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The Devil May Care

Part 53

for DuskCypher

by Draconicon

Flickers of light filtered through the darkness, and Dusk knew that there was yet life in him. A soulless, dead man should not be allowed to live again, but yet, he had. Someone that had fallen towards the fiery rivers of Hell should have been utterly consumed, body, soul, and all, but he still lived. Somewhere, deep inside, where nothing but the primal part of all life and existence remained, something beat like a heart, and that something fed something else like life...like existence...into what passed for Dusk in that moment.

He struggled to open his eyes, but managed no more than a hint of a sliver at the corner of his eyes. It hurt to do even that much, costing as much energy as the entirety of his war against Darith to get to the plane. He saw something, something akin to mist, and he groaned as even that much exertion cast him back towards sleep. The cat clawed against the world, trying to pull himself out of the haze inflicted on him, but there was nothing to be done. He fell again.

#

Some time later, he felt something else. Chains, or some other sort of restraint, pressed harshly against his arms and his legs. He was hung from something, dangling in the dark, yet the mist still clung to him. He felt like he was slipping further, like there was something horrible falling away. The black cat struggled to open his eye more than the slight sliver that he'd accomplished before, but he saw nothing, nothing but the mist and vague shapes that moved through it like shadows.

Where...where am...

Thinking was hard, so hard, but he had to at least try if he was going to get free. If he didn't do something, if he didn't figure out how he was still alive, he was doomed.

Think, he told himself. Think.

Spartan-kicked out of Wrath. That had been the last clear thing to happen. He had been ripping apart, gradually falling open at the seams. He should have died, but he hadn't. Was it the Seal? The other thing? They were both in his possession, still, hanging from his clothes, hanging from the belt that he still wore.

No, they weren't responsible. Something else was, something else that pressed on him, surrounded him.

Something warm...heavy...

There could only be one thing like that. It was not the power of angels, but rather, the power of the most gentle of the realms of sin. It was the power of Sloth, and he was captive in it, held in this sleepy, barely aware state, and as the last of the chains were fastened around his neck, he fell further. The power of their magic was such that there was nothing that the weakened feline could do, and down, down, down he went.

He would have roared against it, fought the inevitable, but even Wrath could not have stood against this, not at this level of exhaustion. One might not bow to the inevitable, but one could be forced to kneel.

Dusk went down, down, down into oblivion, and was once more claimed by the darkness.

The next time he opened his eyes, they opened completely, and it was the only movement that he could do. His fingers refused to obey his commands, and the same was true of his arms, his legs, his mouth. Nothing moved, and nothing could move.

Sloth...

He was tired, so very tired, and the effort of moving was more than he could actually summon at that moment. He could not bring himself to even think of shifting in place, despite the fact that here, in the mist, there were no chains, no restraints, nothing.

Dusk realized that this was worse than he'd thought, though. This was more than just the chained sleep from before, but the deep dream. This was the part of Sloth that was the 'reward' for those souls that were not necessarily guilty enough to deserve the worst of Hell, but not innocent enough to be released from it for Purgatory. This was Elysium, where the dead dreamed and created a world of their own, a place where they were not tormented, where they did not suffer, save through the emptiness of their new existence.

For someone like him, for someone that must remain active and do as they wished in total freedom, this was the perfect prison. Dusk strained to scream, but he could not summon so much as a whimper in the deep emptiness of the dream realm. It was, in that moment, a place of perfect silence.

He tried to look around, but even moving his eyes was the effort of a thousand years, or so it felt. He panned his gaze slowly through the mist, seeing what else was there, who else could be seen. There was nothing physical to be found, nothing but the faint darknesses where the mists swirled around another shape. He didn't recognize them, though, and knew that there would be no help from the other souls in this empty, horrible place.

Why...why would they rescue me?

It was not to help him, that much was for sure. The Sloth demons had been on the front lines against the demons of Wrath, which meant that they had thrown in with Darith. It wasn't to hedge their bets against who would actually rule Hell...

So hard...so tired...

