To Kill a Mocking Radshaw - BD7

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 followed the Death Demon who took the baby into its own domain.

My foot crunched down like a lunar landing vessel, sending up wafts of disturbed ash. This is more like it. I strode ahead into the sea of grey flakes, aiming myself at the pillar of rock I could see in the distance. Before he waved goodbye at the maze's exit, Azza told me that was where I should head. When asked a final time why he was helping me, he shrugged and said he was punishing Abaddon for rendering him in sugar.

A dull ache was emanating from my scratched hand. It felt bone-deep, like the marrow in my forearm was made of molten marshmallow and it was eating away my skeleton from the inside. It'd bothered me in the past, but nothing like this. Who knew, perhaps my marrow was considered evil, and it really had been turned into glycerine.

Thunder cracked overhead like a whip snapping against heaven, wielded by the fifty foot woman. Swathes of fire licked at the clouds with infernal hunger. Judging by the state of the ground, if it started to rain I'd need rock-based shelter or a Teflon scalp. Shards of landscape were thrusting up at the sky from the beleaguered earth, although a closer look suggested they'd speared into it from above.

On balance, I amended my previous thought. If it started to rain, I'd need an undertaker.

"As first visits to hell go," I mumbled, "this has certainly made an impression."

The storm seemed centred around the pillar of rock, and it was a reasonable guess the Angrwath was there. It was spreading, the roiling clouds expanding away from their source in concentric circles like water disturbed by a pebble. No - not extreme enough. More like a lake when a meteorite's just hammered into it. Soon, the sickly sweet maze would be corrupted into filth and terror, and Azza would become something I really didn't want to meet.

Travelling the bleak landscape, I found myself longing for the urban dirt of London. There were times I hated that shithole, and most of those times happened in the last few days, but at least it was my shithole. The air here wafted against my face like a thousand dog farts and there was nothing I could do to escape.

My ankle wobbled under my weight and I only just rescued it. Fatigue was taking its toll. Adrenalin and crappy experiences would only keep me going so long, but I knew I had to make it. Even if I failed, I needed to confront the bastard who caused all this misery - even if all I managed was to mildly irritate him. Even if he paused to kill me and that delayed his plans by a few moments.

Sometimes, the 'even if's are all we have. Sometimes, the act of defiance itself is all that matters.

I thought about the Knights, and Wilberford's belief Black should be allowed to continue because it was his 'turn.' What a numpty. That made about as much sense as sitting on a spike because you already have diarrhoea. The Knights weren't all bad, but their need for strong leadership was a serious weakness.

"I should have killed him." As a thought, it was logical, and I've never believed in heroes, but there are things your mind doesn't let you do. Killing a guy whose face I've already mangled while he writhes on the floor happens to be one of them. Perhaps that's all there is to human behaviour - what you do and what you don't - and the consequences arising from it.

I shook my hand as it throbbed again, the sensation travelling up my arm like a flow of nausea. It might just have been the light, but I was sure it looked more pallid than usual. In fact, it had that Night-of-the-Living-Dead look - and I mean the black and white version, here. There was probably a name for the condition, and that name likely began with 'necro.'

It felt like several hours later when I arrived at the rock tower and faced the unrivalled joy of climbing hundreds of steps. I climbed the first one out of sheer bloody-mindedness before sitting on the next one. My throat felt drier than a Jimmy Carr one-liner but I didn't have anything to drink. A rummage in my pockets - usually something I wouldn't risk, but desperate times and all that - yielded a boiled sweet between four and ten years old. It looked like a cross between cat poo and a seriously mouldy new potato, the wrapper engulfed in grey fluff. I studied it for a while, imagining the things I'd rather eat. Susan Boyle's g-string, for example, or my own underused testicles.

All at once, I wasn't so desperate after all. I dropped the 'sweet' back in my pocket, wiped my hand, and set off climbing the staircase.

*****

The giant door inched open, making a sound like a hung over elephant stretching in slow motion. I was actually glad the thunder of my heartbeat and wheezy gasps heaving from my mouth helped muffle it.

"Ah, good day to you, mister Radshaw," said the butler in a tone so cheery it made me want to punch his lights out. "I am impressed. I owe Ornias fifty pounds - I bet him you wouldn't make it."

I blinked at him while my chest heaved, unable to muster even the faintest sarcasm. "Any ... more ... insults ... to throw ... at me?"

