Author's Note: Well, it apparantly hasn't been picked up yet, as I am still posting chapters. Soon though, all you will be able to read are the first five chapters, or rather, all of Part One. But it will be a revised and cleaned up version of Part One with new paragraghs and clarifications on some things. It will be like a director's cut, if you will. Delnia took down The Noble House... but she still has a lot of extremely good work on her profile. You might want to check out My Mother, The Vampire. Thank you all for reading this, I am greatful to all of you and I appreciate the time it takes you all to write reviews. I am eternally grateful. This chapter marks the beggining of Part Three of my book, and it is quite nifty. This Chapter is probably the least necessary of any of them, plotwise, and will probably be cut out in the published version, but I found it necessary to get a little more of Cody's viewpoint on this whole mess. Enjoy.
Cutthroat: The Last Berserker
Part Three: Consequence
Chapter 17 - Creeping Death
Street gangs. They were just a bunch of idiots who fancied themselves as professionals, and Cody hated them. This particular group of idiots, the Chestnut Street Chaps, was proving to be quite an annoyance not only to several of the organizations, but to the Clique as well. They had gotten a hold of some old Triad turf and had found an old Triad warehouse full of arms and narcotics. They were the gang that got lucky it would seem. Well, they wouldn't last much longer. The other day they shot down one of the Cuban's guys; they responded by sending out some guys to take care of it, but the thugs weren't so bad with an Uzi it would seem. The Cuban's were a smaller operation than they used to be, so they called the Clique. Cody jumped at the opportunity, for he needed the world to know that they weren't exclusive to the Giovanni family. He was looking to get in some good exercise, maybe shake off some rust, so he decided to do the job himself.
Lord knew he should be getting rid of that rust. The Apocalypse had been gone for a while now, almost a month, and the man known as Creeping Death had a feeling he would show up soon, for the date of his wedding to Angela Giovanni was approaching. Hell, it was the day after tomorrow. Surely, Michael knew about the plastic bag and its contents, and he would want revenge. Cody didn't blame him. He would have wanted revenge, too, but he had to stop him. He did have to protect his new family, after all. Oh that stupid stupid man who was to become his father in law.
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With the speed and smoothness that only an accomplished killer ten years his senior should have, The Apocalypse reached his right hand into his jacket and wrapped his fingers tight around the handle of Venom, the clip flowing around his wrist almost naturally. Just as quickly, he ripped the gun from its holster and pointed the gun straight down, into the desk. His dark eyes gleamed in the artificial light of the room's lamps and incandescent lights. A smile flashed on his face and he unloaded three rounds straight into the hardwood desk in quick succession.
Wooden splinters flew across the room bouncing harmlessly off of walls and The Apocalypse himself. Three shells ejected from the side of the gun and landed with soft jingles on the desktop. Pounding steps approached the cherry-wood door behind him. More wood splintered across the room as the door was kicked open by ten men in grey suits who streamed into the large office, surrounding The Apocalypse and the don as they took positions along the walls. The sound of slides on nine Berettas filled the room with a metallic clicking noise. One man already had a bullet in the chamber.
The Apocalypse stood from the leather chair he had been sitting in and looked around, slowly turning his head to get a good view of the room. He saw what he was looking for. A sweat drop dripped from one of the fools' noses. They were scared. He flashed another menacing smile towards the don and said two final words as he turned to leave. "I'm out."
Dan glowered upon the deserter as his body was filled with hate. He gripped the sides of his red leather chair with white-knuckled rage, and already the new don was swearing revenge on the man who just walked out on him. The revenge threat was nothing; no one would touch a man who brought about the endings of worlds.
He let out a frustrated yell and slammed the hardwood desk with all of his might. The desk shook a little, but other than that, the desk was fine. Rattling on the desk, one of the specialized shells from Venom's three shots rolled off it and onto the red-carpeted floor.
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To tell the honest truth, Cody did not know whose side he was on in this matter. His heart believed that Michael fully deserved his revenge in this, but his mind preached to him about honor. But to who went the honor? Michael had the honor of his dead fiancée and son to consider, and was that not the more noble side? This was just too much for him. Too many sides, too many angles. He wished he could just see things in his normal black and white, but no, Michael, despite all of his dark clothes, was a color, and that color was crimson.
Dan was such a stupid man. Did he think he could get away with setting up The Apocalypse? Not even Julius was able to escape this walking Armageddon. Dan had incurred the wrath of a demon, and Cody was charged with protecting him from that demon for the honor of family. But was Michael De'Mon not his family? You do not fight family.
Ragh. The man known as Creeping Death shook his head violently to rid himself of these troubling thoughts. He had a job to do at the moment. He stood outside the warehouse the gang had taken hold of; it was their base of operations it would seem. He was informed that there was to be a meeting tonight involving them. They were going to make a move for some of the newly opened Yakuza territory, maybe take some of their old drug running ships, and many of the organizations, including the Mafia, could not have that.
The personnel door was guarded by one guy, and a thick brute he was, too. The man had to be six foot six and built like a bulldozer. Huge. He had dark skin and dark eyes that carefully watched everything. Of course, such a thing mattered not to Creeping Death. Death walked up to the huge man, who was eying him very suspiciously, and politely asked to be let through. The brute merely looked at him. He repeated his request, but this time the brute stopped him short. The large man swung at him hard with his left hand, Death merely ducked and grabbed him by the forearm while he slammed his heel into his ankle, hobbling him. The man tried to scream, but Death would not have that as he pulled out his wakizashi with his free hand and slit his throat. Gurgling sounds issued from the man's throat, and he fell to the ground dead.
