❖ VALENTINE DAY MASSACRE ❖ (B/Job)

Ahote didn’t spend much time outside of his club in Capital Crocus. Boomslang was packed every weekday, weeknight, weekend, and perhaps every other conceivable time of day he could think of. Every time he had opened his club up for business, watching the crowds of people pour into and onto the dance floor, flirting with his bartender of which they were completely ignorant to his being undead, he had thought to himself, “Why hadn’t I opened this club up sooner?” And this was a valid question—why hadn’t he opened this club up sooner? It was booming with business, fitting for its name, and it was substantially an easier and better way of gaining income as opposed to heinous crimes as a terrorist. But his life as a terrorist had also been substantially more fun and really brought up the best of him. As the owner of a popular club in Capital Crocus, Ahote was just that—the owner of a popular club in Capital Crocus.

Ahote began to miss his old life, but at the very same time, he didn’t miss it. He was glad that the old fortress atop Mt. Hakobe was no longer part of his image of home, it with all of its stone floors and icy temperatures, and yet he always found himself caught in the habit of overdressing when he went to bed with the expectation of freezing temperatures rolling over him at night, which they never did. In fact, he didn’t even have to worry about under-dressing or overdressing anymore, because his body had become so alien to his surroundings and himself that it no longer mattered how hot or cold he was. It was hard to explain. It wasn’t that he no longer felt cold or hot anymore, but as if he no longer acknowledged it. A sort of “oh, well, what the hell” kind of response to these changes. Whether he was overdressed or under-dressed no longer made a difference, and Ahote catches himself hardly even sleeping these days.

Yes, he missed his life as a terrorist, but his new lifestyle seemed tolerable since while his settings changed, the people in life never really did. The cheery Iris Esperanza and elusive Aeluri Atra never acted like strangers and came to him often for chats and drinks. But they were perhaps the only ones who really did this, and many of his old companions were either dead or missing-in-action.

At first, Ahote was very upset by this and brooded about it often. Nowadays, he stills broods often but never about this. He’s leaving the club to pursue his own endeavors more frequently and comes back with more to brood about. He really was a handful, always leaving and coming back more upset and pissy than before until he becomes his normal unfriendly self again to only repeat this process. This time around, he’d come home with a grown man, revived from decades of death and idleness. The basement he’d always be in below his club became more and more ethereal and dream-like the more he’d obsess with necromancy and magical artifacts—he was on a quest to retrieve them, you see, and there was no attitude and work ethic quite like his.

The artifacts he sought were awful little things that were profoundly infamous for just how awful they were. There was one mask, the Mask of Lichborne, that harbored the souls of all the thousands of people it’s killed, but that was probably the worst of them. There were other items like swords and books and even parts of people that had similar qualities to them. Ahote had read about diseases of humans recently, too, and discovered that there were diseases for just about anything. There was a disease for the brain, a disease for the liver, the spine, the nervous system, the brain, the heart, the joints of your bones, the femur bone, the cartilage of those bones, the eyeball, the retina of those eyeballs, the skin, your toes, your fingers, your genitalia, your appendix, your tailbone, your whatever-else-that-you-have. He had studied diseases so much recently that he felt that his mind, too, had become diseased. Or perhaps, Ahote mulled over briefly and without care, his mind had always been that way and there just wasn’t a book quite as interesting as that one to ever make this fact clear to him.

There were other parts of his new life that had nothing to do with magical relics and artifacts at all. In fact, before he ever considered himself a terrorist or a seeker of knowledge or a business owner, he labeled himself a sorcerer above all other things, and a mysterious dark organization seemed to recognize this about Ahote, too.

What this organization was called was an uncertainty to Ahote, and while he was adamant about transparency when it comes to these things, it soon no longer held any importance to him like it did before. Why? Well, it never seemed to matter after he was employed and was now out on the field taking his first job under their employment.

His first job under their employment. Ahote repeated this in his head and scoffed triumphantly when he did as he made his way to Lavanitir Port City, or more specifically, a warehouse at the very outskirts of the city. Just the morning before, the wife of some corporate headhunter had been kidnapped by a terror group, and in exchange for her safe return they demanded some ransom. Apparently, the husband had refused or run out of the options offered to him and resorted to this dark organization’s services. Fortunately for the husband, Ahote—no, Jericho—Jericho didn’t want to be there any more than the hostage did, so it would therefore end quickly.

