James Everet was not what one would call a fearless person. In fact, most people would consider him down right cowardly. This became all the more obvious, at least to himself, as he struggled to keep his limbs from shaking as he was escorted by the four thugs surrounding him through the massive cemetery. While James may have been rather cowardly, he wasn’t exactly dim-witted, a fact that had severed him quite well over his almost two decades of life; he knew that if he tried to run then he would simply be shot in the back. So he continued walking, no matter how badly he wished to be elsewhere, hoping against hope that he might be able to find a way out of his current predicament.
And what a rather dire predicament it was. James recognized the red and gray colors of the bandana the leader of the small group of thugs wore, and it filled him with dread. These people were part of El Diablo Muerte, the local street that had been on the rise in the Houston area. They were notorious for their brutality, and their fondness for killing. A fact that James knew only all too well.
If there was one thing James felt towards them more strongly than fear, it was hate. A deep festering, burning, seething hate that had been smoldering for many months now, filling his mind and raging unrequited. Such a feeling was rather justified, James felt, considering the fact that El Diablo Muerte had killed his little brother.
Joshua Everet was only six years old when he died. He had been in James’s care for quite some time, ever since their mother died of an overdose some years earlier, and neither of their fathers had ever been in the picture in the first place. They’d been walking home from Joshua’s school not long after it had let out, James’s having arrived to escort him. They were on their own street, not even a hundred yards from their house when the car drove by and the gunshots rang out. The police reports afterward state that they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the shooter not aiming for them but instead the house they had been standing in front of, a known location for producing meth. That didn’t stop the two of them from getting caught in the crossfire though. James had been shot through the leg, the bullet going clean through and clipping his knee on the way out, which caused a faint but noticeable limp that persisted to this day.
Joshua hadn’t been so lucky. A stray bullet had gone straight his chest, puncturing his lung and nicking one of his Aorta. A frightened neighbor had called 911, but the neighborhood being where it was, the authorities took their sweet time getting there. By the time they arrived it was already too late. Official county record stated that it took the first responders four minutes and twenty-three seconds to arrive. Joshua lasted four minutes and nineteen seconds, drawing his last weak, gurgling breath and dying in his brother’s arms even as the ambulance arrived.
Ever since that day, James never left his house without a glance over his shoulder, a picture of Joshua in his wallet, and a knife in his pocket. He knew it was just a matter of time until he had a run in of his own with the damnable street gang, especially with all the questions he’d been asking. Now that it had finally happened though, he couldn’t help but feel frightened. He’d learned some things with all the digging he did, and it did not bode well. El Diablo Muerte didn’t typical escort people to secluded locations for a nice friendly chat.
Looking around, James couldn’t help but feel that his surroundings reflected the somber mood rather well. All around were edifices of stone, towering statues and mausoleums, even grave markers of all kinds standing a full head and shoulders over any visitors, staring down eternally at passerby with cold expressionless eyes that seemed judge all and find them wanting. Overhead the sky was dark and black, a ceiling of dark storm clouds stretching as far as the eye could see, thick and swollen with the promise of rain. Already in the distance the rumble of thunder could be heard, a brief flash of distant lightning precursor to each hollow boom.
James was snapped out of his observation by a rather rough shove at his lower back, causing him to stumble forward. Each of the thugs was facing him, their hands on their hips, no doubt within quick reach of their concealed weapons. Looking about, James noticed that they had stopped in a secluded section of the cemetery, in between two rows of mausoleums and out of sight of anyone who might be passing by. With a shiver, he realized that they were just far away enough from anyone else that nobody would be able to hear any screams, or gunshots.
It started pretty much how James expected. As his head was turned to the side to look down the row of tombs the leader of the small group of thugs swiftly stepped forward punched him hard in the gut, driving the air from his lungs and causing him to bend over and clutch his stomach. Without missing a beat, the thug kneed him in the face as he bent over, causing James to taste iron as he felt the large pop in his skull and his vision flashed white. As he fell to his knees and started trying to blink away the tears in his eyes the thug struck him violently across the side of the head, laying James across the ground and setting his ears ringing as all the other gangbangers started to laugh. They all kicked him while he was down, their steel toed boots digging into his body as the blows continued to rain down and the thugs howled with even more laughter.
