Part One- Betrayal of Kin

I was young once. Although that seems like such a long time ago. Ages in fact. Time...has no meaning here where I am. There is only the suffering. Ages and ages of suffering and rivers of tears. But I digress. Once, when I was young, I found a box....

My father never told me he had it. Never even told me of its existence. I only learned later and at a high cost just what the box was and how he had come by it. His story came out eventually. My father, Tommy McDougal, was a gambler and a heavy drinker. He had been all around the world, my father. Seen his share of every country he liked to say and was most likely tossed out of almost every one of them. Usually in debt, sometimes drunk and always with the next score on his mind. A card player of the first order. Poker was his game and he was damn good at it. Never had much of a day job. He'd bum around here and there doing odd things. Cleaning out cellars, hauling loads. That sort of thing. Handsome cabs too occasionally. Of course there was his stint in the Marines who subsequently threw him out for striking an officer during a card game. Mostly he lived by his wits and his luck, the former mostly outweighing the latter.

"We McDougals have always been gamblers." He used to say. "Not one of us in our whole history never really did an honest day's work except for farming." His favorite tall tale, passed down from his grandfather, was that the McDougals had once been Irish nobles but lost their lands and titles in a rather risky deal. But that was my father. The rowdy, drunken gambler. It was 1865 when he first stumbled upon the box. In the musty corner of some long forgotten shop in the Five Corners section of Manhattan isle. He had just come off a decent game and was on his way to spend his winnings at the nearby pub. It was late at night. The shop was a simple curio dealer's. A run down and dusty old place tucked away down a dark alley off a dark street in a dangerous part of town. Chang's House of Oddities it was called.

Old man Chang was a particularly sly and greedy man. His almond eyes never opening beyond tiny slits through which he seemed to see everything and even into your mind. His skin was faded yellow and had the texture of soft sandpaper or papyrus. The man was thin and his skin was stretched over his bones as tightly as a funeral drum. He smelt always of incense and Japanese rice spirit. His fingernails were long and pointed and he had a long thin mustache which came almost down to his stomach. His voice was rose and fell like the wind among the hills and he spoke impeccable English. Better even than my father. As for his age, no one could guess. He looked eighty or ninety but some said he was at least a hundred years old if not two.

My father said he felt drawn to the shop. "As if the good Lord himself were tugging me arm towards the place." The Lord? No. Something else perhaps. My father wandered into the shop. A tiny bell tinkled as he opened the door. The place was lit with candles and all around him dark shelves held various antiques and little odds and ends from all over. My father was looking the place over when Chang appeared from the back room.

"Hello Mister McDougal. How can I help you?" Chang's hands were crossed over his chest and wore blood red silk robes and a fez.
"Oh Hello Chang. I never do hear ya come nor go."
"Yes." Chang hissed. "What may I do for you?" He smiled like the cat that ate the canary.
"Well...I'll be honest with ya Chang old fella. I ain't sure just what brought me in here tonight. Just sorta...felt drawn here."
"Ahhhh. I think I understand what you mean. I think.." Chang said reaching below the counter "You have come for this." Chang placed the box before my father. He looked at it quizzically.
"Oh! Sure is an odd lookin thing ain't it now? What is it then?"

"This" Chang said tapping it with a long yellow nail. "Is the passport to another place. A world beyond yourself. Something even you have never seen. They call it the Lament Configuration. Made about a century ago by a man named LeMarchand. What do you think of it?"
"It certainly is interesting then. What does it do, eh?"
"It is a puzzle. Solve it and your wishes will be granted. All of them. Even the ones you never knew you had. It brings it owner intense pleasure."
"Oh. You ever opened it then?"
"Ah no. I do not seek those pleasures anymore. I am...an old man. Now I just sell trinkets and good luck charms to fellows like yourself. That is all an old man like me is good for. I have had no use for it and it did not seem right to just give it to anyone. But now you have come to my little shop and said you felt drawn here for no apparent reason. I see now that you are destined to have this."
"Hmmm. Pretty odd little toy. Where'd you get it from Chang?"
"A junk dealer in Cairo about fifty years ago. Until now it has just sat here. Waiting, maybe for you. Over the centuries it has changed hands more times than you or I could count. It has been with great men and little men. Kings, emperors, popes, bishops. Cobblers, writers, gamblers." Chang said arching his eyebrow at the last word. "Now it is time for it to come to you."