The terror group weren’t difficult to track down. After all, where in a densely populated city would a terror group who was demanding ransom go? Anything even near the center of the city was insensible and unlikely, so it would have to be somewhere in the outskirts that was both inaccessible and obscure. So, consequently, they must’ve been in the abandoned warehouse in an closed off construction area. It wasn’t like an average person would find themselves there and, although the spot seemed cleverly chosen, Jericho simply thought, “Oh, where would dumb criminals hide in a city such as this?” Then he thought that if he were a dumb criminal, he’d hide in an abandoned warehouse as was such expected from a, well, dumb criminal.

And there it was—the old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. The cloaked Jericho stared at it coldly through his veiled countenance, beginning to grin through his cloak at their foolishness. He wondered just how foolish these criminals could be! Of course, he couldn't have understood to begin with—he wasn't a dumb criminal and he made his money through Boomslang and his meddling in the black market. His sources of income weren't wholesome or innocent, but it wasn't so pathetic either. He, at the very least, wouldn't need to resort to this for some jewels. But again, after all, swallows and sparrows know not the thoughts of swan and geese.

But that was neither here nor there. What mattered was the elimination of every single person aside from the mistress that was inside that warehouse, and the poor dumb fools wouldn't even know what hit them! Or, Jericho contemplated, maybe they would? He wasn't entirely sure how many people were inside this warehouse and he didn't know how strong they were, either. They'd be eliminated—he'd make sure of that—but not without a fight as he was beginning to suspect.

A blue light began to surround Jericho, his body swelling with magic in silence. It was dark outside so he stood out in the space of nothing but clutter, but there was not a soul nearby to notice this congregation of energy. He felt the dead organisms in the warehouse respond to his stimulation, telling him about their surroundings. Yes, there were people inside, and quite a few. It was one of the many uses of his necromancy that told him what to expect and then how to prepare, and preparation seemed simple. Jericho had a very intimate relationship with all living and dead organisms alike and never for wholesome reasons.

All things dead or not spoke to him and told him things that no one else would ever had known. They told them what and who was there when so and so happened and gave him a synopsis of what was happening. It was a very useful skill if he were trying to gain information. Otherwise, it was just an interesting quirk he had.

Understanding his odds, he approached the warehouse, seeing the single light hanging from the ceiling in the very center of the building. Aside from that light, there was nothing else to illuminate their surroundings, and Jericho was beginning to figure that this whole scenario was more cliche than he had hoped for. He imagined their damsel in distress tied onto a chair, directly underneath that light—essentially making her the spotlight among both the criminals and himself. There simply wasn't any other way to do it! A classic set up for sure!

While this thought amused Jericho, it wouldn't rouse him to play along and play hero. In fact, it was quite the opposite of that. When he arrived at the door, he slid it open without enthusiasm and sauntered in like he was part of the group. He didn't look at anyone in particular and glanced around the room with a deep interest in finding something. He regarded no one and acted as if no one had regarded him either. His gaze was something of minor urgency. It was like he was looking for his car keys or maybe his glasses—something trivial and casually sought after. The small terrorists inside obviously gawked at this and pointed all of their pistols and guns and whatnot at him in bewilderment. Their movements were hesitant like they didn't know what else to do and looked at each other for some sort of command or closure.

"Who the hell is this guy?"
"Do we shoot him?"
"I betcha it's the guy with our money. . . look. . . I bet it is. . ."

They all muttered among themselves until one man, in particular, stepped forward from the back of the crowd of terrorists surrounding Jericho. Jericho didn't look at him and continued to search, but the man glared at him ravenously. "Stop it right there, hotshot. You have our money?" he commanded him.

Jericho quietly slid the door closed as this chitchat ensued and stood there silently. Many of them looked like they came straight out of a Rune Knight boot camp, with the man in the middle without a helmet or mask and his face covered in deep gashes from, Jericho assumed, battles that were history now. His blonde hair was a buzz cut and his eyes were unfriendly and black. He was middle-aged, at least, while his subordinates seemed to be in the early to mid-twenties.

"Is she here?" Jericho asked quietly, peeking over shoulders from the door in search of his client's wife. They all crowded together so densely and surrounded such a large space in the warehouse that he couldn't see anything but a sea of militant fools.

"Doesn't look like you have our mone—"

"Looks like everyone's where they should be." Jericho interrupted when he finally saw a beaten and bruised woman with a disheveled appearance. Her skirt had been undone and her shirt was ripped—clearly, these men had a field day when he was away. Jericho nodded in satisfaction and looked back to the man who he assumed was their leader. ". . . You were saying?"

