The Dark Path (30 page)

The roaring of surf broke Vain’s slumber. Rising through the fogginess of sleep, he sat up. Golden sand stretched to the horizon, sculpted by the waves curling and crashing against the shore. He stood, seemingly alone, the sound of the surf his only companion.

“Do you enjoy this image, Vain?” asked a voice from behind him.

Spinning around, the assassin saw the old woman who had called herself Xamiel. The same woman who had later revealed herself as Satan.

“What do you want, you old hag?” hissed Vain.

A shimmer of annoyance flashed across Xamiel’s brow. “How disappointing. Perhaps I want nothing, maybe I am merely lonely. You have no idea how tedious eternity can be when locked in this perpetual land of no life. I can create anything I want, but it will never live the way you do. It will not breathe or grow unless I make it.”

“What do you want?”

Xamiel’s appearance shimmered and changed. Before Vain now stood a man in his mid-twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair crowning a face of incredible magnificence. Dressed casually in a light blue silk shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and tails flapping loosely outside a pair of cream-colored slacks, he casually strolled barefoot to where Vain stood by the water and smiled dazzlingly at the assassin. Only the eyes didn’t change. They still held the deep well of power that Vain had seen the first time they met.

“Very pretty Xamiel, but it still doesn’t answer my question,” growled Vain.

“Please, call me Lucifer.”

“Fine,
Lucifer
. Now what do you fucking want?”

“Very well, I shall get to my point earlier than I had intended. Gabriel is going to betray you.”

“Oh really,” mocked Vain.

“Yes really, you ignorant little man,” snapped Lucifer, his cloak of beatitude momentarily slipping. Realizing his lapse almost immediately, his mask slid smoothly back into place and he smiled gently.

“Why?” inquired Vain.

“Why what?”

“Why would he betray me? What does he have to gain?”

“Who knows?” mused Lucifer vaguely. “Perhaps he wants to conquer the realm of Earth for himself. Maybe he’s grown sick of playing second-fiddle to his so-called God. I did, why shouldn’t he? The point is: he will try to deceive you when you go to the house. You should destroy him immediately.”

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I’ve already tried.”

“That was before you knew how to use the
Glimloche
’s powers. You could erase him from existence with a mere thought now.”

“How do you know what’s been going on up there?” asked Vain. “From what I can tell, you have no way of interacting with the human realm; otherwise you’d be causing all sorts of havoc.”

“You misjudge me, Dark Man,” smiled Lucifer smoothly. “I am not the source of evil I have been made out to be. History is written by the victors and, as you know, I did not win. For all you know, this God who everyone claims is so wonderful and benevolent could be the real evil in the cosmos. After all, didn’t he take your wife and daughter from you? Does that seem like the work of a holy being?

“Doesn’t the Bible tell of the wrath of God against the Egyptians, killing the first-born child of
every
house? The being who calls itself Gabriel is the one who did this!
He
is the Angel of Death for a God who hates mankind! It wasn’t until that incredible publicist named Jesus Christ emerged on the scene that everyone started thinking God was this compassionate father who looked after mankind. If that’s the case, why are wars being waged throughout the world? Millions being slaughtered every day from famine and disease? Where is your God now?”

“He is not
my
God,” responded Vain unemotionally.

A look of victory crossed Lucifer’s face. “Then why do you run his tasks for him. If he is so powerful, why does he not smite down the followers of Sordarrah, and lift the boy up into the heavens? Why do you run and play fetch when he commands it? Are you merely an errand boy for this God who cares nothing for you?”

The assassin’s cold gaze hardened. “I am nobody’s errand boy.”

“Prove it! Destroy the archangel and join me. Together we will be unstoppable. We shall rule the universe side by side.”

Vain stood silently for a moment, feeling the sand between his toes, and listening to the crashing of the surf upon the shore. “You forgot something,” he whispered.

Lucifer looked to the assassin quizzically. “What?”

“There is no breeze.” Lucifer smiled and was about to say something when Vain added, “And the boy, you forgot about the boy. What happens to him?”

“The boy is inconsequential,” cooed Lucifer persuasively. “Together we will be able to destroy Sordarrah and his minions, and cast God from the very heavens.”

“It is said,” began Vain, his voice suddenly turning to ice, “that you are the Prince of Lies. I see now that you are also the Prince of Fools. The universe means nothing to me. God means nothing to me. The only thing that matters to me is the boy. Goodbye Lucifer, if we meet again I shall try my very best to destroy you.”

Lucifer bellowed furiously, the scene changing immediately from one of beauty to one of immeasurable horror. The sand split and spewed forth stewing rivers of feces. The sky cracked open and rained torrents of blood. A score of beasts rose up from the mounds of excrement that now scattered the beach, and the rush of the surf became the grinding of machinery. Vain glanced towards the sound and saw piles of human bones, some still wrapped with decaying flesh, being devoured by huge crushing machines, hundreds of smiling human teeth arrayed on rollers.

