Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 02

From there, he ran the two strides and just sailed in through the second storey window, breaking it to fall almost straight down the long flight of stairs inside.

Which he regretted not considering as he tumbled down them.

The fugitive had just run up the flight of seven steps and saw Abi peripherally as he ran straight to the door of an apartment which he knew and he turned to crash it open with his shoulder.

Abi stood up and dusted himself off a little as his appearance shifted to something a little more normal for these parts. He thought about things for a moment and decided that he really could have done this better. He didn't look behind him as the window which he'd hurtled through reassembled itself, the glass pieces clicking quietly as they slid up the steps to the quickly-mending frame. No one had seen his entrance, though there was the matter of the police car.

He shrugged and forgot about it.

He just decided that he needed to use a few others to help him now and then.

As who he was on another plane, he commanded sixty legions, but making use of them for this was right out. The place would be a flaming ruin in only minutes for many blocks in any direction. He grimaced at the thought.

Nearly three hundred thousand demonic soldiers loose on earth. In one place.

Best to maybe not think about that, he decided.

He raised his hand and life all around went on, though slowly but for himself and two others. He just needed the difference for a little while.

With a sigh as he wondered why he'd taken this hunt in the first place, he walked into the apartment and closed the door. The locks and the wood of the doorframe were once again unbroken as he walked slowly on.

Twenty-five feet away, he saw a young woman sitting on the floor with a game controller in her hands. A look around told him that she lived alone and that it had been perhaps a week since she'd tidied up. There was a mountain of video games in several stacks of cases all around the room and also a ton of empty fast-food packaging.

He raised his hand and time stopped cold in the apartment.

He didn't like trying to manage two different time sets with real time going on in the background, but he saw the knife against the girl's throat and the way that he saw it, there had already been far too much collateral damage to this hunt.

He sensed and considered.

Her name was, ... Imogen Patricia Butterworth. He smiled to himself.

Now there was a name.

Well there were a few little irregularities here, he thought to himself as he sensed to learn what he could.

Imogen was nineteen and nearing twenty. She definitely lived here alone. She didn't work, other than putting in a few hours a week part-time at the local games distributor shop, more to stay with the trends and the current hits. She didn't make very much at it, either.

The only child of a broken home.

Mother out of the picture since she was a kid.

She'd lived with her geek father until he'd died in a car accident a year ago. The settling of that had left her with some money which she was just getting to the very end of now.

Other than that, ... he saw self-image problems out the ass.

She wasn't tall. He saw golden blonde hair which was long with the curious type of long curls which suited that length on her, though he knew that she didn't see it that way. There were some serious body issues in her head.

To herself, she was very plain and tubby on her best day, though to any even slightly charitable man who didn't tend to be particularly attracted to her body type, she'd only be thought of by the kinder description of 'a little chubby'.

Abi didn't see a single thing wrong with her. To him, she was capable of a very delicious type of sensuality. But then, he was looking at her with demonic eyes, after all.

He saw that she knew nothing of it; the possibility of even owning that sort of thing -- though it was almost right there for her to have. She didn't see anything but the soft roll on her stomach when she looked down. He wanted to shake his head, though he didn't.

What he could do for her almost blew his mind when it all came to him.

But he didn't have a reason to do it.

Instead, what he saw were mostly other things.

Since she'd been raised by a largely overgrown child himself, she ate terribly and it showed in her greasy complexion and the acne eruptions in her skin. She must have been diagnosed at an early age as far-sighted, so she wore the sort of glasses which made her eyes look large whenever anyone was speaking to her. Right now, her wide and frightened eyes were all that Abi could see there, though that was understandable.

And she was absolutely naked.

It was a detail which didn't fit for him somehow.

He waved his hand and the time in the room moved on. Imogen's frightened breathing would have been the loudest sound in the room, but at the moment, the game's sound effects from the headphones in her lap and the tortured wheezing from his quarry were doing well at drowning her out.

The man tensed his fingers on the knife and Imogen opened her mouth.

"Daddy?" she asked nervously in a tiny voice.

Abi tilted his head, taken completely off his game at that instant.

"What?"

"I -- I meant ... him," she whimpered, indicating the fugitive with her eyes, "What's happening? P-Please don't --""

"I'll kill her if you don't back off right now," the man hissed as he kept fighting to regain his breath. "I dunno who you are, ... wh-why you're chasing me, ... but, ... as God is my witness, I'll kill her, I swear it!"

Abi only shook his head very slowly as he caused the shotgun in his hand to disappear, "Your assumptions are all wrong, Marchetti. You think the only people who might have an interest in your ass are the law enforcement types around here. Trust me; they don't even know that you're here at all. They all think you're still hiding out somewhere near Topeka, after stealing money from a children's hospital. Only I knew you were here.

He smiled, "Call it a gift.

And this stupid Keystone Cops chase ends here and now."

Abi began to smile even more as he sank to a crouch, tilting his head and leaning in a little as his voice turned low and menacing, dripping with implied threat and also the strange reverberations of two voices at the same time. His eyes began to glow with a very soft and red light.

"Funny thing about that witness you mentioned.

