"Damn you, Deacon," Rachel growled through clenched teeth.

"Damn you, Deacon," Rachel growled through clenched teeth. She had no idea how the man did it, but somehow her partner had a knack for getting her into the worst situations. Soaked to the bone, stalking a psychotic murderer outside an abandoned meat packing plant, this time was no exception.

The man--Deacon called him "a fiend" and refused to refer to him as anything else--had already murdered seven homeless people and an entire family: three little girls no less. He had to be stopped. The man seemed to have a penchant for torture. All of his victims had been found in positions of subjugation and terror, mouths frozen in silent rictus screams. What they'd not been able to figure out what exactly how they had died, none of the victims had a mark on them, but that didn't make them any less dead.

Rachel was pretty sure that Deacon had an idea of how they'd died, but he wasn't giving anything up. They'd been partners for a long time: going on seven years, or was it eight? She could not remember, but she'd spent enough long, tension-filled nights with the man to know a thing or two about him. The first was that if he didn't want to give something up, you were wasting your time trying to break or make him. She'd never seen a will so strong in another human. She said will to herself, but she'd never admit that to Deacon, if he were here, she'd call it thick-or-hard-headedness. Despite her mounting terror at what she was about to do, Rachel allowed a small smile to peek out at the edge of her mouth.

Rachel wished that he was here with her.

"Damn you, Deacon," she said, getting a tighter grip on her Glock 22, she flung herself away from the single street light and into the shadow of death and darkness.

Art Source: "Red Light Heat" (c)/by Benef

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Deacon, #Fallen, #Imran, #TenetsTales, #Sector7, #Sectof7, #Cleatus, #Rachel

All I could see was Rachel’s face: blood-spattered, pale, and still.

All I could see was Rachel’s face: blood-spattered, pale, and still. It was the stillness that gives a body the feeling that someone has driven a spike of frozen iron into your lower back. The kind of stillness that is simply NOT natural. All things move, even when they are still, if you get my meaning. If you don’t believe me, try staying crouched and hidden sometime--you’ll quickly begin to waver and tremble, your body making tiny, subtle movements as you try to remain still.

I bet Rachel had crouched somewhere in the dark, trying to hide from the Imran. I bet she’d shivered and trembled, legs and body quaking. I bet she’d stifled her cries. Hand over her mouth, snot running out of her cute pug nose, pushing back the gasps, tears streaming out of her bewitching hazel eyes.

I bet the Imran--that was the old name for it--had lapped up her fear. They’re known by many names: Popobawa, Khalid Khanzada, Zain Haiders--I had my own name for them, but it was the sort of name that isn’t used in polite society. Regardless of what you called them, they were sadistic, sinister, and sick-and-twisted fu… -- sorry, again, old habits, you know. In the Grand Scheme, they were roughly classified as Mid-listers among the Fallen; they feed off of raw fear and they delight in the causing of it among mortals. Metaphysically speaking, they are the wine-snobs of fear: they know how to make it, and the love everything about its production and consumption. And the sonufa… --sorry...it...it...it had gotten my girl.

I closed her eyes with one hand and with the other, pulled Donkey, my custom built .500 Linebaugh, and mechanically dropped out its normal load (my 385 grain “Mulekickers”). I crossed her still-warm arms across her chest while simultaneously popped in six rounds of my hand-made 535 grain “Derailers” with my speed-loader. My old, steel grey eyes drooped shut, and I bowed my head, whispering some soft words and wiping some water off my gritty, stubbled cheeks.

Like I said, my eyes are old. They leak sometimes.

I felt the thrum of the Power slide into me. It’s an ambient thing--like standing too close to highly charged power lines. I had a pretty good idea where the Imran had gone to hide. It would be waiting for me, in the place where I’d first encountered it, three days ago. If only I hadn’t been so stupid and so damned cocky. If only I had burned the old meat-packing plant to the ground. If I’d’a done that, then maybe the Fallen would not have been able to gain strength, take on a mortal form, and cross-over into our world.

It was on me - all of it. Rachel; the homeless folks downtown; that poor, unsuspecting family. It was all on me. Sign me up, teacher, and put my name on the board.

‘Deacon did it, Teacher! It’s Deacon’s fault!’

With a flick of my anaconda-thick-wrist, I snapped Donkey’s chamber back into place and slipped it into its well-worn holster in the hollow under my left arm. It felt good there, a reassuring and constant weight--and old friend beckoning from beneath my threadbare trench coat.

Yea, it was my fault; my mess.

I grinned sardonically.

But that meant I got to clean it up, too.

Art Source: "Horror Art" (c)/by Jan Ditlev

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Deacon, #Donkey, #Fallen, #Imran, #TenetsTales, #Sector7, #Sectof7, #Cleatus, #Rachel

I don't expect them to understand. After all, I am a living...well, technically, unliving...contradiction.