Chang held the cube out to him on his thin wrinkled palm. My father looked it over and took it from him, marveling at its artistry.
"How much?"
"Many men would offer a fortune to posses it. But for you.... One hundred dollars. A special price for a good customer and a cherished friend." Chang smiled like a fox. My father had been in times before to by little things like pipes or good luck charms or handtools. Chang had even bought some shirts from him when my father was a small time hustler for one of the Irish gangs haunting the Five Corners.
"Aye what a good soul ya are ta' call old worthless Tommy McDougal a cherished friend. Well, I had a bit o' luck meself ta'night so 'tis only right I should spread it around juss like the good Lord says one ought to." My father paid Chang a hundred dollars and, more than that, unknowingly, he paid with his soul. Chang pocketed the money like it was a butterfly about to flutter away. Reaching under the counter, Chang pulled out a hard leather case with a snap across the top, cube shaped like the box.

"Comes with this." He said. My father put the box in its leather case and snapped it closed.
"I thank ya Chang. And here, for yerself." My father slid another hundred dollars across the scarred counter. Chang's taloned hand cupped over it like a cage coming down over a small bird.
"Thank you. Now I bid you goodnight." Chang bowed and my father tipped his hat to him and went whistling out of the shop. Little did he know, his fate had been sealed irrevocably.

And so it went that my father put the box in a little drawer in his boarding house room. There it stayed for months hence. Waiting. Meanwhile my father went and got married to a young barmaid named Lilly O'Hara. Their marriage produced myself. They soon rented a filthy tenement flat above a hosiery store for ten dollars a week. My father worked odd jobs and either gambled away the money he made or drank it. My mother could barely clothe and feed me. But somehow in spite of my upbringing I managed to be a good child. Most nights I would hear my parents screaming at one another. Lilly complaining of my father's gambling and consortations with gang members. Calling him a "filthy bum" and a "worthless no good drunk". My father would argue that my mother slept around which was not far from the truth of her secret life of prostitution down on the docks. The few meager dollars she possessed fed myself and her.

Even so I was greedy as most young children are. I always wanted more than my share and mother always gave it even though she was starving away and suffering a constant cough. I only discovered years later that she had contracted consumption. The good hearted woman truly loved me and always kept the stove full and a few toffees on hand in her tattered house apron for myself. My father on the other hand consorted with the lowest people. Drunks and thieves. He worked as a hit man for one of the gangs and was even known as "Quick Fingers McDougal" both for his fast card playing and his even faster draw. When he did a stint for burglary my mother and I barely survived. No charity would have tenement scum like us. She was forced to take men right into her bed with I on the other side of the paper thin walls desperately searching for sleep.

Finally, the day came. Late one night, when I was only ten, I heard her calling to me. She was deathly pale and sweating. She knew the end had come. She pressed a tiny gold locket into my hand and told me to keep it always. Then she kissed me on my head and slipped away. I cried over her body for two days. Not eating or sleeping. Only weeping and clutching her frozen hand. Eventually I ran out of food and firewood. I made my way in the streets. I picked pockets and pinched from corner stores and dug rotten cabbage leaves and dusty spuds out of back alley ashcans. It was about this time that my father had gotten out of prison and came looking for me.

I told him of Lilly's death and he only shook his head sadly. Once and only once did he take me to her grave. A pitiful little square of squashed down sod and a slab of granite for a marker which bore only her name. I placed a rose on the ground and cried. Father held the umbrella over me in the downpour and checked his pocket watch. "Thanks fer nuthin Lilly." He mumbled under his breath as we walked away. I knew then that I wanted to kill him. To see him suffer and die. Stab his rotten body as he came stumbling out of a saloon and dump his corpse in the river. To be rid of him forever. That was my dream. It kept me going through long nights in cold rooms with my father gone who knows where to hustle or steal or play at cards. He had to die. Then I could be free.

