“I’ve already told him two and a half percent. It’s settled and good to go, why is there 
a problem?”


     “Two things. It’s not settled until Mr. Carmazzi says that it is settled. Financing 
requires the standard three percent. You know this, so you have a problem, not us.”


     A moment approached as it always did when dealing with Mr. Carmazzi. He had a way of 
bringing about these moments, of offering you the choice of going along with what he wanted, 
that or burn your bridges and get mowed down by the steamroller that was the Italian arms 
dealer. 


     It passed.


     “And the second thing?”


     “The second thing is that you never refer to Mr. Carmazzi in the pronoun fashion. You 
said, ‘I’ve already told him two and a half percent.’ You meant ‘I’ve already told Mr. 
Carmazzi two and a half percent.’ Isn’t that right, Marcus?”


     “Of course. Pardon me.”


     “Let me be clear on this. I am only allowed to warn you once. If it happens again, you 
will drink your coffee one morning and it will be laced with pulverized glass. You will find 
it is most unpleasant. Regrettably, I must mention this to Mr. Carmazzi. I recommend you make 
it a point to apologize to Mr. Carmazzi tomorrow.”


     Another one of those moments came, accompanied only by the faint static turning and 
twisting along the low hum of the open line.


     It passed.


     “Yes. I appreciate the advice.”


     “Your welcome, Mr. Patrick. Until tomorrow, then. Have a pleasant day.”


     Marcus replaced the phone, not upset or intimidated at all. These things always happened
 in negotiations. It was part of the business. He just hoped he didn’t have to kill anybody 
this time.


     Flaris chose that moment to pop into existence.
 

     “May I have permission to speak freely, master?”


     “About that asshole Carmazzi.” A statement.


     “Yes, sir. Concerning tomorrow in specific.” Flaris inclined his head, lids almost closed
 as if in prayer. Waiting.


     Marcus sighed.


     “This better be good.”


     Flaris’ eyes snapped open, spheres of radiating orange speckled with green.

     “Excellent choice, sir!” 


     The familiar flickered briefly then vanished.


     Back into my head you go, Marcus thought.


     Everything dimmed, and he could feel the drain, a pounding in the rear of his skull.


     Two seconds later the imp was back. “Sir, my analysis suggests you concede the three per,
 and instead insist on flat rates instead of sliding scale on the .50 teflon. I’m confident he 
will accept this offer. AMR’s are not exactly easy to come by; such a quantity as these will 
be hotter than the Forge, master.”


     “Very good, Flaris.”


     Flaris drew his ears back, indicating pleasure.
 

     “How does this affect the kill rate?”


     “It drops to 14.5% from 22.8%, master. Give or take one percent, sir.”


     “And what were the initial odds of a massacre in this operation?”


     “Sixty, sir.”


     “Is that all, my Flaris?”


     “Yes, master. Unless you needed something else..”


     Marcus shuddered.


     “No, thank you. Just let me know if the situation changes, would you?”


     “Of course, sir. I suggest rum tonight, very fortuitous when Jupiter is overlaying
 Saturn. The best, if I do say so, would be Captain Morgan’s at this time. The pH levels are a
 tad high but it’s worth it for the chamomile effect on the chakras, if nothing else.”


     Flaris stopped and looked pointedly at Marcus. “Oh, and no HBO tonight. Sorry, sir. It’s
 a marathon of Sex in the City, sir.


     Do have a good night anyway, master. Goodbye.”


     Flaris blipped out. 


     Marcus sighed again.


                               *  *  *


     It was afternoon. Marcus Patrick sat in his clinically empty living room cleaning his 
guns. His hair was heavy and wet from the shower, limbs relaxed. He felt good. Better than 
usual, actually. On a job of this size he typically felt some agitation, but Marcus thought he 
could walk out of this with twenty-five AMR-M15 .50 caliber assault rifles for six thousand 
apiece, an excellent deal. Throw in a thousand teflon-cloated shells for ten. Fuck the sliding 
scale.


