Story: "Daredevil - Part 12 - The Unseen Menace"

Napoleon, a survivor from the Mutiny of the Bounty, and a demonic killer in the cobblestoned streets of Toulon, 1793.

This is Part 12 of the story.
If you haven't read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10  or Part 11 yet, please start there.

THE UNSEEN MENACE 

TOULON, NOVEMBER 1793

Lamb racing down the streets, searching, searching for Beatrice, searching out Zajac, as the darkness thickens, the fog swirls, and soft rain starts coming down, and he can’t help but think of another time in darkness, in fog, in rain. Back on the island of Tofoa, after the mutiny, Bligh having landed the launch there to resupply, and … the natives coming for them, hitting stones together. Clack. Clack. Clack-clack … Clack. Clack. Clack-clack … the rhythm menacing, growing louder, faster.

The sailors race towards the launch, push it off to sea, three of them in the launch, five of them pushing, the rest, eleven more men, storming down the beach, away from the natives, the natives with their spears, their sharpened stones, pelting the crew, and one by one the men join the others, pushing the launch, jumping in, and then the natives are on them, grabbing, pulling, and they turn and fight, they fight for their lives, and John Norton, the big quartermaster from Liverpool, the natives have him, pulling him by the calves, and Norton grabs Samuel’s leg, and he holds on, and Samuel feels himself being pulled, towards the natives, Norton dragged, Norton dragging Samuel to his doom, and Samuel … pulls his knife … jams it, point first, into Norton’s hand … Norton’s eyes widening, unbelieving, as he … lets go.

Samuel is up and into the launch, as Bligh cuts the line, as they make their final push, away from the beach. Norton, in the middle of the melee of natives.The natives pounding Norton’s skull with stones, pulling Norton’s trousers off. And that is the last he sees of Norton.

Later, miles away from land, huddled together in the launch, wide-eyed, they whisper the word to each other: cannibals.

And there is another memory. Frayed around the edges.

Cold, rain, bailing water, muscles cramping, their boat filling up, God nowhere, realizing God has abandoned them, and that old shanty running in his head, full of vile cursing, and he knows he is lost, and the shanty, those cursing words, turning those cursing words on God, cursing God, cursing God, cursing God.

Had he really cursed God?

And then there is an even deeper memory, one that hurts, like pressing on a wound, on a pus-filled swelling, a raw boil … the muttered words. His willing assent. The knife. His thigh. The stab. As blood flows out from the wound in his thigh, a dark power flows in, rises, takes over, fills him up with something so vast, so immense, far too large for him to contain it, something that stretches him, like a drum-skin, something that wants out.

He comes back from the watery memories, back to awareness.

Where am I?

In an alley.

With … Beatrice?

And he sees his own hands in front of him, the left pushing hard at her neck, pushing her up against the wall by her neck, the right with the large hunting knife, the tip of the knife at the throbbing pulse in her throat.

He is pushing her so hard up against the wall, hand clamped around her throat, that her tongue is protruding, her face red-blue, purple, her eyes rolled back.

She is breathing. Only just.

“Ooommmmyammmmoom.” His tongue moves in his mouth, but it is not him doing it. It’s as if someone else is moving his tongue, as if someone has grabbed it, from the inside, a million tiny fingers moving every small muscle, now his lips. “Oooommmalooomlayammla. Ah. Oh. There. Ah. Yes. There we go. There it is. Hah hah hah hah hah hah.” The voice is his own, yet not his own, deeper, thicker, slower. “You hear me? You hear me, little Lamb?”

His own voice, and yet not his, speaking. Speaking to … himself … to ‘Lamb’.

“Oh, yes, little Lamb, I feel you there.” His own voice is wringing the words past his tongue, someone else in control. “Hah hah hah. Your awareness is like the smallest, flickering flame, not even a candle, a small firefly, in the corner of this vast soul, this temple meant for the Holy Spirit of God to call his home, this immense interior castle I now share with you, that I now own. But I can feel you there. You’re watching, aren’t you? Finally, now you know. Well, maybe not quite yet, but that’s because deep down you don’t want to know. Little Lamb, it was you. It was you, all along. Actually, it was … me. I have been here, within you, all along, here in Toulon. I, Asmodeus. I, demon of lusts, spirit of envy, bringer of vile revenge. I, devourer of souls.”

Helpless, Lamb watches his own hand squeeze tighter around poor Beatrice’s throat, the tip of the knife pressing into her skin, drawing a bead of blood.

I am lost. My soul is lost for all eternity. Lost to this … foul … evil spirit. I invited this … demon .. in, by cursing God, by living a life turned away from God, focused on myself. I have been the unseen menace, unseen even to myself, all along. These hands. These hands killed Esperanza, killed Destine, killed Antoinette. Antoinette my love.

And now Beatrice.

The knife bites into her, deeper.

Out of the dark, a shape comes crashing into Lamb, with a force that would have knocked him down, but now, with Asmodeus in full control of his body —

— Lamb does feels the pain from the body-blow, but he also feels the instant inhuman stiffening of joints and tensing of muscle, Asmodeus making Lamb’s body into something like a wall, rock hard, for just the fraction of the blink of an eye it takes to completely resists and repel the attack.

Lamb feels his right hand — his knife-hand — drop the knife, shoot out, grab the assailant by the throat, lift him up, a feat of inhuman speed and strength.

It is Peter Skinner, held at stiff arm, above Lamb’s head, Peter’s feet dangling an arm-length off the ground. All the while, Asmodeus never lets go of Lamb’s hold on Beatrice with his left hand.

With Lamb’s right hand clamped around Peter’s throat, crushing Skinner’s windpipe — as Skinner grimaces, face turning red with spots of blueish-purple — Peter manages to push out a few words, using up the last remnants of oxygen in his lungs.

