empty, and then they healed up and went at it again. When they were out of bullets they blew chunks out of each other with explosives, but then they healed up and ran out of grenades. And then they went to sharp objects -- knives versus claws and fangs -- but no matter much much they cut, slashed, gouged, and ripped open, they would just heal up.

They were at it for what seemed hours. They tried everything they could think of to kill one another. But no matter what they did, nothing worked. 

Nothing at all. 

SPYGOD gets up and winces, realizing his guts are back where they belong. The cat snorts and rolls over, just sort of looking at him as his face heals up and resumes its previous shape.

They stare at each other for a second, and then sigh.

SPYGOD pulls out a flask. Inside of it is vodka. He pulls a bit, and then, after a second's hesitation, passes it over to Behemot.

"I think we're gonna have to call this a draw, cat," he says.

"Poshel na khuy," the cat mutters, but takes the vodka anyway, soon finding it to his liking. 

So they pass it back and forth and get !@#$ed up. At some point, the demon cat winds up in SPYGOD's lap, purring. Somehow he's not surprised by that, or the fact that he starts petting him. 

Somehow, it just feels right.

* * *

"Are you done, yet?" Abbadon asks, still just standing there with his arms crossed, uncaring as ever.

"You'll... have to pardon me," Doctor Power says, wiping the tears from his eyes: "I mean... I knew. I did know. She told me as much when we made this deal. But..."

"But it's one thing to hear it from her, and another thing to hear it from someone else," the demon finishes the thought.

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"You should have thought of that earlier," Abbadon says, not caring to scold: "All those plans. All those schemes. All those deals you made and broke. Didn't you think they would catch up with you?"

"I didn't think that far in advance," the magician admits: "I always thought there was a way out of it."

"No," the grey demon says: "The only way to win the Game of Hell is not to play. You should have known that. You didn't listen."

"So what can I do?" he asks, looking at the demon: "There has to be some way-"

"Would you ask me for help, then?" the demon asks, turning to look the magician in the face, his dark glasses reflecting the panicking man's red-eyed features: "Would you sell yourself to me, over her? Would you hope that I would be less demanding in the here and now? More giving of power and knowledge? Less horrible, when the time comes?"

"... would you?"

And Abbadon laughs, full and gloriously. As he does his glasses fall from their perch on his nose, and Doctor Power can see what he has for eyes. 

It almost makes him sick.

"No, you fool," the demon says once he composes himself: "I wouldn't take you at all. The games of the others are of little consequence to me. I am what I do, now and forever, and that is enough. I need no servants. I need no souls.

"And you have nothing to offer, except a rivalry with someone I don't care to anger."

Doctor Power opens his mouth, and then closes it. He turns, shaking his head.

"You are !@#$ed, Eben," the demon says, smiling and putting his glasses back up where they belong: "You can use your powers however you'd care to. You can be a hero or a villain. You could even go beyond such titles if you want, or have the imagination to do it. 

"But you made a deal with the best Hell had to offer you at the time, and now you're bound to it. Accept it. You'll be happier."

"There has to be some way...." the man mutters, looking down as his allies fight their separate battles: "There has to be some way!"

And the grey-faced demon smiles and says nothing, knowing how much more silence will hurt than words.

But then something rips through that silence, and they both know that the battle has just ended.

* * *

"The !@#$?" SPYGOD shouts, jumping up as the world reforms itself around him, changing back into the great, domed room of the Beehive. Behemot jumps off his lap and walks over to where Voland stands, dazed and uncertain. 

"I think we have won through," Dr. Krwi says, sheathing his sword and looking around as his adversary slumps to the floor, clearly weakened.

"We have," Morrison agrees, making his own weapon go away and making a silly face at Voland, who doesn't care to reply in kind.

"About !@#$ time," John says, walking over to where Koroviev lies -- his mouth a wide, distended thing -- and kicks him in the teeth. The demon whirls around in a swift circle, turning inside out, and then returns to where he was, looking dazed and confused.

"I didn't know you could !@#$ing do that," SPYGOD says.

"You'd be !@#$ surprised what I can't do, you get me !@#$ mad enough," the old man says, pulling out a cigarette. Morrison's about to offer to light it when it lights itself, and the old man takes one !@#$ of a long drag.

"Well done," Abaddon says, applauding the victors as he and Doctor Power return from wherever they've been all this time.

"You traitor," Voland curses, weakly, no longer able to stand up: "I knew you'd side with them..."

"I side with no one," the grey demon insists, not seeming to be depowered at all: "I simply do not care."

"My god," Doctor Power says, looking at who's there and who's not: "I think that it must have been our English friend who struck the winning blow."

"It must be," Azazello says, weeping into his hat: "I can't !@#$ing sense my lovely gel anywhere."

"And yet I can still smell her evil," Dr. Krwi insists, looking around.

"I am not commenting on that," Morrison says, laughing.

"This isn't funny," Doctor Power says, looking around: "It's a minute to Midnight. Who's won?"

And then there is a magnificent screaming, as if a rude, unshaped piece of metal was given a voice and then thrust into a white-hot furnace.

A section of the curved wall breaks open as though it were nothing but cardboard. The second it does a red and black machine rips through it, its path on fire behind it. The demon motorcycle whirls around the central dais, with its weird, human machinery, and encircles it in a wall of flame. 

And then it cruises over to where the others stand, revealing its lone passenger: a vision in thick, red leather armor, its helmet a baroque, screaming skull.

"Is that you, English?" SPYGOD asks as the rider gets off the bike.

"It is I," the Hell Blazer says, his voice more echoing than before: "The fight is over. We have won."

