The Demon Halloween special

The man looked into the mirror, sheer, stark terror etched on his face as he stared at the image facing him. With a whispered, frightened cry he stares, his eyes practically bulging out of his head, the shock of gray hair down the middle of his dark brown mane giving him an even more frightened appearance.

"W-what are you? Who, what am...I?"

The image in the mirror smiles at his fear and begins to laugh.

"You and I are who we have always been. You are Jason Blood, and I am Etrigan the Demon."

"Why Etrigan? Why are we bound together like this? It’s been centuries, yet every day is a new nightmare like this. Why?"

"Stop your whining, Blood. By now you would think you would be well used to our arrangement."

"Used to this life in ever lasting hell, tied to a beast from the darkest pits? My very existence an eternal blasphemy."

"Fool! You don’t remember, you don’t know what hell is. This is nothing, NOTHING! This is a mere walk in the park compared to the perils of the depths of hell."

"What do you mean I don’t remember? How would I ever know? I was a good man, a learned, religious man. Until that damned Merlin bound you to my soul, that fiend."

"Hahahahahhahaa, you make me laugh as always, little human. The centuries have been good with you to look in on. But your constant whining must stop, for I grow tired of this foolishness every few months. Do you have any idea what this sounds like over the centuries? Tis enough to drive a Demon insane! Hahahahaha!"

Jason Blood shakes his head, and then drops that head low as he stares away from the mirror.

"I want to die, Demon. I want to move off this mortal coil. Surely I’ve guaranteed my place in heaven by sharing my body with you. Surely I can be free! I’ve given enough."

"Blood, you will never understand, never." His red eyes narrow as he stares back from the mirrored surface.

Jason raises his eyes again to meet Etrigans. "What are you talking about? Why are you doing this to me Etrigan? Why must I live forever while those around me continually die? Why must I watch as friends forever give in to death, and I live forever?"

"Because we are needed, that is why."

"Needed as what? You are a hellspawn, tied to me. Surely you must hate me as much as I hate you?"

"To hate you, Jason Blood, would be insanity. You are not the enemy. You are myself. We are one and the same."

Jason’s face contorts cruelly as he stares back at Etrigan. "We are nothing alike, nothing! You are a horrific monster, and I am only a man being dragged through this living nightmare. Century after century, decade after decade."

"Oh stop your whining, Blood. As your contemporaries would say, ‘Suck it up little man’. Your life is not so horrible. You are immortal, is that not gift enough?"

"NO! NO it is not! It is torment! I want free of this! I want to wither and die like all men are supposed to do!"

"Stop your complaining, you sound like a stripling child being told he cannot have another piece of candy. I tire of you and this foolishness. Accept your role in this, for it is eternal, and there is naught either of us can do about it. Damn Merlin and his spells, his sorceries. Damn him to hell and back for this."

"For once we are in agreement, Etrigan. I want them to pay. Promise me you’ll make them pay for what they did."

"Oh they will pay Jason Blood, of that you can be sure."

"Very well then." Jason steels himself and begins to chant aloud "Fall, fall o form of man! In his place arise the Demon, Etrigan!"

As Jason speaks a man dressed in a waiters uniform bursts into the men’s room where Jason is. The man is brandishing an automatic weapon, and stops in his tracks! As he looks on, his eyes practically bulging from his head, Jason Blood is suddenly engulfed in flame! The man screams and tries to run, when a yellow clawed hand emerges from the circle of flames and grasps the man by the throat!

"Ahahahahahahahahahaahaaa!"

"What was that? One man dressed in a waiter’s uniform asks another next to him. Both men are dark skinned, obviously from some Middle Eastern country.

"I-I do not know Assad." The other replies haltingly as he grips his weapon tighter.

"Well go and look you fool! Go now!" Assad kicks the man as he sends him scurrying towards the sound. When suddenly the double wooden doors exiting the banquet room where they stand burst open, more it shatters, as a smoldering human form sails through the air and lands at their feet.

