Torn Between Duty And Desire

Chapter 1: Part 2

Before: Legs kicking, and now shouting bloody murder, Grimm struggled against the vicious darkness he' never know he'd harbored within.

Continued:

Remnants of his client's stolen sins took their due.

When the inhuman shieks grew hoarse and the man's body fell limp, Daven deported the summons. It happened with a sigh from the psychopomp and a prick of icy pain from Daven's shadow. He dropped Grimm on the ground and stepped away.

Fifty feet away, the exit to the garage opened to the night. Not a single city building blocked the view of the black summer sky. The moon perched high and gorgeous, pale and pocked with mysterious gouges and alien landmarks. Daven wondered if she were as cold as she looked.

Concentrate on anything but the evil. Grab on to the good. Or you will know hell, too, he told himself.

If for a moment, he had to do it, draw his attention away from the task at hand, push out the anger, coercion. If he did not, then he would be brought down completely, a willing supplicant to Himself.

"Never," Daven murmured.

Punching a fist into his opposite palm, he turned and pressed a booted foot to Grimm's shoulder, holding him against the wall, for otherwise the man would slump forward and pass out.

"Change your mind?" Daven asked.

Serian nodded.

"I didn't hear that. I've just visited all the sin you've eaten upon you. They wish to year away your flesh and pluck out your eyeballs. Every day. I can set them loose again, and they will be bound to you for the rest of your days on this earth. And when you perish, they'll be waiting for you in hell." He leaned in and tipped up the man by the chin. "You cool with that?"

"No!", Grimm grasped out, but his hand fell weakly upon his stomach. "I'll stop," he muttered. "They all go where they belong from now on."

"Do you swear it?"

"On my mother's soul."

Daven winced at the ready wager. Didn't the man understand the weight of his words? Should he slip up, Himself would snatch his mother's soul away in a blink.

"I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Daven pushed away from the man's shoulder and stepped back. Fear emanated from Serian Grimm in a shivery grey mist. Probably he would never again send a soul to the wrong direction. Some men were too weak to challenge a wicked fate.

Like you challenge yours during the dark hours?

Exactly.

Likely, Grimm had not asked for the job as a psychopomp. He'd been born into it, no doubt, or recruited. He was as much a victim of the world's whim as any other of the marks Daven tracked. And for that reason, he could not leave him without one final comment.

"May your shadows be cursed."

Daven strode out from the parking garage. His work was done. For this night.

***

The sun wouldn't rise for another four hours. Daven had no other tasks for this evening. He headed home on foot. A small apartment overlooking the river Spree in Berlin offered solace. Perhaps he could manage an hour of sleep.

Not that he was tired. The work, it took alot out of him, strained his body beyond the limits. And that was quitr alot. But the most devastating effects were mental.

The night was not his own. Whatever Himself wanted, Daven did. Reluctantly. Always the compulsion to flee, to escape, was present. But he never could. Himself's power coercion held Daven to the task, litterly forcing him to it.

The more he resisted, the deeper the shadow at the back of his neck dug into his being. It pricked every nerve with an icy bite. Daven would never become used to such pain. He embodied pain.

So he did what he was told. Because his mother's and father's souls were held over his head should he refuse.

Daven tracked immortals and mortals alike, those who had made a deal with Himself and then reneged on that deal. He fixed wrongs and fetched AWOL souls. He was Himself's fist. And he was feared.

But that was not who Daven Drake was inside, deep in the pockets of spirit where his soul had once resided.

"I hate this," he muttered, as he stepped inside his building and took the four flights of stairs to his apartment in a dash.

The steel steps clanked under the thick rubber heels of his biker boots. Artificial lemon clung to the air; the landlady's attempt to freshen the stale smell of smoke after a rogue fire in the stairwell last month.

Some day he would be successful. With determination, he would push beyond Himself's control and finally be free.

Until then, Daven led two seperate lives. The night life and one he walked during the day.

Knocking on the red apartment door next to his, Daven waited until the door cracked open, then pushed it inside and slipped his hand around the man's neck. Pulling up the strong body of the thirty-something wrestler, he pierced the pulsing jugular with his teeth and drank. The man didn't fight. He expected this most nights. He was Daven's supplicant, provided by Himself.

For with the immense release of physical and mental energy and his struggle against fate each night, he developed a desperate thirst. He had to feed the hunger, or die.

Dropping the man- whose name he refused to learn- at his feet, Daven turned and backed out. "Curse your shadows."

It was the only sort of blessing he could offer.

To be continued...