Eventually though, they let up, allowing James to uncurl from the tight ball he had rolled into and cough out the blood in his mouth. Reaching down, the lead thug grabbed a handful of James’s hair and yanked him forcefully to his feet. “Maybe this will teach you to stop asking so many damn questions, huh?” he said condescendingly, his breath stinking of alcohol and cigarettes. With a sneer, he smashed his forehead into James’s face, causing him to briefly see stars as a bolt of pain lanced through his skull.
Perhaps it was the lightheadedness, or maybe the ringing in his ears, but for some reason James found that his fear was all but forgotten. Instead only his anger and hate was left as he stared at the pitiful waste of a human being in front of him. While attempting to reach for the knife hidden in his pocket, James spat in the thug’s face.
In a knee-jerk reaction the gangbanger quickly tossed him forcefully backwards, causing James to trip and land flat on his back, even as the thug wiped away the saliva, a look of disbelief on his face. The disbelief lasted only a moment though, and his expression quickly morphed into one of pure rage. Before James had a chance to regain his bearings or manage to pull out his knife, the thug jumped on him and proceeded to beat him mercilessly, raining fist after fist down on his face, neck, and shoulders.
The beating lasted longer than James could recall, stretching on and on until one moment blurred into the next in a haze of pain. Eventually though, the thug ceased his beating and rose to his feet, allowing James to roll onto his side and hacked out the blood and loose tooth from his mouth. The thug only looked at him with a sneer, spitting on him. Turning to his cohorts, he said, “Pick him up and hold him still.”
The other gangbangers did just that, grabbing James and roughly hauling him to his feet, before kicking him in the back of his legs and shoving him to his knees and restraining his arms. Still reeling from the many blows to the head, it took a moment for James to come to his senses, and he only realized what was happening as the leader of the group of gangbangers reached behind himself and drew his gun. Upon seeing the weapon, James’s eyes grew wide and his struggles began anew. They were were swiftly stopped by a fist to the back of the skull from one of the men holding him by the arms however. Reaching forward with his free hand the leader of the group grabbed James painfully by the jaw and forced him to look him in the eyes. “You know, I was going to let you go with just a warning and maybe take your money, but in the face of such disrespect, I’m suddenly feeling a lot less generous,” he said as he ground the barrel of the gun into James’s forehead. Leaning back, the thug lifted up the gun and violently struck him across the side of the head with the butt of it, causing James’s head to harshly twist to the side and his vision to flash white as ringing in his ears briefly drowned out all sound. Spitting out some more blood, James turned to face the thug and did his best to level a hate filled glare at him. The thug only chuckled, calmly level the gun at his face and said with a smirk, “You got last words?”
Looking down the barrel of the gun, James came to a startling realization: he wasn’t afraid. All his fear it seemed, had run out a while ago. Instead, all he felt at that moment was hate, pure and unbridled, burning like a flame in his gut. He felt his face contort in an angry grimace and a growl rise in his throat. He opened his mouth to retort with something to the effect that he knew exactly where he should stick that gun, only to be interrupted by a new voice from somewhere behind them all.
“Oh? Well, well, well, what do we have here?” said the new voice in a deep and sonorous baritone that sent a cold shiver down his spine. Twisting his head around to look, James couldn’t help but gape at the man walking casually towards them, his hands in his pockets.
The first thing he noticed was that the man was utterly massive, taller than anyone James had ever seen and towering over all of them, easily over seven feet tall. The second thing he noticed was just how oddly the man was dressed. He was either from a funeral service that had recently finished or was quite overdressed, decked out to the nines in an expensive designer suit and sporting an expensive gold watch and gold necklace, all of which was accented by a wide grin, a pair of expensive sunglasses and a fedora. Hanging on his arm was an expensive looking black cane that seemed to be topped with a large gem. All in all, he rather reminded James of a Mafia gangster from those old 90’s movies about the American prohibition. As he continued to approach, James could have sworn that his skin was somehow a shade of gray, though he quickly dismissed that as a trick of the light under the overcast sky.
With his massive strides, the man was already within a few feet of them all before one of the gangbangers reacted. The final thug, the only one not currently holding James down or aiming a gun at his head, stepped in between him and the giant man and drew a gun of his own and leveled it at the stranger. There was a noticeable tremble in the thugs hand as he stared up at the man that was easily two feet taller than him. With a gulp, the thug steeled his courage and said, “Unless you want trouble hombre, then you best just keep steppin’.”
