#slapping fat gold bars in the factory

[dokutah-exe]

looks out into the endlessly destroyed landscape marred and disfigured by the endless artificial forces of nature both molded and summoned into the world, wreaking endless havoc and strife to a world ridden with a supernatural disease so horrifying that societal shifts have deemed those infected as fourth class citizens

grinded for this view

[carpe-astra]

                                                    Mood Music

                                          Kingswood, Bristol 1935

                                                        3:25 AM

The Crown was a squat, one story building made of plaster and brick. Once upon a time it had been proud and ruddy, but now it was grey. Dinginess bred of heavy smog and the grit of factories on the outskirts of town, as well as the perpetual soak of mud by the drizzling rain. The sign creaked quietly in the breeze, made of an old slab of wood that had been painted black, with a gold crown in the middle. That too had once been bright and colorful, now it was ordinary and drab.

They had all thought it a sense of poetic irony to take it over. For awhile, it had been funny. But tonight, there was no humor to be found in those old walls. Tension had bit through every crevice and crack of the building -- and choked the air worse than the clouds of cigarette smoke did.

Valentino set his hands down on the edge of the bar top and studied the way the candlelight shimmered over the mountains of his bloody knuckles. A cigarette hung slack in the corner of his mouth, lazy curls of smoke half obscuring the man tied to his chair beside him. Absently, Valentino reached for the bottle of vodka that was sitting next to his glass to dump some in before taking a lengthy swig of it.

“So, Driscoll,” he began thoughtfully, his voice a warning rumble of an impending storm. He turned to the man, a cruel edged smile on his face like the jagged edge of a broken bone.

Driscoll was a fat man, but built around the arms. Someone who had done real work once upon a time, and then gone somewhere softer in his old age. The Butcher of Eagle Street still wore his leather apron, but it was no longer the blood of beasts that stained it, and the blood of the lives he had taken -- but his own now, too. His hair was kept closely cropped, and it was easy to see the large gash that arced over his scalp, deep enough to see the twinkle of bone through the scraps of flesh. His entire face was a sheet of blood, piggy blue eyes blinking rapidly as blood dripped into them.

Driscoll had given up straining against his bindings, but he shook his head wildly which sent blood splattering across the floor and Valentino’s shirt. But Valentino didn’t really notice it, just like he barely minded the spark of cold drops where Driscoll’s blood had dusted over his face earlier and cooled.

“I don’t know nothing,” he slurred out, red spit escaping him in a spray with his words. Most people had feared the Butcher. They had wondered if he sold his victims like he did his slabs of beef and pork to the unwitting masses of Bristol. Any reservations Valentino had had previously, the need for cunning strategy and the long game had evaporated the moment Leo had brought him Elizabeth’s hat where he’d found it on the side of the street.

Valentino touched the brim of the hat, slicking his thumb along the curve so that he wouldn’t blemish the pristine white with dirt or blood. “I might have believed you Driscoll, if I didn’t fuckin’ know that Malcolm was always watching her.” He took in air suddenly, dragging his fingers through the tail of hair that slathered back over the top of his head as the ferocity of his fury almost consumed him.

Driscoll shook his head again, more blood spraying around them while he swayed violently with a sickening green tint to his face.

“One more time Driscoll. WHERE. IS. MY. WIFE?” He took in another deep breath after he roared in Driscoll’s face, the echo of his gravelly voice ringing in the near empty bar. Again he spoke, but quiet this time, and calm. A frozen intensity burning in the undercurrent reminiscent of a Siberian winter. “Last chance.”  

All he could picture was that hat sitting on the edge of the street. Long red ribbons trailing in the passing wake of a cart, lost and alone. He was going to find her, or burn the world down around him.

“We didn’t take her! Malcolm ain’t that stupid!” The Butcher reduced to slurring words that were barely coherent, tangled up in blood and exhaustion.

“I beg to disagree.” Valentino upended the bottle of vodka abruptly, pouring out the gleaming liquor right into the ragged wound in Driscoll’s skull. It took a moment, but Valentino watched hungrily as the burning began.

It started slow, Driscoll’s eyes wrenching open and his head lolling up, before he squeezed them shut against the rain of scarlet soaked alcohol that washed away the blood that had been sticking to his fat face. He flushed hotly, face creasing into a tight grimace of pain while he struggled not to cry out. His jowls quivered, then he was sputtering against the agonizing sting as he hissed. It bubbled up louder and he started to rock in place, flinging drops around as he shook his head like a dog.

“Right nasty shit, innit?” Valentino questioned Driscoll as the man screamed in pain. There was no one to hear him but Valentino, and the few King Breakers he had brought to guard the place as he worked. And none of them moved.

Valentino pried his cigarette from his mouth, breathing out a cloud of pollution directly into Driscoll’s tortured face as he kept screaming. A bit of ash sprinkled over the leather apron he wore, sticking there. The man’s collar had been stained piss-yellow with his sweat and now it clung to his thick throat damply, a hint of pink from the steady ooze of blood spreading downward before disappearing under the line of the apron.