"But how?" Doctor Power asks, looking at him with something approaching fear: "What did you do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Morrison asks, chuckling as he walks up to get a better look: "He shook hands with the demon, man."

"You became her," Dr. Krwi says, unsheathing his sword: "You have joined the ranks of the enemy!"

"Don't be !@#$ing stupid," SPYGOD says, about to go for his gun but then realizing none of them are loaded, anymore.

"No, the excitable pollack is right," the revenant admits, taking off his helmet: "She got the upper hand and did what comes naturally. But that was her last mistake."

As he removes the helmet, all eyes open wide.  His once-wasted features are gone, and in their place is the image of the man he once was: cruelly handsome, terribly compelling.

And as pale as the driven snow, with red-in-black eyes and a mouth full of fangs.

"It turns out that a demon vampire can't feed on an undead creature she's made herself without losing something in the bargain," he explains, smiling a little: "As she fed on me, I fed on her, and before long I gained the upper hand. By then she was too far gone to stop, and, well... here we are."

"You lie," Voland hisses weakly, still unbelieving.

"No, it's no trick, Voland. I am her, and she is me. I could have told her this would happen, but I guess she never read the fine print."

"So what the !@#$ does that mean?" SPYGOD asks, putting a hand on Krwi's shoulder to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

"It means we've won, sort of," Doctor Power says, pointing out how the meat machines are falling apart: "Their hold over things is slipping. The damage is reversing itself. By the dawn, there won't be anything left to show they were ever here."

"Thank the man Jesus," John says.

"So what now?" Krwi hisses: "Are we just going to let them go?"

"It would be the best !@#$ thing," John says: "We're not powerful enough to destroy a single !@#$ one of them. We've played the game and won. Best we can do is let them leave the board."

"But they will return again!" Krwi insists: "Sooner or later, they'll be back! We cannot let this happen to the world, again!"

"Would you challenge us, then?" Voland asks from where he lies on the floor: "To do that, you would have to enter The Pit, itself. You would have to see us as we are, and fight against us while we are most powerful, and you are least significant.

"Do you think you can do that, little man?"

Krwi's about to say something stupid, but before he can Morrison steps in front of him and shushes him: "I don't think that's in the cards for anyone, tonight. Game over. All go home."

"But what about next time?" John says: "I hate to admit it, but the hunter's got himself a !@#$ point. Some !@#$ fool will probably call them up again, and then we'll be back in it, again."

"Well, we've !@#$ing got him on their big !@#$ team, now," SPYGOD says, indicating the Hell Blazer: "They can't have a Supreme Six if there's a !@#$ing dissenter in the ranks, now can they?"

At that, Voland starts laughing. It's not a pleasant sound.

"And just what the !@#$ is so !@#$ funny, you sorry magician?" John asks. 

"You didn't read the fine print, either," Abbadon says, indicating Hell Blazer: "You. Will you tell them, or shall I?"

"The problem with that," the Hell Blazer says: "Is that Krwi was more right than he knows. I didn't just take her energy. I have become her. For all intents and purposes, I am now the Lord of the Undead."

"The Queen is gone, all hail the Red King," Doctor Power muses: "And how long before... well..."

"Before we're enemies?" the revenant finishes the sentence: "It's... well, let's just say it's taking all my concentration to keep from doing what is quickly becoming the obvious thing. The sooner we leave, the better."

And things get a little silent after that.

"Wait," SPYGOD says, looking at Behemot, who's busy licking his !@#$hole: "I've got an idea."

"You can't be serious," Doctor Power says, looking at the cat and the superspy: "That thing... it's deadly dangerous."

"What are you suggesting?" Abbadon asks.

"Collateral," SPYGOD says, picking up the cat and cradling in its arms: "You got one of our people, we'll take one of yours. No more Supreme Six."

"There's no way to do that!" Voland shouts: "We come and go as one-"

"Actually, now that this has happened," John says, indicating the Hell Blazer: "I think we got ourselves a !@#$ window when some of the rules can get lost."

"What do you say, cat?" SPYGOD asks, looking at the fuzzy beast: "Sleep in a former weapon of mass destruction? Fight Communism? Have all the vodka you can drink?"

Behemot looks up at him, and then meows. A few of them laugh, a few don't.

Then, with what little strength they have, Doctor Power and John perform the magic necessary to make it happen, and a few other things besides. This keeps them quite busy until the dawn, during which time the others keep a close eye on the demons to make certain they don't do anything rash.

And, during which time, Dr. Krwi can't stop looking at the new Red King, and wonder if this wasn't somehow his plan all along. 

* * *

"About time," John says, looking towards the eastern side of the Beehive: "!@#$ sun's a coming out. It's morning in Russia."

"And that means you all need to hit the road," Morrison says, holding out his hands to the demons: "Just as we were all getting to know one another, too!"

"Spare us the cynicism," Voland says, already starting to fade: "You know what you have lost here, Lizard King. I'll see you in The Pit yet."

"Ah, !@#$ off," SPYGOD snorts, watching as they slowly slide away, and relieved to see that the kitty in his arms is staying firm and solid (and asleep).

"No final words, then?" Doctor Power asks, looking at Abaddon as he does.

"Hell awaits," the grey demon says, smiling.

"A good battle," the Hell Blazer says, walking towards SPYGOD as he strides to join his vanishing companions: "Good companions, too. I do not think I could have asked for anything else."

"When next we meet?" Krwi says, not looking in his direction: "It will be as enemies, and I will kill you."

"You will never see me again," Hell Blazer says, quickly handing something over to SPYGOD while no one else sees: "And be grateful for that."

Krwi turns to accost him, but he's already gone. So are the others. No one else is in the Beehive but a stockpile of  barely-alive thaumathematicians -- slowly coming back to life now that they no longer have an obligation to be flesh machines -- and Colonel Bulgakov, now whole again, but quite insane. 