For some reason, this only made the stranger smile even wider, revealing canines that seemed unnaturally sharp. ”And what would happen if I were to say ‘no’, eh amigo?” he asked, leaning down until his face was level with the thug’s own.
Eyeing the stranger up and down the thug came to the realization that the stranger seemed to be unarmed, or else he would have drawn his own weapon already, and that served to give him some confidence and he narrowed his eyes “I said that you should leave,” He repeated, brandishing the firearm in his grip.
The man stood up to his full height and began to chuckle, though his laughter was devoid of all warmth and served to send another chilly shiver down James’s spine, and looking at the thug that was the center of the stranger’s attention it seemed that he wasn’t the only one. “Tell you what,” the man said, “why don’t you leave? If you go now I’ll forget this whole thing and the fact that you pointed a gun at me. I’ll even let you keep all of your limbs intact. What do you say?”
By now the initial intimidation of the stranger’s appearance had begun to wear off, and the gangbanger was beginning to become angry. “You must not know who we are, puta, because nobody disrespects El Diablo Muerte like that and gets away with it!” he said angrily, raising his voice and bringing up his gun to aim at the stranger’s face.
The stranger didn’t move or flinch, even with the barrel of the gun only a few inches away from his eye. He only let out an almost disappointed sigh, his smile falling for the first time. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned.
The thug only sneered and spat at the stranger’s expensive designer shoes. “Do you have any last words?” he asked.
The stranger just quirked an eyebrow from behind his sunglasses and retorted, “Do you?”
The thug didn’t even bother justifying his words with a response. Instead, the world was filled with light and noise as the weapon discharged; the slug violently ripped through the stranger’s skull and tearing away flesh and bone in a great plume of viscera. His head snapped roughly backwards at the impact, the neck breaking with a sickening crack as his body stumbled backwards several steps. The thug only smiled as he watched. Slowly though, his smile began to fall and his face morphed to an expression of pure horror as they all came to a terrifying realization.
The stranger wasn’t falling. Even as the bits of bone and brain began to seep into the grass at their feet, the stranger’s body stood tall and proud, and even as they watched it slowly began to move. His arms withdrew from his jacket pockets, revealing long fingers bejeweled with several rings of gold and various gems and tipped with massive crimson claws. Reaching up, the hand gripped the back of his head, and with a harsh jerk and another sickening crack, snapped it back into place. His fedora and broken sunglasses fell from his head and face, revealing a disgusting sight that caused the bile to rise in James’s throat and he could hear one of the thugs holding his arm lean over and vomit.
A massive portion of his head was missing, just gone. Everything from his right eye socket to his ear had been torn away leaving a gaping hole in his head and revealing the dark empty hole where the insides of his cranium should have been. Belatedly, they all noticed a rather important fact: he wasn’t bleeding. All that leaked from the horrid wound was a sort of vaporous black ooze, and even as they watch the bone began to grow back before their eyes, the flesh, muscles and veins knitting back together like a time-lapse video of vegetation growing back and reclaiming an abandoned structure. They all watched in disgusted awe, unable to tear their eyes away from the horrifying sight until the process finished and his green and red eye grew back with a wet squelch and began to trail violet vapor.
They all stood in stunned silence for several moments after the stranger finished healing, utterly captivated and confused and wondering what would happen next. The stranger only sported a deep frown, and broke the silence with an almost disappointed sigh and said, “I told you, you shouldn’t have done that.” Swiftly, the stranger somehow closed the small distance between himself and the gunman without moving, even as unnoticed to all but James, the world around them seemed to darken even further, far more than what could be explained by simple overcast weather. Slowly, the stranger bent down until his face was level with the gunman and they were only inches apart, and his eyes began to glow a caustic acid green. “Now,” he said, his voice taking on an odd reverberating quality and his words not seeming to match up to the movements of his lips, “get on your knees.”
Slowly, with halting and jerky movements as if he were a puppet whose strings were being held by an unskilled handler, the gunman did as instructed, and fell to the ground with a quiet thud, his body moving without his consent. “Put the gun in your mouth,” the stranger instructed. The gunman’s eyes went wide, frightened tears beginning to fall as his arm rose up, shaking like a weather vane in a hurricane, and shoved the firearm into his mouth against his will. He looked up at the stranger with wet eyes begging for mercy, his voice not responding to his commands as he sobbed from around the cold metal in his mouth. The stranger just looked at him dispassionately, giving him no more mind than one would a stray animal begging for food. “Pull the trigger,” he commanded, his tone like that of an adult explaining a set of instructions to a young child.