One day my father was dead broke. The gang was hounding him for his debts and he had been loosing money he did not have. Sitting in his bedroom he pondered over his fate. Then suddenly, an idea broke in upon him. The box. Chang said it granted wishes. My father began to work fervently at the box. Straining to solve the puzzle. Eventually he stumbled upon the solution. When it opened, a creature appeared before him like none other he had even seen. The thing seemed to float in midair with his legs crossed like a yogi. Hanging from his back was a long leather cape which fluttered in an unfelt breeze. Its skull was shaven and its whole face seemed like one of a man buried sixteen years; the skin was dry and cracked, stretched tight over the bones, mouth twisted in a hideous grimace. Where its eyes should have been there were only empty sockets which glowed with a faint blue light. It wore a tight fitting leather outfit. Where its gray skin could been seen, it seemed to crawl as if hundreds of maggots squirmed beneath the surface.

Long pins had been inserted into its chest and through its neck. The bones stood out plainly through the skin like a starved man and it had short sharp nails on its fingers. The thing's nipples were exposed and pierced three times each and its stomach had been opened by three diamond shaped wounds that pulsed and oozed slime as he breathed. The creature leaned forward with its hands on its knees and looked my father through and through with its empty sockets.
"Well well." The thing's voice was like ice water spilled over hot coals. "A new toy. Chang has been most kind."
"Ch..ch...Chang?" My father managed to stutter. "You know old Chang?"
"Why yes." The grinning thing replied. "He is the keeper of the box and you have solved it. Time to come with me fleshball! I have prepared everything fresh just for you." It held out a claw.
"No. Chang said you granted wishes." The creature seemed offended at recoiled at my father's remark.
"I am no genie. I do not do parlor tricks."
"Then why are you here?"
"To take you back with me. To hell."
"Hell?"
"Why yes. That is what this gateway is. Did Chang neglect to tell you? How unfortunate for you my little plaything. But do not worry. What awaits you is nothing short of spectacular."

"Why must I come?" My father said feeling a trifle braver and hoping it was all some drunken hallucination.
"It is the only way to seal the Schism you have opened. You have trifled with powers beyond your feeble mortal reckoning. Powers that could crack the cosmos if they so chose! To reseal the gateway I must take a soul back with me. Back into the Labyrinth. The soul...will be yours." As a gambler, my father lived by his wits. He was always ready to strike a deal if the stakes were high enough. What stakes could be higher than his soul? He sought to make a deal.
"Listen fella. What say we make a wee deal here, eh? I mean, you want a soul. I'm sure there are souls enough to spare here in this town. Maybe we could work out an...arraingment?" The creature appeared to think it over a moment.
"I'm listening." It hissed.

"Alls I ever wanted was money, see? One big score to set me up proper for the rest o' me life. So's I can be an old man and still be well off like. Never havin' to work again see? If you kin see yer way clear to finding me a nice lump o' cash....maybe I can persuade a soul for yer. Eh? What do ya say?"
"Money?" The being scoffed. "That is what you desire? Of all the things I could get for you in all the universe you want petty money? Ha! Oh that is too funny!" It covered its bloody stomach and howled with villainous mocking laughter. "Oh that is quite good. I haven't laughed in millennia. All right mortal. Because you have managed to make me laugh I shall give you what your desire." The being floated down to the floor and stood on its thin legs. Reaching into the air behind him, he produced a piece of yellowed sailcloth and handed it to my father. "I took this from an Italian baron four centuries ago. He was clutching it as I dragged him down. I found it later in my chambers. I have been so kind as to decipher the language for you. It is a map to untold riches stolen from some fellow baron or lord whom he murdered. It details where he hid his treasures. If you so desire it you may take it. It serves me no purpose."

