“It's not my fault.

  If in God's plan.

  He made the devil so much.

  Stronger than a man.”

  Hellfire—by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz

  The smoke of the cigar wrapped around my mind, boxing in every thought that blamed me but keeping everything helpful out.

  “Another bang-up job, V,” a voice ripped by.

  “Yeah, next time, why don’t you just shoot yourself to make the enemy’s job easier,” a deep voice shouted.

  “Do it, you dumb piece of shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do it.”

  The overlapping voices closed in upon me.

  “SHUT UP! SHUT UP, GODDAMN YOU!”

  The voices turned into shadows wrapping around my throat and tightening around my heart.

  Their screeches cut my mind like broken glass cutting open my soles.

  The hurricane of noise shatters my ears like a grenade shoved in my ears, and the shrapnel shreds my mind.

  The shadows forced me onto my knees, where one stood in front of me with my Jericho in his hands.

  The cold barrel felt like a relief.

  “You'll never learn; you're a born loser.”

  “Hellfire!

  This fire in my skin.

  Hellfire!

  Dark fire!

  God have mercy on me.”

  A distant voice was breaking through.

  “V!

  V!”

  I realized I was being shaken.

  “Get up!”

  I opened my eye—always waiting for the other.

  “Miyamoto, Christ, I am alive. Stop with the shaking.”

  “You started yelling like death was coming to take your head.”

  “Sorry, I was so pissed off that I lost myself.”

  I plastered on the best poker face I could muster.

  Miyamoto's eyes sharpen upon me, and he leans next to my ear.

  “Sure thing, V. Get ready, the kid is about to come over; try and create a better lie before she gets here.”

  We've spent too much time together. He sees through me like a glass of sake.

  I always hate lying to Violet because I feel like she always knows I'm lying. But this isn't the time to unpack my shit. It never is—especially when Celeste is still MIA.

  Violet came over, hugging me.

  My mind drifted to the thought of how this child should never have been placed within this wretched world.

  In a world with the likes of me and the evils of men.

  Violet looked into my eye and told me.

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  Was I doing something wrong—had I hurt her by accident?

  “Stop your mind.”

  “Stop my mind?”

  “Yeah.”

  Like I said, she must have had a sixth sense or something.

  “Sure thing, kid.”

  “Promise.”

  “Promise.”

  “Be like water…

  Empty your mind; be formless.

  Shapeless, like water.

  If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup…

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” —Bruce Lee

  Maybe I will just for a bit.

  Ok, clear my mind.

  Put together everything I know.

  There is a man named Keyser who took Celeste.

  He must be connected to the men Celeste and Violet met on their first night here.

  So he must have wanted blood.

  He must have wanted Celeste's blood.

  Why?

  He wants to mix his blood with hers, so Celeste must have powerful blood.

  But where to find them?

  Miyamoto spoke to me, cutting through my mind.

  “Hey V, I found a card on one of the bodies.”

  Miyamoto flicked the card over to me.

  It was for a Chinese shop.

  Each body had the same card on them.

  “Either all these guys like some orange chicken or there are some more. Either way, I can go for some dumplings.” I said while cocking my gun.

  One hundred twenty-five rounds left, and there's a round for you, Keyser.

  Somewhere underneath the neon city, Celest awoke once more.

  Celeste woke up once again, lying upon the same gurney.

  The man in the shadows was reading out loud. “To be or not to be, that is the real question,” the man coated in shadow said.

  “Hamlet,” Celeste responds with her head raging.

  “Yeah, a personal favorite. But how do you know it?”

  “The better Devil constantly fucking mumbled it. He also mumbles a few different things, too.”

  Celeste was tired and had grown weak.

  She was being sucked dry.

  The possibility of death was drawing closer every minute she was stuck there. The odd banter between her captor and herself kept her awake. With every second, she tried to draw any power that lay in her.

  Only sparks come.

  When death seems near, people start to think about their lives.

  Their actions.

  And the people that surround them.

  Celeste thought of her time at the academy. Her memories were sparse, with details only drawing faces and names.

  Voices never appear.

  Her friends were nice, but she never felt a connection to them.

  The people around her always called her mature.

  Always as a complement, not the curse it seemed to be.

  They didn’t have to witness the slaughter of her parents.

  Every single time she closes her eyes.

  Seeing the man stand above their mangled body

  She lay upon the table in a depressed state, but with a bit of relaxation.

  The idea of death is a rather fearsome matter for most people, but when it finally comes, peace may fall upon the victim.

  A man once said

  “Do not fear death.

  Death is always at our side.

  When we show fear, it jumps at us faster than light.

  But if we don’t show fear, it casts its eye upon us gently and then guides us into infinity.” — Laughing Bull

  “Why do this?” Celeste asked.

  “Why did Caesar lie about killing 1/3 of the Gauls and enslaving another third?

  It's all about power.” The man in shadows replied.

