Vir Crudelissimus

     “Did you check everything out, first?” Jougs asked while perusing the refrigerator.

     “You fucking kidding?” Vorant spun toward Jougs and with vehemence continued, “when’d I have time, eh? Ain’t I been takin’ care of the mess?” He dropped the gore covered saw in the sink, turned on the hot water, and growled, “d’you?”

     “Did I what?” Jougs asked with his head inside the refrigerator.

     “Check the site. You were out. D’you?”

     He cracked open a can of Eagle’s Nest Cola, stood up, and slammed it down. After belching, Jougs said, “wasn’t on the way, now was it?” He grabbed a couple slices of lunch meat out of the package, closed the fridge door, and then pulled down a bag of bread. Quickly making a half-assed sandwich, he knotted the bag and tossed it back on top of the fridge.

Sanguine Manare

     Her head ached worse than her last migraine which had kept her bed ridden for three days. Completely unaware that the oozing pool of Sparks’ final heartbeat was mingling with her own spilt life fluids, Clara “Chondee” Darin bit her lip as she yanked the uncomfortable boiler plate out from under her shirt. Though she was already on the ground, the effort sent her falling back into the shelving unit. The impact of her head knocked down wooden cooking utensils which clattered to the linoleum and splattered blood on her thigh. When she came to she was horrified to find her body incapable of obeying the simplest commands. She lay there against the shelving unit in the kitchenware aisle of Chang’s Bazaar, staring at the dead body of her ex-boyfriend’s compatriot. Come on, Chondee! Get up girl. Get up! GET UP! MOVE YOUR ASS! Not that it mattered how loudly she chastised herself, her damnable limbs had gone on strike. Sinking further into the shelving unit, she closed her eyes and began sending motor commands to various parts of her body. She was midway through her body survey, when she heard the distinct sound of multiple foot falls and Tages’ all too familiar deep laughter coming from behind her.

Momento Mori

      Her bewildered chuckle echoed in the dark. The brilliance of the bright green flash imprinted her vision with slowly fading hazel halos. Wherever she’d landed was chilly and dank like Mercury’s Cavern in the Iphigenia underground; she stood weaving in the pitch black. The absolute silence and lack of air movement unsettled her. Without moving her feet, she repeatedly clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she slowly moved her head from right to left. Putting her left hand out before taking a step forward, she quickly found the nearest wall. This would be so much easier, if I had some light, as the thought popped into her mind twin beams of red and green slowly grew from out of Mercury’s Bracelet. Refraining her giggles, she thought, if Ms. Darin had told me, I never would have believed. I love this stupid bracelet. She raised her left forearm and pointed the lights at the wall in front of her. Somehow she wasn’t surprised that it was just a wall. She swept the area with soft lights emanating off her bracelet. When her glowing wrist passed across the ground five feet to her right, she stopped and stared at the myriad red and green sparkles that illuminated the ground like rave glitter under a black light. What is that? she asked herself as she bent down to inspect the shimmering ground. “Glass?” the word escaped her mouth on the exhale. Once again standing, she returned her hand to the wall, but instantly removed it. Somehow, in the few feet she’d walked the wall had changed from cold and solid stone to cold and solid wood. A door, she hoped. Ignoring the glass covered ground, she used the lights to examine the wall. Though she couldn’t perceive the texture difference in the dual beams, she did see the very obvious division of wall, jamb, and door. She exhaled in relief when she found the doorknob. Where there’s a door and a wall, there should be…ah ha! clicking the light switch, she heard the low hum of an overhead light heating up.

Munere Fungor

     Ensign Osborne swung open the intricately carved oak door, revealing the mouse-like newly sworn-in Chief Justice Moira Thibodeaux who’d picked up the Fasces of the Antigone and stood holding the bundle defensively. “Whoa! Ma’am! Easy. Don’t hit me!” Ensign Osborne’s easy grin and light manner caused her to lower the fasces and relax a bit, though he could tell she still wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of entering what had—until recently—been the sole dominion of the Oathbreaker Fraunx Adonis. “I’ve checked the whole place. Don’t seem to be anyone hiding. But…you should know…” he paused searching for the right words, “…someone tore this place apart.” After once again taking the fasces from her, he stepped out of the doorway.

     She quickly walked up the three steps and entered the foyer where she was greeted with the solemn painting of a rock-wrecked ship being pummeled by fierce waves. Unable to peel her eyes from the depressing imagery, she muttered, “so typical of you, Fraunx.”

Sanguine Redundare

     Being in the middle of the Inquisitor’s workroom was like walking into a Heart of the Seven Faeries carnival – so many varieties of red splattered everywhere that it seemed no other colors existed. Knowing the sticky, brick colored drippings to be that miraculous fluid that somehow kept the body functioning was one thing; using a squeegee, an ice scrapper, and tons of alcohol to remove it from the floors, walls, and ceiling was a wholly different thing. Mr. Vorant stood in the basement stairwell staring at the crumpled carcass of the ancient justice, Levi Bayleaf. “What were you even doing there, eh, old man?” Vorant grumbled. Rolling his shoulders, one by one, Vorant prepared himself, thinking, always get the good jobs, don’t ya? He laughed, “o’course, ‘cause they’re a bunch o’silly bitches.” He set the cleaning supplies down next to the door, slipped on a pair of shoe covers, and entered the torture chamber. Quickly surveying the extent of the spatter, Vorant wondered, what does he do? Play in it? Vorant’s entire afternoon was blown. Not that he’d had other plans, just that he hadn’t woken with ‘clean up the Inquisitor’s mess’ on his agenda for the day. He lifted the dead man’s head by the chin, gave it a squeeze and a shake, and then, grabbed the forehead to make the man talk, “too bad for you,” Vorant mocked himself with a nasally West Donian accent. “Too bad for you,” he repeated in his own voice as he dropped the head.