"I will kill you all," he hisses from his wheelchair, too weak to do anything more than threaten: "Somehow, one way or another... all of you will die..."

"I think this is where we leave," Morrison says, gesturing to the nearest wall: "Care to follow me on a Moonlight Drive?"

"You first," John says, chuckling: "And when we get there, you are buying."

"!@#$ straight," Morrison says, locking an arm with the man and wandering between worlds. Doctor Power heads after him, visibly shaken by something, and Doctor Krwi follows close behind, cursing that he didn't bring just one more gun.

As for SPYGOD, he considers what his former ally has given him: the heavy, black revolver with the inverted crucifix dangling from the butt, its weight strangely comfortable in his hands.

("For the next time," he'd whispered as he'd handed it over: "Call it more collateral.")

"Hey, !@#$head," SPYGOD says, aiming it at Colonel Bulgakov with one arm while cradling Behemot with the other: "This is for Comrade Sharik, you sorry red !@#$."

The bullet blows both of the man's testicles out of his scrotum, and he screams as he flies up and out of the wheelchair, landing some distance away. 

And by the time he's come to a complete stop -- and realizes he's been gelded --  the man with the demon cat is gone.  

(SPYGOD is listening to Manfred Symphony (Tchaikovsky) and having a bottle of Moon Mountain Vodka)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 8

Five to one, baby - One in five
No one here gets out alive, now
You get yours, baby - I'll get mine
Gonna make it, baby - If we try 

"Five to One" -- The Doors (1968)

* * *

Neo York City
December 28, 2012

"So what went wrong?"

SPYGOD stops imbibing his wine in mid-glug, opens his eye, and looks over at his boyfriend: "What?"

"A simple enough question...?" Straffer asks, winking and putting his own wine glass down on the table. They're both stretched out at opposite ends of pink leather couch that's just long enough for both of them to stretch out, but short enough that their feet are wrapped around one another. 

Just how they like it, really.

"For !@#$s sake," SPYGOD sighs, a little irritated to have lost his train of thought: "Why do you always !@#$ing assume something has to go wrong when I'm involved?"

"Because it usually does, and you get the mission done, anyway," the man says, leaning forward and winking: "It's part of your charm."

"Well, good to !@#$ing know," SPYGOD grouses playfully.

"I thought you already did?"

"Oh, you're so sweet you could !@#$ing kill a diabetic from across the state."

"You should ask anyone who's worked for me about that."

"Good point. But anyway, why the !@#$ would you think something !@#$ing went wrong in this case? We're still !@#$ing here, aren't we? The apocalypse didn't !@#$ing happen in 1968, right?"

"Not that I noticed." Straffer admits, looking around.

"Exactly!" SPYGOD exclaims, pointing his finger: "And believe me, if those six !@#$heads had stayed over in Sovietland? You'd !@#$ing notice that. Those !@#$ers did not play around."

"I've gotten that idea. But if that's true, then how do you explain him?"

"Who?"

Straffer coughs and gestures over to a pile of as-yet-unpacked boxes, where Bee-Bee lies snoozing, his fat, furry body parked upon a rather impressive gun.

"We're !@#$ing getting to that..." SPYGOD waves a hand, pouring his lover some more wine with the other.

"But something did go wrong," his lover says, taking the wineglass back and having an appreciative sip.

"Oh, you have no !@#$ing idea," SPYGOD sighs, pouring himself some more plonk and getting back to the story: "See, we did have a plan... 

New York City

April 10th, 1968

"... so it has to be six against six," Doctor Power insists, taking the piece of paper they've been doodling over for the last few hours -- huddled in the back of the deserted Black Rat of Armagh -- and wiping it clean and clear with a wave of his hand: "The six of us will take on the six of them, one on one."

"That sounds kind of kinky," Jim Morrison chuckles, pulling off the smoke he's been puffing for the last hour. It's clearly loaded with something, and the fumes make him seem like a dragon.

"Well, it !@#$ well should," John chimes in, putting his cigarette out on the table: "This is supposed to be a !@#$ metaphor, after all. That's all magic is. One !@#$ thing becoming another. You just got to make sure you got the !@#$ scale right, is all."

"That's a criminally-simplistic way of putting it," the Hell Blazer replies, his dead and cracked mouth a hideous thing: "But essentially correct. There must be a balance, both in our numbers and who deals with whom."

"So who will deal with who?" Dr. Krwi asks, eager to get to the point and get back to the hunt: "Who will do what to whom? We must be certain of this before we rush in to fight the enemy in its own lair."

"Well, I figure we !@#$ing got the marching orders already," SPYGOD says, grabbing a marker and putting names down on the now-empty sheet of paper: "Now let's see, Voland's the !@#$er in charge, right? Big !@#$ magic?"

"That's right," Doctor Power says: "I should be the one to deal with him. I have the most power."

"And the biggest !@#$ ego," John chuckles, pulling out a another cigarette. 

"That's me, actually," Morrison says, lighting the fellow up: "And I'd say I could take Voland."

"No, you deal with Koroviev," SPYGOD says: "Your ability to influence people can !@#$ing cancel out his, remember?"

"Oh, right," Morrison nods, realizing that's not a bad idea, really: "So Doc's on the big guy, and I'm dealing with the crooner. Got it. Who's got the death lady?"

"That would be me," Krwi insists, looking around the table: "I will take Hella. And you all know why."

"Indeed we do," the Hell Blazer says, a weird smile playing across his black lips: "So that leaves Abbadon the uncommitted, Behemot the incredibly violent, and Azazello, the machinist."