He smiled - at least, I think he did. I was seeing it through a blur of exhaustion. "The Master did not prepare me any scripts for this eventuality. I do not believe he expected you to make it this far. Do come in and have a cup of tea."

"Cheers." I staggered through the door as he moved back. "How come you didn't get altered by the Angwrath's presence?"

I was sorely glad I'd passed him when he replied, because I didn't want to see the face behind his words. In a voice like a million snakes screaming in a pit of fire, he said, "Do not be fooled, Radshaw. This essence is Barrakor the Vile."

I jumped - so big, he must have seen it, because he chuckled. In the world of evil laughs, it reigned supreme - a sound that actually felt like it was reaching up my dick to yank piss from my bladder. "What the fuck are you - the god of serpents?"

"No." He stepped forward and was the butler again, posh English accent and everything. "Patron Saint of paedophiles. Follow me."

"Why do I ask these things?" I muttered.

The inside of Abaddon's castle looked like St Paul's cathedral - if someone set off a dirty bomb in the nave. Black, oily mist curled in a viscous dance from corners in the intricate stonework and slid from surfaces like evil dry ice. It felt like my footsteps should be echoing around the huge space but instead they were swallowed into nothing.

We got almost to the dais before the butler stopped in his tracks. "Ah, what a shame." He smiled at me over his shoulder. "It seems our tea must wait, Radshaw." His voice took on a little of that snake sound as he laughed. "Wait here - The Master will see you now."

A hundred witty retorts collapsed, knackered, on the way to my tongue. In the end, I just shrugged and let myself slump to the grimy stone floor. If this is it, I might as well get a moment's rest. I sniffed and looked up at the dais, watching Barrakor the Vile Butler striding away. Bring on the theatrics.

Thunder shook the floor beneath me and I instantly regretted sitting on the stone. I fully expected the demon of death to explode from beneath or crash from the ceiling in a cacophony of destruction and clouds of debris. Instead, Mr Black strolled from a side door, a supercilious smile spread across his face, and the thunder subsided gently.

Something didn't look quite right in his immaculately-groomed exterior. The smile was a little too fixed and he flickered as he walked. He looked almost superimposed on existence like a cheap cgi special effect. We're not talking early Babylon 5 space ships or anything - he was more real than that. More like Robert Patrick's liquid metal villain in Terminator 2. It might have fooled innocent eyes, but to a veteran watcher, he just wasn't up to scratch.

"Show your true form, dude. You might as well. I keep hearing how terrifying it is, but frankly, I'm way past the point of rational fear here. If I faint, it'll be a relief and if I don't, at least you can stop pretending and we can get on with talking about all the terrible things you're going to do to me."

The smile disappeared in favour of a wince as he came to a halt several feet away, looking down at me. "I've been called many things during the great span of my existence, Radshaw. Everything from Abaddon to Death to Lord of Destruction, and quite often 'Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck, What the Fuck is That Fucking Thing?'" He leaned forward. "You're the first to call me 'dude' though. I have to say, it makes me feel a little dirty." His face shifted visibly, the humanity dropping in and out like a wet light bulb. Beneath the facade, something grey and furry lurked.

It might have been hysteria, but I felt a laugh bubbling up through my chest as something clicked in my head. "You don't want to show me your true form, do you?"

"What?" He blinked, feigning ignorance, but I was pretty sure I knew better.

"That terrifying aspect you showed my mate Raffa before cutting him in half - the vision so horrid, it froze him on the spot - you can't do that anymore can you?"

His scowl filled the world. "You should be blubbering for my forgiveness, Radshaw. This world knows better than to seek my anger. I am the all and completeness, the beginning, the end, and the ever."

"You're deeply Snickers, mate. That's what you are."

He roared and his face shifted more than ever. Walls shook and that horrid, inky smoke slid across surfaces.

"What makes you so certain of yourself, human? You know this is your death, that escape is impossible."

"I'd say it's my devil-may-care attitude, but I already know he doesn't."

He roared again, shaking the walls, all the more effective for such a huge sound coming from a normal-sized human frame. I gulped as a heavy bole of dread slipped from my stomach into my guts.

Looking him directly in the eye, I clenched my jaw to stop my voice shaking. "Right now, some people might give you a speech about good and bad, how I'm the former and you the latter."