“It was you. You! Damn you, Lamb!”

“Oh, Lamb is already quite damned, without your cursing,” Asmodeus says, tone calm and conversational. He pulls Skinner closer until they are eye-to-eye, Peter’s haunted, dark-circled eyes. “Say hello to your friend, Fletcher Christian, when you see him in hell.”

Brutally fast, like a wild animal, a carnivore, a big cat, a lion, Asmodeus goes for the throat, sinks Lamb’s teeth in deep — Lamb can taste the blood welling into his mouth — rips, tears.

Asmodeus lets go of the grip. Skinner’s body drops to the ground, his lips moving, blood-bubbles, but not a sound, as he bleeds out from the wound in his throat, his eyes going wide-dark as his spirit is snuffed out.

Asmodeus slides the back of Lamb’s hand across Lamb’s lips, wiping Skinner’s blood off Lamb’s mouth.

“Well, that just sharpened the appetite, my dear.” He bends down, picks up the knife, all the while maintaining his choke-hold on Beatrice, then turns his attention back to her. “So, where were we? Oh, yes.” Tip of the blade against her throat again. “Time to unwrap my present.”

“Stop!”

The voice comes from behind him, and Lamb feels his own head swivel on his neck, his own torso rotating on his waist, again without his will, that uncanny sense that he is being … moved … from within.

It is Christiane.

“Ah hah hah hahahahahah. The beloved sister.”

Lamb feels his own diaphragm contracting, expelling the laughter, his own tongue and lips moving, forming the words.

Christiane steps out of the shadows, her tall, slender shape, her emerald eyes, her flame-red hair. Lamb feels his own tongue snake out, run over his lips. Asmodeus is licking his chops. That is: licking Lamb’s chops.

“Oh, yes. My dear. My dearest dear, my sweet morsel, my poppet, my pigsny. You, sweet sister, you are … a dish.”

Christiane reaches around her neck, grabs hold of the long silver chain, holds up her crucifix, warding him off.

“Ah hah hah hah. Hahahahahahaha.”

Lamb feels his own head tipping back on his neck, mouth wide open, as the demon laughs and laughs and laughs.

Lamb’s head snaps back to level again, eyes focusing on hers.

“Do you really think that piece of silver, those two crossed sticks, that amulet, works some kind of magic?”

“Let her go, fiend.”

The hand clamped around Beatrice’s throat tightens its grip. Beatrice moans, her eyes fluttering.

“I don’t think so, sweet sister Christiane. She’s mine.”

“Take me. Take me instead.” Christiane steps forward, steps next to her sister, looks directly into his eyes. “I am ready.”

Lamb feels his grip loosening, ever so slightly, giving Beatrice a little room to breathe. She gasps, greedy for air, eyes fluttering open, focusing, widening, mouth opening —

The tip of the knife on Beatrice’s lip.

“Shhhhhh,” Asmodeus murmurs. “Shhhh, quiet now, quiet, beautiful Beatrice, or I will cut off your sultry whore lips, cut out your lying whore tongue, pluck out your lusting whore eyes, slice off your pricked-up whore ears.”

Beatrice shuts her lips, to show that she understands. Her eyes fill up.

Turning Lamb’s head, focusing Lamb’s eyes on Christiane, moving Lamb’s lips and tongue, Asmodeus speaks, voice dry, businesslike, in the tone of a merchant, stating the parameters of the deal:

“Your life for hers. Willingly. A life for a life. A soul for a soul. But willingly. That’s worth something to me. For you, my dear, I could not have any other way. You I cannot take.”

“I know.”

“You know. I do believe you do. You are pure of heart. You have His Spirit. You are full of … oh, loathsome, loathsome … full of Grace. And you will empty yourself, submit yourself, take everything she has earned, everything she so … richly … deserves?”

“I will.”

“You will … what?”

“I offer you, of my own free will, my life for my sister’s life.”

“And … your body.”

“My body for my sister’s body.”

“And … your blood.”

“My blood for my sister’s blood.”

His hand is still around Beatrice’s throat.

“I know I should leave it at that. When you close the sale, stop talking, right? ABC. Always. Be. Closing. But I just gotta know, sis. Why?”

“She’s my sister. I love her.”

“She’s useless.”

“I love her.”

“Worse than useless. I know all about her. She stole from your parents, took everything they had in the world, left them destitute. They died penniless, poor.”

“I love her.”

“She took your man, seduced him, took him from you. Brought him to ruin. Drove him to his death.”

“I love her.”

“She killed her own child, the child she had with him, your man. She strangled that child in the crib.”

“I love her.”

“How? How can you love her? She does not deserve your love.”

“You are right. She does not deserve my love. I give it freely. I give her my love. She is my sister. I love her.”

Asmodeus takes his hand, Lamb’s hand, off Beatrice’s throat then, turns his head, Lamb’s head, to face Beatrice, fastens his eyes, Lamb’s eyes, on Beatrice’s.

“Go. Go. Begone, Beatrice. Christiane has set you free. Your sister has bought your useless life, your useless soul, your useless …” running Lamb’s hand over her shape, a hard, utterly loveless, caress “… body. She has bought you, paid for you. Now go. You are free. I can never touch you again.”

Beatrice gives one long glance at her sister, turns, runs away, heels clacking on wet cobblestones.

Asmodeus turns back to his task, lips curling up in a private smile, a private amusement, as, in a sing-song, tuneless voice, he intones it as a chant, a shanty, both words and melody unfamiliar to Lamb:

“Sister Christiane, oh, your time has come. And you know that you’re the only one … to say … Okay …”

— END PART 12 - TO BE CONTINUED —

Click here to go to Part 13 of the story.