[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/0pLJ5Hp.png[/img][/center][indent][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4897941][color=fff200][sub][b]THE BOOK OF FATE[/b][/sub][/color][/url][sup][right][color=fff200][b]Issue #4: DINNER BELL[/b][/color][/right][/sup][/indent][hr][indent][color=fff200][sub][b]Viceroy City Police Department [color=1E90FF]♦[/color] Viceroy City, South Carolina[/b][/sub][/color][sup][right][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUtAWeSK28g][color=fff200]Music: Devour[/color][/url][/right][/sup][/indent]
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They say the streets of Heaven are paved with gold and the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Kent had spent enough time in both to know that only one of those was true, but at least Heaven and Hell kept their roads in working order- he couldn't say the same about Viceroy City. 

Traversing the cracked and uneven ground was difficult work for the aging sorcerer. Tired bones cried out in anguish with every laborious stride, demanding that their owner stop every few minutes to rest lest they turn to dust within that very moment. Nelson had developed the nasty habit of ignoring his body's protests back when he was practically immortal. Magic could keep the man going for months on end without so much as a bite of bread or a sip of winter back then. It was when he felt his legs nearly give out from underneath him that Kent was reminded that those days were over.

"I need a moment." He rasped, tugging on the sleeve of Corrigan's jacket to get his attention.

The part-time hard boiled detective, part-time existential agent of divine judgement stopped in his tracks and gave an exaggerated groan. "Course ya do, old man, course ya do. Not like we're on a schedule here anyway; what's the rush? The destruction'o balance in the known universe? The death of all things good n' holy?" Jimmy snorted. It was difficult to tell whether his annoyance was genuine or simply being played up for a joke.

Kent wasn't sure it mattered either way- he was right. "Just- give me a second, alright?" 

Corrigan simply shrugged. It was one of the rare times he didn't have anything left to say.

Their newest companion wasn't having any of it, however. Mitchell Shelly stepped around the two suit-wearing titans of the magical world, spinning around on his sandal-covered heel to face both of them. The so-called 'Resurrection Man' looked absolutely ridiculous standing beside them in a pilfered police academy polo and a pair of cargo shorts a size too big for his thin frame. "Let's just go ahead without him, we're wastin' time!"

Jim shot a glare in Mitch's direction. "How 'bout you go fight that thing again without us n' see how long ya last, ya damn hippy. I'm sure you'll get 'im, 'cause as they say, the hundredth time's the charm, right?" He finished, spitting a glob of mucus onto the asphalt.

"What do we even need him for?" Shelly scoffed. "I mean, no offense mister, but if you're really the Spectre I don't see how he'll be any help to a guy like you. You're, like, the angel of death!"

"Not quite, that's another fella," Corrigan corrected, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it on the embers of his previous one. "N' this here old coot is Kent [i]motherfuckin'[/i] Nelson, so have a little respect."

Mitch just blinked. "Who?"

Corrigan scrunched up his face in disbelief. A second before he could go off on one of his patented tangents Kent pulled himself up and stepped between the two, eyeing neither of his companions as he started forward. "Enough lolly-gagging, we've got a job to do." They didn't have time for any of this petty mundanity. He could feel the darkness growing stronger with each step forward he took; it made it easy to tell that they were getting close.

That and the giant sign that spelled out 'Welcome to Walmart' in obnoxiously bright letters.

The parking lot stretched out in front of the gaggle of magicians like an endless sea of metal and stone. More than a dozen abandoned cars occupied the space despite the fact that the store beyond it had been closed down for quite some time. Some of the vehicles looked to have been there for only a few hours- others were rusted out hunks on the verge of collapsing under their own, ancient weight.

"How long do ya figure this place has been out of commission?" Jim wondered aloud, eyeing the lot with equal amounts of curiosity and suspicion.

"I remember the closing day sale from fifteen years back. Didn't think there were so many people left in this town till I saw 'em tearing into that place like a stampede of wildebeests." Mitch said with a shake of his head. "Damn shame, too. Their beer was killer."

"Walmart's beer was killer." Jim repeated. "Now I know yer madder than a hatter."

"Do you two smell that?" Kent interrupted, taking in a deep, uncomfortable whiff of the lot's air.