"I think you got Behemot," John says, pointing a nicotine-stained finger at the English corpse: "That !@#$ cat's a mean little !@#$. Going to take someone a !@#$ sight meaner to deal with him. You got that?"

"I think so. But I should tell you that I'm more of a dog person."

"So that leaves you and me, then, (REDACTED)," John says, looking at SPYGOD and ignoring the revenant's feeble joke: "And I think I should have Abbadon."

"Any reason why?" SPYGOD asks, a little suspicious.

"!@#$ similar viewpoints," the Operator admits, taking a drag: "Way he sees it, this whole thing has already happened, and he's just going through the !@#$ motions. But I can see the !@#$ footprints, ahead of his feet. So maybe I can trap him. Or maybe I can reach him."

"Maybe you could !@#$ him," Morrison laughs.

"The thought's occurred to me," John warbles, and Morrison laughs for a whole minute before he realizes no one else is joining him. 

"And that's all there is to it, anyway?" Krwi asks, breaking the silence: "Kill, trap, or reach, only one of us has to succeed for the whole pattern to fall apart?"

"That's the !@#$ theory," John says.

"And it's quite sound," the Hell Blazer adds.

"And that's what's going to happen," Doctor Power insists, rapping his hand on the table: "Walpurgisnacht is a night of massive magical power. The barriers between worlds will be extremely low, and everything's going to be in flux. If we can send just one of them back to Hell, that night, the other five will lose their hold on the world and go back down along with them."

"Then we have a god!@#$ plan, folks," SPYGOD says, connecting the names to each other with arrows: "We hit them fast, we hit them hard, we hit them with every !@#$ing thing we got.  One of us has to get !@#$ing lucky, and then it's goodbye Supreme Six."

"It'll probably be you, then," John says: "I think Azazello's something of a !@#$ stuffed suit. He'll probably have some !@#$ rube goldberg machine made out of bones and metal to throw at you. Shoot out its !@#$ knees and he'll come crashing down."

"We can only be so lucky," Doctor Power says, looking at each person in turn: "There's a serious danger, here, too."

"You mean other than going into enemy territory on the word of someone who's been trying to kill one of us for several years?" Krwi asks, indicating SPYGOD.

"And most likely getting killed in the attempt," Morrison adds: "Don't forget that, man."

"Us or him?" Krwi asks.

"Us," Doctor Power sighs.

"A good thing I'm already dead, then," the Hell Blazer chuckles, ever so darkly. But it's a good enough excuse for everyone to have a good laugh, in spite of the darkness.

"No one said !@#$ing we could trust Bulgakov," SPYGOD says, trying to smile: "But I think we can trust his motives. He played the mother of all big !@#$ bad hands, and now he wants this game to !@#$ing end. If that means he has to get us to help him, well, he's not to !@#$ing proud to beg.

"But be ready, because as soon as we win? He'll try to !@#$ing kill us."

"How the !@#$ do you know?" John asks.

"It's what I would do," SPYGOD admits: "Wouldn't you?"

There's silence around the table, then, as the man has a point.

"Then it's agreed," Doctor Power says, finally: "We have to sell our lives as dearly as possible, and for as long as we can. Because if one of them should kill one of us, our whole plan ends, right then and there."

And that's all that needs to be said.

Moscow -- The Beehive
April 30th, 1968

"Alright, stick with the plan!" SPYGOD shouts as they run towards their enemies, and their enemies run towards them: "You know who's with who! !@#$ them the !@#$ up!" 

And they're about to, really.

Morrison brandishes his burning sword and strides towards the motley-clad Koroviev, who's already opening his mouth to shout obscene, destructive things.

SPYGOD heads for the walleyed, fang-toothed Azazello, who's brought some strange, striding machines out to play.

Doctor Power glides towards Voland, himself, who is laughing maniacally, and clearly prepared to do magical battle.

John looks Abaddon in the eye from across the room and steps sideways, hoping the grey, bespectacled demon will follow.

And Dr. Krwi screams and runs at the woman in red, his holy sword glaring and shining, even in the face of this darkness.

But just before the vampire hunter can enter into battle with her, he hears a strange noise behind him. It's not an unfamiliar sound, given how often he's heard it, before. In fact, he's come to rely on its presence, as it usually means his undead "partner" is about to ride to his rescue.

But he's never heard the Hell Blazer's demon machine right behind him, either. 

He realizes what's happening only a second after it's too late to do anything. There's a rush of displaced air to his side, a hand on the back of his coat, and then he's being flung across the room at some other target.

And the Hell Blazer drives his demon machine right into the vampire queen, knocking her back onto the darkness from whence all six of the demons came. 

As they fall rather noisily into that darkness -- he screaming in rage, she screaming in pain -- the plan goes about as sideways as it's possible to go. 

Krwi lands on his feet right in front of Azazello, and -- not caring to be carved to pieces by the monstrous, walking death-machines the demon's brought out to play -- starts slashing them to pieces with his thrice-blessed sword.

SPYGOD almost trips all over himself, trying to avoid shooting Krwi in the back. Instead, he swivels and aims at Koroviev -- blowing large, cartoon-like holes into the fabric of the monster. 

The devilish being screams its displeasure, and then the world around them changes its very shape. Everything twists and turns in its position, and the area goes from being a long hallway to a defensive maze of nesting walls, instead. 

Morrison skids in his tracks and winding up face-to-face with Voland, who's just as happy to launch a magical attack on him as he was Doctor Power.

"They got the guns, but we got the numbers," Morrison sings, smiling as he twirls his sword around his hand and wrist: "Gonna win, yeah, we're takin' over!"

And he charges the mustached magician without a care in the world. 

