His head whipped around. It was Lucy, coming out of the cabin. All the men turned to see her standing outside of the cabin.

Even Pain.

"Oh, baby," he growled through a mouthful of teeth shards.

Tony's attention flicked back from Lucy to Pain and from Pain to Lucy, again. Feelings of rage erupted within him as he pointed his hatchet at Pain. "You can f.u.c.k off right now, man, and maybe we'll let you live."

A hoa.r.s.e bark of laughter came from Pain, and he eyed Lucy as best as he could. It was enough for her to back up towards the open door of the cabin.

"Tony, we need you!" Lucy cried out again. "Now!"

He nodded. "Guys," Tony said.

"Go, man," Danny said, keeping an eye on Pain. "We got you here."

"Keep him busy!" Tony told the three.

In answer, Crew was already moving to Pain's left. The Stickman summoned up his invisible shields just like Ninja Bill had taught him. He only wished Ninja Bill were with him for this fight. The Stickman did not wish for Badger to be with him.

Badger was s.h.i.tty at fighting.

Taking a last look at the three men, Tony turned and hoofed it back. Pain watched him go and his smile faltered just a bit.

"We're still here, man," Danny informed him, raising his bat. "It's okay. We're just gonna talk this out, okay?" The Stickman was on his left now, and Crew was on his right. Danny was in the middle looking at a man he realized was bigger than him.

"You with me, Crew?" Danny asked of his recent partner.

"Sure am," Crew answered. His eyes zeroed in on Pain.

Danny had no doubt there. "Stickman?"

"I'se 'ere."

"You ain't gonna f.u.c.k us up now?"

The Stickman regarded the man with such an insulted look that made Danny almost regret posing the question. Almost.

"Alright, then," Danny said loud enough for all to hear. "Let's get this last man standing s.h.i.t on the road."

Pain watched the three advancing on him with blood stained eyes, and bared the remains of b.l.o.o.d.y teeth.

"Yeah," Crew said. "Well. f.u.c.k you, too."

Under a dark blue sky just about to burst at the edges with sun, the bouncer, the hit man and the ex-prisoner raised their weapons and closed the distance between themselves and their foe.

Chapter 72.

The men were just about to engage the monster when Tony once again crossed over the threshold of the cabin's wrecked entrance and marched over to Death lying on the couch. His mouth hung open, and Tony thought he didn't look well at all. The man-or whatever he was-had come a long way from the deserted golf course where they had first met.

"f.u.c.k you lookin' at?" Death quipped at him.

Tony's mouth dropped open. "What the f.u.c.k? Are you high?"

"I am..." Death paused for effect. "The black sun of the universe. The black matter of existence. The last stuff you'll ever see. Thanatos, himself. The Omega man. And yes, I am as stoned as all f.u.c.k."

Tony looked to Lucy. She shrugged.

"Aren't you supposed to kill yourself?" Tony demanded.

"Couldn't do it," Death snapped back. "Too G.o.dd.a.m.n full of life!"

The confusion on Tony's face was as clear as the rising sun outside.

"He tried, Tony," Lucy spoke up, "but the morphine wasn't enough for him. It just got him stoned. He couldn't die from it. You have to do it."

Tony blinked in horror.

"Kill me!" Death burst out. "Take me out. f.u.c.k me over. No... wait on that last one..."

"I can't kill him!" Tony insisted.

"You were hacking up people a while ago!" Death pointed out.

"Lucy!" Tony pleaded.

"Look, I'd do it for you," Death said quietly in a suddenly sincere voice. The switch made Tony stare at him in confusion.

"Tony, look here," Death said, sincerity dispensed with, "listen, you are the only one here that I trust with the job. The only one. Freddie over there can't do it. He's balless. And Lucy is Lucy. You, now, you're special. I see that now. Took a while, but I do. You convinced me to go back with that rant of yours. Just take that axe and plant it right here," he tapped his forehead with a finger. "And I mean really f.u.c.king clap me with it. You have to. Anything less, and he'll be here to really f.u.c.k me over. And you have to do it now."

"Lucy," Tony said, "I can't do this."