     He owned eight guns and loved them all like they were his children, but his favorite was 
a compact .20 Browning. It only stung them if you missed the head or groin, but it barely made 
a cough, and that was what he valued. It sounded like someone whipped a wet towel against 
concrete. He was wiping the barrel down rather lovingly when Muggsy called. 


     “What’s doing, Muggsy?”


     He knew it was Muggsy because he only had a cell and it rang differently depending on who 
was calling. Not that he needed many tones. The only one that really mattered didn’t use nor 
need a cell phone. Everyone else betrayed him at some point or another and he always had to 
kill them. Greed was just human nature, that’s all.


     “What’s up, Marc? Listen, we need to talk. Can you get to the Greenway tonight?”


     He had a whole system worked out for cold spots. The Greenway was the vacant lot of a 
long-demolished Motel 6, right next to a barely used overpass whose depths housed a green 
slick of algae that made footing pretty dangerous and kept out punk kids and winos. The lack 
of light along with the white noise from the freeway helped to block surveillance. 


     “I think I can do that. It’s about tomorrow?”


     “Yeah, man.” A nervous clearing of the throat. 


     He’s going to try to hit me tonight, he marveled. Whichever way you looked at it,
 the guy had balls.


     But I’ve got more than just balls. I’ve got training and experience, and I’m not 
stupid.


     And I’ve got Flaris.


     “Okay. Ten.”


     He hung up before any response. He never had liked Muggsy.


                              *  *  * 
                         

     The pavement was slick with the falling rain as Marcus slipped his car underneath the 
crumbling overpass. A solitary vehicle sat in the mud near the rive, one figure standing near 
it. Heavy drops fell in patches.


     Marcus wondered how many friends of Muggsy stood in the dark spaces between the pillars, 
waiting for him to get out of his car. Waiting for him to become vulnerable.


     He really didn’t give a shit. 


     The car idled. The shadow grew close. It was Muggsy, waxen and pale in the headlights.
 

     Marcus got out but left the door open, the engine chugging softly. He had one dry palm 
clasped around the Browning in his windbreaker, the other held out in front. Then they were 
shaking hands and Marcus looked into his eyes. He wanted to be sure. 


     They were stones of darkest jet.


     Marcus grinned whitely in the dark. Just try me, bitch.


     “My man,” he said instead.


     “Hey. I got the van, it’s blue.”


     “I could have heard this over the phone. Why are we out here?”


     “Okay, see the problem is actually my brother. He hates your guts. He --”


     Marcus cut into the sentence like sharp steel. “Why the fuck are you feeding me this
 disinformation, Muggsy? Who are you running for?”


     Muggsy stared at him blankly. “Running? I got --”


     Then the other hand was out and all cards were down. 


     “Listen you little shit, just how many men do you got out here? And you better answer in
 the affirmative or I’ll put one in you right now.”


     Flaris chose to prolong Muggsy’s existence a little longer by appearing on his master’s
 left shoulder. Marcus could tell by the sudden weight. It had been a bad habit of the imp’s 
back when he always chose the gun arm.


     “Hello and good evening again, sir. You’ve got one hostile at your two o’ clock, nonaware
 and armed with an AK-47. The second is confused and wandering away somewhere to the northwest 
after I chose to rifle his mind a little bit.


     I have his contact information, so don’t worry about saving this one as I tell you that
 he’s going to run, sir. Right now.”


     All of this with his head away from his target, the gun lowered slightly and only part of
 his attention engaged. Well, Flaris was hardly ever wrong, and as he was thinking this Muggsy 
bolted. Marcus had to shoot him twice. Once in the leg for the fall, and then four steps 
closer and one to the back of his head as he lay screaming in the black mud. Then he trotted 
up the baseline of the old bridge, an incline so steep and overgrown it was more like the side 
of a ravine. He saw the man immediately, looking down at an angle away from him and sighting 
with his gun at the body lying prone down below. He didn’t seem to know what to do next 
because of the lack of a target and so Marcus decided for him. The gun barked and the shooter
 fell into the thick tangles, painting them red with blood. 


     It always happened this way, life played out in a comedy of death. Marcus left them both
 to rot. 