"Where the !@#$ heck did you go, you grey-faced nincompoop?" John calls out to Abaddon, who's nowhere to be seen. Instead he turns around and sees Azazello, who's inhaling in the world around him, and preparing to send its raw and reshaped pieces hurtling at his new, grey-coated foe.

Doctor Power twists and turns, uncertain how it is he came to be up above the labyrinth, looking down. But then he realizes that grey and uncaring Abbadon is standing right beside him -- arms crossed, seemingly unimpressed.

And that leaves SPYGOD standing like a statue, guns drawn and ready against a large, black cat that's walking upright and holding a very nasty-looking machine gun.

Behemot, the incredibly violent. 

"Good kitty..." SPYGOD says, sweating, nervous fingers tightening around the triggers: "Hold the !@#$ still..."

And then...

* * *

 

Neo York City
December 28, 2012

"Wait," Straffer says, holding up a hand: "You mean to tell me you were afraid of cats?"

"Well, not !@#$ing afraid," SPYGOD insists, putting his empty wineglass down: "I just never really liked them."

"Any reason why?"

"Eh, one of my aunts had this giant !@#$ing thing. At least he seemed giant. Big fuzzy body, huge legs, long tail. Noisy as !@#$. And when it took a !@#$ you could smell it all over the apartment for hours afterwards."

"Yeah, we don't know anyone like that," Straffer looks over at Bee-Bee, just as the monster animal rolls over and farts.

"Well," SPYGOD continues, trying not to breathe through his nose: "I was visiting to play with my cousins, and... well, I was just two or three at the time, but I had this idea I was going to grab his !@#$ tail and have him scoot me all over the floor like a !@#$ing sleigh ride. Great fun, huh?"

"Oh no," his boyfriend says, putting his face in his hands.

"Well, next !@#$ thing I know there's this !@#$ing angry, hissing face in mine, and I see these paws coming right at me. I had just enough time to get my !@#$ hands up over my eyes, and then all I knew was a blur of pain that kept getting worse by the second."

SPYGOD sighs, gets out another bottle of wine, and stares at it for a moment. The cork pops out, as if by magic, and he pours himself another glass.

"Well, by the time they got that !@#$ing monster off me, he'd clawed up my chest something awful. The doctor said if he'd hit my neck, instead, I'd have !@#$ing bled out."

"You told me those scars were shrapnel..."

"Well, they were! It was like a furry grenade going off in my !@#$ing face, and claws going everywhere! That beast was... !@#$, years later I'm still !@#$ing scared of it."

Straffer smiles a little, handing over his wine glass for a refill: "So what happened then?"

"Then? Well, my aunt and my mom !@#$ing took turns spanking my !@#$ butt," SPYGOD continues, pouring his lover some more wine: "My dad was supposed to round it the !@#$ out to three, but by the time they were done I don't think there was anything left on my bones. So he just told me '(REDACTED), I hope you learned your lesson,' and went back to the bottle. I stood in the corner with my !@#$ on fire and pretended to cry while he drank himself asleep, again."

"I mean after that."

"After? Ah, my poor Aunt didn't feel right keeping the !@#$ing cat around after that, so she tossed the !@#$ thing out the fourth story window. But it !@#$ing survived the fall, as cats tend to do, and was seen prowling the alleys ever since."

"You're kidding."

"No !@#$ing kidding. I kept hearing it was !@#$ing making off with giant rats, yappy puppies, and small, unattended children. So I stopped going over there to play with my cousins because I was !@#$ing terrified of running into it."

"I think you're attributing too much intelligence to a housecat, dear."

"Oh no! That thing was smart. And I !@#$ing know that fur-beast would have done it, too. Just laid in wait for me like a !@#$ing panther in a tree, waiting for some !@#$ing idiot hunter to walk under it... and then ROAR! And no more little (REDACTED), who just wanted a !@#$ing sleigh ride around his aunt's living room."

SPYGOD grouses over that thought, shaking his head and having a large, long gulp of his wine: "Anyway, they say the !@#$ thing finally died fifteen years later when it made the mistake of attacking a cop, out trying to roust alleyway hookers. Got !@#$y over turf and tried to charge the guy. Took a whole revolver's worth of bullets to bring it the !@#$ down-"

"Um, dear?"

"Yes?"

"You're exaggerating, again."

"I am not."

"And you're digressing, which you always tend to do just as you're getting to the good parts."

"Well, okay," SPYGOD admits: "That I am. And I was just getting to the good part, too..."

 (SPYGOD is listening to Tchaikovsky (Romeo and Juliet) and having a Romeo wine)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 7

"We are all of us doomed to spend our lives 

watching a movie of our lives,

we are always acting on what

has just finished happening.”

Tom Wolfe -- "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (1968)

* * *

Nowhere
Anytime

It's after school in the cramped, overcrowded apartment he grew up in, and (REDACTED) is helping his terrifying grandmother make dinner. 

"If you want to make people like you, you cook for them," the bent-over woman says, chopping the freshly-plucked chicken with her huge, wickedly-sharp cleaver for Cacciatore: "No one ever gives you a problem when they're eating your food. No one ever argues, either. You can tell them the sun is the moon and the land is the sea, and they'll just say 'yes it is, please pass the bread.'"

"But Grandmother," (REDACTED) asks as he stirs the vegetables in the oiled pan, standing on a stool so he can reach the top of the stove: "Grandpa and mom and dad argue with you all the time?"

"That's different, boy," she insists: "Family gets to argue, but it means nothing. Family might argue, but family loves. Family forgives. Family looks out for each other. Like you look our for your brothers, right?"

"Yes, grandmother," he says, remembering the last scrap they got into with those !@#$ Irish kids.