  I carry around a shotgun, two pistols, one revolver, a crowbar, and a bowie knife. I also carry a bit more than two hundred rounds on me. There’s no real reason I’m bringing this up; I’m just trying to remember all my fucking equipment. I have no goddamn idea how I forgot I was carrying a twenty-four-inch bar of metal around. I guess after the hundred ninety-ninth bullet, it becomes harder to tell what you do and don’t have. In reality I really shouldn’t have any of this on me. An unstable nut job carrying around an arsenal—the greatest mix since PB and fucking J.

  Oh god, kill me. I mutter as low as I can before taking a swing from my flask.

  “We made it,” Miyamoto said.

  The three of us stood in front of the Chinese place.

  We walked in through the wooden door in front of the shop.

  I started to look around the room.

  “I’ll have the orange chicken and the fried dumplings.”

  Miyamoto stepped on my foot.

  “V, what the are you doing?”

  “I’m getting something to eat. It would be weird to go into a restaurant and not buy food.”

  “Fine.”

  “That should be all.”

  “Ok,” the person behind the counter, who was the only person here, said. He went to the back to start cooking.

  It was a rather odd setup for a Chinese place due to one factor.

  I saw there was a basement.

  Even in another world, I don't think Chinese places have basements.

  I could be a fool, a mere paranoid bastard.

  But I felt like there was something rotten in Denmark.

  “Miyamoto, cover me. I’m going for the basement.

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Order something, break something, just do anything that keeps his attention for a few minutes.”

  The basement was behind the kitchen, but if Miyamoto does some weird shit, I’ll maybe be able to run through the kitchen unseen.

  Miyamoto grabbed the handle of his katana and decided slashed a glass mirror on the right side of the wall.

  “You better find something.” Miyamoto muttered under his breath to me.

  “Hope I do.”

  The man who was behind the counter jumped over and started to yell at Miyamoto.

  “Why did you do that to my mirror?”

  “I didn’t like how that guy was looking at me.” Miyamoto said, looking at his own reflection.

  “Thank you.” I mouthed while I bolted to the back.

  The food smelled good, but the basement reeked.

  I slammed into the upper wall of the staircase with a heavy thud.

  The smell grew ever thicker, like smoke grows greater when nearing a house fire.

  I took a long swig and walked to the basement.

  I made it to the bottom of the steps.

  My brain read what my eye saw, knowing such things have happened.

  I saw children's blood being sucked out of them by IV drips.

  And some of their dried-up corpses lined the walls, mocking the still living with their fates.

  The booze burned through my chest like the Devil’s hell. My lungs burned mixing the alcohol with the rage that will always burn deep down. My chest continued to tighten with either rage, alcohol, or something else. I knew death was coming to the man who did this.

  Because I was after him.

  “KEYSER!”

  My voice bashed against the damned walls, trying to destroy the nightmare that I live in. For the only thing that ever meets me is another darker, deeper pit of hell.

  I bashed the locks with my crowbar and opened each cage.

  I had to leave them due to their poor health.

  Miyamoto would have to save them.

  I walked up the stairs, dragging my crowbar next to the wall.

  “Miyamoto, hold that man!”

  Miyamoto held the man in place, seeing that my hunch was right.

  I could see the confusion and fear in both of his eyes. I knew that torturing this man would give me unreliable information, but this was for something else.

  Something to silence this hellfire.

  I grabbed hold of the man and told Miyamoto to take the kid outside and head to the basement. And I told the kid to cover her ears.

  I waited a minute and whacked his right leg.

  “Ahhhhh!”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t fucking kill you right now.”

  “I don’t know? Why are you doing this to me?

  I bashed his left leg.

  “Ahhhhhh!

  “I’ve seen your basement, you sick motherfucker!”

  “Sir, please, it’s not what it looks like…”

  I crush his left-hand thumb.

  “Ahh! Sir, they made me do it! Please, God, I tell you what you need; just stop, please!”

  Miyamoto walked through the door.

  “V, what the hell is happening?”

  “Take a look downstairs.”

  “They made me do it.” The man said while Miyamoto walked past us.

  “Who are they?”

  “A man named Keyser.”

  I knew it.

  I fucking knew it.

  “Where is he!”

  “There's a tunnel underground that leads to his residence; please God, he was going to kill me.”

  “You should have let him.”

  I pulled at the revolver I took from a dead man and placed a single bullet in the chamber and spun it.

  “Are you feeling lucky?”

  I place the cold barrel on the right side of my head.

  I place my finger on the trigger.

  Click

  Call it luck or damnation, but I’m not dead once again.

  I press the gun to my head.

  “I would let you do this yourself, but both of your hands are broken,” I said while bashing both of them as hard as I could with the crowbar.

  “I told you everything I know. Please, God, don’t kill me!”

  “You never answer my question.

  Are you feeling lucky?”

  I spun the chamber once more.

  Pressed the trigger.

  BANG!

  “I guess he wasn’t.”

  I looked up and saw Miyamoto's eyes staring at me.

  “I’m going after Keyser.”

  I pulled out my shotgun.

  “V, one of the things you mutter is

  He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.

  Have you become what you fight against?”

  “I’m the Devil Miyamoto. I’ll always been the monster.”

  I walked downstairs finding the passageway, and entered hell, another ring of hell.

  “Hellfire!

  Dark fire!

  God have mercy on me.”

  I will burn.