Supernatural Fiction posted August 12, 2013 Chapters: 3 4 -5- 6... 


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Mike Radshaw's journey goes from twisted to sister

A chapter in the book Mike Radshaw and the Black Dawn

Pissing in the Tiger's Mouth-BD5

by Fleedleflump


The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.


Background
In protecting an angelic baby, Mike Radshaw's lost friends, a loved one, and about 73.6% of his sanity. Now he's following the Death Demon who took the baby into its own domain.
PREVIOUSLY (since there's been a gap):
 
Mike Radshaw has failed to prevent an angelic baby called an Angwrath from being captured by the death demon Mr Black. His friend, whilst impersonating him, has been slain, and his beloved assistant Amy viciously maimed trying to protect the baby. Mike's investigations have taken him to a demonic doorway beneath the London Eye, and he's currently descending into Mr Black's domain with an unwitting human guard as his hostage.
 
 
 
 
AND NOW
 
The elevator penetrated Earth's defences, dropping with the inevitability of death into a hole I wasn't sure I'd climb out of. I felt like an eighteen year-old virgin invited to Hugh Hefner's mansion. My eyes were eager but I wasn't very bright, and I left my chastity belt at home.

I pulled my long coat tighter and cleared my throat. If that was what Mr Black wanted, he'd have a fight on his hands.

"Why are you doing this?" said the prostrate security guard from the floor of the elevator. He'd carefully positioned himself so my foot couldn't easily connect with his balls. I didn't blame the man.

I smiled. "I'm sure my psychotherapist and I would give different answers, but I'm doing this because a childhood trauma left me with unresolved daddy issues. My only answer for the rage I never got to express is to throw myself into hopeless situations. Trouble is, I'm also determined not to die, because I don't have a death-wish, you see, just an abiding need to beat death at every opportunity, even if that means goading him."

He didn't respond but his expression was talking, and it was saying three dots in a row or (in text language) 'wtf?'

"Glad you asked. Actually, that was my therapist's answer. Could you tell?" I squatted down next to him so I could lean my face right into his. "I'm doing this because some evil cunt who thinks he can run about doing whatever he likes kidnapped a baby and took it somewhere properly fucked up. Sure, it's an Angwrath or an angel's son or something, and I'm sure I don't understand it. It's still a baby, though, and last time I checked, that's not okay."

My expression must have conveyed how serious I was, because a tear escaped one of the guy's eyelids. "I just do my job, I swear. I get paid to sit in that room and not ask questions. I never knew who was meant to go in or out. I just know the bossman comes and goes most days."

"Thanks to you, he's been popping out for his daily walks, where he intimidates knights, separates actors down the middle and turns my loved ones into tagliatelle."

"I didn't know, man - I just follow orders."

I stood up so I didn't head-butt him. "You don't want to be using the Nazi defence with me, mate. I'm this close to gagging you with your own intestines."

"You got anger issues, man."

I snorted. "We all need our coping mechanisms."

The lift kept on plunging. Just how deep was this door into Mr Black's domain? One rotation of the London Eye - Forty Eight minutes - at this speed was an immense distance. To the centre of the Earth and beyond, supplied my unconscious. A few years ago, I'd have asked myself what was more central than the core of the Earth. These days I knew better. Sometimes, one answer is worse than a thousand unrequited queries.


*****


The doors swished open like well-oiled curtains. Instead of hellfire or a frigid breeze, they admitted a meaty fist with a blond crew-cut peeping over the top. It might have caught me smack in the face, but I'd come prepared.

Arse-Man, who had the misfortune of being my human shield, took the punch square on the nose. He went down like a sack of rotting potatoes and I threw my own punch across his toppling head.

Sir Wilberford was standing in the lift doorway, an expression of triumph on his face. "Got you back, Rad-" he said before he realised his mistake. I watched his face go from jubilant to a sort of pouty resignation when he saw my knuckles approaching. "Oh, fu-"

My fist crashed into his purple, misshapen jaw like a bag of stones striking over-ripe blueberries. Blood spurted from his mouth and spattered away from my freshly ruptured hand. He staggered back, hands clasping his face, squealing in muffled agony. I stepped over my unconscious human shield and shoved Wilberford to the ground, shaking blood from my damaged fist. It hurt like a cactus butt plug but the pain was worth it.

"You really ought to get that face looked at," I said. He moved his hands away from his jaw to brace himself on the floor and glare at me. I sucked in a breath. "On second thought, nobody should have to look at that. Your mouth looks like you lost a fight with a lawnmower."

"kyou," he managed, getting his message across despite a lower jaw that wasn't connected properly any more.