"Now, you argue with someone else? That matters. So you feed them, and then they don't argue."

"But Grandmother"

"Don't argue with your grandmother," she commands, giving the chicken a really severe whack. He does as he's told, knowing she's likely to use the cleaver on him if he doesn't

* * *

obey me in all things? the sweetly hideous thing in front of Doctor Power asks, drinking deeply of the writhing, barely-alive supervillain he's brought her.

"I will," he swears, his heart beating a million times a minute from utter fear: "I would pledge myself to your service, as we have agreed. But I have some conditions I would plead with you to consider."

Do you... do you mean to try and truly deal with me? Niginaza of the Basalt Bed, queen of all sorcerers, asks.

"I do, yes," he responds.

In reply, she laughs, and it is not a pleasant thing to listen to. It sounds like the broken cackling of an insane, old man who's just done the most horrible thing imaginable to someone who didn't deserve it. 

(Not that the Crimson Shadow didn't, but that's not a concern for him right now...)

Oh you poor fool, she says, paddling her hands in the ragged, bloody ruin of the man's heaving chest: So eager to exchange your smaller debts with other for a much larger debt with me. Do you really think I will be kinder? Do you really think my demands will be fewer, or less complicated?

"I think we can work together better as a team that I could with the others," he insists: "And I think you'll be interested in something I've learned, provided we have a deal."

Interested? she asks, supping on a still-warm kidney: Do you think there is something you know that I do not?

"I know about your previous servant," he says, silently relieved to see how surprised she is to hear that: "Kytor of the Silver Blade?"

What... what do you know of him?

"I know that he made a deal with you. I know that he turned his back upon you. I know that he's found a way to use your power without your knowledge, and has been stealing your energy for several years, and not giving anything back."

She halts in her gruesome, meaty feast and looks up at him, her golden eyes burning with suspicion: And what does telling me this have to do with anything, other than making me wonder if I should not end this discussion and leave you to your other creditors? 

"Because I also know where he is, right now," Doctor Power says, smiling: "And if you're still hungry, I can offer him to you. Provided you're willing to deal...?"

There are a few moments where she just looks at him. He imagines a mouse trapped by a cat feels the same way. 

I am listening, she finally says: Tell me your conditions, mortal man. But do not attempt to cheat me. It will

* * *

cost you more than you could ever know, young man," the old vampire hunter says, sharpening his stake by the light of his stone fireplace: "This is not a life to be envied."

"Envy?" the young man almost shouts: "Do you think I am some idiot in search of thrills?"

"Are you?" the old man asks, looking him square in the eyes for the first time since they've known each other: "What do you want, little boy?"

"I don't want this," the young man says, pounding his fist on the old man's cluttered kitchen table, making the bales of garlic hop up and down: "I want my old life back. I want my mother alive again. I want my sister... my sister..."
 

He grits his teeth and closes his eyes, trying not to cry. He spent too long seeking this man out, and longer still to get him to agree to talk to him. He must not look weak -- not now.

"They got her, did they?" the old man says, spitting a gob of bloody phlegm into his roaring fire: "Why are you alive, then?"

"I... I hid."

He doesn't even see the man's arm snake out to hit him. He's just that fast. A split second later he's on the floor, and when he looks up it's only to stare down the old man's crossbow. 

(A silver bolt, of course)

"That's the first and last time you lie to me, you little pizda," he says: "You didn't hide. They'd have sniffed you out. What did you do?"

"I ran!" the young man screams, the tears coming now: "I ran! I wanted to stop them but I was scared! I... I ran. I ran. I wanted to... I ran. I ran..."

"And you think that if you join me that'll make it alright?" the old man spits: "Your family's dead. You're alive. You should be grateful you did the smart thing and go on with your life."

"No," the young man insists, his stare intense through the tears: "I want to make it alright by killing the thing that did it to them."

"And what of your sister?" he asks, still aiming the crossbow at the young man's face: "What do we do with her?"

"I don't have a sister anymore," the young man insists: "She stopped being my sister the moment she died. Now she's just a thing. 

"And that thing needs to die."

The old man regards him for a second, and then reaches out a hand.

"Rule number one is you do what you're told, no questions asked," he says, pulling him up with a strength the young man wouldn't have guessed he had: "Rule two is you don't run until I tell you to. I'll shoot you myself if you try. And rule three..."

"Yes?" the young man says.

"No real names," the old man says: "Names are power. They find out who you are, they'll find where you came from and use it against you."

"I have no one-"

"You had friends?" the old man insists, putting a hand up to silence the young man: "You had neighbors? Anyone you cared about?"

"Well... yes."

"There you go. They'll find out who your friends are and hunt them down. They'll send out their servants to find them and then they'll make them vampires, too. They'll send your friends and neighbors against you, just to get you."

The young man nods: "No names. I understand."

"Your old life is over. Your new one starts now. Pick a title and stick with it."

With that, he extends a hand: "You can call me Dr. Ogien. And what shall I call you, apprentice?"

And the young man smiles, and says

* * *

blood everywhere," Jim Morrison says, taking a long hit off the cigarette he's been offered, and then putting it out on the plastic, fold-up desk in front of him: "Not really a good thing to see, at that age. Not a good thing to see at any age, I guess. But once I saw through it, and saw beyond... I saw myself."

"In the wreck?" Agent Ray Manzarek asks, tapping his pencil on his pad, and wondering how much longer he has to sit in this small, windowless room and listen to this looney talk.

"Beyond the wreck, man," Morrison says, smiling: "I saw my previous self. The one that'd been fighting demon redcoats in a different America. Out there in the deserts, amongst the people. He'd finally gone down, there. And when he died, he looked at me, and I looked at him... and, well..."