My father snatched it from his hands.
"How much is it?"
"I know not. I'm sure it is more than enough for the likes of you. Now...your end of our pact mortal. Bring me a soul!" Father stuffed the rag into the pocket of his britches.
"Certainly. I'll be back soon. Wait here."
"Do not cross me. If you try to run I will catch you."
"Me? Run? I never welshed on a deal in me life. Tommy McDougal is as honest as the day is long!" He lied to the creature.
"I hope so for your sake. Remember I, Contagion, shall be waiting." The being crossed its legs and began to hover once more. "Now go!" It commanded. My father made a small bow and left the room. He raced down the stairs in fear. For a moment the thought of escape flickered across his mind but Contagion's warning made him think twice about trying to outrun him. My father needed a soul to sacrifice to the cenobite's monstrous appetite and needed one fast. The soul my father choose to serve was my own.

As fortune would have it, I was coming up the stairs just as my father was rushing down. We nearly collided in the doorway of our building.
"Well if it ain't me own flesh and blood. Saints be praised. Come help me, lad. I have to bring a few things down from upstairs. Give your old Da' a hand." Reluctantly I followed him. He opened his bedroom door and pushed me in. That was when I first laid eyes on the cenobite known as Contagion. He sat there in mid air.
"Ahh good. You were fast McDougal."
"Aye that I was. Now here's my end of the bargain."
"What the hell is that?" I asked.
"Hell is exactly what 'that' is. I am...your destiny." He grinned.
"Where did you come from?"
"The gateway to another world. From this." The box flew from the bed to his hand and levitated, spinning on its axis, over his palm.
"That box?" I turned to my father. "You opened it?"
"What do ya know of that thing lad?"
"Nothing. I found it one night and tried to make it work but I couldn't"
"Enough chatter gentlemen. I have much work ahead." Contagion tossed my father the box. "Here. Keep it as a memento." A bright light appeared from the wall behind him. Before I knew it sharp hooks began digging into my skin. Contagion turned in mid air and began floating towards the light. I tried to pull free but chains began dragging me further and further away from the door. Slowly I felt myself being sucked into oblivion. Over my screams I could hear Contagion whispering to himself. "Much work ahead. More glory for the master." Then I blanked out.

Part Two- Revenge and Escape

That sentence- the cold sentence of death- was the last ever to reach my ears from the Fleshworld. All I heard from then onward were the endless screams of the tortured souls; imprisoned like myself within Hell. For thirteen long years I suffered. An endless blinding pain. Between the physical tortures my captor, Contagion, tormented my mind as well. Deluging me with a thousand horrid images. One day he told me of what my father had done. Selling his only son into Hell for a king's ransom in gold hidden on the Mediterranean coast. My hatred for my father burned brighter then than any red hot caliper Contagion might have used to peel my flesh. My hatred sustained me through dark nightmares and fiendish tortures. It was my only companion in the endless wailing that pervaded, and still pervades, the Labyrinth. The hope of escape...and revenge.

Contagion could see the hatred in me. He could feel it growing like a leech; becoming fat on my pain and suffering. I never hated my captor, no. Just my father. One day Contagion stood before the alcove in his chambers where I hung.
"You....do not hate me." He said. "I feel the anger in your heart. The malevolence. The blackness. This bitterness did not start here. No it was sown long before we two crossed paths. Tell me of it." I spit out a mouthful of blood and bile that had risen and spoke.
"My father. I hate him. He doomed me to this torment."
"Hmm. Not only that I think." He placed a cold hand on my forehead. "I see....your mother."
"Yes. His greed, selfishness and neglect condemned her to sell her body, to become a whore. And also to die, alone and forgotten, of an incurable illness in a filthy apartment. I...loved my mother. I still do." I hung my head and began to cry.

