This heavy metal opera had to end somewhere and Daniel
Mercer pictured all the possible ways it could in his sick and twisted mind. He
rode in the back of the SWAT van staring daggers into his magical microphone as
his imagination ran wild. Was it as easy as screaming in Roger Zee’s ears and
making his head explode? Did there have to be a special message behind the
song? For all Daniel knew, he could sing the elf zealot a lullaby and slit his
throat in his sleep.
Since it was the life of Raven’s father at stake, perhaps
she could be the one to finish him off. Slice his head off his shoulders like a
circumcision (because he was such a dickhead). Sodomize him with the blade. Cut
his legs off and watch him crawl away. Such thoughts brought a wicked smile to
Daniel’s face. Watching his newfound love sharpening her blade with a whetstone
brought a flutter to his heart that not even a cocaine high was capable of.
Daniel snapped out of his violent fantasy when the SWAT van
took a huge bump and bounced his head off the roof. The heavy metal god growled
in pain and clutched his head while unleashing a horde of colorful swear words.
Raven patted him on the shoulder to see if he was okay and he said in no
uncertain terms, “I’m fine!”
Shawn Henry, the driver of the van, slammed on the brakes
and caused Daniel and Raven to lurch toward the front, almost like being taken
for a nickel ride. The Lord of the Pit shouted, “Hey! Quit driving like a
fucking drunk! You got to be careful, damn it!”
Through the partition, the rock and roll couple could hear
the door slamming shut and booted feet sloshing in the mud while Shawn appeared
to be yelling, “No, no, no, no!” Daniel and Raven looked at each other with
confusion and concern before exiting the vehicle themselves to see what was
going on.
Shawn stood over two corpses with his muscles tightened, his
fists clenched, and a shaking complexion reminiscent of tears. One of the dead
bodies was a grown woman in a sundress about Shawn’s age. The other was a small
child who looked barely old enough to register what was happening to the Henry
clan. Deep gashes covered their bodies to where bones were showing. Organs
poured out of those wounds like rotten milk. Their groins and inner thighs had
bruises the size of mountains. Shawn Henry had seen a lot of death in his
career, but nothing prepared him for this: the sight of his wife and daughter
discarded on a muddy rode like common trash.
Raven tiptoed toward Shawn and placed a gentle hand on his
shoulder, to which the sobbing detective waved it away and shouted, “Don’t
touch me! Please, don’t touch me!” She honored this by slowly backpedaling in
the arms of Daniel. The detective dropped to his knees and held the heads of
his wife and daughter against his chest before letting out a combination of a
lion’s roar and a sorrowful burst of tears. Even a brave warrior like Raven
couldn’t help but shed a tear or two.
For Daniel Mercer, watching death never got any easier. He
had been exposed to so much of it over the course of this quest. He even
glorified it in his music, hence the genre death metal. All he could do was
wrap his arm around his girlfriend and stare blankly at the emotional trauma
Shawn Henry was going through. When would enough be enough for someone like
Roger Zee? How many people had to die because of his strong beliefs? What was
the point of all this? Whatever joy Daniel felt fantasizing about Roger’s death
was blown away like ashes in the wind at the sight of this honorable cop in a
vulnerable moment.
“Great plan, Einstein,” said a familiar voice in Daniel’s
head. With wide-eyed hyper-vigilance, he scoped the muddy forest for the source
of the voice and saw the mangled ghost of Bear Man haunting his mind. “Complete
disregard the safety of someone’s family and now look what happened to them.
Nice job, buddy. Sounds familiar to me.”
“You shut the fuck up! I’ve had it up to here with you!”
bellowed the Lord of the Pit.
“Daniel, who are you talking to?” asked Raven in a worried
tone.
Lady Killer was next poltergeist to invade Daniel’s mind. “Why
should we shut up, Daniel, are we saying things that you don’t like to hear?
But isn’t that what you’ve been doing this whole time? Didn’t you make your
living that way?”
“I’m sick of you motherfuckers blaming me for everything!
You want to blame someone for all of this, blame Roger Zee! He’s the one who’s
doing this to us! Go torture him instead of me! I’m the one trying to help you
guys!” screamed Daniel.
“Daniel, stop it!” cried Raven.
The rest of Daniel’s band mates, Demon Axe or otherwise,
floated in a circle around him and barked insults at him to deafening levels.
Daniel held his ears and groaned loudly while Raven was trying to shake him out
of it. “Daniel, please! Stop it! You’re scaring me!”
“That’s right, Lord of the Pit!” said the ghosts in a
unified demonic voice. “You’d better stop it before you drive another loved one
to their death!” The ghosts snorted and snickered while bathing in red
electricity and purple smoke.
Even more lights began to flash in Daniel’s mind, much like
the strobe pattern of when he was tortured with his own music. Right then he
was being tortured by people he thought were his friends. True friends didn’t
pass blame or judgment. Shawn’s wife and daughter would never blame him for
their deaths. Neither should these band mates.
Daniel released his head and shouted into the skies (sans
microphone), “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” The electricity and smoke faded into
nothingness and the ghosts were silent with shame. “Nobody put a gun to your
heads and made you join my band! You came here on your own volitions! But I can
tell you guys don’t want to have anything to do with me anymore! If that’s what
you want, then give me your masks! You’ve lost your right to play music with
me! Come on, fork ‘em over! I’m sick of this goddamn shit! Hand ‘em over, now!”
The ghosts barely gazed at each other with hung heads before
shrugging their shoulders and floating over to Daniel to do what they were
told. One by one, the masks came off as the spirits floated away into smoke and
dust. As the Lord of the Pit collected the masks, he gave them in return their
old identities.
“You’re not Vulture
Man.
A solitary tear ran down the singer’s face as his traumatic
anger played out in front of him. Whether or not this was a permanent solution
for closure was answered when he heard the soothing, opera-style voice of Raven
singing into the magical microphone. He snapped out of his trance and gazed at
his girlfriend with loving and damp eyes. She sounded beautiful. Where did she
learn to sing like that? Did the elves care that deeply about music? Every note
of that operatic chant felt as soothing as a warm breeze in a field of flowers,
a far cry from the muddy and corpse-ridden forest they had been driving
through.
Daniel hugged his girlfriend tightly and said in an
emotional voice, “I love you, Raven. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I love you too, Daniel. You’ll always be the Lord of the
Pit to me,” she whispered as she hugged him back.
Also snapping out of his traumatic outburst was Shawn Henry,
who was now standing over the corpses of his family with vicious confidence on
his face instead of sorrow. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. I’m going
to kill him badly. Daniel, you better not act like that in the middle of battle
or that shotgun shell will be meant for you. You’d better scream your fucking
head off until Roger can’t stand it anymore.”
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore, Shawn. I want
that piece of shit as much as you do. Let’s go!”
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