'I don't expect them to understand. After all, I am a living...well, technically, unliving...contradiction.'

Roksana shifted ever-so-slightly, feeling the stirring of the cold winter wind, but not sensing its bite. She stared down the length of the arrow's shaft, still--even after all these years--expecting to see the ever-so slight quaver in the arrow's tip. She'd not dealt with muscle fatigue for a long, long time. Being a 'vampir' (as the Germans were calling her kind now) did have its benefits, she mused.

But there was still part of her that was stubbornly--

'Alive and willful,' would have been Deacon's words.

She missed her mentor. Lost to the Ravages, now, she supposed. The thought of her dearest friend and teacher in their twisted claws, suffering, steeled her resolve all the more. She would stand and guard this church until Doomsday if need be. Michael himself would need to sound his silver trump in her undead face before she would drop her arrow's point. She woul--

"S-s-s-shoot him in the face!", the Fallen hissed in her ear, words dissolving into slithering laughter. She flinched, and her stín-šipka, her ebony-shafted shadow arrow, whisked into the darkness.

"Shush, Idzi!" Roksana spat the words through gritted teeth that were far too long and sharp to be human. She coiled her will, like unyielding leaden chains, around the demonic presence inside her. The will flowed into words, spoken and living with a Power all their own: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Idzi screamed and hissed and fought, as he always did. But he was no match for the Word of God when applied through the will of one of His children.

Even if she was a vampir.

She knew she had to control herself. Self-control was one of the Fruits. Only through them could the Light be manifested. And these people in this village--the same people who hated her, spat upon her, and tried to kill her--they needed her control, her powers. They needed her to be what she was, even if they hated her; for they needed her protection this night, if they wanted to see the dawn that she herself could no longer behold.

It was then that Roksana heard the howls. The živá mrtvola vlkodlaci (zombie werewolves) were coming...and they would be hungry. An ebon arrow slapped against her bow, and with the battle against the spirit won, the battle against the flesh began. 

Art Source: "Archer" (c)/by Haryarti

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #TenetTales, #Sectof7, #Roksana, #Deacon

"Th' name's Deacon. What's it to ya?"

"Th' name's Deacon. What's it to ya?" the mountain-of-a-man turned as he grumbled, a look of irritation on his face.

There was something else there, something other than the petulance at being bothered after a long day's watch. Sadness, perhaps. The vampir opened herself up to the damnable thing that stirred within her. Idzi needed no prompting. The horrid thing came screaming and clawing its way up out of its hunger-lined pit. Roksana used the thing's power and drew in a deep breath and even beyond the filth, refuse, offal, and stench of close-air and unwashed bodies, she could detect the delicious aroma of this man's sadness. To her, it was her very life. So, sadness it was; of this, Roksana was now certain. Steeling her will and muttering a prayer to the Christ, she spiritually threw the demon back into a cage inside her and continued. "I was told I would find you here," she said.

"Yeah? An' who told ya that?" Deacon cocked his shaggy brown head and looked off to one side, as if someone else was speaking to him. He raised a ham-sized fist toward Roksana and one finger as thick as an axe handle appeared. The pale, waif-like woman held her tongue and waited. She'd been told that he would be like this. The man nodded his massive, block-like head slowly and furrowed his brow a bit. The hand lowered, and he indicated that she should continue.

"He said you would not know him by name, but that you would recognize him," she said, licking rose petal lips nervously.

"And?" Deacon said, his patience quickly expiring.

"Slightly taller than average, somewhat thin and bookish. Bald and very pale of skin," Roksana pointed her shapely chin toward Deacon and made a pulling motion with her fingers as she continued speaking. "A longish chin-beard, dark like old charcoal but with two silver streaks. He wears a grey monk's robe, woolen, with a hood and-"

"And odd silver and black eyes like none ya've ever seen," Deacon finished. He again looked to the side and nodded. "Yea, Cleatus, it's him." The massive man then looked to Roksana. "And I know his name, now - he's called Tenet, and he's generally a large pain in the arse. What does he want now?"

A smile crept into Roksana's dark grey eyes, but she stoically kept it from her lips. "He wants you to train me and says that in return, I might be able to help you..."

Deacon walked away, cursing out loud. Roksana was not sure if it was to himself, or to the other--Cleatus--that he'd just mentioned. She wondered briefly if Deacon also battled against his own personal, internal demons.

The giant-of-a-man got to the end of the alley and turned back to her and shouted. "Well, ya comin' or ain't ya?" He didn't wait for her to reply, just stumped away, cursing.

Art Source: "Mercenary For Hire" (c)/by Njay

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #TenetTales, #Sectof7, #Roksana, #Deacon, #Cleatus