 
                             *  *  *

                                        
      When he got home he stripped his things into a pile and got in the bath to soak. As he 
did Flaris appeared again, on the top edge of the large ceramic tub. 


     “Feeling better now, master? I thought so.


     “David Bringer, that young man with the automatic weapon, yielded some rather valuable
 information. They were selling you out. The in-between is a Czech known as the Dicer, a 
certain Hans Beemer that is involved with the PLO. Analysis indicates a split even chance that
 the PLO will intercept your rendezvous tomorrow night with ‘that asshole Carmazzi’, as you so 
delicately named him earlier.”


     Flaris stretched languidly, his scales glittering a dull green that threw emerald prisms 
skittering on the bathroom tiles. His eyes were half-lidded, violent orange crescents that 
looked like burning sulfur. 


     “What does this have to do with me?” Marcus asked.


     “They want the AMR’s to fight their little war with, of course. Master, I must give you
 due notice that the path you are following is a dangerous one, and the mortality rate will 
only escalate if you pursue Carmazzi. I may not be allowed to fully protect you if you choose 
to do this.” Black smoke drifted lazily from the rims of the demon’s eyes. 


     “Not allowed? That’s the first time you’ve mentioned this. I didn’t know you were 
informing on me to someone,” Marcus said. 


     The black smoke poured forth angrily, a dangerous sign.


     “Don’t be an idiot! Of course you know. Isn’t there always somebody a little 
higher on the ladder? I shouldn’t be telling you this, but let’s just say that a higher.. 
something.. is interested in you. He is both pleased with your work so far and 
irritated at your seemingly.. deficient.. intelligence. He may not wish you to continue this
 endeavor right now. But naturally, it’s up to you. 


     Let us talk of this no more. Sir.”


     “Def – Def – I’m not stupid!” Marcus said. 


     “No. Of course not, master. Let us drop this,” Flaris said.


     Marcus was standing in the tub now, oblivious to his nakedness.
 

     “What’s his name, Flaris?” Marcus asked the imp softly. 


     “Master. I strongly urge you to retract the question.” Soft cracks could be heard as his
 claws flexed, digging runnels in the porcelain. 


     “His name.”


     “Enough! I will tolerate this no more, mortal!” With a roar Flaris disappeared into thin 
air, leaving only fading black streaks floating where he had been. 


     “Damn it all,” Marcus muttered to himself. He stepped out and dried off, ready to start 
cleaning his gear. Flaris could be such a royal pain in the ass. But he wasn’t about to let 
this one go, alone or not. He needed those AMR’s. 


     He started wiping down his gun. 


     In the dark, Flaris closed his eyes and smiled.
 

                              *  *  *


     Dawn came early. Marcus was ready for it. He double-checked his gear again. Homemade 
crampons. IR binoculars. Lock pick set. Corn poppers. One M16A2 automatic rifle. One Claymore 
mine. That was the important stuff. Then he had a ton of miscellaneous equipment: a spare set 
of license plates, a sap, his .20, a pair of handcuffs, piano wire, a flashlight. First aid 
kit. Maybe I should throw in some nerve gas or a nuclear tipped missile he thought, and fit 
all of it except for the M16 into two black duffel bags. He carried these out to the car, then 
pulled it up into the garage to load the rifle and place it on the back seat, covered up by 
some clothes. It never paid to be careless. 


     There was no sign of Flaris as he pulled out and headed to the meeting spot fifteen hours 
early. He had some contingencies to plan.


                              *  *  *


     Hans Beemer was not a man that people feared because of his looks. His dark hair was 
flecked with bits of gray like ashes, he had a persistent limp, and he wore glasses. He looked 
like a bank president on the verge of retirement with the slim black briefcase he was holding 
in his left hand. Pierce and Clay stood close by, both taut and as alert as a pair of grizzled 
old guard dogs, which they were, basically. They were both armed with MP5’s and in khaki. 


     The three stood on a broken down and crumbling bluff, the city barely visible in the 
distance. The wind was strong and sent a steady stream of stinging grit and sand working into 
crevices and obscuring eyesight. A tiny half-disk of a moon still peeked above the horizon, as 
if watching the winding and snaking convoy rolling across the rocky land. 