The assassin turned back to where Lucifer stood, only now the image of the beautiful man was gone, replaced with a figure who towered almost eleven feet. Gnarled muscles burst forth under the corpse-grey skin of the beast’s limbs and torso. Enormous claws grew from the fingers of each hand, glinting wickedly sharp. The creature’s head no longer bore any resemblance to that of a man. Broken like a jackal’s skull, fangs the size of daggers filled the gaping maw, while the ears were stunted, but sharp. There were no eyes, only gaping sockets that constantly dribbled blood across the cracked skin of the cheekbones, down the neck and chest of the beast.

“Now you see the true beauty of the master of Hell,” roared the beast. “Make the most of it Dark Man, for it is the last thing you shall ever see. You spurned your chance to rule at my side, now your soul is forfeit, for I will ensure it is destroyed utterly. Soon there won’t even be a memory of the assassin named Vain. Do you have anything else you’d like to add before I devour your essence? Say something funny now to Satan, Lord of the Underworld!”

“I do have one thing to say,” said Vain calmly. “You’d better let me go if you want to live. If you kill me now, be assured your death won’t be far behind.”

“Ha! You think I am scared of the power of the
Glimloche
?
I
who created that cursed thing with my own essence?” Satan grinned maliciously. “The thing inside of you
is
me, you fool! How do you think I was able to bring you to this place? You cannot hurt me with myself. Now prepare for oblivion.”

“If you kill me, the boy will be sacrificed.”

Satan burst forth with a loud mocking laugh. “You think I care about some stupid brat? I hope he dies in torment, cursing your name.”

“If he dies, Sordarrah goes free to conquer the human realm. He will then be more powerful than you, and I would guess he might soon return here to visit his revenge upon you. I imagine he won’t have too much trouble achieving it.”

Satan’s expression darkened to one of utter malevolence. “You think you have outsmarted me, don’t you mortal?” he scoffed. “Well, human, return to Earth with this knowledge. I can always get to you while you carry the
Glimloche
. Once you have saved your little boy, I will drag you back here screaming, and you will experience an eternity of suffering the likes of which no mortal has ever known.”

“I think I prefer your threats to your promises, you retarded grey bastard.”

“BE GONE!!” thundered Satan, and Vain vanished.

Squirrel was going to die. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his shitty life would soon come to an abrupt end. And the worst thing was, he didn’t want it to finish. Sitting in the freezing, dank room of the house, he began to consider all of the things he had done wrong in his life.

He sat, trapped in his thoughts, for a long time.

He remembered how he had stolen money from his family. He had used the cash on one of his first schemes to make money, and had succeeded admirably, but his father couldn’t see past the fact that he had stolen from his own blood. He had disowned Gary, telling him he’d disgraced the family, proclaiming he no longer had a son.

Those words haunted Squirrel for years and had driven him to strive for greatness. Deep inside, he’d always wanted to return to his family and show them what a success he had become. He’d imagined perhaps if he’d walked up to his father with a wad of cash the man would’ve thrown his arms around his son and told him what a fool he had been.

I was the fool
, he thought bitterly.
All I had to do was apologize and swallow my pride. He would have taken me back, and I could have hugged him, and everything would have been okay again. Now I’ll never have the chance
.

After an eternity lost in his thoughts, Squirrel’s reflection ruptured when the door to the room burst open, and five men walked in. Squirrel scrutinized them all closely, trying to determine the leader of the group, and thus the one to whom he should direct his pleas. Though certain of his doom, he wouldn’t die without at least trying to save himself.

Why save yourself? What possible reason is there for you to live? You are a bum without a single soul to mourn you when you die.

He had no answers. After a life full of failures he realized that if he had another chance he would do it all differently. He would sober up and take his existence seriously. Nobody owed him anything in this life, and the sooner he understood this and woke up to his situation, the sooner he could get himself back on track.

Well he
had
woken up.

Regrettably, he’d woken up at that unfortunate instant when it no longer counted.

 All five men looked to have been broken from completely different moulds, but were all somehow similar–a dark presence in their eyes perhaps. Squirrel noticed that one of them, a black man, he had seen somewhere before. Upon closer inspection he realized that the man appeared subtly dissimilar from the others, and Squirrel racked his damaged brain to establish the difference.

Scanning the entire group, Squirrel noticed that the other four men exhibited parallel energies. Only the black man stood out as faintly different. Although he wore the same cloak of power, this man seemed to lack the same conviction the others possessed. His eyes were downcast instead of glaring with arrogance.

He almost appeared to feel shame.

Perhaps I can use this against them
, thought Squirrel.
Perhaps there is a rift here that I can turn to my own advantage.

“Well, worm,” enunciated the leader calmly, “it has come to our attention that you have been inquiring about our establishment here on behalf of an assassin named Vain.”

Squirrel simply stared back at the man.

“Do you intend to just sit there?” growled the man, momentarily losing his aura of benevolence. “Answer the question.”

“I-I’m sorry s-sir,” stammered Squirrel. “I didn’t realize it was a q-q-question. It sounded more like a statement of fact.”

The man chuckled softly. “I forgot I’m dealing with a liquor-ridden parasite. I shall try to make things simpler for you. Where is the Dark Man?”