He could feel the shark’s grin stretched over his face too tightly, like it was too wide for his bones, or not wide enough to contain his monsters. He felt hollow -- just a deep, black unending river that he dipped his hands into and washed himself with.

Elizabeth had always kept it under lock and key; had built a cage for the rippling, sinuous leviathan that he had brought back from the war. The one that took pleasure in feeling the wet heat of life on his palms. He wasn’t fit to be on his own anymore -- not without Elizabeth. She was his sanity. For a heartbeat, his hands shook as he hoped Odette would sleep through the night soundly, and never learn of this.

The thought was smothered abruptly under a gout of rage as Driscoll’s face swam into his view again.

“You don’t know anything, huh?” His voice dropped to a rumbling growl, edged like a razor while he stuck a finger into the wound on Driscoll’s head to peel his scalp up. It was harder than he thought it’d be, or that could have been Driscoll’s renewed howling and thrashing. It was hard to tell. Though it was slick against his fingertips, he hung onto the Butcher’s mousy hair and yanked brutally. Driscoll wobbled again, but Valentino slapped his cheek a few times to keep him conscious while the vomit dribbled from his mouth.

Valentino stepped away as the reek touched his nose, shoving both dirty hands into his hair as he watched with a hawkish intensity. He grabbed his seat suddenly and set it across from his prisoner to sit down with his elbows on his knees while he thought.

Elizabeth had been last seen walking home from a shopping trip. No matter that he had told her time and time again to take one of the boys with her, just in case. He had only wanted her safe. The bloodied, vodka soaked heels of his palms pressed into his brow while he desperately tried to think, his cigarette burning idly between his fingers. Normally, everything came to him as easily as breathing. He could see all the ins and outs, the path forward to get his hands on what he wanted.

Malcolm had always had eyes for Elizabeth, even before Valentino had met her. It’d been a stupid accident, that day in the rain. But he’d bathe in a river of blood before he let another touch her. Some of the Breakers had seen Malcolm’s men, The Jackals, around King Breaker territory. He could only assume it had been The Jackals. But if he didn’t play it smart, Elizabeth could end up hurt, though he didn’t think Malcolm would kill her.

A gut wrenching coldness crept down his spine at the image that had been rattling around in his mind for days. Crimson splattered over her fine face and soaked into her pale hair. Eyes, utterly lifeless. The eyes had always gotten to him in the war. When they became so still and glassy, that was the moment he had known. He couldn’t bear to see Elizabeth’s beautiful blues empty like that. He wouldn’t survive it.

Driscoll was Malcolm’s top killer, but still a pawn. It would send the message that Valentino needed it to. He gestured to the boys lingering on the fringes of his attention and they moved forward into action to hoist Driscoll up and smash his head down onto the bar.

With the flames of perdition licking up his spine like a rabid dog, he took up a second bottle of vodka from the counter. Driscoll whimpered, blood and snot dripping down his face and being inhaled... then exhaled with each shuddering breath he took.

“C’mon Driscoll, don’t be a pussy eh?” Valentino chided him as he tipped the bottle over and sent a gleaming tidal wave of vodka spilling across the counter to splash up against the Butcher’s face and over the edges. He took in a sharp breath, lighting up the end of his cigarette into a gleaming cherry before he flicked the stick onto the pool.

Flames ignited in a rush, greedily devouring the bartop until it reached Driscoll and washed over his face as though the hounds of hell were after him. The stench of burning flesh and hair filled his nose in a sickeningly familiar way, that kept after him even while he and the men who had hauled Driscoll up backed away from the blast of heat and fire.

For a moment, Valentino was transported back to the battlefield, with the sharp sizzle of gunpowder and the cloying ash under the stench of burning bodies.

The scream that tore through the cold bar startled him back to the present, and Valentino reached forward to wrench Driscoll up off the counter as he thrashed and writhed, dumping him onto the floor in a wailing, knotted heap of limps. The flames were blistering against his hands, but he stepped away again, shadows dancing around them in a hedonistic display. Through the tangled tongues of the fire, he could see Driscoll’s skin bubbling and cracking, splitting apart to reveal the hot meat underneath that sizzled like a side of beef in a stovetop pan.

“Toss him onto Malcolm’s doorstep and stick a goldie with him,” he growled at the men around him, who watched silently at the gory display Valentino had put on. Driscoll had finally stopped moving, and they snapped into action to snuff out the flames before they could spread far enough to burn the whole place down.

He crushed the sodden cigarette that had rolled back at him under his heel. “Have Mr. Delong send me the bill for repairs and cleaning.” The golden bullet Valentino had prepared three days ago was pressed into Brandon’s hand, Malcolm’s etched name glittering in the still lingering flames. Brandon looked sick to his stomach when he glanced at Driscoll. New, and too young to have been in the war -- but Brandon blanched when Valentino met his eyes.

Valentino tugged out another cigarette to light up, taking comfort in the familiar burn of smoke snaking down into his lungs while he rolled his sleeves back down to cover the tattoos on his forearms. He left The Crown with Elizabeth’s hat, to wash his hands and check on Odette -- their daughter.