"I was hoping I'd meet you again, Crunchy Nut." I planted a boot in his gonads to make sure he wouldn't get up anytime soon. "You know what Black did to my assistant when he took the baby? If you ever looked at the blades on a cross-cut shredder and wondered what your hand would look like after going through there..." I leaned forward across his form to look directly down into those bright blue eyes. "That's a small part of how her face looked."

We matched gazes, eyeball to eyeball, until he spat to one side and glared up at me again. Apparently, that was all the answer I was getting.

"My heart feels like a barbed wire jumping bean right now," I said. "That's anger, Wilberford - more anger than most guys feel at one single time - and you're the cause. It hurts so bad, I feel like the only way to get rid of it would be to punch your idiot face till it sticks backwards from the rear of your head."

I made to slam my bleeding fist down into his face and he flinched, turning aside, his eye twitching like a dying mosquito. "That's better," I whispered. "That's the state of mind you deserve to be in, Wilberford. But you know what? I'm not gonna kill you. I'm gonna let you bleed and ache and suffer till you feel a small part of the hopelessness you've caused me - and no doubt others. The Knights might have been dickheads before, but at least they knew what was right. You turned misguided knowledge into wilful ignorance, and that's just fucking retarded.

"I can't explain to you just how wrong you are, because you're the kind of zealot that thinks belief is more important than reason. Instead, I'll let you breathe, and every breath can taste of defeat, because that's what this is. I have power over you, Wilberford - the power to decide your fate, the power of life or death. And you? You're a fart in a blossom tornado. Remember that while I try to save the city you helped put in danger."

His glare was turning watery as I looked away, finally able to take a glance at where the lift took me. A far cry from the office building lobby at the top, this was a dark cave with flaming sconces for illumination. Swathes of orange light moved around the space like clouds in a hurricane, highlighting the naturally craggy rock walls in alternating fire and shadow. The small alcove I'd walked into funnelled into a corridor ahead. Apart from the acrid crackle of the naked flames, the air vibrated with muffled clanks and whirrs from above. An underlying stink of sulphur and burning flesh lurked on the air's undercurrents.

If Satan dropped his shorts, bent over and hung a sign on his back saying 'this way to the thunderbox,' that would be more welcoming.

Still, I'd been cut beyond the point of normal tolerance on this case, and some bastard kept pissing on the wounds. I wasn't about to be stopped by a creepy corridor.

"Here, blacky blacky blacky," I mumbled as I walked forward, then stopped myself when I realised I sounded like an extra from Mississippi Burning. Light flickered ahead like an intermittent strobe, but the darkness didn't last long. Only a few steps into the corridor, I encountered a door. No, scratch that. This was definitely a Door - as openings went, it was a prince among portals, and thoroughly worthy of the capital letter.

Firelight clung to the gilded frame as though burning from within. Intricate details threaded their way through the gold outline, delicate and fine but as clear as Arial Bold on a white background. The glimmering metal outlined the oldest-looking door I'd ever set eyes on. What looked like oak so ancient it'd seen the rise and fall of ideologies filled the space with implacable timber. The runes crowding its surface were stark and deeply set, sucking shadow and seething with black fervour. On closer inspection, I saw each was a larger, mirrored version of a corresponding shape on the gold frame.

This was something new, or possibly older than I could imagine. All the demonic doors I'd encountered seemed impregnated with an eerie life force, but this one positively pulsed, its shape shifting, bulging and retracting as I gazed at it. The gypsy called it the most important of all the doors, and its design certainly supported that description.

I hesitated in front of the wood, uncertain. My tainted hand opened all the other doors, but the metal reflections here indicated a type of security, and I didn't want to know what kind of measures that might imply. A particularly bold line of runes across the top suggested some form of warning. A Nightwish song came to mind as I cast my eyes across their sinuous designs. Is this the end of all hope?

"You don't read demon, Mike," I said, sighing, and placed my grey hand firmly against the portal.

The grain was clearly delineated against my skin's touch, rough but suffused with an inner warmth. A sting pressed into my palm where it covered runes but I ignored it and pressed harder. The sigils around the edge lit up in black light. I know, I know - that sounds like a contradiction. Imagine shadows glimmering, black lens flares spearing in your vision as the darkness pulses. If you can do that, you're some way towards seeing what I did. Pain lanced into my skin like barbed hooks, latching my flesh to the channels of the timber. It might be designed to make me pull away in response, but I don't much like that hand anyway.

I pushed with all my might, bracing my other hand to the first one's elbow and my feet against the ground with bent knees. As I focused my every muscle on the task, shoving for all I was worth, my reward was grudging movement. At first, I thought my feet were just sliding away under the force, but the grinding vibrations - along with the appalling stench emanating from the crack - made me realise the door was opening.

