Called By the Dark

“I couldn’t have,” he says. “You’re—you’re still alive.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you pointed a rifle at my chest and pulled the trigger,” I say softly. “Luckily, I have a guardian angel.” I unveil my eyes and let him see the bright flickering flames in them. “Or…something like that.”

“What the fuck,” Scarface breathes, eyes huge with fear.

“I’ve done some digging on you, Barry Owen,” I say. “It takes a special kind of monster to murder a hundred people in cold blood the way you did. And I wanted to know precisely what kind of monster. Turns out, you’re a monster for hire. You’ll do anything if it pays well. Murder, kidnapping, stealing and selling kids as playthings to the highest bidders across the world. Abusing and torturing children yourself, if ordered to do so. Remember the son of the prime minister of Tokyo? I think that was, what, four years ago?”

Scarface goes pale at the mention of that. Or maybe it’s the blood loss.

My upper lip curls as I recall the horrifying video I located when I was digging up a cemetery’s worth of dirt on the pathetic creature in front of me. “It’s amazing what you can find if you look hard enough, deep enough into the darkest parts of the internet. I sat through that torture video because I wanted to know about you. What kind of man, what kind of human, you really are. And what you did that little boy haunts my dreams. The really disturbing part of that is, that child was only the tip of the iceberg, wasn’t he? There’s more where he came from.”

“I…” Scarface starts to weep.

I shake my head. “I’m not even sure I can be classified as a human anymore, but between me and you, only one of us is a monster.”

“I was paid to do a job!” he cries, spittle flying. “I had to do it. I have to earn a living!”

I smirk. “Before you murdered me, I was a stripper. Some of my closest friends at that club—by the way, all of whom are dead now—were sex workers, who had to offer their bodies night after night after night to the men who paid for them. Don’t talk to me about having to earn a living. We had to earn a fucking living. You liked what you did. The murders. The rapes. The torture. All of it. Every. Last. Bit of it. You liked it.”

I rise slowly. His eyes are red and watery, and for an instant, I pity him.

“You know, I actually feel sorry for you,” I say. “What your life must have been like to lead you down a road like the one you’re on.”

“I—I just need help,” he says tremulously. “Have mercy. Doesn’t God forgive everyone?”

Suddenly, a flash of images bombards my brain. It lasts only an instant, but I can see each one as clearly as though I spent an hour studying them.

A door opens, showing me a possible path of destiny for Scarface. Barry Owens. He’s loaded onto a stretcher, rushed to the hospital. He recovers from his wounds, gets back on the job. He thinks of this night, this moment often. He thinks of his past and his deeds. And he continues to do evil, because he “has to earn a living.”

And because he likes it.

I crouch down again. “I don’t know much about God or His mercy. But what I do know? God isn’t here right now.”

Scarface whimpers, then bares his teeth at me, eyes filling with fresh tears. “Then fucking do it already, you stupid whore! What the fuck are you waiting for? He took my gun. Just shoot me!”

I glance over at Gaderel, silent, patient, watchful. He gazes back at me, waiting.

I look back down at Scarface. “Tonight, I killed your two partners because I witnessed what they did to people I love. The closest thing I had in this world to family. I watched them be ripped away. Because you had a job to do.” I swallow. “When you killed me, I didn’t have to deal with the aftermath of that. I wasn’t the one who saw my dead body, lying there, mangled. I wasn’t the one who felt the pain of that. He was.”

I look over at my prince, whose brows raise a fraction of an inch. Scarface shakily lifts his head to follow my gaze.

“Therefore, he should be the one to decide your fate,” I say. “Because he deserves vengeance for me. The old me.”

Gaderel smiles at me.

I beckon him. “Come, my love. Take your vengeance, however you see fit.”

“Is that a command?” he asks silkily, teasing, as he saunters over to me.

I place my hands on his chest. “Do with him as you please. Whether that’s mercy or death.”

“Mercy,” Scarface says hoarsely, reaching out a bloody hand to grasp at Gaderel’s boot. “Mercy, please.”

Gaderel glances at me. “You saw what I sent you?”

It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about the barrage of images that flew into my mind. I nod.

“Then you know that mercy is not an option.” He shifts his gaze back to Scarface. “I was once an angel of the Lord. When I made a transgression, He did not forgive me. He did not show me mercy. Instead, He banished me from Heaven and threw me into the pits of Sheol. Do you know what my crime was?”