James quickly turned away, not wanting to see what would happen next, though he couldn’t ignore the loudness of the gunshot or the spray of wet warmth on the back of his neck.
As the thug’s lifeless corpse fell on its side, the stranger rose to his full height, and turned to level a glare at the leader of the small group of gangbangers. The thug immediately panicked, screaming at a pitch reminiscent of a young school girl, and proceeded to empty the entire clip of his weapon at the stranger. The other two thug’s began to panic as well, roughly dropping James and pulling out their own weapons and doing the same. James watched as the stranger just stood there, an almost bored expression on his face as each bullet passed harmlessly through his body, each kicking up a small plume of dark misty smoke.
After several seconds that seemed to stretch for hours, the guns eventually ran out of ammo as each clicked empty as their handlers repeatedly squeezed their triggers in fear. Once again, unnoticed to all but James, the world had continued to darken until it was blacker than midnight, their surrounds hidden by a deep abyssal darkness, even as they all stood out like beacons against the blackness surrounding them. Eventually, the gangbangers realized that their guns were empty, and shifted weary glances between their useless weapons and the strange being before them. He simply eyed each of them dispassionately, before raising his hand towards one of the thugs that had been holding James by the arm. Curling most of his fingers into a fist, he stuck out his thumb and index finger, imitating a gun, and a small violet flame formed in the air before his fingertip as his crimson claws began to glow. “My turn,” he said as the small flame leaped from his finger and alighted upon the gangbanger.
He was engulfed entirely in less than a second. The flames were so fast that by the time he opened his mouth to scream the fire was already working its way down his esophagus, forcing him to bellow hoarsely as he writhed on the ground in an unfathomable amount of agony, the sizzling sound of cooking flesh playing soundtrack to the final moments of his life.
And just like that it was over. He stopped squirming and lay still as the flames guttered out, revealing a burnt and unrecognizable corpse, all in less than ten seconds. For several seconds everyone just stared at the burnt carcass that was once a human being, almost in a state of shock. After a moment though, the air was filled with the scent of urine and the sound of whimpering as the two thugs left proceeded to wet themselves. Turning tail, they tried to escape, only to fall flat on their faces as the grass and roots at their feet had grown up and curled around their ankles. With shaking fingers they reached down and frantically tried to claw at the vegetation, only to cut up their hands on the thorny and steel hard plant life. The sound of whimpering was soon accompanied by sickening crack and rustling leather, and the sobbing of the thugs grew in volume and pitch and were joined with repeated blubbering of the words ‘no’ and ‘Diablo’ as they looked behind themselves and saw the stranger as his form twisted and shifted and grew.
James, all but paralyzed with fear, obstinately refused to turn around, even as the ground began to shake with gigantic footsteps that must have belonged to something the size of an elephant. As he lay curled in the fetal position, shaking like a leaf, James saw two enormous skeletal claws, each easily bigger than his own torso and capped with scarlet talons, reach down on either side of him and grab the two thugs around the middle, and lifting them into the air. He clenched his eyes tightly closed, but that didn’t drown out the noise of their terrified screaming. Even worse, the noise was soon joined by an oddly familiar sound of crunching and gnashing and the popping and snapping of bone, along wet squelches, and the screams morphed from one of terror to ones of unbridled agony. James briefly wondered what could possibly be happening, but the mystery was quickly solved as he felt a warm rain and he realized where he recognized sound from: his dogs would make the same sound as they fought over the carcass of a rabbit, ripping it to shreds and consuming it whole.
James was snapped out of his thoughts as the noises quieted down by a loud thump near his left. Startled, his quickly opened his eyes and looked about and spotted what landed near him. Within an arm’s reach was the leader of the small group of thugs, his bloodied bandana still wrapped around his neck. He lie writhing in agony, not quite aware of his surroundings as tightly clutched the ragged stump where his left hand used to be, still trying to get away, having evidently not noticed yet that his legs were missing from the knee down.
And suddenly, James didn’t feel quite so scared anymore. Seeing the man who not even a few minutes ago held his life in his hands and had even intention of ending it, laying there, his own pain finally matching what he had no doubt inflicted himself over the years, filled James with an odd sense of relief. For some reason, he couldn’t help but take a certain sick joy in seeing him battered and broken, left in pieces as lay bleeding in the grass. But slowly, the grin James didn’t even notice grow across his face fell. He was trying to get away. He was trying to escape his just desserts. That would not do, James thought to himself, drawing his knife and rising to his knees, a look of pure hate on his features. That would not do at all.