"Do not cry. It is a waste of good suffering." He said grasping my chin. "I think, if you harnessed the blackness in your heart, you could become great. What if I offered you a chance for revenge? To return with me to the Fleshworld and find your father; make him suffer as you have suffered. What would you say?"
"Yes." I gasped. "I would do anything."
"Good. Wait here. I must confer with my master." Contagion left and returned after a time. "I have asked Leviathan to let you return. He said yes but under one condition."
"Anything." I said straining forward.
"You must become as I am. A cenobite. A member of the illustrious Order of the Gash. Your body will be twisted into a shape that will inspire fear in all who gaze upon you. And in their terror you will hack them to pieces. Tear out their souls and feed them to Leviathan, Master of Hell. You will serve him as I do. Then, once your transformation is complete, we shall return to the Fleshworld and you will bring your father here and torture him for all eternity. But the price is the sacrifice of your humanity, your memory and your soul. Your memories will be emptied out. You will know only the joy of suffering and pain. All that will be left is your hatred. What do you say?" I nodded yes. "Good." He hissed. Taking me on his shoulder, he lifted me off of my hook.

As he carried me away, my mother's locket fell out of the pocket of my tattered pants.
"No!" I cried.
"What is it?"
"The locket! I must have it." Contagion set me down and picked up the necklace.
"This trinket? Why should you want it?"
"It is all that is left of my mother."
"You won't remember what it means once you are like me. Your humanity will be gone. It will mean nothing to you."
"I shall remember!" I said. "I must have it or I won't go with you." Contagion held the locket before him. It dangled in the light.
"Very well." He tucked it behind him. "I will hold it for you. You cannot take it with you. When you are transformed I will return it to you. At best it will...amuse you. Come!" He picked me up and took me away to the center of Hell itself.

I arrived in a huge dark chamber which seemed to expand out in all directions forever. Hanging in the black void beyond the ledge on which I and Contagion stood was a gigantic diamond turning on its axis and decorated with the same shapes as the ones on the box. From it, rays of black shot out and swept the chamber as it spun.
"This is my master. Leviathan, Lord of Hell. Soon you too will serve him." A large black pod rose up from beneath the ledge. It opened to me. "Your time has come. See you soon." He pushed me in. The pod closed in on me. It felt like a pulpy coffin and was coated with slime. Then my transformation began. A pain unlike any that Contagion had shown me. Things digging into my skin. My flesh torn and stretched. Pins burrowing through cartilage. Bones being broken and reset. Needles sewing something to my flesh. But strangely I began to enjoy it. I felt a smile creep over my face. Unlike with Contagion, I did not wish the pain to stop. Only that it should go on.

I know not how long I remained in the transformation chamber. When it opened again I looked upon Contagion. He smiled.
"You look well. The very picture of pain. How do you feel?"
"Cleansed." I said in a voice that was different from my own yet somehow I knew it to be mine.
"Whom do you serve?" A looming voice asked. It came from behind me, from the hovering diamond.
"You, oh master." I replied.
"Good. You are complete. Contagion, take him to the Fleshworld and gather souls. Make me proud."
"That I shall Master." Suddenly over all I could hear the ringing of some great bell far in the distance. "The signal!" Contagion whispered. "It is the Bell of Oblivion. It signals the opening of the box. Come we must hurry. Oh, you wanted this." Contagion held out the locket to me. "Do you remember it?" I looked at it a moment.
"Yes, I do. Thank you for keeping it for me."
"I spared him a little." Leviathan said. "Now take him and go." Contagion took my arm and we were off.

Part Three- Check and Mate

In the time of my suffering and my rebirth my father had scrounged passage on a steamer to the coast of Italy. The map proved as useful as Contagion promised. The riches, gold, silver, gemstones, were beyond my father's petty reckoning. As he always wanted, he used his fortune to improve himself. Purchased clothes and servants, a fine house in the Italian countryside, started a land holdings company, and married an Italian woman named Rosetta. Together they had a son, Jacob. At last my father was comfortable and content. Of course he never gave a thought to my mother or myself whom he sacrificed to the whims of the cenobites. But now it was my time to shine. To let him see what became of his firstborn son.