     The radio crackled from the front pocket of Hans’ suit.


     “Team is go, sir.”


     Hans fished it out and spoke into it as he scanned to the east, squinting against the 
clear morning light. “Hold your position until I call for recon.”


     “Affirmative.”


     He pocketed the radio and turned to his men. “Pierce, I want you to take the Bird and see 
what you can see, especially armor and personnel. Clay, stay here with me. 


     “I think things are about to get exciting.”

 
                              *  *  *


     Terrance looked out of the armored limo and didn’t like what he saw one bit. The overall 
landscape looked fine, but it didn’t feel fine. It didn’t feel fine at all.


     For the third time that day he said, “Mr. Carmazzi, I have a bad feeling this time. My Ma
 always said I had the sight, and I got it real bad today. Can’t we just call this off?”


     “Your mother was a fat whore. She knew nothing about the sight. So shut your mouth.”


     When Mr. Carmazzi talked, which was infrequent, the things he said always meant 
something, and they were generally true. Terrance bristled inwardly at his boss’s statement,
 but it really didn’t make any difference to him. Terrance’s philosophy was that The Boss Is 
Always Right. It was a good philosophy, but more importantly, it was a long-living philosophy. 
Besides, his mother had been a whore. He had spent his youth watching the steady stream 
of men in and out of his house and wondering about the catcalls and fights that seemed to 
always follow him, without realizing that the two were related. So, of course The Boss Was 
Right. He loved his Ma, but damn she had been some kind of raging nympho. 


     “Hit me again.”


     Terrance did. It was One-Eyed Jack, and Mr. Carmazzi busted.


     “Sorry about that, Mr. Carmazzi.”


     “Fuck you.”


                               *  *  *


     The sun hung from the sky, white heat baking the earth. The day stretched on forever, and 
Marcus was already dead tired, ready to go home and sleep for a couple of days. He had been 
awfully busy planting the Claymore and corn poppers. These latter were extremely nasty devices 
about the size of a ping-pong ball, loaded with a dab of plastic explosive and pre-armed with 
a blasting cap. One of these could turn everything in a three bedroom house into so much 
kibble-n-bits. Marcus had actually seen this happen. The Claymore he wasn’t so sure about, but
 in theory it was also supposed to be very messy. All precautionary measures, sure, but he had 
a feeling. When Flaris said things he tended to get feelings.


     He lit a cigarette. He only smoked when he was working, and then incessantly unless he 
was actively shooting at a target, throwing it down as he readied his weapon and then lighting 
another when it was all over. He was like a different person. Marcus had one hanging idle from 
his lips now, lying full out on his belly on the hardpan, peering through binoculars at the 
black line of vehicles snaking across the horizon. The peepers were quality. He always bought 
the best gear he could find. They took digital shots, and he did this now one after another in 
quick succession, logging notes automatically in his head as he did so. The length apart 
between the vehicles was important. Seven Ford Explorers, impossible to tell how many people 
in each with the polarized glass. They would be armored and have those automatic refilling 
tires but none of that makes a damn bit of difference against a little Compound 4. He figured 
an ETA of less than thirty minutes, time enough for him to get back and luxuriate in the AC a 
little bit, wipe off some of this dirt and sweat. He got up and turned to his car, then froze. 
Three small glints glittered at him in the distance.


     I think I’ve just been scouting out my friends the PLO.


     He grinned through cracked lips. Things were finally getting interesting.


                              *  *  *


     Hans Beemer, also known with fear as the Dicer because of his penchant for using garbage 
disposals as a medieval torture device, was not happy. This meant his associates were also 
agitated, because when the Dicer was displeased people tended to get shot. 


     “I don’t care who he is. Hit him.”


     “There’s something strange about this guy. We’ve had several of our guys swear up and 
down that he can do magic, that he’s never been wounded, all kind of shit. I think he’s buried 
neck deep in intel we can take advantage of, I think we should, you know, interrogate him.” 
Clay was built like a chimney and when he smiled as he did now it made him look like an angel 
of death come to harvest the souls. 


