Strange Brain Parts (6 page)

It took a few moments but the victim eventually lay still, eyes wide open in stifled fear and panic. Various body parts and dislodged pieces of flesh were spread haphazardly around the body. Victor stood passively in a pool of the victim's cooling blood, popped a candy into his mouth and said, “Maybe we should start seeing other people. I don't think this is working out.”

Pain laughed so hard he nearly spewed up his entire digestive system. Death clicked his teeth together in approval.

Pain swallowed hard and said, “That was classic. I wish I had recorded that. I'm really beginning to appreciate how efficient a mental human can be. Given a little direction, the entertainment value alone is off the scale.”

“It's almost like he had help,” said Death.

“I guess a little incentive goes a long way with the psychotic crowd. Now, we have to keep up our end of the bargain. Work your magic, pal.”

“Of course,” said Death. He waved a hand symbolically in the air and said, “There. One hundred and twenty-five Kworkians down the drain. Screw it. Let's make it an even two hundred.”

Death found his own joke so absurd that he burst out laughing. He clutched his ribs, rocked back in his chair, threw himself backward with too much force and immediately fell off the chair he was seated on. This made Pain laugh so hard he lost control of all his bodily functions. The ensuing shit, fart, piss, belch, hiccup, vomit and cough woke up their neighbor, Dream.

Dream proceeded to the bathroom, urinated while fixing his hair in the mirror, then went back to bed and promptly fell asleep again.

* * *

In a mere eight months Victor had managed to slaughter twenty-four people, misguidedly believing he was serving a higher cause and preventing these poor people from being kidnapped to a hostile dimension. He did this without being caught or even implicated in any of these crimes.

* * *

Pain held a cookbook in one hand, thumping a finger on a page with the other hand at a specific paragraph and said, “It says right here that pancreas is instrumental in the preparation of sweet bread. Look. It says so right there.”

Pain gave the cookbook to Death who scanned the indicated paragraph.

“Well, now I know something I didn't really want to know,” said Death. “So, that last person, he took their pancreas and made pastry?”

“That's what I said but you wouldn't believe me,” replied Pain triumphantly.

“That's gross,” said Death. He closed the cookbook, placed it on the table and failed at an attempt to look disgusted. The failure based on the fact that a skull has no facial features. “I was never a big fan of murder and gourmet food being mixed together. Kind of lacks class or something.”

“I like the style of it myself.”

“You would.”

“Hey, I like progress and innovation.”

“You know,” said Death, a tentative tone to his voice, “maybe we should tell him to take it down a notch. I mean, he’s eating people now and that’s a little weirder than I like.”

“I don't believe this,” exclaimed Pain. “You're turning chicken. You're worried we're going to get caught, aren't you? You're afraid someone in administration is going to notice we're screwing around.”

“It's not that at all,” replied Death getting angry.

“What is it then?”

“What it is,” said a harmonic voice behind Pain and Death, “is the two of you being flushed down a celestial toilet along with all the shenanigans you've been engaging in for the last millennium.”

Pain and Death froze where they sat. Neither of them had to turn around to know whom it was that stood behind them in the doorway to their room. They did so anyway.

“Hi, Gabe,” said Pain pleasantly. “How's the cherubs and seraphim?”

“It's Gabriel,” said the archangel Gabriel,” not Gabe or any variation of the name you can summon from the pitiful depths of your consciousness. And this is far from a social call, so do not expect me answer your attempt at pleasantries.”

“I knew this was going to happen,” whispered Death.

“Just keep quiet,” whispered Pain. Raising his voice, he asked Gabriel, “What can we do for you, old friend?”

“As I stated,” said Gabriel, his wings twitching slightly and the cheeks of his perfectly structured face reddening, “I am not a friend. Old or otherwise. Pretending familiarity not earned is insulting. I would advise you of the dangers of insulting a member of the Host.”

Gabriel grasped the hilt of the fiery sword that hung majestically at his waist. His perfectly formed hand gently wrapped itself around the golden handle. The implied threat of this action was not lost on Pain or Death.

“No offense intended,” said Pain. His grin slacked into something resembling a grimace and he repressed the urge to snidely ask the archangel for forgiveness. “Come in. Make yourself comfortable at least.”

Death tried to include himself in the conversation by nervously gesturing to an open chair for Gabriel to sit in. Instead, he smacked the back of his bony hand on the edge of the chair and almost tipped it over.

“Ouchie,” said Death.

“As for the reason I am here,” said Gabriel without acknowledging Pain and Death's hospitality, “I am aware that you two have been infringing on company policy and have been directly meddling with the affairs of the human race.”

“We are?” asked Pain.

“Indeed, you are,” replied Gabriel.

“Oh,” said Death. “I did not know this.”

“I find that statement highly suspect,” said Gabriel, facing Death directly.

“Okay,” said Death. “Shutting up now.”

“What about the Divine Intervention clause?” asked Pain.

“Are you stating that you are divine?” asked Gabriel, turning his attention to Pain.

“I'm not sure,” replied Pain. “Are you asking?”

“No. I am not. I am, in fact, telling you that the two of you combined are not remotely close to divine. Divinity requires omniscience and there is only one being that fulfills that criteria,” said Gabriel. To illustrate his point he jutted a perfect finger in the air towards the ceiling.

“Got it,” said Pain. “So, that clause is exclusively for Him.”

Gabriel grimaced and pointed his finger at the floor, saying, “And the Other One, who seems to delight in pushing the boundaries of that clause to the limits.”

