“That’ll be fifty bucks up front, fifty later.” She said in a voice monotonous and dreadful. Dion could smell the cigarette smoke coming off of her, the musk of which stuck to his nostrils and kept still there even as she maneuvered down to his pants. She began to work. Unzipping. And him, thinking.

It’s always like this, isn’t it? Like an addict running to a familiar high. Like each time I feel even a little bit bad in my life, it feels like the end of the world, and I just can’t help myself. Maybe that’s my problem. I just can’t control anything, at all, any time, anywhere. That scares me. But here I am, doing the very thing that scares me.

The prostitute went up for a kiss. She pursed her lips, the red almost like a poisonous flower or fungus to Dion.

“No, sorry, I’m not kissing,” He said.

“What’re you, stiff?”

“I have a girlfriend.” His voice was low and shamed.

“Oh,” The prostitute let out. It was the most surprised she had been all day.

That was all the exchange they shared. She didn’t even look at him much prior, during, and after the act. It’s not like he was there either. He just put his hand against her head and thought, it was like stroking a dog in a way or at least offered that same degree of meditation.

The same habit. Why is that? I don’t get it. Why am I like this? I just get scared, and the thing I want most is a woman, doesn’t matter which or why. And it’s always the same thing I want too. It never goes away either, it never helps. But I do it as if it’s part of the repetition too.

He came. That’s about the only thing that stopped him from thinking. She spat. She wiped her face and stuck out her hand started signaling with her fingers.

He looked at his wallet. He only had thirty.

“I…sorry…” He opened the wallet up for her to see.

“Are you trying to cheat me?” She asked. “Are you trying to play me, mother fucker?”

“I - I forgot to take out money. My friend - he,” He paced his head around, expecting someone. “He usually has the money, and I - well, I don’t have much. Just the thirty.”

“You’re trying to screw me, aren’t you?” She slapped him against the head. “Punk ass bitch, you’re trying to fuck me. Huh?!”

She slapped him again then paced the room and dialed on a phone number. Dion looked past her, past the flimsy peeling wallpaper and towards the curtained window. There was a shadow amongst them, it went across the horizon then stopped. He figured it was the pimp, but no one knocked on the door. Though he could hear the footsteps below the door frame. They went away after a while, replaced, by the pimp who stormed in.

“Is it this bitch?” He asked. He didn’t look like the stereotype. The rings and the purple coat and the fedoras, no, this man looked simple. A simple gold chain, a simple white shirt that went down to his knees, some jeans and high top shoes. He didn’t look particularly exceptional, though he sure felt it, especially as he flashed the gun on his waistline.

“Get the fuck out of here,” He slapped the girl around. Her wig was falling off, a natural brunette forced platinum blonde. Pink skirt, black top. And heels that dragged down the stairs.

“Who are you, then? The bum who can’t pay?”

“I forgot my money, sorry,” Dion tried to stand. The man pushed him down. The chair moved a bit back as he fell on it.

“You forgot, hmm?” He asked. “And you can’t get your money here soon, can you?”

Dion checked his person with his palm. There was no cell phone. It made him bite his lip.

“I pay what I owe,” He said.

“You know,” The pimp said. “You’re the first guy to try and fuck me in six years. For six years I have never had someone as stupid as you, do you wanna know?”

“I can’t figure why,” Dion said.

“Because I’ve never had stupid customers. I don’t get stupid customers, they just seem to avoid me. Do you want to know why? How do I screen for stupidity?”

Dion looked up to him. He was buttoning his pants. The man drew his hand back and punched Dion square against the face.

“By reminding them who owns this place.” He punched again. “Because I have a reputation. And reputations scare people. Do you know what I do?”

He jumped onto Dion’s lap.

“I beat them. Then I take this knife out,” He brandished the blade, made it gleam in the moonlight. “And I rip their fucking eyes out. Do you understand me? No one fucks me, because if they do, I make them blind. Do you really want to lose your eye for twenty? Shit, we can call it twenty/twenty, for twenty.”

Dion’s head was cocked back, hanging by the lip of the chair support. He brought it back in and grabbed the pimp by his arm and twisted.

“Are you going to lose an arm for twenty?” Dion asked. He let go, perhaps out of pity, or shock towards himself. He forgot his eyes were even glowing red, that the man’s face was contorted in fear, that he was shivering.

He let go and ran out. Not so much a run, really, but a brisk jog down the walkway where the prostitute was smoking and looking wide eye’d that he was still scar-less. Untouched.

The pimp ran out, holding his arm.

“You think you can just fuck me, huh?” He screamed down the hall. Window binds lifted themselves to the noise. Curious eyes skated across the stained glass of motel windows. The pimp brandished a gun, his posture was injured, he looked low and hollow. Shame weighed him down, that and the bleeding of his twisted wrist.

He cocked his gun and pointed it at Dion, who only sighed.

No one really guessed that his head would explode. Not the spectators, not Dion, not the prostitute and certainly not the pimp. His brains had come out of his skull, evacuated from the perforated hole out his forehead. Behind the skull and the brain-scatter on the wall, pierced through the wood and thin wall-paper, a black crystal shard hung.

