Chapter Text
Bass-line heavy, mesmerizing house dance music throbbed in the sultry micro-particulate haze that masqueraded as breathable atmosphere confined by the walls of the establishment frequented by some of the more notorious denizens of Pentagram City who writhed suggestively with each other on the multi-hued stroboscopic-paneled dance floor, or sat at tables or in semi-secluded booths conducting any and all manner of private negotiations for any and all manner of goods or services while indulging in any number of alcoholic or pharmaceutical concoctions.
The club was considerably less populated than it usually was, given a follow-up slaughter to the annual genocide by Heaven’s ‘divine’ Exterminators had just occurred only days ago, and many of the Pride Ring’s inhabitants were either double-dead, missing, or still in hiding.
Especially since the extermination had been almost successfully repelled by a resistance led by the daughter of Lucifer Morningstar, and involving the efforts of the Overlord Alastor, the Radio Demon who had almost perished, and the double-death, redemption, and surprise ascension of the notorious sinner Sir Pentious, inventor and overlord wanna-be.
Index finger of her right hand idly tracing the rim of a still filled shot glass a handspan away from five of its empty and upturned kin, the scarlet-eyed cyclopian anarchist and explosives aficionado Cherri Bomb stared morosely into the amber-shaded shallow depths, cheek propped up on the ebony bar by her closed left fist, numbed by cheap scotch and grief.
Pentious had spent the last few weeks before the additional genocide clumsily, laughably attempting to flirt with her, only to confess his true feelings at the last possible moment, then racing off to perish at the hands of that angelic asshole Adam in a doomed and desperate forlorn hope full-frontal assault in his ridiculous Victorian fantasy steampunk airship.
Cherri wistfully almost half smiled at the memory of Pentious’ impulsive passionate kiss in the midst of the heat of battle with one of her improvised explosives providing fireworks in the background, subtly wiping away a threatened tear with the back of her thumb.
Sinners died all the time. New ones took their place. Hell went on, eternal.
Movement at her left as someone sat on the stool beside Cherri. “Fuck off. ‘M not in the mood for company.”
“Fair enough”, the intruder replied, motioning to the infernal bartender, an attractive succubus with waist-length white hair. “Two shots of Dram if you have it, Glenfiddich if you don’t. Crown as a last resort”, they ordered.
Cherri flicked a glance at the person beside her. Blinked in astonishment.
It, they, no, he had to be a new arrival, or at least very recent, maybe even less than a week. Still very human in appearance. Human in dress, wearing a dark, caped Australian drovers coat over a slate grey shirt, black twill combat pants, well-worn and stained work boots, close-cropped dark hair under a wide-brimmed waxed-cotton bush hat that shaded eyes glowing crimson set in amber, and a corpse-pale complexion. Oddly he wore only one black leather glove, concealing his right hand.
Something was off about this newcomer. Too calm, almost detached from the situation. Most new arrivals tried too hard to impress or intimidate, collapsed in denial, demanded to see someone, some-thing in authority, or most frequently quickly ended up trapped and enslaved in a contract to a more opportunistic sinner or Hellborn demon.
Cherri lifted her shot. “What got ye sent down?” Cautious inquiry. She didn’t like not knowing where she stood in a situation, especially in the aftermath of an incredibly contentious turf battle waged over Sir Pentious’ territory in the wake of the blunted extermination.
The newly arrived sinner threw back his first shot, grimaced. “Rude. You don’t ask why someone was sent to the slam. Bad form.”
Cherri scoffed. “Ye dodged the question, mate.”
“You’re really gonna go there…”
“Girl has to know if she can turn her back on a fella…”, Cherri smiled, revealing her shark-toothed grin in challenge, raising her shot glass in mocking salute.
The newcomer pounded back his second shot. His deadpan reply caught Cherri in mid sip.
“Tax evasion.”
Cheap scotch spewed from Cherri’s lips, propelled by violent coughs that shook her pale shoulders, leaving her gasping. “Asshole!”, she rasped, leaning heavily against the edge of the bar, previous shot glasses scattered and spinning.
Three fingers of his right hand lifted in silent request to the bartender, one shot pushed along the bar in Cherri’s direction when the newcomer was served. “Waste not, want not.”