“Interesting,” said Pain, filing away that information away for a later time.

“I have two expectations at this time,” said Gabriel. “I expect you both to clean up the mess you've created and then to promptly return to properly conducting your duties. I trust this is understood?”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir,” said Death.

Pain coughed into his hand. The cough remarkably sounded like, “Asshole.”

Gabriel found it beneath him to address this childish insult. Having completed his task he disappeared with one wide flap of his white wings. No air stirred in his wake and not one feather fell to the ground as he soared out of Pain and Death's room.

Pain scowled at Death.

“We're a little boned,” said Death.

“Nah,” said Pain dismissively. “Just pop down and waste that guy. Problem solved.”

“You really have no idea what I do, do you?” asked Death. “Like, anything beyond the basic details.”

“What? You take souls all the time.”

“We made a deal with him!”

“So? It was an empty deal.”

“If I make a deal with someone I have to honor it. No matter how stupid it is.”

“Seriously?”

“Them's the rules. I thought you knew that. It's why I don't play chess with humans anymore.”

“I'm still not seeing the problem here.”

“I agreed he wouldn't get taken unless he told someone about us or got caught by the authorities. Unless either of those condition arise I can't touch him.”

“You're just telling me this now?”

“You're just asking me now! Besides, I figured he would have gotten busted by the police by now.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Pain, waving his arms frantically. “We have, in effect, actually granted this psychopath immortality even though we didn't intend to?”

“Something a lot like that,” replied Death.

“Then I'll go find him and tear his heart out,” said Pain. “Problem solved. Again.”

“Yeah, that doesn't work either,” said Death. “No matter what, until he breaks the rules we set down he won't get his ticket punched to the hereafter. He's golden unless he talks or gets caught.”

Pain paced the room. Death sat down at the table.

“Okay,” said Pain. “I got a way out of this.”

* * *

Victor walked home, whistling the verse to a Barry Manilow song under his breath. He paused briefly at a trashcan and deposited a brown paper bag with a blood stained knife into the receptacle. He blew the concealed knife a kiss and continued down the street.

As he rounded the final corner that led to the townhouse he lived in, Victor stopped dead in his tracks. His home was surrounded by police cars and policemen. There had to be some policewomen too, he suspected. The entrance to his townhouse was roped off with yellow tape and a very small crowd had formed outside temporary, vinyl barrier.

Even from this distance Victor could see that the lights were on in his dwelling. Some indistinct figures wandered past the few windows that faced the direction of where he stood. These figures were obviously searching his apartment for evidence. They were touching and moving his carefully arranged furniture, snapping photographs of whatever they found.

Victor removed the nerd glasses from the breast pocket in his coat, adjusted them on his face and watched the activity in the window for a moment, an implacable expression on his face as he searched for agents from the Kwork dimension. He could see none in his immediate field of vision. He knew this didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t agents present. They likely were there somewhere, hiding from view, standing in the night shadows for protection. Kworkians were clever and very good at disguising themselves, after all. It wasn’t until they were opened up that their ultimate, true selves were revealed. They usually hid themselves in the pancreas, a highly overlooked organ that was susceptible to possession.

His curiosity satisfied, Victor removed the nerd glasses and returned them to the pocket he had taken them from. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, realizing that it was time to move on. There was nothing more he could do here.

Victor turned and began to nonchalantly walk away. As he passed under a streetlight it flickered off and on a few times before the bulb silently imploded, casting that portion of the street into sudden, murky shadow.

Victor seemed to disappear into the darkness.

* * *

“Have they caught him yet?” asked Death.

“Nope,” replied Pain.

A week had passed since Pain had made a telephone call to the authorities of Earth and alerted them to the exact location of the perpetrator of a score of open murder investigations. Pain also provided an accurate physical description of Victor and his methodology, giving details that weren’t publicly known so the authorities he spoke to would be convinced of their validity. Both Pain and Death presumed that even a marginally competent officer with physical disabilities would be able to capture Victor with the specifics they had provided. Much to their chagrin, they had been proven wrong.

“Where can he be?” asked Death, pacing the room. He glanced nervously at the television they had set up to watch Victor when his biorhythms indicated murderous intent. There had been no activity on the television since the night they had reported him.

“Have you checked Kwork yet?” asked Pain smugly.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” said Death.

“Look,” said Pain, slightly annoyed by Death’s nervous manner, “it doesn’t matter if the idiot is found right away or in twenty years. Eventually he’ll feel the compulsion to ‘save’ someone else. I mean, he’s a fanatic and fanatics are, at the very least, reliable in their obsessions. When that happens, we’ll get instantly alerted and we can alert the authorities on Earth again. It’s nothing to stress about.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right, old pal,” agreed Death after considering this for a moment. The odds of their pet psychopath not killing again were quite slim and when he did they would be able to react instantaneously.

“It’s just simple human nature,” said Pain, shrugging. “They are predictable morons. I’ll never understand why that awful biological mess of a species seems to have protected status from us higher beings.”

“There is a complexity to humanity neither of you have the cognitive capacity to comprehend,” remarked Gabriel as he entered Pain and Death’s room. “They have their place in the Framework. This is all you need to know and respect.”

“Just the entity I wanted to see,” said Pain as he stood up to address Gabriel. “We’ve taken care of that little problem you mentioned earlier. Everything is cool and back to normal.”

“You have proof to this effect?” asked Gabriel.

“Proof?” asked Pain and Death together.

“You didn’t expect me to accept your word that you had properly settled matters.”