     Hans turned his head slowly to look at Clay, not smiling at all. “Hit him.”


     Clay’s smile vanished with the wind. “Sure, boss.”


     They had been watching a man out on the flats doing some yard work. That is, it looked
 like he was planting mines. Clay had it on good authority that this man had survived a car 
bomb from within the car when it exploded. Fucking impossible, but it put Clay on his 
edge. He sauntered over to Pierce and nodded once at him. Normally Pierce loved this shit, but 
he didn’t look happy this time. 


     “Fine. Mitch can lead Fire Team Red against that voodoo motherfucker. I’ll take care of 
Blue and shoot his fucking face off. You’re on Red. You got a fuckin problem with that?” 


     Pierce looked really pissed. Clay could have snapped his spine if he wanted to, but 
Pierce was one cold dude.


     They went to work.


                             *  *  *


     Everything was set. Marcus sat in his car, cool and collected, ready to start. He had 
needed a little revising of plans after the shock of that unexpected second set of cars, but 
that’s what plans were for, to be modified. Some people didn’t understand that and Marcus 
laughed at them. How could anything be set in such clear and cold unalterable lines? It was 
like the Revolutionary War, with the English getting slaughtered by Indians because they 
couldn’t innovate. Fuck the Rules of Engagement, the Geneva convention, all of that bullshit.
 You played to win.


     You played for keeps.
 

     They parked in just the order he had imagined and it wasn’t too far from the Claymore, 
now. He was going in strapped, .20 at the ankle, bowie in the small of the back, M16 over the 
shoulder like he was going to war. 


     When he did a job he always went to war, and he always walked away. There was only one 
thing missing:


     Where the hell was Flaris?


                             *  *  *


     The stage was set, the three forces converging, ten versus six versus one, all confident 
in being the last left standing at the end of the day, all of them wrong. The action began as 
soon as Mr. Carmazzi’s regiment pulled to a stop. Marcus flipped the safety switch on the 
transceiver and pushed the first button.


     The dull whoomph of the first C4 charge flooded across the open space and the air 
seemed to suck away from Marcus as the pressure enfolded him. 


     Then he pressed the second button.


     This one must have been in close proximity to the Dicer’s entourage. A chain of smaller 
explosions immediately followed the giant shudder of sound as cars detonated somewhere behind 
him. All of this had occurred in a fraction of seconds, and then one of the three cars that 
had parked a few hundred feet from Marcus surged forward, fishtailing as its tires spun 
frantically. It turned hard left and then was flying away from the scene, Mr. Carmazzi 
presumably inside. Marcus didn’t really care if they thought he was attacking them. The other
 two cars had doors open now and little pings and plinks were coming from his car a little 
faster than he had expected so he thumbed the third button and watched with satisfaction as 
the shock wave sent them scrambling back to safety inside the Explorers. He clearly heard two 
more cars explode. Marcus didn’t dare move despite being heavily camouflaged; in this empty 
rock basin even any movement was liable to be picked up. He guessed that he’d gotten at least 
five of the Dicer’s cars, but where the fuck was Flaris? Things were a hell of a lot 
easier when he had detailed intelligence on the action that was all really just blurs of sight 
and sound invading his senses in bursts. 


     There they were, a group of at least four coming in from his right in loose formation. 
Two of them stopped, one kneeling as they let go with torrents of gunfire, puncturing and 
tearing through his car. The other two branched to either side as they attempted to circle the
 nonexistent target within. Shit better do it now their radius is spreading, it’s only four..


     His hesitation cost him. Earlier Marcus had planted the Claymore a short distance ahead 
of him so that it faced away and he was secreted about thirty feet behind, the claymore wire 
trailing between them. Earlier he had rigged the mine so that it fired from within the bag, 
placed the blasting cap in the well, then armed it. The firing device sat with several others 
in front of his hand, and he triggered it.


     The mine exploded, a deadly storm of seven hundred steel fragments that was invisible and 
instant death. 