The buxom one-eyed denizen of Hell squinted at the interloper. She couldn’t get a read on him. “Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with!?”
A shrug in reply. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“I’m fucking Cherri Bomb!”, she snarled, rising from her bar stool.
“Charmed.” He raised his third shot in an introductory toast with a polite nod. “Sláinte.”
Cherri sat with a thump, blinking. He wasn’t mocking her. And he wasn’t afraid of her.
“The fuck is with you, man?”
He sighed, eyes closed for a moment, introspective. “Culture shock mostly. Once I have a chance to settle down and get my bearings, I plan to have a proper full-blown panic attack.”
“You seem pretty damned sure you’re going to last that long”, Cherri scoffed before tossing back her free drink. “Especially if you can’t pay your tab. This dump’s owner can literally take it out of your hide if you don’t pay up.”
The newcomer leaned slightly to his left, slipping his gloved right hand in his right front pants pocket to retrieve a thick folded stack of bills, casually peeling off a hundred soul note and sliding it across the bar to their server. “Keep the change.”
Cherri’s defensive demeanor visibly brightened when she saw the wad of cash, noting her new drinking buddy quickly re-pocketing his funds.
“Before you go doing something neither of us will enjoy, ask yourself why the previous owner of all that lovely lucre no longer needs it”, the stranger advised, quietly serious.
The curvaceous hellion was about to reply, but a casually familiar hand on her shoulder distracted her.
“This asshole botherin’ you, baby?”
A quick glance behind herself confirmed who the speaker was. “Angel!!”, Cherri cried in delight. “Nah. Fresh meat here is being right respectful. Even bought me a round!”
The pale spider demon looked the new arrival over skeptically, from head to toe. “Got a name, new boy?”, gold fang glinting as they smiled nastily
.
The dark stranger calmly sipped his last shot, his back to Cherri’s friend. “Outis.”
Angel Dust’s mismatched amber and ebony eyes narrowed in suspicion, jaw clenched, slender fingers of four hands tightening into fists. “You disrespecting me?”
“Not at all”, the newcomer, Outis, replied unperturbed. “The lady seems to know you, so you’re no threat. I haven’t insulted or offended her, or you, so I’m not a threat. Sit down and have a drink, if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, let me indulge in mine, alright?” He still hadn’t moved to face Cherri’s companion in vice.
“Heh”, Angel chuckled, faintly impressed, stroking their chin with the fingers of one right hand, three other hands on their narrow hips. “Ballsy little fucker, ain’tcha?”
Outis set down his drink, and held the thumb and middle finger of his right hand spread as far apart as he could manage, visually suggesting a size. “Brass ones. ‘Bout that big.” Again utterly deadpan.
“Holy shit, Otis!”, Cherri brayed, scandalized, flicking a thumb over her shoulder at her towering friend. “It’s not everyone who can shut Angel up without stickin’ a dick in his mouth.”
“Never on the first date”, Outis smirked.
Angel Dust ’hmmphed’ indignantly, upper arms crossed, lower arms hands on hips, dropping heavily onto the stool to Cherri’s right, leaning back against the bar, kicking his long slender legs out before crossing them at the ankle. Pouting. “You couldn’t afford me, new blood.”
Outis tch-ed, snapping the fingers of his gloved right hand in playful mock disappointment. “Well, damn if that hasn’t just ruined my weekend plans”, he smirked.
Cherri and Angel both snickered in appreciation of the newcomer’s display of self-confidence verging on theatrical bravado.
“Too bad you weren’t around a week ago”, Angel mused. “Could’a used someone with your guts helping us fight off those angelic assholes.”
Outis nodded. “I thought the local urban renewal project looked a little heavy-handed.”
“Yeah, well, if ya need a job or a place ta stay, drag yourself out to the Happy Hotel”, Angel suggested. “I’m sure our local perky princess can set’cha up with both. But mind the dust. We’re still kinda…renovating.”
Outis nodded. “I know which end of a hammer is which.”
“Charlie can use the hel – Oh, shit…”, Angel trailed off. Cherri turned to look over her pale shoulder to discover the cause of her friend’s sudden apprehension.
