Chapter 24

An entry from the Diary of Damien Slayer,

Eventually, I came to. I can't say how long I was out for; to the best of my ability to perceive it, the light through the stained glass windows hadn't changed much. But then again, it was stained glass, so you might imagine why I would have difficulty determining the change in the light.

As consciousness crept back, I found myself bound. The means of the binding seemed strange as my mind readjusted to the land of the waking. What held my arms to my body with an immovable force was not rope - it was too thick and too tensile, and it had the feel of dead flesh to it.

My eyes opened, and my vision gradually cleared. I began to understand both what had happened and the reality of the terrible trouble I was in. It all made more sense now.

How could the priest have been waving for me to join him in the sacristy and so suddenly and completely be dead?

The strange sensations of dread I had felt in the church and the headache all started to connect. The way my consciousness had just spun out as those hands - or should I now say claws or talons - had grabbed me from behind. A chilling realization dawned on me: I had been deceived.

I thought back to Stryker, his concerns about me heading off on my own, my own confidence, and arrogance. I'd been playing this game for a long, long time. I'd gotten into a lot of scrapes, but after a lifetime of this, it was I that was usually the threat in any encounter. I had saved Metis more than once. I'd taken on people over and over who would be considered terrible obstacles to most. But the face that was staring at me now was something I knew all too well - the thing that had so comprehensively defeated me before.

"You," I said.

"Me," it replied. The serpentine voice and the distorted reptilian face of Prometheus stared back at me as he held me captive with his powerful, scaly tail. The face was hungry and sinister. I could imagine him remembering how I had escaped him before, saved by the powers of Ardia, Homer, and Stryker. This time it was just me - plain old human, un-superpowered me - and I was beyond unmatched. Even now, I could feel his psychic fingers sorting through the mush of my brain, messing with my thoughts, making me feel fear and confusion.

Prometheus said, with utter menace, "To be totally clear, just so there's no misunderstanding, when this is all over, I am going to eat your flesh. It's so rare that a meal escapes me; I haven't stopped thinking about you. But first, Father will need to know things; he will have questions, and so I need answers. Your mind is so irritatingly resilient, inoculated by all that time you've spent with my sister. Your mind stinks of the bitch."

Groaning, incoherent, I mumbled, "Metis is stronger than you, that's all. When you've rumbled with psychic powers like hers, yours are junior league."

Prometheus snarled, hissed, and bared his terrifying, hungry teeth. I wanted him to kill me; I didn't want him to have time to extract information from me that could be used against the gang. I focused my thoughts as hard as I could on not thinking about them, maintaining my resolution.

Calming itself, but twitchy and eager - and dare I say, hungry - it continued, "Who is Jules Verne?"

I was beyond confused already. I mumbled, "The guy who wrote The Time Machine book..."

Prometheus slapped me, not with his hands, but with his mind. I felt my whole brain pulse. He snarled, "Don't be clever with me, tell me about Jules Verne!"

I racked my brain for some remnant of high school English that might be floating in my head. I said, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth..."

Another psychic punch to the cortex, and I whimpered a little, unintentionally.

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Prometheus hissed, "Stop fucking with me. Tell me about Jules fucking Verne!"

I stared at him, trying to understand. As I did, his eyes flicked to the corpse of the priest, and I got it. I said, "Oh, you got a little too excited earlier, didn't you? You killed the padre over there before you had a chance to milk his mind completely. You've just got a couple of scraps from him, and now you're afraid you'll have to go back to Daddy without enough information. Wow, are we gonna be in trouble?"

Prometheus snarled, making a sound much like I'd imagine a small dinosaur would, and whipped me away with his tail. I went flying through the air, tumbling out into the church, and giving my back a real nice slap against the marble of the altar. Of course, he was on me again before I could reach for my gun - whatever good that might have done me. Pinning me with his claws, the sharp ends digging into my flesh, he said, "You die today, Slayer. Today, I feast on you, your mind, and your lovely bloody fearful meat. But you can decide how your final hours are spent. You can die quickly, or I can start my meal before your heart beats its last."

As I stared back into that awful face, I could easily imagine the horror of being eaten alive. Prometheus' features were a terrifying cross between the elegance of a serpent and the primal savagery of a prehistoric predator. His eyes were endless black pools, devoid of any compassion or empathy - windows to a soul bereft of humanity.

His mouth formed a grotesque sneer, revealing row after row of wickedly sharp, serrated teeth that glistened in the dim light. The hungry glint in his gaze spoke to an insatiable desire to rend flesh from bone, to tear into quivering muscle while the victim still drew breath. Every subtle twitch of his facial muscles hinted at the ferocity with which he would feast upon me.

As I contemplated the agonizing experience of being consumed alive, waves of dread washed over me, my skin prickling with the anticipation of unbearable pain. I could envision myself struggling helplessly, shrieking in anguish as Prometheus tore into me with ravenous intent. My blood would run hot and thick down his chin, painting his coal-black scales as he devoured me piece by agonizing piece.

Beyond the physical torment, the emotional torment was equally harrowing. To stare into the eyes of the creature that would end my life, knowing that it relished the very thought of my suffering, and to face the bleak certainty that my final fate rested in the hands of such an unfeeling monstrosity - the thought played havoc with my mind, churning a maelstrom of primal fear and despair deep in the pit of my soul.

I realized he was making me dwell on this, using his psychic powers to force me to imagine it, trying to break me. And it wasn't not working.

I said, "I don't have any fucking idea about Jules Verne. I was coming here to get info from the priest, you dummy. Why would I have been coming here if I already knew what he had to tell me?"

Screaming in frustration, he punched the altar above us, and I heard the stone crack. Prometheus dug his claws deeper into me; I could feel the blood starting to flow, warmly wetting my shoulders. He peered at me, and I could see him listening to my thoughts, gauging my honesty.

Prometheus spoke again. "Fine, what about the Rib of Marduk?"

I just shook my head. "Marduk was the god of Mesopotamia?" Even as I said it, I knew I was off, but it was some ancient diety.

Prometheus snapped, "How the fuck should I know? What the fuck is the Rib of Marduk?"

I said, "Not the first fucking clue. Again, you're missing the point, bozo. The priest you so hurriedly murdered had information for me, not the other way around."

He snarled, "You're Damien Slayer! You're supposed to be the guy with all the answers, who knows everything there is to be known about these things..."

I smiled, though it was forced. I needed to upset him, so he could either mess up and I could get away or he would mess up and kill me. I said, "Wow, you really are worried about upsetting Daddy. You're gonna be grounded for this boo-boo."

As much as I was taunting him, the look of fear on his face truly revealed the truth in my mockery.

He seemed to be thinking for a moment, planning. He spoke slowly, as if plotting, "If you have nothing to tell me, then there's no need to keep you alive..." As much as it was my goal, I really didn't like the sound of that.

He continued, "Maybe if I were to start... maybe with your crunchy little fingers... you won't bleed out so fast, and fingers are so crunchy... maybe you'll give me something before you pass out, something for Father."

Prometheus's clawed hand slid deliberately down my arm, the cold, scaly grasp chilling me to the bone. With determined menace, it encircled my wrist and slowly lifted my hand towards his gaping maw, those nightmarish jaws opening to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth eager to rend, tear and satisfy a monstrous appetite. The horrifying prospect of impending mutilation loomed large as my fingers drew ever closer to the abyss of Prometheus's waiting mouth.

My resistance was child-like to his unnatural strength as he unraveled my fist and placed the index finger into his cold, wet mouth.