The other two did the same, though Corrigan's nostrils were too trapped up with smoke for him to smell much of anything.

"Smells like shit. Literally." Shelly answered, waving a hand in front of his nose. "Probably some of it in that bush over there. What's it matter?"

Nelson stooped to the ground. It was a slow and arduous affair, and his knees threatened to pop the moment they touched the asphalt, but he was able to get it done. He ran two fingers across the broken, black surface, and found both of his digits to be smeared in ash and sulfur. "Steady on, gentlemen. We aren't the only ones to tread this ground."

"No kiddin', Sherlock," Jim moved passed both Mitchell and Kent at a brisk pace, one hand shoved deep in the pocket of his emerald coat and the other waving through the air in rhythm with his speech. "We're here 'ta kill a demon. Turns out there's a demon here. Real groundbreakin' work, ol' boy, well done."

The old man rose back up to his feet with a little help from Shelly and the two started forward, far more cautious than their lippy companion. "Your friend's kinda off his rocker, pardon my sayin'." Mitch muttered to Kent.

Nelson gave a reluctant nod. "I wouldn't disagree, but I've seen him punch a hole through an eldritch horror the size of Mount Olympus so I'm inclined tolerate him. Bad habits and all."

"Y'know I can hear you two, right?"

"I'm aware."

Their journey continued on for a few, quiet minutes, accompanied only by the sound of ash beneath their shoes and Kent's labored breathing. The odor of burning wood only grew more and more noticeable as they drew closer to the looming, decaying building before them. It was as if the scent had been baked into the very bricks and foundation of the thing, yet as far as Kent could see there was no sign of actual fire damage anywhere. Just the signs of dilapidation that came with a lack of upkeep over more than a decade and a half's time.

Corrigan traveled several meters ahead of his two other partners, his pace brisk and seemingly unconcerned with threats of demonic and otherworldly pyre. It was far from the first monstrosity from beyond the vale that he'd be confronting, and God willing it wasn't close to the last, either. Fear wasn't something Jim really acknowledged anymore- not unless he was installing it into someone else.

Mitchell, meanwhile, was just about ready to leap out of his sandals and into the frail arms of this 'Kent Nelson' character that he was walking with. His memories from the last time he stood in that same lot were fractured and incomplete, probably left behind in whatever brain matter had been scattered on the ground somewhere not far from there. But he remembered how it made him feel. Whatever he fought had made his skin crawl and his teeth chatter, and he wasn't precisely looking forward to feeling that way again.

If Nelson had any qualms about entering the feeding ground of a demonic predator, he didn't show it. His resolve was as right as iron and his expression unflinching, even as his senses were overwhelmed by the stench of unseen fire and smoke. He'd walked among countless graveyard worlds. Seen the beating, black heart of Hell itself. Dueled every manner of dark sorcerer and twisted, fetid thing that the universe could throw at him. This was nothing but routine for Doctor Fate.

But he wasn't really Doctor Fate without Nabu and the helmet, was he?

He was just an old man that knew a couple of parlor tricks, and desperately needed to find somewhere to sit down.

No, seriously.

He [i]really[/i] needed to sit.

It was getting-

Corrigan had crossed the threshold. It wasn't a visible thing, and even the most trained of eyes could barely make out this sort of magic. That was the subtle terror of it- this carefully laid trap was no one could see coming.

Kent's legs gave out. He hit the ground like a bag of rocks. 

Around him he could see things had changed. There was a haze in the air, heavy and crimson, like a California wildfire was raging just out of sight. And that terrible stench had reached it's crescendo, and now Nelson could scarcely draw a breath without ending it in a sputtering cough.

There was an ever-so brief moment where he thought it was just his body giving out on him- perhaps his mind, too, to assault him with such sudden images- but not a second later he felt an enormous pressure pressing down on his shoulders; it was like Satan was reaching down from on-high to shove him into the dirt, doing his best impression of a two-bit schoolyard bully. Kent gritted his teeth together and tried to force the issue, pushing back against the unseen hand, but it only seemed to grow stronger as he tried to resist it.

"Mister, you okay?" Mitch asked, concern laced in his words as he reached down to grab at Kent's arm. He couldn't see the haze like Kent could, too disconnected from the matters of magic to be able to tell that anything had changed about that place. It was still just some abandoned parking lot, save for the unshakable feeling of dread in the air.