Valentino. Notorious sinner Overlord and owner of the cheap bar along with a host of other vice dens, strutting into the establishment in all his extravagant red ermine fur-trimmed and top hatted pimp lifestyle glory, escorted by two taller than average muscular and white-maned business-suit wearing imp bodyguards.
“Whassup, baby?”, Valentino purred at Angel, ebony cigarette holder bobbing as he spoke. “Why aren’t you makin’ me money?”
A long weary sigh from the slender spider demon. “Because I just finished a sixteen hour shift and even I need to get some sleep.”
“You sleep where, when, and with who I tell you to, bitch”, Valentino sneered, light glinting off the gold wire frames of his cerise heart-lensed spectacles.
Cherri gripped the wooden lip of the bar countertop, cyclopian eye darting from Angel to Outis, noting the newcomer quietly observing the Overlord in the mirror behind the bar, heard the scrape of stool leg on floor as Outis pushed back just enough to start rising, and shook her ponytailed head in silent warning. Don’t.
“Where you goin’, hmm?”, the lavender-skinned moth demon inquired.
“Anywhere not here”, Outis replied, gauging the situation, evaluating his chances.
Valentino pouted in mock rejection. “Aww…”, he whined, “my hospitality not good enough for you?”
“Need my beauty sleep”, the newcomer shrugged. “Maybe you could too from the sound of it.”
Cherri slapped a hand over her mouth at the audacity as Angel choked a snicker, Valentino bristling at the perceived slight.
Throwing his scarlet wing-cloak behind his angular shoulders to expose a fitted black double-breasted jacket, Valentino made a show of drawing a long-barreled vermillion and gold revolver from his shoulder holster. “Lemme tell you what”, he purred in offer. “You get past ‘Moneyshot’, I better never see you again. Sound fair?”
Outis angled across the scuffed floor, walking to within a handful of paces before the towering Overlord, deliberately positioning himself to ensure no innocent bystanders would be endangered by a stray bullet. “Holster that piece to make it a fair contest.”
“Alright”, Valentino sneered, shaking out his arms and hands in readiness after returning ’Moneyshot’ to its holster.
“Your move”, Outis nodded.
The instant Valentino’s hand twitched toward his piece, Outis flicked his left wrist, a length of barbed and faceted rectangular-linked black chromite chain flashed out to wrap tightly around the Overlord’s right knee, the Gothic angular hook biting into the sinner’s lean flesh, eliciting a shriek as his opponent yanked him forward, off balance as Outis bounded forward a step, quick hop on his left foot, Valentino howling as the steel-capped toe of the right boot struck him in the genitals, driven by a snapping front kick before a stone hard black leather gloved fist smashed into his jaw in a brutal descending right cross that sent the Overlord crashing to the floor, a thunderclap shattering the left curled ram’s horn of one of the two bodyguards.
Greasy blue-tinged gunsmoke drooled and looped towards the club’s ceiling from the cavernous muzzle of the hand cannon gripped in Outis’ right fist, the bitter stinging stink of sulphur tainting the air. The distinct double ‘click’ as he thumbed the hammer back to full cock echoed in the suddenly silent establishment.
“Now, I’m not a great shot, but Sammy here uses really big bullets”, Outis informed the shocked guardians as the titanic break-action revolver now dangled straight down to point at their employer’s torso, “but at this range there’s no way I can miss.”
A silent pause before Outis continued. “Now, using two fingers, place your hoglegs on the floor, then stand up and shove them towards me.”
Silent, Valentino’s bodyguards complied with the order, no sudden moves, keeping their hands visible the entire time.
Outis nodded at the door. “Git.”
The bodyguards scrambled to obey as Outis used the toe of his boot to roll Valentino on his back, then knelt over their fallen employer, squatting on his heels.
“Oo ‘roke ‘y ‘aw…”, Valentino whined pitifully.
Outis closed his left hand into a loose fist, the chain ratcheting tighter around the Overlord’s knee, causing Valentino to take a sudden hissing breath in pain. “You hush and don’t dare move a fucking muscle or I‘ll break more than your jaw”, the renegade quietly advised before addressing the entire bar. “Anyone know if Mothra here carries anything more than his pistol?”
