"Ee got an axe, too," the Stickman observed.

"For all the good it'll do him," Tony commented. He looked up and studied the last of their attackers. This one had held back for some reason. Perhaps he was the brains. Then, Tony recognized the figure's gear. "A f.u.c.kin' fireman?"

Danny shook his head. "That ain't no fireman, Tony," he said quietly. "Don't know what the f.u.c.k it is, but we met up with a few of its partners back on the highway. It ain't no fireman."

"No fireman," Crew said. He tossed the bat back to Danny as he went forward, "I'll finish this." He produced his knife.

"TONY!!"

The cry of his name caused Tony to look back to the cabin. Crew paused only for a moment to recognize that it was the woman calling out, and that Tony could probably take care of whatever it was she wanted. He continued onwards.

"What is it?" Tony shouted back.

"Come here!" Lucy called to him. "We need you!"

"More dead things?" Tony asked.

"No, no!" Lucy said. "It's Frank! He wants you!"

Nodding, Tony looked to the Stickman and Danny. "Make sure that fire p.r.i.c.k over there doesn't get away. And keep a lookout."

Both men nodded. When Tony moved in the direction of the cabin, they calmly regarded each other. The Stickman stood unflinching not three feet away from the Legend of the Beacon. He was torn between staying and following Tony back to the cabin. But Danny was watching him. Danny studied the man with the same sleepy intensity that made him a force to be feared. In his hands, he held a black-stained bat. The Stickman eyed it. Then, Danny did something that surprised the Stickman. He reached into his pocket and held out the short Beretta blade.

"Think you can use this?" he asked.

"I tink so," Stickman said taking it.

Danny nodded and studied him grimly. "Just so afterwards, when I shove this bat up your a.s.s, you don't go whining you didn't have a fair chance."

To that, the Stickman just smiled.

Trudging through the knee-high snow, Crew closed the distance between him and the last of the firemen. He drew to within five feet and brought up his knife. He watched the black ski mask. He readied himself for a swing of the fire axe. But the fireman did not move.

"You waiting for something here?" Crew asked. "An invitation?"

Grey Northman scowled behind his mask. He disliked having to converse with such s.h.i.t-low forms.

"Well?"

The sky had lightened considerably in the time it took the Mundane to get to him. Grey Northman estimated that it would only be another few minutes, and the sun would crack the mountain line and frame it all in red. He did not care for the sun. He decided then and there that he was a thing born in darkness.

And so he would perish in it, as well.

Grey Northman flexed his fingers on the shaft of his fire axe. The game was not finished yet. He had one last card to play. In one nimble move, he dropped a leg back for balance and raised his axe to strike, bringing it up like a sword.

Crew buried his knife in Northman's throat.

The pain exploded in the Minion's neck just above his Adam's apple. He could feel the wrongness of the impalement and welcomed the blissful agony that rushed through his senses, firing up his nerves like lit fuses. The pain was mind paralyzing, but Northman willed himself to perform one thing, even as he fell to his knees, dropping his axe.

His fingers found the hilt of the knife.

Crew watched the fireman without emotion. He had watched men die before. It was nothing new to him.

But then, while on his knees with blackness spraying out over his protective coat and staining the snow, the fireman gripped the knife and twisted it. He gargled something, but then the life seemingly left him, and he fell over on his side.

The action caused Crew to draw back. That s.h.i.t was f.u.c.ked up.

He stepped in, crouching, only half thinking about retrieving his knife.

A shadow fell across him.

Crew had just enough time to glance up when the fist caught him square underneath the jaw. Several of Crew's front teeth were shattered. He flew backwards to land flat on his back in a cushion of snow, his limbs sticking up and outwards as if he had just been shot and left in a dumpster.

It was the brazen sound of flesh striking flesh that caused Danny and the Stickman to turn their heads. Danny did not know who he was looking at. The Stickman knew, and froze in his tracks, wondering if he ran, what his chances would be.

For standing over the twitching form of Grey Northman was the tall, half-naked form of the thing known only as Pain.

Gazing from the window of the wrecked cabin, Fear's mouth dropped open just as Tony crossed the threshold of the cabin's wrecked entrance.

"Well, s.h.i.t," Fear muttered.

"'Sup, frightful?" Death quipped from the couch, pleasantly high.

"You'll never guess who just showed up."

Tony turned around in the doorway. Lucy ran to the window beside Fear and peered out.

"Pain?" Death asked, his senses barely returning to orbit around his planet.

"Yeah."

"s.h.i.t," Tony cursed and headed back out.

f.u.c.k, Death mouthed soundlessly and laid his head back on his pillows.