Corrigan whipped around in a sudden frenzy, throwing a hand out in Mitchell's direction. "[b]Wait[/b], don't touch-"

It was too late. Jim hadn't so much as finished before Shelly wrapped his fingers underneath Nelson's arm and he found himself dragged down to the ground alongside Kent. He could finally taste the sulfur in the air and see the pyre in the sky. And to make matters worse he couldn't even let go of the old man's arm- the two may have been conjoined together at birth with how tightly this otherworldly magic had bound them together.

"God...damn it." Mitch grumbled, doing the best he could to ignore the fact that Wall-Mart had just turned into a desolate hellscape- more than it usually was, at any rate. "What in the hell's going on here?!"

"This was a trap." Kent muttered. "And we walked right into it."

[center][i]"Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly,
And that awful pain you shan't long abide by."[/i][/center]

A voice as soft as silk but sharp and gruff as jagged teeth called out from every direction. It echoed with a familiar strangeness within every crack and crevice yet seemed to have no clear origin point.

Kent snapped his eyes shut and began to mutter in a long-dead tongue, his words pouring out what little power lived within his breast. He could feel the gnawing presence of chaos within every facet of his being. It was invading through his every pore and digging into the fabric of his very soul, choking out the light of Order that had been ingrained within him for centuries. He'd faced down demonic powers before-

But it had been quite a long time since he'd met one with [i]this[/i] kind of power.

And it just had to happen on the same day his connection with Nabu had been shredded like yesterday's Newspaper, leaving ol' Kent weaker than he'd ever been before.

[center][i]"Living such a state of mire,
Why not be taken, instead, by my hellfire?"[/i][/center]

"Ah, hell." Corrigan breathed, staring at his doubled-over comrades in arms. He realized all too late that it would've been prudent to make sure he wasn't going to trip any alarm bells on his way in. Barging through like a bull in a china shop worked when he was alone, sure- after all, there wasn't anyone in this world or the next he was afraid of- but he'd forgotten just how fragile mortal flesh tended to be. Even the mortal flesh of titans of magic like a certain, elderly man that was having trouble standing up.

"This is gonna be a long night."

There was a sputter of embers on the ground between where Kent had fallen and where Jim was standing, blocking the two from one another. It quickly sprouted like a tree into a small fire that danced and twisted until it had grown into a raging inferno and rapidly started stretching out across the parking lot like an incandescent wall. A shape, a shadow black as midnight, stalked within the bounds of the fire. It seemed to follow the growing wave until it found itself lurching above a single form:

Mitchell Shelly.

The hometown hero froze where he kneeled, keenly aware that there was a presence looming over him. He tugged on the sleeve of Kent's jacket, silently urging the supposedly famed magician to do something about the monster that was about to eat his eternal soul like it was momma's home-cooked dinner.

Unfortunately Nelson seemed all too invested in whatever mumbo-jumbo he was spouting to do anything about it, leaving Mitch both frozen where he sat and frighteningly alone.

The voice continued, Loud as thunder and soft as a mouse's whisper in equal measure, snarling and giggling out it's mocking rhymes. It was projecting almost entirely from the shadow now, it's malignant tone for all the world to hear.

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"Free the prince forever damned.

Free the might from fleshy mire-"[/i]

A grotesque fist shot forth from the shadow trapped in the flames, wrapping a clawed hand around Mitch's skull. It was gargantuan, covered in thick, overlapping scales of a dull, fleshy sort of color. The man went quiet, his mouth agape in abject terror as he stared ahead between the spires of flame at the watching form of the Spectre. 

Corrigan didn't move, his hands still stuck firmly in his pockets and that cigarette of his still resting between his teeth.

[i]"Boil the blood in heart of fire.

Gone, gone ye form of man-"[/i]

The fist closed around Shelly's head, collapsing it as easily as a man might break an egg. It was a rather messy affair.

[i]"Rise the demon..."[/i]

[img]https://thecomicvault.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/etrigan-the-demon.jpg?w=1200[/img]


[h2][b]"ETRIGAN!"[/b][/h2][/center]


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