Another silent pause before a hesitant voice spoke up from behind the bar. “Mr. Valentino usually has a blade on him somewhere.”
Transferring the huge pistol to his left hand, Outis quickly searched Valentino, fingers of his right hand dipping under the Overlord’s jacket lapels, retrieving ‘Moneyshot’. “Behave yourself, Moth Man. My left hand trigger discipline isn’t as reliable”, spoken as he flipped the weapon to catch it by the elongated barrel before casually lob it back over his shoulder in the direction of the bar without looking, Angel Dust scrambling to catch the demonic firearm before depositing it on the bartop and sliding it spinning and skittering down the slick surface as far away as possible out of reach from anyone.
Continuing his search of Valentino, Outis chuckled as he withdrew his right hand from the fallen Overlord’s blazer, a slender palm-length folding knife handle held between thumb and fingers, pressing the release, the narrow false edge spear-point stiletto blade snapping open, golden highlights glinting off the silver-white steel edges.
Slipping the needle tip of the stilleto under the bridge of Valentino’s heart-lensed spectacles, Outis flicked them off the Overlord’s face skittering across the floor, leaning closer, the tip pressing a shallow dimple into the tissue beneath his left eye.
“You said if I got past your pop-gun you never wanted to see me again”, Outis quietly reminded Valentino. “That can easily be arranged…”
Valentino whimpered.
Outis continued, speaking conversationally. “We’re going to come to an agreement, right here, right now. Nod if you understand.”
Valentino hesitated, and a miniscule bead of dark blood welled up on the razor-sharp blade tip. “I’m not going to ask again”, Outis hissed. A quick nod as Valentino risked agreement.
“First, you will not retaliate against me, or anyone here who was a witness to what happened, in any manner. Ever.”
“Second, when I stand up and leave, you will not move a fucking muscle. You will remain right where you are, eyes closed and counting out loud to one hundred starting from when you hear the door close. Move before then and you lose the leg.”
“Third, I’m keeping your pig-sticker”, Outis announced as he stood, folding and pocketing the blade before holstering his bulky revolver beneath the drover coat as it flicked aside without being touched.
Turning on his heel, Outis strode away from the fallen Overlord toward the back door, shimmering black chromite chain spooling out behind him onto the floor from his left sleeve, tipping his hat politely as he departed. “Miz Bomb, Mister Angel.”
Still seated at the bar, Cherri half-waved in stunned reply, while Angel Dust blinked, not completely comprehending what had just happened.
The bartender hesitated, taking a quick glance at the supine Overlord on the floor, then the two notorious patrons, expression quickly going from trepidation to determination as the renegade passed the bar heading for the rear storage and service exit. One step, then another, following the stranger, stepping over the trailing chain.
*-*-*-*-*
Before the solid service door leading into the alley swung closed behind him, Outis wriggle-flicked his left wrist, the black chromite chain rattling along the floor and paving, retracting back up into the sleeve of his drovers coat with a sibilant hiss.
“Um, excuse me? Hello?”, the bartender called to Outis, who glanced back over his shoulder.
“Something I can do for you?”
The bartender pulled a pair of lavender-tinted hippie glasses from her white shirt breast pocket, stripped off the long white wig she had been wearing, exposing vibrant copper red hair that bobbed in soft waves. A tug of her fingers released the black satin bow tie around her throat, then the shirt was quickly unbuttoned, removed and tossed aside, slender arms and delicate batwings stretching elegantly with a sybaritic sigh of relief.
“I just walked out on working for slave wages for that roufiános, and you seem to know how to protect yourself, because he will come after me”, she explained, unzipping and stepping out of her service uniform midnight-black pencil skirt, casting it aside to join the discarded shirt. “I guess what I’m asking is, can I come with you? Because things are going to hot around here in a hurry.”
Outis smirked, snapping his right arm up to launch a snaking length of black chromite chain that bit into the wall high above on a building across the alley, yanking him aloft, drovers coat fluttering like great leathern wings, swinging away in alternating pendulum arcs.
“Keep up!”, he called to his new companion.
Laughing, the bartender took to the sky in pursuit.