                          *  *  *


Everything had been going letter perfect. They had approached from the east with Mitch forging 
ahead beyond Andre and Peters, him tagging the rear, not wanting to do this at all. Nothing 
was wrong, and everything was wrong. His mind was giving the all ok signal but his 
nerves were off the scale and he was beyond scared, he was fucking terrified. Why was there no
 visible at the car, no visible, get back no why are they stopping don’t shoot at the 
car, ambush, guys, ambush.


     When Clay saw the car was empty he made a hard turn to his right and walked at an angle 
away from his team, not really watching for targets but almost in a panic. Then the mine went 
off, louder than the gunfire but happening so fast that none of them had any chance to realize 
what had even happened. Mitch didn’t even see the other three men instantly evaporate or the 
car twisting into a leaping fiery hulk from the punishment. 

He had been trotting, almost running along with his head down and then it was as if a giant 
iron fist had crushed all his bones, white-hot screaming flares of pain such as he had never 
imagined. Afterwards he could only see the blue sky dabbed with red as evil demons tore him 
limb from limb.


                             *  *  *


     “What the fuck?” Pierce murmured. He was looking through his scope at the car, 
immediately noting that it was empty. He began scanning the perimeter when all hell broke
 loose as the mine detonated. Quickly he found Marcus, the lean profile in the dirt right 
behind a scraggly little shrub. 


     He didn’t waste any time zeroing in for the head shot, exhaled, then sent the bullet 
true.

     
                             *  *  *


     It was sent true. The .50 M82 is just as incredibly accurate as it is deadly, 
making it one of the most favored sniper rifles on the market, and it didn’t fail this time 
either. 


     The only problem was that the bullet did not pierce the skull, choosing to wrap around 
it. No one saw Flaris push the bullet just enough to save his master’s life, Flaris allowing 
Marcus to skirt around death yet again with just a concussion.

Pierce, for his part, was so confidant of his hit that he had already gotten up to go report, 
a fatal mistake. Marcus had felt like someone had swung a heavy frying pan against the back of 
his head. He was stunned for a few seconds from the blow but as he recovered he turned to 
sight the enemy and try to figure out what exactly had just happened. When something strange 
like that happened it was usually his faithful imp. 


     He couldn’t help but see Pierce who was unfortunately dressed in black and stood out 
against the landscape, walking with his back to Marcus. It seemed ridiculous that he would 
expose himself in such a way, but Marcus had seen it often. Mostly when he surely should have 
died, it more or less made sense that they ignored him, so certain that he was dead. If they 
had a chance to see him before he killed them they often looked like they had seen a ghost, 
standing idle with weapon in hand, blood drained from their faces.


     He fired a burst and caught Pierce in the back, looked like two hits. Almost certainly 
not dead, but he had bigger things to worry about as he swayed on his feet in the heat, 
vaguely aware that someone was shooting at him from some far off distance, and then collapsed.


                           *  *  *


     When Marcus woke, he knew much time had passed, he couldn’t move much and he was in a lot 
of pain. Which meant someone had him, either the Dicer or Carmazzi. He couldn’t move his head 
and could only move his fingers and toes a little bit. There was never anyone within 
detectable distance when he was awake, so he had to content himself with the ceiling tiles
 above. They were a dull and tired white that looked like they had had to put up with a lot of 
cigarette smoke. One was broken at the corner leaving a tiny triangle of blackness among all 
that uniform gray. Marcus didn’t think about his situation much and rather enjoyed lying there 
studying the tiles. He realized that they had been doping him, then wondered when Flaris was 
going to hop in and help, but the demon hadn’t appeared yet.


     He slept an awful lot but ate or drank nothing, was not hungry or thirsty. After a time
 the ceiling tiles changed. They were now small squares instead of the large rectangles, and 
the squares had little blue lines squiggling through them. He experienced a moment of panic 
then despite the drugs, a maddening sense of being lost, displaced, forgotten. A feeling that 
he had forgotten. That he had lost, the game over. He calmed after a while, his throat now 
sore but feeling no better. 


     Eventually he slept again. 