The man in the middle was, clearly, infuriated by Jericho's calm and collected reaction, grinding his teeth and pointing at him with an outrageous amount of histrionic movement in it. "Tough shit, buddy. Looks like you're stuck in here with us." he threatened, beginning to cackle similar to a hyena's laughter—crazed and atonal.

Jericho didn't seem to have a reaction to this announcement. He made a sort of Mmm noise in place of an "oh, I see." He hummed this noise, looking around at the many guns aimed at him as blue energy swelled around him again. "Is that so? Well, from where I'm standing. . ." Large magic circles appeared throughout the room: the floors, the walls, even the ceiling had been cluttered with magic circles, and many of the men hadn't even realized it! Jericho matter-of-factly pointed to one of these circles, and all of the surrounding men followed its direction, their expressions blanching in seeing the monstrous head of a snarling wolf pop out from it and then nearly twenty-five more from all the other circles. Jericho snickered maniacally, ". . . it looks like you're stuck in here with me, actually. Let us try to enjoy this, yeah?"

It seemed that as soon as he mocked them, he felt even more surrounded than before. Six tall, burly men armed with heavy artillery lined up around him with their gattling guns and assault rifles. Surrounding them was a group of about ten men and women armed with nothing but swiss army knives and small handguns, like pistols. They weren't nearly as tough-looking at the heavily armed men and had a hesitant gaze to go with their trembling arms. Jericho watched them pitifully, in silence. He wasn't going to say anything, but even if he was, the line of terrorists didn't give him the time of day to even consider it when one man gave off the command to 'Fire!'

The man commanded this, but, the bullets never seemed to reach Jericho himself. Instead, they pierced his undead hounds, but never actually killing them like they wanted to. This sent everyone into a frenzy and the warehouse was crowded with terrorists and dogs that seemed three times their size.

It was hard to see anyone amidst all the chaos, blood flying into the air like buckets of water and screams so horrible that it was almost unsettling for Jericho to listen to himself. But he listened anyway, knowing that the blood was not his hounds', for their blood was far more foul than a human's. Because it was so difficult to follow the battle from where he was standing, Jericho weaved through the frenzy with a casual gait without urgency, once again wearing a look of searching for something less important than what was happening around him and cutting straight through the middle of the crowd to do this.

Lo and behold, at the very back of the warehouse was the woman of the hour—the client's wife. The violence in the building had shaken its infrastructure to its very core, shaking the only light from the ceiling back and forth, sporadically sharing the horror of seeing the slaughter ensuing. That mortification was vividly apparent on the client's wife's expression, her complexion blanched a ghostly white in seeing the gore and blood spill onto the concrete. She looked so pale and ill that she was threatening to vomit! Her mouth was gagged with some rags or sheets and she was definitely tied to the chair, for sure. The pity from earlier returned to his gaze as Jericho watched her.

"Hello." Jericho greeted her blandly as he sat on a crate next to her, "How are you?" The woman looked at him, terrified and disgusted. Shaking her head and chanting "Nho! Nho! Nho!" incessantly. Jericho seemed mildly amused by this as he scoffed and snickered, "You don't want to join them, do you? Is that it?"

No, the woman didn't want to join them and that was painfully obvious by the horror in her eyes and whiteness in her complexion, but what Jericho couldn't tell is if she wanted those terrorists, her captors, dead or not. Was she horrified for them or for herself? Jericho decided to ask her and see for himself.

"I'm sorry, I can't keep them alive. I really would if I could." Jericho lied, pointing at the massacre. Recently, he had become so infatuated with death and disease that it seemed his mind became equally ill in the process. As a result, it was an impossibility for him to even consider sparing them if they wouldn't benefit him in living.

"Nho! Nhooo. . .!!" the woman screeched, muffled by her gag and tears running down cheeks, making her face wet and ugly.

"So. . . you don't want them alive? Is that it?"

"Gawd. . . mm gawd!"

"God? I'm not a man of faith but if that's what you want to talk about. . . then—" The splash of blood interrupted his comment, splattering over his shoes. Jericho looked up and sighed, seeing bloody bullets rolling across the floor and limbs flying over the place. He kicked an arm back into the frenzy when it rolled over to him, staring at it in disgust. "Gross."

The chaos was just about over now as he noticed the enemy line of defense was thinning which each glimpse given to him.