Dusk wanted to sleep, but he knew that was the power of Elysium trying to drag him down, to pull him into endless sleep so that he might never regret the things that he didn't have. But if he fell asleep, he would never again wake, and he knew that would be what his enemies wanted.

Sloth...what did Sloth want...

They wanted something, obviously, to rescue him. But they did not benefit with him alive. He was an active ruler, someone that would have forced them to some activity or another. And they did not act for themselves, so that meant that there was someone else pushing them. Not Darith, and not one of his own. That only left one potential pusher for this.

God...why did you save me?

It would be for nothing good, that much was for sure, and he readied himself for the pain that the Almighty would doubtlessly wish to dispense when he arrived.

Soon enough, the shimmers of light that broke the mist announced the tiger's presence. The feline was no different than he had been at the trial, though perhaps a little bit cockier than he had been all those months ago. The ruler of the universe stepped forward, his hands behind his back, his white suit shining like a miniature sun. It gave Dusk a headache to behold it, and there was a low groan of pain through all of Elysium at the interruption to the deep sleep, and the dragging up from the shallow sleep that came from it.

"It seems that they were actually successful in grabbing you," God said, chuckling. "I'm glad; it would have been a pity for you to melt before you saw the end of all things."

"..."

"Don't try and talk," God said. "There's nothing that you can say. And besides, this is Elysium. All but me are helpless here..."

Dusk almost narrowed his eyes. There was a sound of a confident lie there. He had told enough of his own to recognize them, and he was suddenly grateful for the exhaustion that filled the air. It kept him from moving, from giving away that he understood something that God didn't want him to understand.

Just as he realized that God didn't know that the gifts had been given to him, already. He doubted that the tiger would be here, and still standing in front of him, if the feline knew that Dusk carried the Seal...and that other little tool. It was a moment of mercy, something that he had never expected to feel from Hell, and he was grateful even as he felt the rot of Hell continue to break through the Seal. Not long now. Not long at all.

God turned from him, gesturing around.

"Do you understand why you had to be stopped, Dusk? I doubt it. Nobody among the mortals ever does."

"..."

"Then let me enlighten you. Intelligence...is a curse. And a curse that has spread further than anyone ever thought it might. I believed that, perhaps, you'd argue with me on that. That's the intelligence, the curse itself, telling you that it needs to continue. It does not. This intelligence, this reasoning, is the result of Lucifer changing things. He never did it for you, though; he did it to spit in my eye, to defy me. The idiot was always trying stupid stunts like that. It was confirmation that free will was as overrated as I had ever imagined...and Michaela only confirmed it further..."

It was a rant, then. Something that God had been holding back, not sharing with anyone in Heaven to preserve his own image, more than likely. Dusk would have smiled, if he had the energy. It seemed that he wasn't the only one that would be dealing with the worries of angry underlings, though he imagined that God had far more power to throw around and make the irritants submit to him. Dusk had to play politics, something that...irked him, while God had been secure in his power for all of eternity.

Then again...

Hell has perverted that power, he thought, thinking of how the underside of existence had perverted everything that belonged in Heaven. Where they had the virtues, we had the sins. And we had a hell of a lot more fun with those...

Even the idea of keeping a prison for souls had been left to Hell, leaving it run by an Archangel rather than allowing a demon to do it. God had outsourced all unpleasant things to other realms and dominions, and now, that meant that there was nowhere for him to send his own underlings without punishing them more than he really wanted to, or offering his enemies the chance to recruit them.

It would have been quite the thing to take advantage of, had he been free to do it. As it was, he could only listen, plot, and hope that God would not cotton on to the fact that Dusk had reason to hope.

The tiger turned away, folding his arms behind his back and looking towards the heavens. He shook his head, smiling.

"But now...things can finally be back on schedule. That pitiful little attempt of yours to short-circuit Armageddon is done with, now. After all, the world has many ways to trigger the end of times...and despite her little rebellion, my former Archangel has already offered me the opportunity to start it, with or without you."

What?

The tiger turned to look at him. That smile, small but toothy, remained.

"Perhaps I shall have a hint of mercy for you, Dusk. After all, you have been...interesting, even if you have offended me with every moment of your pitiful existence. I shall show you what I mean."