"Do what you do, man," Death called out to Fear. One arm shot up from the couch like a missile being primed for launch. "Cry Havoc!"

Fear's brow crunched up in concentration as he focused on the Mundanes.

He would do just that.

Chapter 71.

In the pre-dawn light, Pain grinned at the fallen Crew and flexed the fist that had put the man down. Dark skinned and head shaved, his face was worn and weather beaten, but not old. He drew himself up to his full height, perhaps an inch or two above Danny and that much wider. Pain studied the two men watching him. They stayed in place for a few seconds, and then they slowly approached. The Ent.i.ty nodded and grunted loudly. That was good. He hated it when he had to chase his victims.

He produced a short, harsh chuckle. He flexed his upper torso and everything rippled with muscular power. He beat a fist against his hairless chest and roared at the stalled men. His fists clenched open and closed, and a thin line of saliva trailed from his lips. His biceps bulged as if he were trying to curl an invisible weight. Pain took one step forward, fully expecting the now three men to turn and bolt for the hills.

When they did not, his sharp smile widened all the more.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" Danny whispered.

Only the Stickman heard. "I ditched dis f.u.c.ker a ways back on de 'ighway."

"Yeah?" Danny gripped his bat tighter, looking at the giant of a man who now wore nothing but faded blue jeans and a smile. He wasn't even sure if he wore boots or not.

"You guys need help?" Tony said as he appeared on the Stickman's left. Both men glanced his way before looking back at the fearsome sight before them. None of them felt a flick of fear.

"Alright then," Tony said, holding his hatchet. He stepped forward.

Danny and the Stickman were a second behind him.

"Yeah!" Pain roared and clubbed his chest again, the sound briefly echoed through the morning air. Pain exhaled mightily, white breath like that of a dragon. "Bring it here, man! Bring it!" His head flicked this way and that as if he were clearing his ears rocks.

"It's too cold in the morning for this half-naked s.h.i.t," Danny observed, holding his bat samurai style before him.

Tony held up his hand. "Listen, dude, we don't want any part of you. Okay? We just want to get out of here with our friends in one piece, okay? Just stay out of our way, and we'll keep our peace."

A short laugh cut through the air. Pain took a step towards them. "I thought I was the stupid one," he growled, lathing his white teeth with a black tongue. "Listen. What I want is in yon cabin there. I can smell him. Can't tell you how f.u.c.king long I've been waiting for a chance like this. I'll let you get out if you stand aside. Just cuz I feel so good. Howzat sound?"

The Stickman looked questioningly at Tony.

"f.u.c.k. You," Tony said, meaning both syllables. Danny nodded, grimacing against the chill of the morning. The Stickman wasn't exactly sure what was happening, but he knew he did not like the tanned wrestler. There was something big going down here. Something beyond the Stickman's current grasp on reality. But he was a hands-on sort of guy, and this was one skin-headed bully that had ruled the schoolyard for too long. The Stickman could tell that this half-naked savage needed his a.s.s handed to him good and proper. Just on the principle of it. "Don't need a car to kick yer a.s.s," he said as he held out his knife.

Tony felt charged for what was about to happen. He felt righteous. He felt no fear. He supposed he had Fear to thank for that. And if he survived what was coming, he promised himself he would do just that.

Pain barked a short savage laugh. His eyes were black and shark-like. "More's the pity," he hissed.

And charged.

The big man took two steps in the snow and fell flat with an "OOPH!"

Crew disengaged his legs from Pain's and got to his feet, he spat blood into the snow. Pain raised his head, and Crew kicked it, breaking teeth and flipping the man on his back. Crew then performed something from the movies. He leapt into the air, arms spread wide, and brought both knees down on Pain's midsection. The air gushed out of his lungs. Crew planted both knees on the man's shoulders and lined up his face. He pistoned a fist into Pain's nose, smashing bone and cartilage. Black blood spurted. Pain's eyes squinted against the crackling agony he felt, and he groped with his huge arms. Crew would have none of it. He smashed another fist downwards, followed by another and another. Pain's arms dropped to his sides, suddenly lifeless. The other three men gathered around the pair like kids on a playground watching a brawl. Crew punched and punched again, shattering teeth, breaking cheeks, splitting skin and purpling eyes. Pain's face began to take on a grotesque yellowish-purple hue from the beating, and Crew continued to wail away on the man pinned beneath him, until his own battle-toughened knuckles began to ache with the contact on Pain's skull. It was perhaps the only part of his head that had not caved in.

"Jesus," Tony breathed, watching with growing horror. With each punch, Pain's legs would spasm briefly. It was enough for Tony to almost dry heave, for in truth, he had nothing in his stomach to come up. "Jesus, he's done man. He's done."