The battle was just about over and he was starting to get a little bored. Of course, it wouldn't be so simple. The man from earlier made another appearance, and spontaneously, too. The light would swing back and forth, and in one moment there was darkness and violence ahead of them, and the boss himself lunging at him with a knife in the moment there was a sliver of light on them!

Jericho expected something like this to happen, and the man was smart to target him in such chaos! But that didn't change the fact that he had so few defensive options that he had no other choice but to face the threat bravely. Quickly, he put both hands in front of him and the army knife would pierce through the center of it. There was no pain, no suffering, only discomfort and the sight of the tip of the blade aimed straight for his skull! The boss grinned maniacally that was too crazed to refuse to requite the same expression.

"How's it feel, huh? How's it feel? Not too good? Not too great?" the boss wiggled the blade in the wound, grinning toothily.

"Are you enjoying this? You sicko." Jericho replied jeeringly as if he wasn't slaughtering men and women in the background already, making a show of it.

"Who even are you? Who the hell do you even think you are? I'm Nigel-goddamn-Litt! Who even are you?" Nigel began to drool as he cursed at him.

"It won't matter in a minute or two."

"Huh?"

Jericho kicked Nigel away with a blow to the gut and Nigel took it without issue. With some struggle, he then managed to remove the blade from his hands and examine it curiously as he gingerly held it. "I said it won't matter in a minute or two—my name. You're not even going to be alive to relish it, so why bother—"

"Who do you think I am? I'm Nigel—"

"Goddamn." Jericho added quietly.

"Litt!"

Before Nigel could realize what Jericho added, he charged again with another knife and a handgun in the other hand. Jericho was determined not to be so easy of a target this time around and deflected and evaded all of the attacks he could whilst trading his own. In the few minutes they dueled, it was Nigel-goddamn-Litt who seemed to be cut up the most without ever being given the chance to shoot the cloaked man.

With an open palm, Jericho tossed the knife away and tapped his fist into the very center of it in a moment of clarity. He nodded triumphantly, "Well, mister Litt, it seems our time is up."

Nigel Litt, panting, smeared blood away from his lips with his wrist and glared at him in bewilderment. "The hell? We ain't done yet! You think my men will just just let you go?" Nigel mocked him, amused and with a feeling a security overlapping his countenance.

Jericho looked confused and thought about it for a moment. He pinched his chin and stared at the ceiling, deep in thought before finally shrugging lackadaisically. "I don't suppose they would, if they were alive."

"The hell?" Nigel gasped, turning around in seeing nothing but bits and pieces of his battalion of fools littering the floor. In the darkness of the warehouse, dozens of eyes stared ravenously at him—the hounds waited impatiently for their commands.

Nigel was horrified at the sight and cursed underneath his breath. He turned back to Jericho, who was seated next to the client's wife again, who was also equally horrified. "What do you want?"

Jericho perked up quizzically. "What do I want? Well. . .—"

"You want a share of the money? Is that it?"

"You don't even have the money. . ."

Nigel began to run out of things to say as the growling and snarling became incessently louder. His body began to drench in a cold sweat. "I know some guys! This was just a side hustle, you get me? That lousy bitch over there isn't even worth the trouble!"

Jericho mulled over his proposition again, very briefly this time. "This is all very enticing, Nigel Litt," he lied again, "but you need to die, you see? You can't leave here with a pulse. That's what my job is, and I can't really go back now. My job's nearly finished. So—bon voyage!"

Nigel's complexion lost all the blood it held when he said that, his eyes filled with fear and body trembling in terror. "W-wait! Hold on a just a fucking second!" He demanded, terrified as the wolves drew closer.

"Say sorry to your friends on the other side!"

"HOLD ON! WAIT—WAIT!"

"Safe travels!"

"WAIT!! PLEASE!"

"Goodbyeeee!" Jericho waved him farewell and that's when all twenty-five beasts were now down upon him, tearing him to bits and pieces before he had time to finish sobbing. It was gross watching it, and Jericho was beginning to believe that maybe he wasn't cut out for such hands-on work after all.

The cloaked man untied the woman, finally, and as soon as she was free of her binding, she vommitted all over the place, sobbed, and screamed for her husband. Jericho sighed in response and smiled kindly, although she would not see it through his mask and her distress. "I guess I should clean up." he contemplated aloud. And clean up, he did. His wolves ate and left not a trace of what happened today. The only ones wyho would live to tell the tale was, perhaps, the client's wife.