The runes jittered and sparked, making noises like popping candy on a tongue. With a little more motivation, I thought they'd be attacking me in a bee-like swarm. The smell hit me like a face full of rotting kippers, a near-physical presence in the air ahead. I bit down on the gag pushing my throat towards my teeth and snorted out a hard, snotty breath as I strained every ounce of strength, barging the door all the way open.

I fell in when it moved, falling flat on my face on what felt like a plush, shagpile carpet. It smelled like flowers, which seemed deeply wrong. I mean, flowers are nice and all, but a floral carpet in a demon's dimension is like a smile on a constipated dictator. My brain just wouldn't let me trust it.

The door screeched and grumbled as it shifted closed and I rolled out of its way. I found myself looking up at an immaculately detailed ceiling, every inch covered by a breathtakingly painted scene. For a moment I thought it was the Sistine Chapel, until I noticed where most of the fingers ended up.

"Trust a demon to turn good art into perversion," I muttered.

"I can assure you, good sir," said a voice in that ridiculously posh English accent only used by royalty and piss-takers, "this is very much an original. Michelangelo painted this first, between 1503 and 1507, to explore the concepts of philosophical insights as represented by digital penetration. He painted over it for public consumption, of course, but not before Mr Black captured its beauty for his home."

I craned my neck, feeling the impossibly soft carpet caressing my hair, to look up at the man standing by my head. As I'd suspected, he was dressed as an English butler. If he was any more stereotypical, he'd be running the equal opportunities committee for Greenwich County Council. The formal attire was immaculate, the chest puffed proudly outwards, and I had way to good a view straight up his impressive nose.

"Greetings, Mister Radshaw. Your arrival is not entirely unexpected."

I blinked. "You need some WD40 for your front door. If it was any harder to open, people would call it the ketchup bottle last used by Geoff Capes. You know - back when he was world's strongest man and rolled minis over and stuff." I blinked again. "I mean, not now, 'cause he'll be properly old. Or possibly dead - is he dead? I'll have to check Wikipedia."

The butler didn't bat an eyelid. "I shall have to see to the door at my earliest convenience. The master passes directly through it, you see. You are the first person to actually open it in, by my estimation, nine hundred and seventy three years." He fished in a breast pocket for a tiny note. "Mr Black bade me tell you, should you, indeed, appear ... ahem," He squinted at the note. "Fuck you Radshaw, you come-guzzling scrote. Forgive me, he was explicit in his instructions that I should read the message exactly as he penned it. If you come for me, you'll be deader than a nun's libido in the depths of winter. The Angwrath's mine, it's staying mine, and it'll be mine forever. I believe he stole that phrasing from a Hula Hoops advertisement. Anyway, there is a little more. Keep away, or I'll send you to Sodom's domain. Yeah - he's a demon too. One day, I'll tell you about the real four horsemen. He likes visitors, but they don't like him."

I wiped snot from my upper lip. "That's it - those are his best shots?"

"I do apologise for the profanity, Mister Radshaw." He tucked the note back in his pocket. "My master is usually more eloquent, but he tells me he has been learning from the best."

"He has a way to go." I climbed to my feet and was happy to note I was taller than the butler. We were in a long hall with pristine white dining tables set out along both sides. Behind me was a glass-paned door that looked nothing like the reality I knew hid behind it, and at the other end of the hall was a an arch with what looked like a sunlit lawn beyond. From some where non-specific, a blanket of light was being cast.

I poked the butler in the centre of his chest. "You tell Mr Pink, or whatever his name is, if he's done anything to hurt that baby, I'm going to shove my arm so far down his throat I can grab his ring-piece and pull him inside out. Then, when he looks like an out-take from The Fly - we're talking Cronenberg, not Neumann - I'll hang him in the back of my toilet bowl like one of those pee-freshener things, and piss on him for the rest of my natural life."

To my satisfaction, the butler's eyes actually widened - almost a histrionic reaction, based on his otherwise stoic demeanour. "I believe sir is correct - my master does indeed have a way to go. I shall convey your colourful and physiologically unlikely message to him at once. When you hear thunder, you can be sure the missive has been delivered."

I watched him pootle away like a giant penguin. I'd made it this far, descended to a whole new layer of hell. And now I found myself in what looked like the inside of a wedding pavilion. I didn't know what I'd been expecting, but this wasn't it. I mopped a sheen of sweat from my brow.

"What kind of fucked up dimension is this?"




 



Recognized


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I'm continuing to revive chapters from this story, and this is 5 of 8.

In case you're wondering, Geoff Capes is not dead. He isn't a world class strongman any more, but he is a proud grandfather and prize-winning, world champion breeder of Budgerigars. I kid you not.

I hope you enjoyed the read :-)

Mike
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Pays one point and 2 member cents.


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