And with that, God gestured into the mists. They formed into a portal, twisting and rippling as the watery vapors turned solid in an oval around more light. The light itself firmed up, becoming a looking glass that showed the world below. At first, it was no different to any shot from space, and Dusk wondered what he was supposed to be looking at. Then, he saw it.

Like a little green light on an old computer screen, the bright green flickered across Central America. It spread north and south from there, touching on the land, turning brown and forest-green to that sickly shade, and it continued to spread further, faster. The moans and groans of those that were struck down, bedridden at best and dying at worst, filled his ears. The sound spread through Elysium, disturbing the dreams of the other sleepers, but not waking them.

Dusk couldn't look away, finding himself dumbstruck as he was pulled forward, made to stare into the portal to the world below...

_"Another report of an overrun hospital. We are asked to remind everyone to calm down and wait. We know that patience is hard - kuh, kuh."

The vixen behind the anchor-desk in the studio leans forward, holding a hand to her muzzle. She is rushed away, the medical personnel evacuating the room. Yet, the cameras continue to roll, showing that the vixen's face is smeared with blood, her eyes and ears bleeding likewise. The healthy bulldog that had been sitting at her side tries to pull away, but he starts coughing moments later, and the same symptoms strike him.

Like an insidious wave of death, the new strain of the disease strikes down everyone in the room, leaving them sagging, bleeding, dying in misery.

A hint of green is seen in the corner of the lens, plus...stripes?_

A father leans over his daughter, who is wasting away before their eyes. Even now, Dusk watches and sees her shrinking, almost like there is a hole in her like the hole in the bottom of a tub, and her weight is the water that's draining away. Her cheeks visibly sink in as she slumps further and further back in her bed, staring into the heavens, her mouth agape. Prayers that will never be answered fall from her lips as she stares upwards.

"Please...please...stay with me," the father whispers.

The young rat shakes her head, clinging to her father's hand with all that she has. Her hands turn to nothing but bone in seconds, and the skin pulls tight along her arms, over her chest and down along her collarbone. It pulls tight as paper, then rips like it, the bones showing through.

Before she can bleed out, she dies. Dead of starvation.

_At tables in restaurants that dare to stay open, food is brought in by those in hazmat suits. The food itself is covered by hermetically sealed containers, kept from touching open air after being prepared in sealed kitchens by robots. It is the highest of high-end food, and there has not been the slightest chance of it being contaminated.

Yet, as it is brought to the table, as the hog seated there takes his first bite, the steak rots to black in his mouth, and he falls forward, vomitting and oinking in utter agony. His face is awash with sweat, his eyes glowing with the glassy light of a fever. He curls into a ball, oinking like the feral thing that he has been reduced to, vomiting up the gorges of a dozen years of overweening success._

As he rolls in his vomit and filth, standing over him, barely there for those that have the eyes to see, is a green zebra in a leather jacket. She grins, running her hand over the pig's stomach, punching out another load of vomit before disappearing.

More and more scenes appear across the globe, and in all of them, the zebra is there, appearing and disappearing without a trace every time that the scene changes. Dusk stared, unable to believe what he saw, until God turned to look at him again.

"Pestilence is a trifle weaker than she used to be, but the powers of disease will never entirely die off. Those that believe otherwise are fools."

"..."

"Michaela was the one that freed her, Dusk, not I. I merely offered her the chance to make good on herself, rather than being a tool to be destroyed at the end of all things."

You...monster...

God had never been someone that he believed could be good, but this was the proof. There was no kindness, no regret. The children dying as well as the adults, those that believed and those that didn't; it didn't matter. They were all victims, all a way for the 'Almighty' to find a way to trigger Armageddon and get all eyes on him once more. It was not merely cruel, but terrifying.

And yet, for all his anger, Dusk could not move. He could only stare at the portal brought more things to see, and one thing that he did not expect.

_The tiger and the puma snuck out of the house, leaving the stucco walls behind and making their way down the quiet street. They were low to the ground, and the latter carried something that looked almost like a sword. Nothing that fit with the modern, urban setting that they were in, however, and certainly nothing that would be good against a gun, to Dusk's mind.