Before James even realized he was moving, the knife came down, burying itself into the flesh of the thug’s back up to the hilt. He loosened yet another scream, turning around to see James bearing down on him, an expression of pure rage and hate twisting his features as he pulled out the knife, raising it up again as he flipped him over. The thug tried feebly to fight him off with his one good arm, but in his condition he never really had a chance. The knife came down hard again, once again burying itself to the hilt in his guts. With a grunt and a heave, James ripped the knife from its fleshy sheath and hilted it once more. Again and again he repeated the motion, rip, lift, plunge, rip, lift, plunge, not even aware of the feral scream that tore from his own throat as he did so, or when his victim finally stopped struggling.
James didn’t stop for several minutes, and when his anger finally ran it course, the thug’s abdomen looked like so much ground beef and the whole world felt oddly silent in the wake of his screams, only his labored breathing filling the void. After a moment, his breath caught as he remembered he wasn’t alone. Slowly, with his heart beating rapidly, he turned around.
He fell flat on his back as he saw the stranger standing not two feet behind him, licking leftover blood from his chin, a strange look in his eye. They were both silent for several moment, the only sound that of James’s rapid breathing, until the stranger broke the silence. “Are you afraid?” he asked, his voice oddly calm and almost paternal.
“Y-yes,” James stammered in answer.
The stranger sighed lightly but nodded his head, seemingly not surprised or upset by the answer. Nodding his head toward the mangled body beside them he asked, “Do you hate him?”
“Yes, with all my heart,” James answered much quicker, his voice firming up a bit and gaining a bit of conviction.
For some reason the conviction in his voice almost seemed to surprise the stranger, and he began to look him over more carefully, his glowing green and red eyes trailing up and down James’s body. James’s felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and several cold shivers go down his body, feeling naked before the gaze of the obviously more than human man before him as it seemed to almost look straight through him and at his very soul. Imperceptibly, the corner of the stranger’s mouth curled into a tiny smirk. “Why do you hate him?” he asked.
Instead of answering right away, James turned to look at the bloody bandana around the gangbanger’s neck, and the glance was not missed by the stranger’s watchful eyes. “They killed my little brother. He was only six. All we had was each other,” James answered succinctly, a lump of emotion briefly forming in his throat as he spoke of his pain out loud.
The stranger’s face fell into a gentle frown, and he nodded absent mindedly. “A better reason than most, I suppose,” he said, a strange inflection in his tone. After a moment, his eyes grew wide and his eyebrow rose, as if a sudden thought occurred to him. Eyeing James up and down critically once again, he motioned towards the body and asked, “Are you satisfied?”
James was silent for a moment as he thought about the question. After barely more than a second of intro section, the answer was obvious, even as much as it hurt to admit. “No,” he responded, his tone almost dejected, “no I’m not.”
The stranger only nodded, accepting his answer and not seeming surprised by it. Instead of responding though, he only closed his eyes and cocked his head, as if he were having an internal dialogue or listening to a voice only he could hear. After almost a full minute of thought, the stranger opened his eyes again, revealing a strange gleam in them and an unreadable expression on his face. “What would you be willing to give for your revenge?” he asked.
James’s answer was immediate and given without hesitation. “Anything. Everything.”
The stranger’s face burst into a grin “Perfect,” he said. Holding out his hand as if offering a handshake he asked, “Do we have a deal?”
James was not a fool, he was fairly certain he knew just what was going on. The phrase, ‘deal with the devil’ came came to mind. But more important than that, he had made peace with his fate long ago, on the day he set out for revenge against those that had taken his brother from him.
Without even a moment’s hesitation, he took the man’s hand.
And then his veins lit on fire. His entire body lit up with white hot pain as he was roughly lifted to his feet, and he could feel something alien, something other, something Powerful worming its way inside of him and rooting around, traveling up and down, in and out of his entire being. Dimly through the haze of pain, he saw the massive grin on the stranger’s face, lit from beneath by the maleficent purple glow emanating from between their clasped hands.