The long-haired man smiles, lifts his arms, and spins around in the swivel-chair: "Here I am!"

"Yeah, one James Douglas Morrison," the Agent sighs: "Look, I'm going to be frank with you, Mr. Morrison-"

"Jim," the long-haired guy says, leaning in.

"Jim," Manzarek sighs: "We've got people like you coming out of the woodwork, right now. They're all saying they got powers from their parents, or something like that. And so far most of them are just delusional."

"Oh, I am delusional," Morrison admits: "Totally !@#$ing gone, man. I mean, Jesus Christ, what a crazy story. Who would come in here and tell some fresh-faced little Economics major posing as a film student that he's some crazy eternal warrior?"

"How did you-" the Agent asks, dropping the pencil.

"The same way I know that, a couple years from now, we'll be partners," he says, his eyes deep, dark, and on fire: "You and me,  Ray-Ray. Kicking !@#$. Taking names. Loving and laughing and lighting the world up. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel... what?" 

"How about this?" Morrison asks, reaching across the table and putting his hand on the man's heart: "What's that in there, huh? Is that fear? Fear of failure? Fear of someone telling you no?"

"Look, man-"

"No, you look," the man says, leaning in even closer: "All those years being told 'no.' You wind up here and now you're telling other people 'no.' The system ate you up and !@#$ you out, and now you're just poop in a suit, doing a !@#$ty job. But you were meant for more."

"More..." Manzarek says, something in him stirring: "Like what?"

"Like anything other than this !@#$!" Morrison insists, jumping up out of his chair and tossing the desk at the wall: "Come on, man! No more of this !@#$! None of this interviewing weird people !@#$! You were made for better than this, man! Let's go make it happen!"

"But..." Manzarek says, looking up and around: "I mean... I'm..."

"Afraid?" Morrison laughs: "!@#$, man. Fear's nothing to fear. It might look big and bad, but you know what? You expose yourself to what scares you -- what you think is your greatest fear -- and then it has no power. And when it has no power, your real fear, which is freedom? It shrinks. It goes away. 

"And then you're free," he concludes, gesturing at the door: "So do you want to be stuck in this room until you're old and grey? Or do you want to gamble it all, man?"

Agent Manzarek looks at him, and then looks at the door, and then back at him. 

"If you're blowing smoke," he warns, getting up from his chair: "If you're just some crazy !@#$hole..."

"Oh, I am a crazy !@#$hole," Jim Morrison laughs, putting his hand on the doorknob: "But once you start following crazy !@#$holes, you tend to get a little crazy yourself."

"I'll be sure to put that in my report."

"And you can start with this," the musician says, opening the door to what should be a staid, grey hallway, but is, instead

* * *

 the jungle, endless and eternal. 

"Any jungle," he says, his voice warbling in the heat and humidity. His fatigues are dripping with sweat and full of bugs. His grip on the rifle is uncertain, even though he's sure there's a jungle cat stalking him.

And with each step he wonders if he shouldn't kneel down and use it on himself.

They said he needed to lose himself, first. He should go onto a jungle -- "any jungle," they said -- and walk through it until he found "it." But, of course, they didn't say what "it" was. 

Just what it promised, and all it entailed. 

In the heat and the haze, all the vegetation looks the same. All the cries of animals blend together. All the smells are one. Just a big, hazy mess in his head, making him dry and nauseous and demoralized, and wondering if he's gone too far to turn back...

Back? Back to what? Beat poetry and bad junk? Bad sex with lousy friends? Art without reason, night after night, in the city that's tried to kill him since he entered it?

A city that would have killed him, sure as !@#$, if someone hadn't Operated on him? 

The Grey Men said he had a talent. They said his cut-up poetry showed promise. They said he seemed like a man who knew how it could all come together, if he really tried. 

But to find how it comes together, you have to see how it comes apart. And that required sacrifice. 

So they told him to leave the city. Leave everything behind while he was at it. Leave his money, his clothes, his poems, his typewriter. Leave his so-called friends and certain enemies. Leave his love and his hate and his junk and his sex.

Leave his name. 

And now he's walking through the jungles of South America with a stolen browning and someone else's clothes. He's not sure exactly where, or how he got here. He just put one foot in front of the other as the withdrawal !@#$ed up his head and made him an invisible man, and then he was here. 

Here, wandering in what seems like circles. Eating what he can find and hoping it doesn't make him !@#$ himself standing up and drinking water that's too thick for his liking. Forgetting who he was and remembering things he shouldn't call his own.

(Avoiding being eaten by things he only ever saw in the !@#$ Zoo.)

He keeps going, though. Somewhere up ahead, he knows he'll find the answer. Or maybe it'll find him, somehow. 

That's what they said, anyway. They said some things are more !@#$ certain than others, no matter how much they Operate. Some things are just set in stone, like it or not. 

And some things come true today because we made them true tomorrow, and so they will come true yesterday.

(Is that why they insisted on calling him John? He kept telling them his real name, but they kept saying "John" over and over like they were chanting at Mass...)

"John," he says, truly realizing that all sounds are one sound, all things are one thing, all places one place, and all moments nestled within this moment: "Just John."

And then -- as he finally feels the Grey surround him -- he becomes aware that there's a big !@#$ jaguar right in front of him. But he doesn't really need the gun to feel

* * *

safe?" George laughs, smacking the nude woman across the face with one hand while grabbing her by the neck with the other: "You must be !@#$ing joking, Estelle!"

"You let me go," she hisses, trying to get away from the long-haired fellow in the blood-stained, black robe: "I'm not your girl, anymore, George-"

"That's Lord Puddock to you," he sneers, not letting her go: "Or Master, at least for tonight."