"Allah preserve us!" The second man exclaims in abject fear. "It is Hassan!" All around them, wedding guests sit at their tables, fearfully turning their gaze back and forth between their captors and the burnt form on the floor.

"Find them." Assad Barks. "Whoever did this has just killed all of these fools!" as he speaks he cocks his rifle dangerously!

Then in a hail of broken glass and plaster, the ceiling shatters, as a chandelier falls, followed in a shower of debris by a horrific form of yellow skin and red tunic, with red eyes to match!

"Hahahahahaha! You fools attacked the wrong wedding this night. Now you’ll pay for what you have done here." Etrigan spits as he attacks, throwing his arms forwards, as flames fly from his fingertips engulfing both men before him. A third man begins to run towards a far door, as two more break for a door behind him. The banquet hall erupts in chaos all around the Demon as he leaps through the air, landing hands and feet first on the back of the fleeing criminal, smashing him to the floor chin first.

"Hahahahaha! You will pay for this crime you committed, foul little man, you and all your companions will pay!" As he speaks, Etrigan pounds the mans face into the wooden flooring until the floor begins to fill with blood.

He leaps up and turns staring around the room for the last two, until a voice calls out to him. "That way Etrigan, they went that way!"

The Demon smiles, a horrific thing in and of itself. "Thank you Harry Mathews, I knew I could rely on you."

He bounds away, covering the breadth of the hall in one leap, shattering another set of wooden doors as he continues out into the stairwell. He leaps down the three floors in one jump, landing on his feet like a bizarre cat, then he rams his fists through the doors to the outside, shattering them like glass.

Now in the parking lot, he begins to sniff the air like a beast, and once he captures the scent he wants he leaps after it! Two men see him coming and hurriedly fire their weapons at him. Etrigan merely laughs as the bullets bounce off his hellish skin. Then carrying himself as an ape would, he bounds across the parking lot, practically dragging his knuckles in a horrific display of his demonic hellishness.

The two men throw themselves into the car and begin to pull away when the car stops in its tracks. The man in the passenger seat turns towards his window fearfully, and is met by a smiling yellow visage with burning red eyes. Then and only then does the man realize he is looking down at the Demon!

Etrigan has the car hoisted above his head, effortlessly. He begins to walk cackling aloud, carrying the car and its terrified passengers like so much gossamer. Then he arrives at a fountain outside the reception hall. Once there he raises the car above his head, and slams it authoritatively down into the fountain, shattering marble and steel all about him.

Now he grips the car and literally shreds it in two, splitting it open like it was mere paper, he deposits the men on the ground, as if they were sardines from a can.

Now Etrigan the Demon stares at the two remaining terrorists, who fearfully cower from him.

"You fools picked the wrong wedding to use as an example. You picked the wrong day, the wrong time. You killed the wrong person. You killed a person I was...fond of. For this you will pay. I will not kill you, but I will make you pray for death. For hell is not a place for living beings, no matter what they have done!"

Both men cower in fear as Etrigan begins to gesture in arcane movements. Suddenly a swirling vortex opens before him, stinking of sulfur and brimstone, then as both men scream horrifically, Blood red tentacles leap from the vortex to engulf them both, dragging them back to hell with them, screaming in agony and fear. With a flourish the Demon gestures again, closing the vortex, sealing the gate to hell and ending the men’s screams with it!

He turns and lumbers back towards the catering hall as sirens sound in the distance of Gotham City. He knows they are coming here to where he is, but he cares not.

Inside all the guests have fled save two. Harry Mathews and Randu Singh both kneel next to two still figures on the cold wooden floor. One dressed in a white wedding gown, the other in a grooms

Tuxedo. Both are dead.

Etrigan kneels now as both men stand and move away. He shoots them both a knowing nod and stoically stares at the young woman’s face. Then he does something he has never done in his eons long existence. He sheds a tear. A tear that hits the floor and burns a hole in it like acid.

"She deserved better then this." Harry Mathews speaks sadly.

"Yes." The Demon answers. "Glenda deserved to be happy."

Outside the windows, lights from police cars turn the inside of the hall a flashing red. Inside three beings mourn the loss of a common friend...