Death whipped his head to the side to get his long hair out of his face and let out a sigh. Here it goes. He opened the door, sounds of "My brothers" and "the devilish white man" resounding in his ears, and he found himself in-between two shelving towers, stacked to the high ceiling with musty cardboard boxes and rotting wood crates. At the end of the aisle the open area in the middle of the warehouse were somewhere around fifty men all facing to the front (or back as it would seem) where a large stage supported a dark skinned man with a rather stout face and fat lower lip giving some sort of speech. He sheathed his wakizashi on his back and considered for a moment how much energy would it take for him to dispatch of these pesky insects. After all, he was no longer a berserker, but they were only punks with guns, so how much could it possibly take?
Aw, to hell with it. He didn't particularly like the C-4 disks that Gram had developed, he never cared for any kind of explosive really, but they would work really well in a situation like this. Luckily, he had packed one in a small case on his belt. He pulled it out and tossed it straight up in the air. His eyes studied the small black disk as it sailed above him and slowly fell towards the ground and with a swift kick the sent the disk flying towards the crowd of Chestnut Street Chaps.
The man stopped in the middle of his speech. He was just getting to the part where they enslaved the Mafia and all their white women when the black disk sliced through the middle of his constituents, slicing some in their bellies. The disk landed on the floor, looking absolutely sinister as it sat there. There was confusion among all of them and they were all afraid. Even the man on the stage was seen trembling a bit.
Cody took the moment of confusion to his advantage and bounded up the storage shelves. Up into the metal rafters he went, to perch and watch. He found himself a nice spot, like a spider in its web, and he pulled out a pen shaped object with a red button on top. Ah, the classic red button. Death kept his serene, expressionless face as he pressed down on it with his thumb, just as they started to crowd around the strange thing. One of the particularly dumb ones had bent down to get a better look. The disk exploded and the hooligans were sent flying every which way, some of them got sent multiple directions as the force ripped them apart. Cody looked to the stage to see the speech giver run off towards a back exit. He grunted to himself in acknowledgement.
He leapt from his perch and felt the rushing air caress him before landing and crouching off to the side of the warehouse. Some of the men had survived the blast and would prevent him from getting to their leader, it would seem, as several of them got up and pulled out pistols and Uzis. The Hispanic ninja wiped his forehead, brushing away his dark hair as he stood up and faced these new assailants. He slowly brought his hand to his back and pulled out his wakizashi with lightning speed. He swung it upward as he stepped towards one of them, slicing the man's Uzi and rendering it worthless. They all reacted at once. One of them brought a pistol to him and got off a few rounds, but he missed as Creeping Death jumped and flipped over the man with the broken Uzi, and the bullets caught the poor man in the chest.
He landed behind the shot man and sliced another one of his assailants in the stomach, spilling the black man's guts across the floor. As the shot one fell to his knees in death, Cody reached into the folds of his shirt and, bending backwards at the knees, he flung two throwing stars behind him catching one man in the face. He flipped backward, planted a foot on that man, and brought him to the ground faster as he stood upon it. Bullets flew everywhere, but the man was too fast and they couldn't get off a single good shot. At long last, he slit the throat of one of the more persistent ones, some sort of under-boss it would seem, and the rest raised their hands in surrender.
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The speech giver sat in the back of the black Cadillac scared out of his mind, but calming down a bit, as it drove away in the night. He looked toward the driver and spoke to him,
"Shiiit that was some quick thinking my niggah, what is your name, brotha?"
"Ngah Jackson." The driver said.
"Inga... Jackson... sho must suck to be one o' dem new age African movement children with a name like Inga, huh? "The speech giver was getting more and more relaxed the farther away he got from that warehouse. He gently laughed at the driver silently for having a female Dutchwoman's name.
"Get out of the car, man." Ngah had stopped. Ngah, which was his African name, and not Inga. They were in an alley somewhere in the shipping district, and, like all stereotypical allies, it was wet and dark, but most of all, it was empty. The speech giver's fear returned to him quickly as he slowly got out of the car, shaking once again. Out of the darkness of the alley, a man in ninja garb walked toward the car. He was staring at the speech giver.
"Good work, Ngah," Creeping Death said. "I will see you at headquarters later; you will get a nice bonus for this." Ngah drove off, pleased and blasting classical music, leaving the leader of the Chestnut Street Chaps to talk with his own leader, Creeping Death.
I'm getting slow, Death thought to himself. This was bad. Without much thought as to what he was doing, he stabbed the black man in the stomach. Screaming with pain, he fell to the dirty alley ground, tears streaming down his face. Cody threw a throwing star straight above the man's face and both watched as it flew up into the air, slowly decreasing speed and soon reversing direction downwards. The speech giver cringed just as the star was to fall into him, killing him. However, nothing happened. Instead, he heard the cling of metal striking metal and he opened his eyes once again. Death was spinning in circles and with each revolution the star would fall, hit the sword, and bounce back upwards. Was he being played with? With one final revolution, Death spread his legs to gain leverage and plunged his sword deep into the man's chest.
The star fell to the man's face.
"Your mistake, humble idiot, was assuming that every black man alive was your brother."
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Patrick O'Shannon awaited his boss' return as he stood outside of Cody's office at headquarters. He looked severely annoyed as Cody walked up the hallway towards him.
"What is your problem?" Cody asked.
"It isn't so much my problem as your problem. You have a visitor, and it looks like he decided to grow up a bit since the last time I saw him." Patrick looked at his superior and forced out a smile. Cody noticed some missing teeth. "He grew up quick."
Cody walked into his office and stared at the man sitting in his desk with his boots propped up on the table. He was in an all black suit with a black shirt and a black tie. He had his hair tied back and he wore dark sunglasses that masked his eyes. This was a sight Cody had not seen in quite a while. Gone were his chains and leather jacket, gone was his childish things.
"Michael..."
"Please, Cody, call me The Apocalypse."