Cryptic mist cast a haze, clinging to Tracy's skin like a blood-sucking leech. Putrid stench reminiscent of fermented puss seeped into his nostrils, worse than the odor of Mars magnified a hundredfold. He gagged trying to keep the burning stomach acid down, but the churning fluid stung his tongue, forcing him to hack and hawk spittle.

He was both still on Mars, still within Carcosa, and also somewhere else entirely. A nowhere place.

Tendrils of mist licked him before parting underfoot. A jagged pathway emerged leading between uneven rows of tombstones.

The names on the headstones were not in focus, obscured by the haze. He pressed forward. Each step felt as if he dragged his feet through sucking muck and mire.

The light of Phobos cut through the mist, a beam of revelation, splaying across the tombstones, unmasking the names etched there. He expected the words to be made of unreadable alien symbols, but Tracy discovered he could not only read them clear as a scream, but knew the names with more intimacy than he knew any living person.

Leo Irving.

Persephone Irving.

Tristan Irving.

Gabriella Irving.

Names he'd considered. Chosen. Forgotten.

All names for the children he and Hina lost, stolen before they ever had a chance to draw breath.

Chills clawed his skin, cutting down to the bone, puncturing deep into his heart and his soul. The King in Yellow sought to rip open his old scars, create fresh wounds that would never heal again by recalling haunting visions from Tracy's past.

Women's screams echoed in the dark from beyond the mist. To his horror he realized they were not many women, but one woman's tormented cries and sobs replaying over and over. The dormant nightmares were withdrawn from the recesses of his mind, forgotten but never erased.

They were Hina. Every time she held a cold child. Every time a memory became too strong. Every loss, every burden, every push towards the edge, every time her soul was torn, severed again.

A sudden thought flashed. A dread overcame him. What if these screams, these cries of woe were happening now? Though he and Hina were worlds apart, couldn't a daemon who tore down reality with his mere presence tear the very fabric of spacetime to afflict Tracy with his wife's tormented agony?

"Hina!"

He strove after her, braving the dark, but it retracted, moving further away, always out of reach, so that he could not comfort and cradle her in his arms.

Hot tears spilled down Tracy's face, blinding him, even as he gnashed his teeth, blood boiling inside with flaming rage. He stumbled and fell into an open shallow grave. The headstone read Ashton. And a parallel grave had a tombstone that read Coraline.

Tracy fell to his knees grabbing fistfuls of grave soil, snarling, screaming with all his might.

Cackles split the air, seeking to oppress him in his impotence.

Tracy dragged the back of his arm across his leaking nose and palmed his soaked eyes. His brows furrowed, teeth grinding even as he sniffled, eyes piercing the dark.

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The King in Yellow loomed in the amber mist, tattered robes lilting in a frigid breeze, a stagnant phantom, like a festering wound that refused to heal.

The sultan of sulphur sought to silence Tracy, to stumble him, to strike him down as he relived all of his darkest moments in a single breath. But the King failed to realize one thing.

Those were the moments that stripped him bare, then hardened Tracy, steeled his heart, pushed him to the brink of sanity, where by the grace of God he found his drive, the will to become more than a mere man.

Scarred? Sure.

Battered? You bet.

Thirsting for unbridled retribution? Undoubtedly.

Tracy withdrew inside, took the back seat, dying as it were, a different man rising from the open grave to confront the tattered terror.

Trace the Ace crawled out of the grave, got to his knees, then drew up to his full height. Dead ahead of him, the King's yellow mantel billowed in the wind, the tattered cloak smothering his slender form.

The marshal pushed forward. Gravel ground underfoot with each step of his boots. He tugged the brim of his diamond shaped hat further down, almost resting it atop his eyebrows. His revolver Judge sprang from the holster.

Tracy growled at the eldritch form. "You decrepit maggot corpse. You think those visions can whittle me down?"

The King straightened, rising to meet the challenge.

Tracy bellowed, the words trumpeted like a battle cry. "Those moments killed Tracy, but they forged me."

An almost forgotten rubric, a seed of truth whispered in his mind.

Perfect love casts out fear.

If the King could fight with visions of terror then Tracy could fight with unbridled, sacrificial love.

His cracked revolver echoed in the black as he split the gun in half. The hollow chambers held no bullets, and if they did, electromagnetic ammunition could not kill a cosmic entity like the King in Yellow.

Tracy closed his eyes and thought of Hina, his partner, his best friend, his soul mate. They were knit together, their spirits bound by shared trauma and free flowing love.

He remembered their wedding day. How beautiful she looked in her ivory gown. He chambered that memory with all of the excitement and passion it brought.

The King recoiled.

He thought of the photograph in his pocket, the vibrant life it captured, in spite of years of pain. He chambered that.

Trace recalled his lost arm, a piece of him stolen, but how Hina loved him still, even if he was never made whole again. He stuffed that in the chamber.

Even in the loss, friends had come by their side, people like Hal, providing a meal, sending a card with bouquets of flowers, showing them kindness even as they wept. He filled several more chambers.

The tatterdemalion raised his skeletal arms as if to ward off the lawman's memories.

The marshal meditated on the child that might be, bound inside his pregnant wife, both of them teetering on the edge of eternity, but possibly still holding onto life. He chambered that.

The lord of the labyrinth convulsed.

Tracy thought of little Ashton, thrust into the marshal's life, alone and afraid. Even though they barely knew each other, he grabbed ahold of that spark, drew out their bond which formed in a bullet of light, filling the seventh chamber.

Trace the Ace flicked his wrist, slamming the revolver shut like the massive doors to a grand jury courtroom. Doors which would never be opened again until justice was met. The revolver now glowed, with the light of life itself. Court was in session.

He strode forward, tall, shoulders squared, chin held high.

He edged towards the elder pagan god, the daemon of defilement, and drew his gun up to eye level. The marshal primed the hammer with his thumb. The cocked click rang like a gavel pronouncing a life sentence, like striking nail heads into a coffin.

A giant hand shot out to choke the life out of Tracy.

He squeezed the trigger. A hole erupted in the dead hand. Beams of light poured from the wound.

Hunching over like a maimed animal, the King in Yellow cradled his pierced hand and hissed.

Tracy fired five more blasts. Each ray of light drilled gashes into the tattered cloak, slicing open the worn skin beneath with scorching pain.

The thing fell on hands and knees. Then, in the throes of undead demise, it raised up, lifting off of the ground entirely, hovering over Tracy like a wraith.

It flew at him, spitting venom.

Tracy stood his ground, firing the final shot, right between its seared sockets.