"I think so too," Danny said quietly over the smacking sound of fist into face.

"Lord Tunderin almighty," the Stickman swore, "Ye've kicked the livin' s.h.i.te outta 'im. Lay off already."

Running out of breath and his arms feeling like lead, Crew stopped swinging at the unmoving face underneath his knees and simply knelt there. He breathed in heavily, saturating his muscles with much needed oxygen. He lost count the number of punches he had put into the man underneath him, but he exacted his revenge for the shot earlier. Cold air smacked him in the face and he welcomed the freshness of it. He regarded the others standing around him. "Well," he panted, "he ain't getting up anytime soon."

That made Tony chuckle aloud and Danny smile. Even the Stickman shook his head at the dark humour.

But in a second, Pain shifted in the snow, his arms came up, very much alive, and easily grabbed the shoulders of a stunned Crew. Pain flung the man through the air, where he landed flat on his back perhaps ten feet away.

Pain got to his knees.

The baseball bat crashed into Pain's purple and black face, right across the bridge of his nose. With a b.e.s.t.i.a.l grunt, he went down again, landing on his hands and knees. His back was exposed to the three men standing. Danny wasted no time as he slammed the bat flat across the man's flesh. Danny struck him again, getting a grunt from the man at his feet. Then the Stickman delivered a crushing boot to Pain's ribs.

Tony did not join Danny and the Stickman in the pounding on their foe. It was clear to him that the fight was almost over. Pain's head was slumped down low between two ma.s.sive shoulders, and Tony could see blackness pouring onto the snow. Crew regained his feet and watched the beating with dark approval.

The two men stopped to catch their breaths.

Pain immediately straightened up in the snow and faced his attackers. His face was a horror show of broken bone, punctured skin and black blood. Two eyes, barely seen through the ma.s.sive swelling of his broken cheekbones, appeared as empty slits of blood-stained white. The face was frightening enough to stop anyone in their attacks, but the men were not afraid. They did not feel any fear at all. They stopped because of sheer amazement, staggering back from the abomination.

Expelling a mighty breath, Pain threw his arms wide.

And grinned.

"Jesus H. Christ," Tony swore breathlessly, stepping back with his hatchet still in hand. Both Danny and the Stickman backed up as well, their faces filled with shock and awe at the destruction they had collectively caused the man, and yet how he still functioned.

Pain backed away from the men towards the cabin behind him on the other side of the hidden road. His arms were at guard. He took only three steps when he bared his ruined teeth at the men. "C'mon. Over here. Bring it!"

Back in the cabin, Death looked up from the sofa, and asked, "Is it over?"

Fear's mouth screwed up in distaste. He didn't bother answering.

Pain beckoned with huge paws that pa.s.sed as hands. Tony found it incredible that the man was able to breathe let alone talk after the brutal beating. Pain's head was a dark, discoloured medicine ball with the stuffing hanging out of it. The Stickman could see wide dripping wounds in the man's shaved skull. They looked like long lipless mouths that drooled incessantly.

Pain roared at them and Danny's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es drew up an inch. It was the sound of extraordinary rage. He had come across some very drunk, very violent people in his time at the Beacon. The booze sometimes ignited a deep rooted anger in a very rare few, like a perfect storm, and they would be a handful to control. Boomer would call it "priming themselves to explode" and more often than not, Boomer had called it right. Except this time, the thing that was goading them had already primed itself.

As far as Danny figured, it had already detonated.

"Guys," Tony said, "listen up. I know things have been really f.u.c.kin' weird for you these last few minutes. Maybe even hours. But I s.h.i.t you not. What was said about all the bad things in the Bible happenin' here is true. We ain't fightin' each other now, got that? We can't. We're fightin' that," Tony pointed his hatchet at Pain. "And that wants the guy inside on the couch. We have to put him down long enough for Frank to kill himself and get out of here. That's all."

Another roar cut the morning air. The clouds had raced away somewhere and left a dark diamond blue sky blazing red at the lower edges. Pain poised himself as if to charge.

It was not lost on any of the men.

"Angry b.a.s.t.a.r.d, ain't he?" Danny commented.

"He's angry, all right," Tony commented, but the Stickman did not buy it.

"Angry, me a.r.s.e," the Newfoundlander observed with a harsh eye. "Ee's likin' dis."

The words made the rest of them pause. Crew knew the words the Stickman had spoken were true. Cold horror sunk into him and the others as they realized the same. Pain was enjoying himself. His screams were the excited screams of kids strapped into the most terrifying rollercoaster.

Crew felt a huge stone of doubt sink in his guts.

"TONY, PLEASE!"