     When he opened his eyes again he was not drugged, and he was not strapped down anymore. 
He was sitting in a chair and the room was quite brilliantly lit, with a cleared table near 
him, a door beyond that. Sitting behind the table was a man. He was thin with almost black 
hair and equally dark tightly-clipped moustache. He wore thin glasses that looked silverish in 
the strong light, and while he didn’t wear a frown, exactly, his mouth was a small narrow line 
near his chin. Marcus felt hostile to this man as soon as he saw him and his white lab coat 
and inky black shoes. He wanted badly to kill him and he moved a little in his chair, agitated 
at his apparent freedom.


     “Good morning, Mr. Patrick. You may call me Dr. Schneider.”


     Marcus could only look at Schneider’s coal black hair. There was something wrong with it.
 It looked like a really bad hairpiece except hairpieces don’t tend to move on their own, 
slowly twisting their positions like an underworld dream. 


     He thought he might be in a little trouble here.


     Marcus uttered the only thing saturating the vast majority of his mind. He whispered, 
“Flaris..” 


     “Master?” his imp called. Flaris was there, but disturbingly he sat farther away, 
watching him with a wariness that Marcus hadn’t seen before. 


     “Ahh, now ve come to the heart of the matter. I vant Flaris, Mr. Patrick. He has already 
agreed to come vith me but I happen to need your consent. Give me your consent and I will kill 
you. Refuse to give your consent and I will still kill you, then animate your soul into a 
loan’hil to serve me.”


     No hesitation. “No. Flaris, to me.” After a slight pause where the two of them waited to 
see what the demon would do, Flaris did, reappearing next to Marcus. 

     “Flaris, tell me now,” he commanded. 


     “We are in a state of conflict, sir. The two of you are now contesting for the right to 
my powers. As I have already accepted him as a potential successor, I cannot help you in this 
battle. I cannot even wish you good luck, sir.” The eyes were smoking. 

     “Why did you choose him as a successor?”

     “Master, I have no obligation to tell you that,” the imp responded.

     “Well damn it Flaris, what can you tell me?”


     “You are a spiteful, arrogant, very self-deluded being that should never have been born. 
Each of the souls that I have consumed from your many kills were worth more than you have ever 
been. You are a cardboard cutout of a real person. You have no real feelings, no roots or 
family, nothing good or redeemable about you at all, yet you have had me consume many 
lifetimes full of these things. You deserve to be raised as a loan’hil, a minor demon.
 I have been bound to you for almost ten years, yet you never asked me anything about my 
powers, where they came from or what they could do for you, instead using me as a crutch for
 your own inadequacies. You wasted me, if I do say so. Fuck you and fuck everything about you. 
Sir.”


     The silence hung over them. Marcus could see nothing but a blank slate for what lay 
ahead, but he felt a trickle of relief flow through him and quashed it. He felt naked, yes, 
but he didn’t have to fight Flaris. He had only to kill this one man before him like the 
hundreds of others he had killed. When that was over then it would be time for his little imp
 to take some punishment for the hateful, stupid things he had said. 


     “Let’s do this.” He stood and almost fell, surprised at his reduced strength. Maybe it
 wouldn’t be so easy then. When Schneider stood his confidence fell further. The guy was pretty 
tall, not so well built though. They circled one another for a minute then Schneider went 
first, swinging almost overhand for the head which Marcus easily dodged but then nearly 
stumbled again when he tried to counter, whiffing it completely and leaving him almost at his
 knees. Schneider fell on him deliberately and the two of them went down hard. A loud noise 
when off inside Marcus’ head as it hit the floor and he saw bright white, which turned out to 
be Schneider’s lab coat smothering his face. He kicked nothing, then swung one fist up and 
felt it connect. He kept hitting where he could, feeling his energy plummeting, wondering if 
he was going to get out of this one. He heard Schneider grunting in tandem with the hits and 
then felt hands around his throat, choking him. He kept bucking and hitting blindly, in a 
panic now as he felt himself flagging. Schneider laughing, fucking Schneider, then the white 
cleared and he was horrified to see the snarling fangs, the fiery orange crescents of Flaris 
fill his sight. Help me, he mouthed. The razor teeth parted into a narrow grin as his vision 
began to fail.


     “See you on the other side,” Flaris breathed.



THE END