4. Devil's Day

The bossman, Carlyle, cannot be killed. But the stranger does not seem afraid. In fact, it's almost as if he carries a secret. Will it be enough to defeat the bossman?

Not many noticed the changes.  They were miniscule.  But the stranger noticed, and Spec who was nearby and could see clearly from his vantage-- he noticed.

This time, though he still looked fresh, the bossman looked thin and wearied in his coat.  His face was gaunter, as a man looks when he is malnourished.  

“How many times are we going to repeat this dance, Bruce?  It’s such a waste. So boring! Maybe if you hadn’t abandoned your studies and the quest for the Eternal.  Maybe if we were playing this game evenly matched…  All this waiting you must have done over the past twenty years.  Like long swimming, just to die at the ocean’s shore? Just look at you.  All bloodied up.  It’s not even fair, is it?”

Again, the bossman grinned that shark’s grin and his demon cackle echoed in the air. But it was reduced… somehow weaker, wearied.

“I think the reason you never came after me personally,” said the stranger, leaning on the rifle as a walking staff.  “is because you were afraid of me.  You’re a coward, Carlyle.  And that is why you will never be a great magician.  Just a spellcaster with a sleevesful of silly parlor tricks.”

“Ha!” the bossman barked, “If I’m such a coward, why has it taken you twenty years to face me, then?  If you loved your beloved Sonora all that much, how is it I killed her and then you disappeared, instead of taking your vengeance and all that jazz? You cowered for twenty years! Left me bored out of my mind for a small eternity.”

The corners of the stranger’s face turned in a smile.  “You’ve waited twenty years. Twenty years of f*****g and killing have made you stupid and unobservant. Look at my face, little brother.  What do you see?”

The bossman’s eyes narrowed. His flicked as he studied the other man.  He opened his mouth as to speak. Closed it. Then opened it again and spoke hastily, annoyed. “The hell are you talking about?  There’s nothing wrong with your face.  It looks the same as"-“  

The bossman stopped.  And then he finished his sentence slowly, deliberately. “It looks the same as it’s always looked.”  

Realization dawned on the bossman’s face. “How the f**k is that possible?  You gave up the Eternal…  and the old shaman’s dead.  He died the very same day you did.  Or, rather when we killed your Sonora.  How have twenty years passed and not touched you?”

“Like I said.  You’ve gone dull, Carlyle.  And you probably really are bored.  And aching for the days of yore.  Why else would you keep the rituals of the past? Why else would you write in the law of challenge here in your club. Do you even know what day it is today?”

“It’s a Tuesday.  What the hell does the date have to do with anything?”

“It’s Devil’s Day, Carlyle.”

The bossman jerked his head up suddenly, a flash of fear splashed on his face. He searched for the moon.

While the two had been fighting, the fire had spread.  Few of the spectators remained.  And those that did had scurried as far as they dared.  The firelight had banished the sense of moonlight, and so when the eclipse began overhead, it had gone unnoticed.  

Overhead, a red moon glared its awful red eye, surrounded by a brilliant ring of purple.

The bossman laughed sardonically, a sound with no emotion.

“It doesn’t matter!  Even if it is devil’s day.  The old shaman is dead and he was the last. You need the blessing of a Manni-Sekvi shaman.  You couldn’t possibly have the blessing you need.”

But he sounded unsure of himself. He heard the uncertainness in his own voice and roared furiously.

The bossman raised both arms.  There were twin silver pistols in both hands.  He opened fire, and green flames spewed from the barrels of the guns. Twin dragons blazing in the night under the light of fire and a blood moon.

Again, the stranger danced" to his detriment, dragging a bum leg.  Yet still, he was a blur.  Dodging right and left, and firing his big gun, cocking the lever, firing true even as he spun to dodge iron. 

When the music of gunpowder settled, the stranger was riddled with bullets. Tiny pools of hot blood collected on his chest, arm, and belly.  Two more holes in his hip. And yet, though his lip was curled in a snarl, he seemed more like a man tolerating the effort of lifting weights, than one inflicted with lethal injury.

The bossman, on the other hand was once more a heap of blood and severed limbs.  These burst into flames and the pattern repeated again.

Black flames, then red, then green smoke and Carlyle stepped through the smoke.  

Now the bossman was a gaunt semblance of his former self.  He looked a severely famished man.  With deep purple inset eyes.  And grey straw for hair.