They stopped, suddenly, coming to a sudden halt as the air seemed to quiver. The puma threw the tiger down, and then laid over him, keeping to the shadows and relying on her dark fur to keep from being seen.

She wasn't a moment too soon. A motorcycle swerved around the corner, coming down their alley. The rider was the same green zebra as before, whipping her head left and right, bearing a bandolier of dirty needles, a gas-mask cracked and shattered in all parts, covered in clothes caked in blood and worse. She looked like someone that had carried the diseases of every single suffering patient in the world on her back, and had then weaponized it, passing it around._

The two cats remained on all fours, hiding as she slowed down and rode through the alley at a quieter pace. The animals that called it home, the rats and the cats that hunted them, shriveled up and died as skeletal versions of themselves, starving as she went by.

She reached the end of the alley and revved her engines again, driving off with a kick and a scream. The puma lifted herself up, dragging the tiger along with her.

"Come on, SoG," she muttered.

"I miss my name..."

"Later..."

And with that, they were gone.

Dusk watched while God meandered along, talking about the grand plan and what he would do to the world to make sure that it turned out properly this time. It was background, little more than nothing for the black cat as he watched the show before him. It was simple enough, and something that told him something that he hadn't known.

One, that God didn't know where Jesus was.

Two, that Jesus was with someone with a sword.

Three, that God was sending the horseman around to find him.

If he wants his son...then that means that we want him, too...

But that meant nothing if he was trapped her. God had managed to wrangle this one better than Dusk had expected, and now that the tiger wasn't paying attention, he was showing just how much faith that Heaven had that Dusk would never escape Elysium.

And well he might not. The trap was complete. There was nothing that could break through this without the powers of something greater. Without his soul, without the powers of the Devil, he should have been helpless. As it stood...well, he had other powers, powers that Cthulhu had recommended, and they might be just enough.

The scene on the portal changed, pulling to yet another scene of tragedy, another scene of horror that God seemed to be just as happy to ignore as long as it continued getting him what he wanted. The tiger faced him once more.

"I credit you for having the intelligence to last as long as you did, but the game is over, Dusk. I don't want to play any longer. I want to carry out the plan, finally, and that means that you had to get out of the way. You had your chance for it to go gently, with my daughter..."

The tiger hesitated, then sighed, chuckling.

"No, even I can't say that with a straight face. Mercy had...lost her mind. She didn't want to follow the plan. She merely wanted what she wanted. A failure in raising her on my part, I will admit...not much of a failure, but enough. But if she had done it right...

"But that is neither here nor there. You will not interfere any further, Dusk. Hell will fall, in short order. The world will turn back to me. And there will be no more of this cursed intelligence of your kind. Mortals have long-since forgotten where they came from...it is time that they learn again. See?"

And once more, into the portal they looked.

_"Let us pray..."

The board members lower their heads, closing their eyes. They have done this time and time before, a mocking thing that was merely meant as a token towards those that believed and would spend more money at a Christian company, but this is the first time they've done it with any hope of it working.

"Dear lord, our father who art in heaven..."_

The words tumble from their lips in desperation, each of them half-dreading to hear the cough of the new disease at their sides, or some horrifying wheeze as someone starts drying up.

"Hallowed be thy name..."

Nobody yet. Perhaps there is some home.

"Thy kingdom come."

They have no idea how close it is.

"Thy will be done."

It already is.

"On earth as it is in heaven."

The businessmen continue their chant, hoping against hope that it will protect them, willing to give in and convert to this stupid faith if it means that they will live. Some even mean it, and aren't just driven by fear, but even those that are merely driven by fear seem to be doing better than the average person on the street.

They reach the end of the prayer, and then, rather than continuing with the business at hand, start again.

_"Pray with me..."