Your word about what you'll do means less than nothing to me, chooch. I'm here on business, sanctioned by both sides. That's how bad this is, get it now?

Trust me; He's long past caring about a killer whose run is over. Don't even try to repent now. He isn't listening to you anymore. Your chance to repent ended when your fate was decided.

He looked around for a moment. "You chose this place to make your pitiful stand. You all get run to the ground sooner or later. You were just a little harder to catch, that's all. The degree of difficulty points just make you more valuable after a couple of new hunters just couldn't seem to grab you. The bounty goes up then, Guistino, but your chance is still gone. I don't do this for a living. This is relaxation to a guy like me.

Dragging you off screaming is just the fun part.

Every one of you falls down if you're chased long enough and then you do this stupid thing, create this absurd little dramatic scene when you can't run any further. We all think it's funny. Anyway, for as long as I'm here," he said, indicating Imogen with his hand, "her life is my responsibility. So get this straight.

You hurt this girl and I'll slit you open and feed you as much of your own body as I can force you to eat. I'll surround you with dead women who each hold ragged-edged knives with nothing but hate for you in their hearts. You might even know a couple of them. Believe me; your death won't stop a thing."

He began to chuckle in a low tone, looking as though he was really enjoying this, since he was. "Ah, I just love looking at a mouse after he's run himself into a corner. You all do the strangest dances then because you never think that what you do here is something that you just might have to pay for some day.

Uh, for you, chooch, today is that day, just sayin'.

They don't want to wait for you to croak, buddy." He laughed softly, "You're so important, they want you now."

"D-don't move," the man said, sounding thoroughly frightened. "Promise me you'll give me thirty seconds head start and I'll let her go."

Abi shook his head, "You need to get past your denial. You're already mine. I didn't come here to play tag. I'm here to collect.

We already did the Chase part. We're at the Confrontation part of things now. No matter what you say or do, we'll move on to the Taking part in a minute or so.

And anyway, you're really not in much of a position to dictate terms to me, are you?"

Abi grinned, "I could squeeze every drop of your blood out of you from here. Eyeballs are a lot of fun when they fly out. You can never tell where they'll go after the optic nerve snaps."

Imogen gasped as she felt what the man held move in an implied threat against her throat. She felt it as renewed and trembling pressure -- which tickled in some strange way.

"I'll gut her if you --"

"A little hard to gut her since you're at her throat at the moment, Guistino Marchetti," Abi chuckled and their eyes widened even more as they noticed that he was laughing and actually speaking at the same time, using those two voices.

"The cops wouldn't want you to harm anyone if they were here, so they'd stand down right about now, since, ... you know, ... you've got that swiffing thing against her neck like that and all."

Both of the voices were chuckling now.

"Really nice, Guistino," Abi grinned, "Really very threatening. I'll bet she's pissing on the carpet in fear of being swiffed to death right now. You gonna dust her pretty nose with that thing or what?"

Marchetti needed to look twice to see that he no longer held a knife. He had a light blue plastic cleaning implement in his hand, a slightly dirty one, too.

"Then who the fuck are you and what do you want with me?" he asked in a tremulous voice.

Abi crouched a little lower before them and grinned even more in his good humor, now that it had fully returned to him. "Do you really want to know, Guistino? You might say that I work for a ... lower authority."

"That's not me," Marchetti objected as he shook his head nervously, "My name's Justin. Y-You've got the wrong guy."

"Oh fuck off," Abi smiled as his other voice laughed uproariously, "Shit like that is to confuse humans. I don't really give a flying fuck over what you call yourself in front of the mirror. We all just go by the name you were given to begin with. You change it here; it stays the same back there. A pile of shit by any other name, you know? And unlike the cops," he smiled, "there's absolutely no chance of mistaken identity. That's just the way it works."

He leaned forward, "Hey, you wanna see my badge, Guistino?"

The man sensed something even more ominous at that point and he shook his head, "No. No, leave me alone." He let go of Imogen and began to crawl backwards like a crab, "Leave me alone!" He backpedalled into the couch and stayed there in his sudden terror.

Abi's smile remained unchanged for a moment and then it looked to grow a little, ... deeper somehow. He seemed to swell in a way as his clothing disappeared and in only seconds, he squatted in exactly the same place on rather large, widely splayed hooves. His skin went dark and settled into a deep gray with small scales over him almost everywhere. And in two places, there were glyphs visible, the same identically in a muted blood-colored red.

His head wore the wide horns and his grinning, leering mouth was full of teeth as he slowly reached out his large clawed hand toward the man to hold him motionless, though he was over ten feet away. He finally had what he wanted; Imogen sitting almost in front of him and yet out of the line of fire, so to speak. All that was directly ahead of him was the asshole that he'd come for.

Behind Abi, there was a rush of air as his wings opened and swung forward once before they moved to hang above and behind him.

Loose papers and video game instruction manuals flew around the room.

"You don't get a phone call, since this really isn't an arrest.

This is nothing more than a collection.

No attorney, no bail, nothing. Your trial has already happened and wrapped up. They sent me to collect you, since I accepted the job for the bounty on your soul. All that's left is time, Guistino. Lots and lots of time."

