Damned If I Do

Job From Hell

Life should be simple and easy. You grow up, get married and pop out a few babies. Die surrounded by your grandchildren. Alex Jackson thought on this topic a lot. Her life was neither simple nor easy and came with a side of crazy. To any outsider, a seventeen-year-old girl walking the dark streets at eleven o' clock at night was a recipe for disaster. To Alex it was her job. Her employer sent her there. Of course he was more like an owner, but she didn't like to dicker over details. There was a man in particular that he wanted, someone who did very bad things and whose life or rather, death was prized by many.

The neon signs shone brightly in the night, an assortment of bars, strip joints and fast food restaurants. Figure's he'd send me to the lowest part of the city. She checked the slip of paper her employer had scrawled the name and place on. It was done in detailed calligraphy and was at first hard to read.

Terrence Bentley, Girls Gone Wild Club 5658 Quinn St.

This was normally a place she'd never dream of entering. To her it represented a lot of what was wrong with the human race. It had almost all of the seven deadly sins in their purest form. Alex should know; she had met them. The stench of cheap perfume and sweat almost made her gag as she entered the club. A bouncer tried to stop her but she pushed pass him.

Some lame song about butts played on the speakers and women in glow in the dark clothing danced on stages, stooping to pick dollar bills from patrons. Alex averted her eyes from the scene. She then searched the club around her for a back exit; usually she needed it. People who she assumed were Terrence's lackeys walked up and stood in front of an office doors, a sweaty muscled wall that screamed keep away.

The women on the stages stopped temporarily to look at her fearfully before returning to their dancing. Men clustered on sofas cast weary glances and downed drinks before returning to the show. Good, they need to be distracted. She reached the back of the club and stood in front of the two bodyguards. They looked at her with tiny, piggish eyes. She adopted the sweetest voice she could.

"I'd like to see Terrence Bentley please." They laughed simultaneously, like some sort of machine. Just as quickly as they started laughing, they stopped and returned to their pig-eye staring.

"Terry don't see nobody unless they have an appointment." The one on the right said. Alex's patience was running low and the music was getting on her nerves. She gritted her teeth and tried to remain calm.

"Then how do I get an appointment?" she asked with an acidic tone. They looked her up and down.

"Terry might take you in, just cuz you're cute. But you gotta pay him." The one on the left spoke up.

"I don't have any money"

"He can take it out in trade."

"I'm seventeen." Alex said, glaring and wishing she could punch the guy's faces.

"Don't matter to Terry, girls of any ages work for him, except for the real young'uns. Terry don't do that." The right said. Alex had it; whatever these guys were implying; she didn't like it. She breathed and tried to get her anger under control, like her boss told her to.

"I can be reasonable, so I'm going to give you two sick bastards a chance to walk away and act like you never saw me." They again laughed in unison.

"Or what"

"I'll make you piss your pants and run like a baby from the building." She said, lifting her chin. If they didn't believe her then they were about to have a nasty surprise.

"Yeah, that so?" they said in harmony.

"Yeah, it is so." Alex growled. They looked at each other and back at Alex before grabbing her arms. She felt something surge within her, a force kept dammed by her calm.

"DON"T TOUCH ME!" she said. Her eyes flashed with blackness, drawing the sights of the guards. They released her, falling against the wall, their gazes locked. She knew what they were seeing, their worst fears inside the dark pools her eyes had become. As she had said, they wet themselves as they cried like children. She felt herself being taken by the dark. They cowered beneath her, and she liked it. They deserved to squirm.

It was one word that was barely a whisper, but it echoed in their minds. "Run." Alex's voice dropped an octave. They jumped up in fear crying, scrambling and stinking of urine. People turned to look at Alex as they ran from the building. Alex wanted to laugh giddily. No. She didn't; the Dark did. She calmed herself and returned to normal. There was a reason she didn't like to use her powers. It brought her one step closer to the Dark, the side effect of her magic.

Taking a breath, she pushed open the door to the office. A man sat at an overly large desk littered with fast food wrappers, beer cans and assorted women's clothing. He had a woman on his lap. She has white blonde hair and was dressed in a sparkly nurse outfit. She was cooing at him, saying he was handsome and a number of other nasty remarks. Alex cleared her throat. The woman sat up and looked at him. He nodded and she scurried off out of the door. The man was disgusting, he was fat, which bulged through his blue and white tracksuit that was stained with grease and a bunch of things Alex really didn't want to know about. His hair was thinning and combed badly, so he had a kind of reverse mohawk and countless gold chains hung around his fat neck.

"Terrence Bentley, you know a lot of people want your head on a stick." She said and walked in front of him. He looked at her and back at the door.

"Jack and Donny let you in, so you're aware of the terms, then?" he said, grinning and running looks up and down Alex's body. She ignored him and looked around at the walls. Nasty stripper photo's lined the walls and other items she wouldn't mention if her life depended on it.

"You're a bad man Terry, you know that?" Alex looked back at him. He obviously thought she was playing a game. Her anger and the Dark were bubbling to the surface, trying to escape. "Now on top of the fact that you look like a fat, ugly version of white rapper in a mid-life crisis" he stood up at her comment and she told him to sit with so much force that he fell back in the chair. "There's the fact that you're in human trafficking, the drug trade and also you run this disgusting joint." she motioned to the walls. He looked at her with angry eyes.

"You can't pin nothing on Terry, he's covered. You got no proof." He said smugly, with a hint of fear.

"You're a bad man Terry, they say that the Devil can see all sins. He's seen your sins and they can't go unpunished." Alex looked at him calmly "He's come to collect." She felt nothing as she recited her line. Terry realized she wasn't kidding too late. Terry tried to plead, saying he would pay anything she wanted. She didn't take bargains from her prey, especially from men like him. She walked to him and he tried to get away. "Stop." She said quietly and he listened. He was crouched looking at her, his eyes running and snot pouring from his nose. He begged her, his breathing phlegmy and thick. He looked so pathetic, begging for his life. The Dark told her to enjoy it, but she couldn't, her job was too gruesome for that.

She reached for his face. One touch is all it takes. Her fingers brushed the skin of his cheek. Black lines spread from the center, dark and dead veins. His skin began to become gray and wrinkly, dotted with age spots. His eyes began to pale, becoming a milky gray-blue. His cries were pitiful.

"I..I can't see" he wailed. His face became gaunt and his fat shriveled away until his bones jutted out in his skin. He again cried that he couldn't see.

"You couldn't see what you were doing was wrong." She said and pulled a black glass pendant from around her neck. She held it out, the chain was a dark bronze color and it ended in tendrils like veins connected to the black human heart shaped pendant. Even though it was glass, it pulsed like it was alive. A white smoky light curled out of Terrence's mouth and eyes. It gravitated towards the pendant, melting into the heart, leaving smoky trails moving across the inside of the glass. He shuddered and fell down as the last of the light left his body.

"Terrence Bentley, dead of old age at fourty-eight." She held the necklace close and left the room. It was a dark thing, an evil thing that had to be done. It was her job.

Alex Jackson. Death, the right hand of Lucifer.