It's the same request that the hospital nurses have been getting time and time again. The atheists were the first to start mocking it, but then they died. The agnostics indulged it, and some of them lived. The devout followed, and they all survived._

The spread of religion through the hospitals doesn't mean that the diseases stop, but it means that some survive. The lucky, perhaps, or those that pray the hardest. Some stop listening to the doctors entirely, forcing them to stop all treatment unless prayer is given first. It becomes the catechism, the good-luck-charm, the drug that is the only thing that gives any hope for those that still are capable of having it.

And those that die? They are nothing. They are less than nothing. Their deaths are celebrated, because it means a free bed and the chance for more healing...and prayer...

_"Pray for me, you fuckers!"

The gangster holds his gun on three old women, shaking and panting as he feels the wracking coughs coming again. He's already bleeding out of the corner of his mouth, but he's heard about it. Everyone's heard about it. The way that prayers sometimes work when the medicine doesn't. He can't get enough on his own. His family's dead. The gang's all but gone. The little old ladies just came from church, so they got some of that God-energy, right?_

"Pray for -"

He's overwhelmed with coughing, unable to finish the sentence. He holds his gun on them, still, the three little old badgers staring at him in fear. Why won't they pray? Why won't they fucking pray?

He falls to his knees, wheezing through a bloody mess that's sliding up and down his throat. He feels like he's coming apart, as if there's nothing left of him. He can't stop it. Death...Death is coming...

Then their hands rest on him, and they pray. He feels the air coming back to his lungs, and he can thick again. He can breathe again.

And he shoots them.

As soon as they fall dead, he runs, trying to pretend that it was just a fluke. No witnesses. Can't leave any witnesses to that. Nobody would really forgive him.

"Well, there's three more souls to build up the new world..."

Dusk was increasingly losing his ability to be surprised by God's callousness, but even that was a little bit much for him to swallow. The tiger looked at him, then rolled his eyes.

"Oh, please, do you really think that I would want the intelligent in my new world? They would start this all over again. The last time that I ended the world, I did it by flooding the whole place out, except for those that were smart enough to build an escape. I should have let them die and started over, but I was still soft in those days...

"This time, the only survivors will be the ones I choose, the ones that have to rely on me to make it into the next world. There will be no dumb luck. There will be no intelligent choices, or cunning tricks, or anything else that bring brilliance into the next world. Only blind, dumb faith..."

It would be a world that reflected Hell in the most uninteresting ways, filled with those that punished the unfaithful and made sure that the stupidest decisions were made in the name of God. They would keep deciding to follow the most outdated doctrine possible, all for the sake of giving worship to the being that 'saved' them from a danger that never needed to be there in the first place. Armageddon would be the tool that stripped away all progress, merely for the sake of one tiger's ego, and there would be no stopping it.

Dusk could barely look away from the portal, and even that almost pushed him into sleep once again. God's light was the only thing that kept him awake. That, and the sickly feeling of the need to rip him apart.

"Can you hear it, Dusk? The world is turning back the clock," God said. "They are praying to me. They are begging for my mercy, my control. Not just in the hospitals, or the commons, but in the highest of high places."

"..."

"They see what they need, now. They will not be safe with money. They will not be safe with their technology. There is nothing that they have that can truly keep Pestilence at bay, not now that she has been released. Sure, she has been weakened by the advent of their technology, but look at them. Even with that, she has them all but on their knees. The other horsemen have yet to be released, but if they must be, it will get so much worse."

Dusk didn't know if he would have been able to keep from laughing at that if it wasn't for the exhaustion of Elysium keeping him silent. As it stood, that was all the confirmation that he needed to know that God was unaware of the things that had been handed over via the court. He must have come to Elysium as soon as the fight was over, too eager to gloat before his opponent to really think about what might have been done in the meantime.

And it was almost time, now. The Seal had been exposed to Hell for...how long, now? So long, and that meant that it was not just rotted past the ancient protections that had been put on it, but the container itself completely broken up. It would take less than a snap to break it. It would take merely a few more moments of gloating.

All Dusk had to do was wait.

God sighed happily as he looked back at the world. For a moment, one might have mistaken the sound as something of regret, that he looked upon something that he loved and was a little miffed that he had to go through all this.

Then he spoke.