"You're the only one," Lucy explained. "The others are fighting Pain. He can't be allowed to get to Frank. If he does, he'll never let him die and this world will be plunged into a deathless existence. "

"And other s.h.i.t, too," Death threw in, eyes gla.s.sy.

The thought did nothing to motivate Tony. He looked down at the defenceless and quite stoned Death, and shook his head.

"Why couldn't you just die back at the car wreck, then?" Tony persisted. "If this was the way things had to be, why didn't you just go then?"

"Couldn't. Wouldn't," Death said simply. "Wasn't enough of a flight for that. Didn't quite do the job. Bottom line, I'm ready now. Ready to go back to work. You have to send me over. I can't cross over in this suit," Death touched his chest. "Doesn't work that way. You're the one to kill me. What are you worried about? Your soul or something? A fear of G.o.d? Listen, who do you think I work for? It's o-kay, G.o.ddammit! Just do it! And do it before that a.s.shole out there gets a hold of me."

"The guys will take care of him," Tony muttered.

That caused Death to c.o.c.k an eyebrow. Even from the window, Fear half turned around upon hearing the words.

Death looked Tony straight in the eye. "n.o.body takes care of Pain, Tony." Death did not blink, and the morphine suddenly had no hold on him. "Not when it's that strong. You can't kill it. You can only suppress it. Endure it. Until I take you."

On cue, the screams from outside sounded distinctly human.

Chapter 73.

Pain charged.

Crew leaped and snapped out a solid boot that crunched into the creature's head. The blow stopped him in his tracks. The American whirled and a back fist knocked more of Pain's teeth into the snow. Crew threw a combination of punches, jabs, and martial arts' strikes that the Stickman recognized and Danny had only seen in the movies. Each connection hit with the blunt sound of bone on flesh. Each connection drove Pain backwards, towards the nearing cabin. Black blood sprayed. Crew started throwing kicks when the big man did nothing to defend himself. A roundhouse kick d.a.m.n near broke Pain's neck. A side kick shattered more of the man's ribs and caused a great cough of blood. Another side kick smashed in the other side. Then, it was the axe kick from h.e.l.l. Crew's right leg went straight up, while he pushed off with his left. With whatever power he had left in him, plus the weight of his body, the axe kick came down and landed square on Pain's upper chest.

The big man flew backwards, arms wind-milling, through the front door of the cabin. The men heard the wood snap. The lock and the frame of the door shattered. The door itself sprang back in place and then swung slowly inwards with a whine. Of Pain, there was no sight.

Danny did not expect the man to come out. As far as he was concerned, the thing was dead.

"Chirst awmighty, me son," Stickman grinned in awe of Crew. "Dat 'ad to be the wickedest ting I've ever seen. Y'killed 'im."

In the growing glow of morning, Crew stood breathing hard, regaining his strength. It was hard to kick in snow. He was exhausted.

Danny studied him with an amused look. "I can see why you never brought anything with you."

Crew did not say anything to that. He merely sucked in cold morning air.

The Stickman made his way to the cabin. "I'll check on 'im."

"If he ain't dead, stick your knife in him," Crew advised. "Stick it in his eye."

The Stickman bounded up to the cabin and pushed open the doorway. He immediately saw something that took his speech away.

There, standing just out of sight and hunkered over so he could fit into the narrow hallway, stood a fully healed Pain.

And he was smiling.

"'Eyyy," the Stickman said in stunned awe, "dat ain't f.u.c.kin"

Fair, he never got the chance to finish.

Pain's boot connected with him squarely in his stomach. The impact sent the Stickman flying backwards some fifteen feet, past the surprised faces of Danny and Crew, to land in a twisted heap in the snow. When the Newfoundlander hit, he did not get up. He did not make a sound. He lay there in the freezing cold, limp and seemingly dead as if shot through the skull.

Standing in the snow with their mouths hanging open, Danny's and Crew's minds were just as paralyzed.