"There's no good and bad, Radshaw - no evil and divine, no right and wrong. Just two sides, fighting to the end of existence."

I felt my lips pulling into a smile. "Exactly why I wouldn't give that speech. Instead, I'll just tell you you're a loser. I'm sitting here on a suspicious warm sensation with no real plan or clue how I'm going to stop you. I'm so scared, there's a good chance this hell domain or whatever it is doesn't even exist - my mind's pretty untrustworthy right now. Still, I came along. I guess I've come to have a go, because I think I'm hard enough."

"Why?" He looked genuinely baffled. My finger twitched against the gun inside my coat. Was it even worth trying?

I winked at him with a confidence I didn't feel. In fact, it was like a snowflake giving the middle finger salute to the sun, but I like snowflakes - I respect their individuality. "Someone has to, or what's the fucking point? Besides, you're bound to bugger up - that's what your kind do."

"My kind? You mean ancient, primal evil with power you cannot fathom?"

"I mean dickheads." I clambered to my feet but stayed hunched over to hide the fact I was grasping two guns. "Face it - you can't even make your fake nice world right. You created a guy everyone wants to fellate, and then built a BJ limit into his junk - that's cruelty of the highest order. Not exactly in keeping, is it?"

"Ah, so it was Azza who helped you - I suspected as much."

"I guess he's as bored of you as I am." I smiled at him. "That's what happens when you spout the same old boring shit constantly - people stop listening."

His nostrils flared. "And you thought what, exactly - you'd come here and annoy me into submission?" The grey beneath was showing more through his face now and a very human drip of sweat was running down his forehead. "You can't do anything to stop me, human. Any action will risk almost certain death, and humans are slaves to their own mortality. It dictates every facet of your behaviour."

I took a couple of deep breaths, feeling the air soaking into my lungs. Far from calming, it gave me sudden flutters in my stomach, but I was on course now. I held to the idea I'd been forming during our confrontation. One solid concept was core to my hope - the Angwrath trumped everything. That was its point and purpose - the ability to even things out.

I blinked as I matched Abaddon's certain gaze. "You're full of confidence, and I guess the demon of death's going to be, but you're forgetting one thing."

"What?"

"I'm Mike Radshaw. I'm nuttier than a schizophrenic squirrel - and you can't ever trust me to behave." I pulled both guns and levelled them at his face. He actually laughed - deep and loud - which meant either he hadn't thought of what I had, or I was deader than a dodo in a red shirt on Star Trek.

"I knew you were foolish, Radshaw, but I never thought you were a stupid motherfucker."

I shrugged. "Big, menacing evil things can't swear like that - it just feels weird. Haven't you seen Blade Trinity?" I kept my eyes focused on him but I couldn't help noticing my tainted hand. The forearm was now completely black and withered. It looked like an ancient, gnarly tree branch coated in crude oil, my fingers like twigs clutching their weapon.

"Films tell us nothing."

"Some motherfucker," I said, channelling Wesley Snipes, "is always trying to ice-skate uphill." Trusting my instincts, I pulled both triggers, and something magical happened.

He flinched. It was a flutter of a moment's hesitation, faster than betrayal and slimmer than the skin of my teeth. But hope is both slimmer and fleeter than betrayal, and in that instant of doubt, I knew I was right.

The bullets slammed into his chest with puffs of white fluff. No blood spilled, no thunder rolled, and no screams of pain filled the cavernous space. Instead, Mr Black finally disappeared as Abaddon gave up on his human disguise. The man in front of me peeled away, skin flopping to the ground like a discarded cape. Eyeballs and teeth tumbled away in its wake, and there before me was a sight that redefined the concept of 'strange.'

Abaddon was a giant grey teddy bear. Granted, his button eyes were glowing like incandescent hatred and the mouth was packed with needle-like fangs, but cute and furry is cute and furry. Matted grey tufts covered his frame and he actually had stitching in all his joints. The rounded ears on top of his head flapped in an invisible breeze, adding to his general adorability.

I snorted. "And there I was think it was fear that'd make me piss myself. I can see the four horsemen now, riding out to strike fear into the populace - War, Famine, Pestilence and Snuggles."

He took a step forward and the ground rumbled. Oh yeah - did I mention he was twenty feet tall now? "I'll tear you limb from limb, Radshaw."