"Good riddance to this whole thing," God said, stroking his hand along the portal. "I made so many mistakes in the last draft of your people. This time, I will do it right. This time, no more of that free will. No more of...anything.

"And this time, Hell won't be a problem, either," the tiger added, looking up and smiling at him. "Oh, you think that there would be anything that Mr. Sertus would be doing against me? He will be fighting his own wars. He will see that the practical thing is to stay out of my way, and just deal with his own backyard. He's eminently...suitable, like that. Of course, this whole rebellion will merely serve to rip Hell apart. There will be no peace. And he doesn't have the power of Lucifer to keep them all in line.

"And deep down, perhaps he even knows that...but he is too proud to believe that it will be a problem. He cannot believe in anything more than he believes in himself. A pitiful man in a pitiful place, and he will never get any better."

Dusk could not disagree. By removing him, Hell would be in a horrible state. Those that had supported him might be in the minority now, but they were in strong places. Those that were in Gluttony would have the most money compared to those that had been trying to restore the old ways. The businesses in Greed would have formed a union - he had heard of that coming, and had encouraged it to foster some solidarity between them. They would be able to foster further growth among themselves, and their funds would be such that they could support their other allies until Darith cut off their access to Purgatory. And then, there was Lust and the Hellspire. Ornar would be able to hold out for centuries there, and he would, for the sake of honor and for the sake of what they had shared.

Darith would never be able to subdue all of Hell. Not after doing what he'd done.

Which means...God believes he is unopposed...and he is almost right...

God shook his head.

"In some ways, you have sentenced yourself to the worst possible fate, Dusk. I doubt that you really care about what happens to those on the planet, but from now until the end of time, you will watch. I will leave this here, giving you the gift of awareness, so you might know what your sins have brought about."

The black cat looked at the portal. Truth to tell, he didn't care much about other people. Most of them were stupid, and just as many could be cruel. There was little to care about in the mortal world, and none of what he had done had been for the purpose of safeguarding people. It had all been done to continue with his own amusement with everything that they provided for him.

But now...

The sight of the cruelties being handed down were just too much. It was like watching something written for the express purpose of horrifying others, and in some ways, it was. Pestilence wanted to break the world, and God used that to make them believe in him again. It was a weaponized horror, and it worked.

The tiger leaned in.

"You've lost, Dusk. Every mortal, everyone that has ever thought themselves too good to follow me, has lost. And now, it is time to accept defeat. Admit that you've lost, and maybe, just maybe, I'll give you the comfort of a better dream than this."

A dream...heh...this is a dream...

And the first trick of anyone that studied black magic was to walk in their dreams, to pass from place to place, to be a free agent in a place of infinite possibilities. Dusk might have been in the dream of all dreams, the primal dream from which none had ever awoken, but that was still a dream, and by all rights, that meant that it operated under the same rules as the other dreams that filled the minds of mortals. And while he was all too mortal now compared to what he had once been, that meant that he had their foibles, their strengths, once more.

The only question was whether he had the strength and will to stand up and defy God, and that was no question at all. Mortality was, by its nature, contrary to the will of the world and the universe. He bowed to no-one.

And to the shock of all and sundry, Dusk tilted his head. His voice was little more than a wheeze, but in a realm where no sound but breathing should have been possible, it was like thunder.

"Do you think anyone...would go gently into that good night...knowing what waits there? Heh...I rage...I rage against the dying of the light."

"How -"

"You may have set the rules...but now, I profit by them."

God's eyes went wide. In that moment, he must have known what had been taken, but it was too late to stop it. And Hell? Hell had done its job, wearing away the protections of the Fourth Seal, and now, it broke it. The snap of the seal shattering filled all of Elysium, and even God's face twisted in anger and shock. Dusk smiled, and finished the job.

"I summon thee, Brother Grimm..."

The End

Summary: And so we hit the end of the first super-arc of Devil May Care. Anything that comes next will be under a different series title.

Tags: No sex, Gloating, Apocalypse Now, Elysium, Bondage, Cat, Tiger, God, Jesus, Pestilence, Equine, Various Species, Armageddon, Series, Modern Fantasy,