In the attic of the mansion their little six year old son was opening boxes and examining their long unused contents. Slowly, unaware, he moved towards the Lament. Encased in its leather package, wrapped in a silk scarf, boxed away in a steamer trunk. The very trunk that my father took with him on his first journey to Italy thirteen years ago. The boy, blonde and blue eyed and perfect, opened the trunk, unwrapped the scarf, and touched the smooth faces of the box, warm with some internal heat. He sat in the attic among the rafters and cobwebs and moved his little fingers along the patterns. Soon, he solved it, just as I knew he would. Like father like son.

The wall behind him ripped open with a red and gold glow. He stood and turned, his face gone pale. Out stepped Contagion, resplendent as ever. I followed after him. I looked down at the youngster, already wetting himself with terror at my visage.
"Hello brother." I leered at him. "We have so much catching up to do. Come play with me. I have such games to teach you." I grabbed his hand and dangled him from the ground. He screeched like a child and wiggled in my grasp, my lengthened fingers wrapping double around his wrist like a boa wrenching the breath of life from his prospective dinner. "Find me some paper won't you?" I asked my companion. He reached into a nearby trunk and withdrew a wedding gown.
"Will this do?" He smiled. It was my father's wife's wedding dress. I smiled too at the way I was to defile it.
"It will more than do." Once I finished I dragged the boy back through the fissure which closed behind the three of us. The first move had been made. Now it was up to daddy dearest. I'm sure the Bell would ring again soon enough. This time it would toll his doom.

The servants searched frantically for young Jacob. Upstairs and down. Rosetta was beside herself with worry and had tears in her eyes. My father sat on the divan beside her and cursed in his thick brogue. "Goddamn boy is always toddlin' off where he ain't supposed to be!" My father petted his wife like a troubled dove. "There there me darlin'. I'm sure our boy is somewhere abouts. Never you fear." Presently a servant came down to the parlor where they were sitting. Tears in her little eyes and fear on her face she threw herself down upon the floor.
"Please. Please Signore, Signorina. Please I'm so sorry."
"What is it me girl?"
"I...upstairs.....you come please. I show you." He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
"What is it? Tell me now or by God....!" He raised his hand and she winced bursting into sobs.
"I'm so sorry......so sorry. You come please. Don't hit me Signore. I am good. Don't hit. I show, I show."
"Show me what? Have you found him?"
"Little bambino.....I find something, yes. Upstairs." She rose to her feet and wiped her eyes on her apron.
"Let's be about it then. Lead the way girl." My father said. He followed the maid into the attic and there was the evidence that shook her so. The Lament laid out on the floor. Beside it, his wife's wedding gown smeared with blood. The girl stood at the door fearing to go in again. My father stooped beside the dress and looked closer. It was not simply smeared blood. It was a message. Written in English so no other person could read it. His eyes moved over the lines.
"I have taken the boy. If you want him, come and claim him. He will not be let go without a certain price in blood. You know how to call me. Do so or he will suffer." No signature. Just the message. My father's face turned hard and he stood up.
"Tell no one what you saw. It remains a secret. Understood?" The girl nodded, her body shaking. Picking up the box, he marched down the stairs. He knew what must be done. He needed to call on the cenobites one last time.

Part four- The Price of Avarice

That night Thomas McDougal crept up the attic stairs, a candle lighting his way. It was midnight and he had made sure his wife was sound asleep before he dressed and went again to the attic. The chamomile tea he had given her had calmed her nerves and helped her to bed but she still worried herself over Jacob's whereabouts. As my father set the candle down on a trunk, he began working the Lament in his hands. It was though he never forgot how. Within moments it sprang from his hands and the door of light opened in the far wall. Coming slowly through it were myself, Contagion, and his son. He gently touched his back pocket. There was the pistol just as before, should he need it. When we stepped into the room the look of determination of his face was priceless. He actually thought he could hurt us. What a fool. I had the boy cradled in my arms. His shirt torn open, the wounds already scabbing. I cut just enough to write the message. I looked down into his sleeping face and cooed.