I backed up, smiling up at his teddy bear face. "You fell victim to your own plan, didn't you? You made the Angwrath a beautiful fairyland to corrupt, but you couldn't bring yourself to make your own form good or pretty. Out of vanity, you thought you'd be immune, so you kept your evil aspect - that mass of spikes and terror I caught a glimpse of." I winked. "And your own harbinger turned you into a cute teddy bear."

He took another shuddering step. "I still have more power than you can conceive."

"A being so great, it's looking at the universe like a spot on its hand and farts infinities after eating existences like a tin of baked beans. More than that?"

A ripping sound crunched through the air and I gulped as foot-long black claws emerged from the bear's immense paws. He held them up and wiggled them like jazz-hands. "Enough for this."

Bollocks. Trust me to come up against a teddy bear that also happened to be a grumpy X-man. He lunged at me, claws tearing the atmosphere with blinding speed, so I ran for it, firing a gun over one shoulder as I went. The cracking reports of igniting bullets tore into my ear, numbing my hearing on one side, and powder burn pushed syringes into my cheek. Dull thunks sounded from behind me as my shots struck home, but they were too close for my liking.

"Run, you dickwit," I gasped to myself, but my legs refused to take the advice. My gun clicked empty as I staggered between dark pews, muscles quivering and legs juddering with every step. The climb up all those stairs was still taking its toll, along with a fitness level lower than a limbo-dancing gutter snake. I tried to switch hands so I could use the gun I took from the witless security guard, but Mr Black had other plans.

Something slammed into my back with terrible force. For a moment, I thought he'd kicked me, but then I saw the black claws protruding from the front of my chest. I just had time to think, 'great - impaled by a demon teddy bear,' before he flung me into the air. The claws tore from me as I pin-wheeled towards the ceiling, dragging with them a scream that sounded more like a wheeze. I watched a complex web of my own blood dance in twisting patterns in my wake. It might have been beautiful if I wasn't more worried about landing.

Sure enough, it hurt like a bastard. Turns out, ancient timber pews don't make the best crash-mats. In any decent action film, they'd have crumbled into splinters as I hit them, forming a cushion of debris. Unfortunately, real life - even when you're occupying a version of hell - isn't nearly so considerate. My spine impacted one solid back and I felt my body wrapped the wrong way round its shape. I flopped and rolled, crashing to the foot-well on my face, dragging in one-sided breaths through a throat full of blood. I tried to roll over but pain struck through me, head to foot, so deep and sharp my muscles turned to custard. Tears of frustration bubbled from my eyes and I groaned - it felt like all I could do.

The pews around me were kicked away in a storm of splinters. Huge furry feet settled either side of my shivering form like the pillars of death's gateway. I coughed a thick spatter of clotted blood and phlegm onto the grimy stone floor and tried to move again, this time suppressing the groan out of sheer stubbornness. Abaddon laughed, low and dark, and it sounded like the death knell of hope.

Fuck you.

He was right, I decided as I forced myself to roll over, ignoring the gurgling roar tearing across the back of my throat. There wasn't good or bad, or right and wrong, only sides and players, battling to eternity. This wasn't my eternity - not until I said it was. I came here to do a job, and stupid, scary teddy bear or not, there was one immutable fact burning like a lodestone of determination in my brain:

I wasn't finished yet.

I cast around me, but my guns were gone. The giant teddy leaned over my prostrate form, greasy clumps of stuffing sprouting from him like demonic cauliflower florets where my bullets landed. Its mouth, outlined by stitches, split apart to bare needle fangs and it laughed again - confident, mocking and victorious.

With every pulse of his rancid breath across my face, my black arm throbbed. It must have been the Angwrath's power that changed it, just like it deadened the landscape outside in an ever-expanding radius and turned Abaddon into a cuddly toy. The arm was my greatest tool against demonic powers - the thing that let me banish them. Much as I hated thinking in those terms, it was my weapon for good. Had it been converted? Fight fire with fire. Could it really be so simple?

My foe - Mr Black, The Demon of Death, Abaddon - dropped to one massive knee and planted a paw beside my head, leaning until his flaming button eyes were just inches from my face. "You can't beat me, Radshaw - you never could. Death is everything, the inevitable end and the ultimate arbiter. I am all the things you cannot escape, the fingers that pinch out your last vestiges of hope. Face it, human - it's death that dictates your existence."