Abi laughed again, "Oh, and pain. I forgot about that insignificant little part. An eternity of pain.

He chuckled in those voices again, "I even know the hell that you're going to. The warmest part of it that you'll ever see is colder than a gravedigger's ass. Most of it is howling frozen waste with rocks and plenty of snow to show where you've run until the wind blows your tracks away. I know the demonlord there very well. She and I are friends from way back.

I'm glad to see that you're in such fine running form. You'll spend days at a time running from her packs as they hunt you.

Ice Wolves, Guistino, and not one under two hundred and fifty pounds. They can see in the dark, smell a man's blood inside of him from seven miles on the wind and they never sleep.

They'll catch you every time, but you'll always try to run because when they catch you, they'll rip you from asshole to tea kettle, Sweet cheeks.

Oh my, ... bloody red snow everywhere. And that's BEFORE they deliver you to her.

They'll get a pat on their heads, and you won't believe what my old girlfriend can do with a flame whip. She can take that little dick of yours off with your balls at the same time with one swing, and she'll flay you until there's more off than what's left.

After that, she'll fix you up just as good as new in no time.

And she'll turn her packs loose on you again," he smiled pleasantly, "Forever.

Well, not forever," he said after a thought, "She'll get tired of you sooner or later. After that, she'll hand you off to her assistants, girls just like her pretty much, though they're not as precise with a whip yet, so that part of it will take a little longer, naturally.

I've never figured it out to tell you the truth, but if the packs haven't brought anybody back in a little while, say oh, five minutes or so, they start whipping each other, trading strokes of their lashes slowly and moaning in joy, because it's what they like to do the most.

It's when a pack drags some worthless shit like you back to them that they get a little annoyed at having to stop doing what makes them happy. So that's when they try to make it count. Because then they're pissed at being interrupted and they make every swing hurt."

He stretched out his hand a little farther, noticing the way that Imogen sat looking at what hung between his thighs as he did. He said nothing of it, however. To the man, he only smiled, "Come on buddy, whaddya say to a little vacation time like THAT?"

The man didn't move beyond trembling and quaking in fear. He shook his head. "B-but ... I have to be dead first. And if I'm dead ... "

Abi nodded, "Yeah, so? You think that you won't be able to run? You think you won't feel it when the lash sinks in deep enough to hit bone?"

He chuckled, "You think the packs of Ice Wolves won't be there to rip you apart? You'll feel it all, Guistino, all of it in Technicolor, and cranked, full Dolby stereo. You'll be able to smell your own blood every time. Oh, the agony ...

You think death can numb nerve endings? We're not talking about here, chooch. We're talking about Hell. One of them, anyway.

Come on, time's up."

Marchetti screamed in a long wail. Imogen sat with her eyes squinched together a little from the loud and pitiful sound of it, but her eyes were open enough to see the thin beam and spot of dim brightness as it shot past her and came to Abi's hand to disappear into it. The body immediately sagged to the floor as though it was a rag doll.

The time differences slipped into sync as the locks on the door behind them slid open soundlessly and the door opened slowly.

"You are a little late, Huntress," Abi smiled back over his shoulder, speaking to her in their infernal tongue.

What stood there was clearly a female demon to Imogen's eyes. She stood looking a little apprehensive once her eyes had taken everything in.

Imogen was fascinated, but she suddenly thought of Marchetti's body and looked to see if it was there. She was pleased to see that it wasn't though now she wondered about that. She looked at the female again and felt a slight wish to be that lean and beautiful.

At that point, the female demon read the glyphs on Abi and bowed, "I make my apology if I interrupt, Lord Ab-"

He held up his hand to stop her and she halted in mid-syllable.

"There is a human on the floor over here," he said quietly.

The demon groaned to herself, "Even worse," she said softly in her gravelly voice, "My apology for that then as well. The one is taken?"

He nodded, "Yes. I could have used a little help in the chase. It would have gone much better with your help and I'd have split the bounty with you, of course."

"A pleasant thought," she smiled a little, "to be able to say that I once worked with you, lord. I must go now."

She bowed again and turned to leave.

Abi called out, "Huntress, I know you.

At least, I know of you and I have heard much of your skill.

If you ever tire of the one you work for, call to me. I will come and settle with him. I would give much to have you to work beside. I would treat you well beyond that, also. A share of each bounty to you for your fine work.

"Not for any lord, Huntress, for you."

She smiled and said that she'd consider it and then she walked out and closed the door after her.

The one called Maezou faded into nothing as she walked, wondering at the sound of his truth to her. No other demonlord had ever said such a thing to her. But then she knew who he was by reputation.

From what she'd heard, he was mostly cold to humans, though she'd also heard that he had moments where he could display surprising compassion to a very few of them as well and no one in all of demonkind had ever known why. But above all, he was known for honesty in his dealings with his own kind.

She smiled to herself as she walked. Now she'd met the one called Abidon. She had nothing to bring her lord yet, but then it had all been speculation on her part and she did have another assignment to pursue regardless. She felt better anyway, a little grateful that this one day had held something a little different in it for her.