And then just as fast as it came, it was over. The stranger let go of his hand as it stopped glowing and James collapsed to his knees panting like he had just run a marathon. The stranger gently reached down and lifted up his chin, before thrusting two claws into the center of his forehead. James did his best to suppress his flinch, succeeding just barely, but instead of pain he only felt a gentle cool sensation seeping into his flesh. After a moment, the claws pulled away, and James reached up to feel where they had touched, but instead of coming into contact with warm flesh, James felt only cool smooth crystal, about the size of a quarter and situated in the center of his forehead.
Gingerly, James rose to his feet, a sudden rush a vigor filling his limbs. The stranger gave him a quick glance and smiled, clasping him on the shoulders as he returned the smile. Reaching up with a glowing claw, he gently lay it against James’s new crystal and in a voice that had a sort of ethereal echoing quality spoke several words he didn’t understand, before saying in English, “May blood find blood, and death find death; may the shadows forever hide you, until your prey draws its final breath.”
Taking a few steps back, the stranger looked him over with a critical eye, before reaching forward and snatching the all but forgotten bloody knife from James’s hand. Similar to what he had done to James, he pushed two claws into the blade, both somehow sinking into and disappearing inside of it. James watched as the weapon warped and twisted, rippling like the surface of a lake as the whole thing morphed in shape and grew in size. The blade grew longer, lengthening to a full ten inches and becoming curved and serrated as it changed from steel to a dark crystal, strange shapes etching themselves into its surface and beginning to glow as they leaked a black vapor. The hilt changed as well, shifting from simple metal to an elegant dark wood, images of claws and fangs carved in relief to provide grip, the end capped with an ornate silver counter-weight.
The stranger withdrew his claws as the transfiguration finished, and after giving it a once over to ensure its quality, casually tossed it to James, who caught it out of the air, surprising himself with his dexterity. James opened his mouth and turned to the stranger to ask a question, only to freeze as he saw the serious glare that was being leveled at him. “Take this gifts I have given you, and enact your revenge. Do not fail, or else the consequences will be grave.”
Without another word, the stranger turned around and began to walk away. All of this was happening too fast for James, and before he could think about it, he called out, “Wait!”
The stranger stopped in place, glancing over his shoulder and raising a questioning eyebrow.
James sputtered for a moment, trying to think of what to ask in the face of everything that had happened, before blurting out the first thing that crossed his mind. “Who are you?”
At this, the stranger only smiled. “The Prince of Darkness. The Lord of Terror. The Shadow Man. King Umbra. I have many names, and many faces,” he said, waving an almost dismissive hand, “take your pick.”
He turned to walk away once more, put only walked a few steps before a pensive frown came over his features, as if an odd thought had struck him. Turning back, he asked, “Tell me, do you believe in God?”
Though James was a little confused by the question, he answered honestly. “No, I don't believe in him and he doesn't believe in me; he abandoned me a long time ago.”
The stranger nodded and gave a small, murmuring, “Yes, I thought as much.” Turning away, he continued walking, speaking over his shoulder, “Know that I still believe in you, James Everet. Go now, and accomplish your dark deeds with my blessing. I’ll be watching.”
And then he was gone, disappearing into the many shadows of the surrounding mausoleums, even as the unnatural darkness lifted. James just stared after him for several minutes, his thoughts in such a maelstrom he didn’t know what to do next. It took him several moments to realize the strange man had known his name without James ever having introduced himself.
Looking around, James took note of the mangled corpses and massive puddles of blood that still surrounded him, and slowly, it all sank in. That had all just actually happened, he had really just made a deal with some sort of devil to take revenge for his lost little brother.
And he laughed. He laughed and laughed, he laughed at the craziness of it, he laughed at the joy he felt when he murdered the man who almost did the same to him, he laughed at the impossible nature of his mysterious savior, and laughed because he was alive, and he laughed just to laugh. Eventually, his mirth subsided, and as his laughter calmed to mere chuckles, James realized something.
He was happy. For the first time he could remember since his brother died, he was happy. It was like a miracle. With another laugh, he realized that everything that had just happened was like some sort of dark twisted miracle. Slowly, he felt another emotion, and he realized why he felt so happy. He felt hope. For the first time in a long time, there was hope for the future. His hate still raged, buried and smoldering within, but now he could finally do something about it.
Raising his head, James turned to the overcast sky, and felt the first drop of rain on the center of the small piece of crystal in his forehead, and he let the cleansing waters wash away who he once was, wash away everything but his hate and his hope and his happiness, so that he could embrace his new destiny, and become one with the Darkness.