"My son." Thomas McDougal whispered.
"Yes." I answered, my voice raspy. "He is asleep now. I granted him that luxury. He has had....a big day." Gently I placed him at my feet.
"You bloody bastards! Will you never leave me? I paid you years ago!"
"You paid me." Contagion smiled. "My companion has a bone to pick with you."
"What the hell can you possibly want? I don't even know you!" My father growled. This infuriated me.
"Don't know me?! You don't know me?!?! Am I so changed? Am I so forgotten? Do you not think of me every single day? When you awake in your fine bed, eat fine meals on precious china, when you play with your little son, make love to your darling wife? Do you not recall what you bartered away for all your finery? What you cast into the abyss for all of this?" I raised my hands above my head.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You greedy bastard!" I barked. "You selfish fuck!" Then I laughed in spite of myself. "Heh heh heh you still don't get it do you? You can't recognize me!" I chuckled "You like to laugh Contagion. Don't you think that's funny?" I asked him.
"I think it's sad...and human." He said plainly.
"Perhaps Leviathan really has changed me. But I'd think you would carry a flicker of rememberance in your greedy little brain for me....father." I smiled slyly. As I said this, his eyes went wide with realization and his mouth hung open.
"Son..." He gasped.
"Yes father dear. It's me! Back from the dead. Missed me?"
"But you....I....how can you?..."
"Oh I struck a little bargain father. Not unlike you." Behind him I saw Rosetta creeping of the stairs. Setting eyes on me she uttered a little squeak of shock. At this my father turned.
"Rosetta go back downstairs. This isn't for your eyes!"
"My baby." Mumbled stepping forward. I shot a chain across the doorway holding her back. "Give me my child!" She screamed, stretching her arms out.
"Perhaps." I smiled. "In due time."

"What is it you want...son?" He spit out the last word like a poisoned date he had accidentally put in his mouth.
"Like I said, I struck a deal with my companion here. While he carved my flesh and changed my perspective I never forgot mother...or you. I never forgot what you reduced her to. A whore. How sick she was. How poor we both were. The way we suffered. Paltry in comparison to the suffering shown me by Contagion but hurtful nonetheless. Nor did I forget the day you took me to her grave. The way you cursed her. The only woman who ever showed you love. I knew on that day I wanted revenge. I just hadn't fathomed how I would get it. Though you tossed me away as though I were nothing, I was not gone. Contagion was kind enough and Leviathan gracious enough to remake me in their image. To grant me the power to destroy you!

"Now I needed only a way to get you into my grasp. Your little son provided it. By opening the box he summoned us both. I knew you'd come after him. I knew you loved him the way you never loved me. So I took him and let you know it. Thirteen years of suffering and pain. Thirteen years my hatred growing, festering, boiling inside me. Thirteen years of remembering." I fingered the locket at my throat. "Now I can have what I seek. Here is a bargain for you father dearest. I have your child, my brother here. You can choose to let him go and save yourself or you can choose to take his place and set him free. But you know what awaits you. Just think, you'd be safe and sound and rich just like you desired. But would the food taste as sweet, the bed be as restful? Would your pretty wife over there open her legs to you knowing where her son is? Knowing what he's suffering at your hands? How do you think it would feel to have someone you love...ripped away?" He grimaced at me.
"You'll let him go if I submit to you?"
"Yes. He is of no consequence. A means to an end."
"Swear to me." I laughed.
"You don't trust me?"
"Have I a reason to?"
"Quite right." I nodded. "Very well. I swear."
"On your mother's love?" He asked.

His vile tongue defiling those words sent me into a rage.
"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK HER NAME! HOW DARE YOU! I SHOULD KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND!" I lunged forward. Contagion grabbed me roughly by the shoulders. It was all he could do to stop me from tearing my father apart then and there. But Contagion whispered something in my ear that calmed me. He said
"Never kill your enemy. Once dead, they are beyond pain." I took a deep breath and nodded. My companion was right.
"Very well. I swear on my mother's love I shall release him." The rage still smoldered in my eyes but I kept it in check.
"Then let him go." I cocked my head. "Show of good faith. For old times sake." I gave a little smile. Still the same old sense of humor. Uttering a few words into he sleeping boy's ear, he arose, groggy but recognizing his father. Coming to his feet he ran to him, hugging his knees.
"Papa papa!"
"Touching scene." I added. "Say your good-byes father. Your time is up."