"No," I said, the word carried on a breath full of all the awful memories leading me here. "It's anger."

I slammed my twig-like fist into his hideous mouth, feeling the teeth give way as my hand sank into the soft maw beyond. Where my blackened skin touched, I felt the fluffy matter altering. Dry became wet, softness changing into combinations of slippery rubber and solid slabs. A realisation hit me as he jerked spasmodically, the eyes burning with new fervour. This wasn't a teddy bear head any more. My tainted hand was reverting Abaddon to his original form.

Determination lending clarity to my thoughts and overriding the hideous pain squealing through my chest, I spread my fingers and fisted them again, thrusting my arm back and forth. Bone crunched and splintered, a tongue tried to wrap my forearm but tore away from its base when I flinched, and chunks of gum sluiced from bone as I moved. Then I gripped a handful of pulpy stiffness and realised my hand was in a demon's brain. His body went stiff around my grip and I watched the cute form drop away.

Personality returned to the eyes, along with a horrified expression. A small part of me was laughing hysterically - even ancient demons were repulsed by my touch. Grey fur became glistening carapace, coated in chitinous grooves. Spikes sprouted, hands elongated, and the face turned into a vision of repulsion, dark and exquisitely foul, mouth stretched around the girth of my arm.

Suck it, bitch.

I gripped a mass of splinters and mush with my evil fist, reared both feet up to brace them on his shoulders, and yanked with all my strength. Ignoring the fresh agony ripping through my body, using every ounce of hate and horror at my disposal, I dragged Mr Black's brain and shards of his skull out through his face. His cheeks dissolved and eyeballs pushed sideways to let my fist out in a stringy mess of gore and viscera.

I pushed his convulsing body away to one side with my feet and squeezed the handful of head innards with all my rapidly draining might. Liquefied brain oozed between my fingers, leaving a lace of sinew and gristle woven between my digits, skull fragments caught like flies in a grotesque web. I could feel blood dribbling from my mouth and air rasping through the puckered wounds in my chest. My brain said only one lung was pierced, but the pain sang a mortal song. I needed hospital, and fast, but given I had no easy way back to the normal plane of existence, I didn't see any future ahead.

"Still," I wheezed, "not many people get to say they killed death before kicking the bucket."

"Where did Abby go?" said a boy's voice.

He lost his head. I giggled, uncertain what emotions I was feeling but realising I was completely at their mercy. I looked at the naked boy standing nearby. He was staring at the jerking body of Abaddon and his dishevelled human killer with a completely emotionless expression. He looked about twelve to my inexpert eye. Young and vulnerable and - I hoped - just about pre-pubescent.

I muffled my laughter as I met the Angwrath's gaze. "He's in the place where evil arse-suckers go to die."

"My body might be destroyed, Radshaw, but here I still abound. Did you really think you'd killed an aspect of darkness and destiny?" The voice came from the walls themselves, throbbing through the air like beats on a bass drum the size of London.

"You won't be threatening anyone in the real world for a while, dickhead. I'll settle for that."

A chugging laugh shook the air. "I don't need to." Thunder clapped in the air above the nave, sending a shockwave that tousled my hair and dislodged chunks of masonry. From nowhere, a wind blew up, gale-force and squealing like tortured souls. Before my eyes, a crack appeared in existence. Ten feet high, it floated just above the floor - a black schism - and everything around it looked slightly bent. Another thunderous crash split my ears and the crack widened, exposing a shadowy void behind.

"Go, my child. Return to the place you're destined to alter. Fulfil your destiny and bring about the black dawn."

"No!" I wheezed, but it was barely a sound. The Angwrath nodded and strode into the black slit. I dug deep, plumbing the depths beyond human tolerance, and found a well of strength I hadn't imagined existed. In the face of all hopelessness, knowing my whole life was pointless if I failed, I clambered to my feet, staggered across splinters and bloodstains, and flung myself into the black nothingness of the void.

Write A Review

Recognized

.
.
I'm continuing to revive chapters from this story, and this is 7 of 8.

I hope you enjoyed the read :-)

Mike
.
.

Pays one point and 2 member cents.

You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.

Mike comes face to face with Mr Black

A chapter in the book Mike Radshaw and the Black Dawn

To Kill a Mocking Radshaw - BD7

by Fleedleflump

The FanStory Store For Writers

Your Poem On A Mug