"Tonight," she says, stopping her resistance: "And then, tomorrow, we're all our own masters."

"Yes," he insists, letting her go at last but not breaking eye contact: "Tonight, we contact the Queen of the Dead. Tomorrow, we are un-dead. And after that, we can do whatever we like, whenever we like."

"Provided you got the spell right," she says, walking across the stone floor of the cellar to get her robe on: "Provided this Queen is who we think she is-"

"She is," he insists: "One of the Supreme Six, spoken of in the Deos Mortuos Revelationem. The Red Queen. She will give us what we desire, so long as we are strong in our conviction, and certain of ourselves."

"And so long as she's fed," she says, pulling on her robe, and then turning to regard him: "Do we have enough? Really?"

"One for each of us," he says: "Thirteen for thirteen. Unspoiled."

"You're certain of that?"

"Oh yes, I've had Nicky keeping an eye on them."

"Are you sure he can be trusted?"

"If they were little boys, no, but I decided to be traditional. He'll no more spoil them than he'd spoil you... in spite of your many attempts."

Estelle scowls at him, and then makes ready to walk past: "Thirteen for Thirteen at the thirteenth hour, on Walpurgisnacht. And then, we summon her to do our bidding. It seems straightforward enough...?"

"But you have doubts," he says, stepping in front of her: "Always doubts."

"What are you, really?" she asks, looking him in the eyes: "When I met you, you were just some rich clown who liked fast things and young women. You got other clowns to follow you, making mischief on your bikes, certain that your last name would keep the law at bay."

"And you loved it, for a time," he says, putting a hand on her arm: "Didn't you? You loved being my queen."

"Yes, I did," she admits: "And then you became a sorcerer, out of nowhere. Your clowns became your coven. Your women its first victims."

"Not you, though," he says. The way he says it seems like a threat, and she registers it, stepping back.

"It's almost as if the clown was an act you dropped," she accuses: "So who are you really, Lord George, Master of Puddock Manor?"

"Maybe the sorcerer was there all along, just waiting," he admits, looking aside: "Maybe I needed to see what this world had to offer before I assumed mastery over it. Does it matter?"

"If we're going to be partners in eternal half-life, then it does," she says: "I won't want to have to kill you in a few centuries when you turn back into a clown."

There's any number of things he could say about that, but before he can say them, she's gone, off to the ritual space they've prepared. When the door opens he can hear his coven laughing, and the sacrifices whimpering and crying.

But what would they say if they knew the truth? 

What would Estelle say if she knew that George had tricked them all? What would she think if she knew that the only un-death that would be taking place tonight was George, himself? What would any of them do if they knew that the "sacrifices" were just for show, and that he would actually be offering up his coven, instead?

And what will they say when they feel the jaws of Hell clamp shut about their hearts and souls, and see him ascend into living death as they fall into eternal damnation? 

"Never trust a clown," he muses, and -- grateful that none of the other members of his coven can understand medieval Latin -- heads for the door to the ritual space, ready to

* * *

Moscow -- The Beehive
April 30th, 1968

fall straight down, out of the black and into the white again.

All six of them thump down onto a stone floor in a large, long room that trails off into darkness. The floor is sticky and smells of iron, and it takes some of them longer than others to realize it's drying blood. It also takes them a little longer to realize that the blood is seeping into and out of things that have been stuffed into the room's corners and edges.

Meaty, pulsing things that were once human beings.

"Oh !@#$," SPYGOD says, getting to his feet and pointing a rather large gun every which way he can: "!@#$ !@#$ !@#$!"

"That's putting it mildly," Dr. Krwi says, wishing his knees were better: "I can smell it, too."

"A trap," Doctor Power hisses, gesturing about him: "SPYGOD, I told you-"

"This wasn't Bulgakov," John insists, letting Morrison and the Hell Blazer help him up: "This is !@#$ Fallen magic. You can tell by the way the blood's not congealed all the way. The things need a fresh supply."

"Quite true," the Hell Blazer says, looking around: "But the result is what we should be concerned about. We cannot leave, now."

"Well, we'll see about that..." Morrison says, reaching his hand out. But the moment he does, he recoils back, as if he'd been burned.

Doctor Power looks at the Musician and smiles gently: "I don't think you'll be opening any doors, tonight, Jim."

"That's... wow," Morrison says, smiling: "It's never not worked. That's kind of exciting, man."

"Not the !@#$ word I'd use," John scowls. 

"Okay, so how !@#$ed are we?" SPYGOD asks, pulling out another gun so as to cover more angles.

"Not any worse than we knew ourselves to be," the vampire hunter says, unslinging his pistols: "We win or we die, friends. We cannot escape even if we wanted to, but I do not believe that was the intent?"

"No," Doctor Power says, getting a spell ready to go.

"Never," John admits, as ready as he'll ever be.

"No way, man," Morrison says, a flaming sword appearing in his hand.

"Not on your life," The Hell Blazer says, his fists erupting in unearthly flames.

"You need to !@#$ing ask?" SPYGOD snorts: "Bring 'em the !@#$ on. Tonight the Beehive, tomorrow the !@#$ing Kremlin. Vodka's on me, after."

"Then we fight," Krwi says: "Do you hear us, creatures of Hell? Show yourselves! We have come for you!"

"And it would be ever so rude of us not to return the favor" a voice announces from across the room, coming from the darkness there. 

Things move within it, just then -- six distinct shapes, all moving towards them with undue speed.

"Take your !@#$ partners for the dance macabre," John intones as they become identifiable. 

And then...

(SPYGOD is listening to Tchaikovsky (Symphony 6) and having a Jaguar Lager)