The cabin's door flew off its hinges and a reconstructed Pain stepped back out into the world. He was still covered in blood, but the bruises and cuts were gone and every broken bone, including his battered skull, had mended. Bloodshot eyes fixed on the two men with such a feral intensity that Fear himself, looking on from the cabin window across the road, had to concentrate fast and hard to remove the explosion of pure terror within the pair. Fear bared his teeth with the effort, placing both of his hands flat against the edges of the window.

He f.u.c.king hated Pain.

"How... did..." Danny started as he retreated a step.

An advancing Pain grinned at him and shushed. "You don't worry about that now."

Both Danny and Crew stepped away from each other as they backed up. They were no longer fighting a man. They were fighting a thing.

"C'mere," Pain smiled cruelly at them. Black blood laced his now perfect smile. "You ever wonder what it's like to have your head twisted off? I'll show you."

Danny rushed Pain and swung the bat. It broke across Pain's upraised forearm. Danny swore and jumped back three feet in the snow, tossing the splintered end away. He got his hands up in time before Pain lunged at him, arms spread wide like some deep-sea net. Danny set his feet and slipped an arm underneath Pain's right arm, flipping him onto his back. The big man landed with a loud grunt and giggle. Crunching his stomach, Pain pulled himself up into a sitting position.

Danny began punching the man in the face. Fearsome combinations heralded by locomotive bursts of breath. He put his body weight behind each punch and snapped his wrists for extra power. He knew how to throw a punch, and he was sending in missiles. Pain's head rocked to and fro like a character in a cartoon.

But he did not go down. Instead, he got to his knees.

Crew slipped around the back of the creature while Danny remoulded Pain's face with his fists. Crew slipped both arms around Pain's sizeable neck and began to squeeze. Danny could see the destruction he wrought on Pain's person when Crew locked in the choke hold. Pain gasped, and blood and snot blew out of his nostrils, but he smiled his b.l.o.o.d.y smile. Crew increased the pressure, baring his own teeth.

He held on for seconds. Long seconds.

Pain's smile grew. He grabbed onto both of Crew's arms and stood up.

Crew's eyes went wide in amazement. How many people had he placed to sleep with the same technique? How many people had he killed?

Pain swung the man clinging onto his back around, hard. Crew managed to wrap both of his legs around the thing's waist for support. Instead of slinging his baggage away, Pain realized that it had clamped onto him even harder. Roaring, Danny moved in and unloaded fist after fist into its chiselled mid-section. The muscle there was as hard as armoured plate, and Danny broke the skin on his knuckles. But he punched away at the body before him, driving punishing fists into his foe.

Pain absorbed them all.

Then, inevitably, Danny became aware of the growing ache in his shoulders, the heaviness in his lungs, and the slowing of his reflexes. He backed away.

A b.l.o.o.d.y-looking Pain regarded the man with a slow reproachful smile. "Tired?"

He swung.

The first punch took Danny across the face, and he felt his nose break. The second punch broke three ribs. Danny dropped into the snow.

"Now you, princess," Pain said to Crew, who still held onto the monster's neck. Pain grabbed Crew's arms again. He did not try to swing the man. This time, he made sure Crew was in place and began running backwards.

Towards the cabin wall.

Crew's summoned up every last remaining bit of strength he possessed. He did not want to put Pain to sleep. He wanted to snap his neck. The wall, the hard frozen wall of the log cabin was back there. Crew increased the pressure even more. Any moment his back was going to be broken on the exterior of the cabin. With a roar, Crew squeezed every last inch of pressure he had into his grip and snapped the neck of Pain. He felt bone and vertebrae buckle, and Crew's breath let go in a grateful huff.

Then, he crashed into the wall.

The impact broke his hold on Pain, and Crew crumbled into the snow gathered at the base of the structure. Crew blacked out for a split second, but he rolled to his hands and knees. He looked in the direction of Pain, seeing two of them. His vision swayed and blurred. It was difficult to focus. He willed it, and it faded back. He saw the towering, half-naked frame of Pain reach up and take his head in both hands from where it hung limply on his shoulders. Pain raised his head up, and Crew could hear the mending of whatever he had broken. His vision blurred. When it came back, he could hear Pain grunting. The Ent.i.ty made his way over to where Danny was lying.