With a daft grin he whipped the revolver from his pocket and pressed the muzzle to his temple. "Now go." He said with an aire of pleasure like a man who knows he holds the winning hand. I chuckled.
"That's rich father. What do you hope to gain by this little...defiance?"
"Leave. Now. Or so help me I'll blow me brains out here and now. Then where will your...fun be?" I smirked.
"And what will you do then? Toss the Lament into the sea I suppose?"
"Aye." I began to laugh.
"You fool. You greedy old fool. You want it all. You can't win."
"Feels like I have a full house son." He cocked the hammer. "I never bluff." I smiled at him gently. Then, waving a hand, a hooked chain flew forth from the shadow and knocked the gun from his hand. His finger pulsed on the trigger reflexively but the bullet went harmlessly into the rafters. The boy squealed, the woman cringed. Two more chains sprang forward. One around his throat, the other around his body, binding his hands to his side. Contagion assisted me by chaining the boy. Rosetta screamed and tried to move forward but stood restrained behind the other chains I sent to block her. She could only watch, helpless, from the doorjamb.
"I have a royal flush." I laughed. I looked at each of my prisoners. "King...queen...jack. I guess you could say I'm the ace but let's not overdo the card metaphors shall we?"

"You swore you'd let him go! You swore!" My father strained impotently against his bindings.
"Yes but I never said how long I'd let him go for! When you make a deal with the devil, always read the fine print! You see father, I want your seed wiped from this earth. To leave no trace of you behind. You and your son both shall suffer at my hands for eternity. Today I have hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. For always." Coming close to him I drew a dagger from my belt. I tore open his shirt. "From Hell's heart...I stab at thee." With one deft motion I jammed the dagger into his breastbone. He howled in pain. Never had I heard so sweet an exultation of agony. I drank in his scream like a rare wine finally savored after years of desire for it. "So it begins." I whispered. "Oh what fun we shall have. Together. Forever!"
"Her..." My father muttered in pain, his blood coursing freely.
"Who? Your wife? Oh she's free to go. She is an innocent in all of this."
"I want her." Contagion said hungrily.
"No!" I admonished looking over at him. "We're here for vengeance not for fun."
"You can't tell me what to do boy! I made you and I can break you." He snarled, his teeth grating on one another.
"I don't control you, true. But I can ask you. As a favor. For a friend?" He gave me a look and then sighed.
"Next time...two!" He said holding up the same number of fingers. "Pretty ones." I nodded.
"Anything you say." I turned back to my captives. "Come now my little pets. This is going to be fun. Yes it will brother! This pain you feel now is but a flicker, a fleeting glimpse of what is to come. I will draw your agony out over centuries, over millennia. You know father, you should have seen this coming. After all, even Judas paid the price for his avarice. How could you hope to escape?" I turned dragging my captives with me. Handing the chains to Contagion I watched them go. Once they had passed I turned to Rosetta and recalled the chains blocking her way.

"You're free to go. Say nothing of what you saw. I regret taking your son but....there was no other way. If you seek to blame someone think of Thomas. He drove me to this. He killed his own son for money. How good a father would he possibly have been? He would have betrayed you too in the end. If the chance came up. Console yourself and live on. Thank your god I chose to spare you. Enjoy what little life you have left." I kicked the Lament over to her. "Dispose of this. Don't be tempted to open it. You can't save them. You'd only join them. Have a nice life." I turned towards the wall and walked through. Back to Hell. Back home. So there it is. My revenge was complete. My father and brother still hang in my chambers. My two favorite playthings of all. I suppose I'll finish them. One day. When their minds are too broken in the endless cycle of death and rebirth to know who I am or what they are. After all, if they can't remember, what fun would they be? I want them to remember. And suffer. Forever.

Once, when I was young, I took my vengeance on the man who wronged me.
Now that vengeance is complete. And I, at last, am happy.