When the bossman saw the stranger leaning on his rifle, he tried to scoff, maybe even laugh, but a coughing splutter resounded instead.

“You’re mortally wounded, Bruce. So you see? It doesn’t even matter if it really is Devil’s Day or not.  You haven’t got the blessing and you’re going to die.”  He paused to catch his breath.  Then fell to a knee.  Struggled to pick himself up, then resumed.  “And it doesn’t matter how you’ve lasted twenty years.  And I?  I’m going to piss and s**t on your corpse then have the men here rape you.”

“Can’t you feel it, little brother?” said the stranger.  “The power slipping through your fingers?  The blackness at the corners of your eyes?  Take a look around, your army’s dwindling.  I think they can smell it’s the end.”

And indeed it was so.  Only Spec and four others remained, each of them an elder from the club.  Watching in silence.  Waiting for this battle of demons to end.

Carlyle looked at his hands.  He started to speak, found it difficult to do so, then tried to take a deep breath that wheezed like an emphysemic, and coughed again.

“You asked me why it took me so long to come for you, Carlyle.  That was a good question. I think you should give it some thought.”  He ejected the expended rifle magazine and reloaded the third and final one, pulled the lever and readied a round.

The bossman sank to his knees.  He spoke feebly.  A frustrated whisper. “Stop calling me that…  I am the bossman.  Call me ‘the bossman’.” It took a long time for him to breathe and to speak. 

“What a lazy twenty years of pomp and blood these must have been for you, to have gone so soft and stupid,” said the stranger, straightening.  “I’ll tell you what you’re too stupid to ask.  After your men killed Sonora, I visited Master.  I told him what you’d done.” 

Now a wild grin was painted on the stranger’s face. “I did not know the Manni-Sekvi could bend time.  Did you?  You may have waited twenty years for me.  But it’s only been two weeks of hard riding for me since master Avram sent me through the portal. I feel sorry for the nag.  I think she died minutes after I got here.”

“He… he gave you… the blessing…?”  Carlyle said, whispering. And it was half a question, half a horrified realization. He roared. 

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

The reduced bossman roared and stood. Anger renewed his energy. Summoning all his powers, he pulled himself to his feet and charged.  “LIAR! Master died! He died, died, dead!  I felt his life force fade!”  

There was a flash of green light and in Carlyle’s right hand there appeared a sword.  A giant, green sword that seemed made of pure brilliant green fire.  He swung it, trailing a tail of green flames.  

Bruce ducked down, pulled a heavy steel dagger from his boot and parried the blade.  He sidestepped.  Moving deftly, and not like a man who had been shot repeatedly.   When he cleared some distance, he clamped the dagger between his teeth and fired.

Carlyle parried with his sword. Sparks flew as he cutting iron in midair.  He grimaced and flinched, and roared with frustration.

Bruce spit out the dagger and laughed. It fell blade first and anchored itself in the dirt. “What’s wrong, little brother? Afraid to take a fistful of iron in the gut this time?” his tone was mocking, almost playful.

“Shut up!” said Carlyle, charging once more, digging his heels into the dirt, flinging his massive ethereal blade forward like a lance. “I will end you!” 

Bruce parried with the barrel-end of the gun, spun the rifle like a baton twirler, and struck Carlyle on the side of the head with the butt of the gun.  It stunned the once stun-less bossman for an instant. 

An instant was all he needed.

Bruce turned the gun and pulled the lever; his final round clicked into the chamber. The red hot steel of the rifle’s barrel struck flush against Carlyle’s forehead. And Bruce pulled the trigger.

Carlyle’s head exploded into a thousand pieces and a jellied rain of brains.  His body cartwheeled backwards and landed hard on the dirt. The blade of fire clamoring on the ground before winking out of existence. 

And then there was silence.

Bruce walked in a careful circle around Carlyle’s remains.  “Hush now,” he said.  “Don’ be so hard on yourself, little brother. I’m sure the devil will be lenient with you, given how many souls you’ve sent his way.”  He stepped over the smoking carcass. 

He reached into his duster and pulled out an embossed silver flask.  On it were engraved twin dragons.  Bruce uncapped the flask and took a long swig.  Then sighed in luxuriant pleasure.

Then he tipped the flask and poured some of the whiskey liquor over Carlyle’s remains.

“I just want you to know, Carlyle, seeing as you don’t have eyes to see,” he said, “A man can’t give up all his vices.  A toast for your goodbye.  Not exactly pissing on your corpse, I guess.”