His eyes went wide. His face tightened. His shoulders compacted themselves, elevated past his chin. He looked every which way. He held the prostitute by the hand.

“Get down,” He said.

She was impaled and pinned to the wall. A shard like a crucifixion nail went right through her bosom. She reached for it, tried to free herself for a moment. There was futility. Certainly, one she was aware. She didn't struggle long or try at all after a short while. Then her eyes went still, then her body went cold, and the blood dripped down her limbs like faucet mouths. Down her fingertips, amongst a silence that emboldened the noise of the droplets.

It was like a waterfall to Dion who hung low. He did not blink. Did not move past what was necessary. He put his back against the wall. There was clatter and fear amongst the full apartments. He reached into his coat. Out came the mask. Then the guns. Putting the mask on was hard with how much he shook. Underneath it, the sweat collected. He tasted the salty water. His body leaned back, counterweight to the guns now taking most of his strength to lift.

“Who did this?” He asked. He felt stupid for asking. Especially when no one responded.

"Which one of you is it?" He asked, no one answered. Maybe he whispered too low.

A shadow, wind flexing. He ducked. The crystal cut the air above him, into shingles that clung. They trickled down on his shoulders. Past the shingles and the roof, the crystal continued on, stabbing through one tree and two sets of brick walls before it stopped ceremoniously on a vacancy sign. The tree slumped over, half-dead already, now seemingly fully committed. It fell. The dried leaves scattered about.

Thin limb-like branches clawed on the floor as the tree fell. Scraping the side of the motel and in the flutter of black leaves and sticks, Dion could see the figure. Something with green eyes, with a marking across its limbs like a snake entanglement. And in the growing darkness of the motels (for the lights were dying with loud pops each minute in the presence of the witch) he saw the silhouette at work. The low crawl of this thing, with hands, extended out and palms pressed against the floor.

He was compelled to watch, mesmerized almost. His mouth opened, his cut running across his face, from his chin to his temple. The blood dripped down the floor. He shot at the figure, who by now was gone.

And he was stuck again, staring every which way, his head circling and searching for moving shadows.

His fingers pressed softly against the trigger. The lights exploded all around him. Decanted of all light and hope. It was dark, even his red eyes could not pierce through. Cars whistled off in the distance with honks, then dead silence. Overhead, somewhere behind him, a vacancy sign taunted him with its glow. Dion turned around, the heat of neon pressed against him. Amongst the sign, in front of it with a slumped body, the witch waited. He took up the slot where the V should have been.

"Do you know why I'm here, heart-eater?" He asked.

Dion maintained quietness. No, not just maintained it. He sucked his lips in and grit his teeth. He hung onto quietness, grabbed it like an impoverished soul to food.

"A hunter being hunted, what strange situation you and I find ourselves in," He said. "Strange. But no surprise. You expected this as much as me, you must have. Right?”

Dion moved his pistols up to face the witch.

“Putting a bullet in my sisters head. Taking her life, without prejudice, without heat or pride or care. You should have known that kind of arrogance would come back to you. No?"

The witch moved from the sign, his figure slender and lethargic amongst the pink-lighted horizon. He looked as if skating across the rooftop, the glow hot behind him.

"So here we are now, heart-eater. Dancing, playing. You’re very quick on your feet, I should have expected that. I should have killed you earlier, there was such a time.," Dion could hear the sharp crystal clanking against each other. "But I can’t help but want it, mother fucker! I want to hear you scream.”

He wasn’t shouting, not with aimless villainy or cockiness. He was crying. His voice cracked.

“I want you to feel what my sister felt,” It was almost a whimper. “I want you to struggle. To feel it so close and to lose it all. I want to bleed you. You hear me?!”

He threw a black shard. Dion dashed. It cut through the guardrail, down to the floor below where it struck a car and ignited it to flames.

“I need you to feel pain. I need it more than your death, more than my violence. I. Need. It.”

“He’s crazy…” Dion said it beneath his breath, wide-eyed.

Floyd shot out again, with a wound-up throw. A simple, meter long black crystal, frighteningly slow. It must have been easy to dodge for Dion. Must have been. Until it extended outgrew - midair. And the small crystal ended up being a long cylinder. A pillar, that pushed Dion back. His arms braced against the meteor, his feet sparked against the metal catwalk. His back struck the guardrail - through it, onto the floor below. The cloud of smoke was immense, a deep mist that made his lungs sting with every breath taken.

His arms hurt, his back was burning. He moved a finger - thank god, he could still move his fingers.

He cleared some smoke with a wave, raised his arm. Shot. Twice, where he last remembered Floyd standing.

He missed, hit the sign. The A letter shot out sparks and dangled like a man at the noose.

"Dance, then, little heart-eater, dance," Floyd said. And Dion ran towards the sign and the noise. He ran into the light of the apartment complex. He ran towards a small glass box where the cashier was. She was dead. Her cold finger at the dial of a cell phone. It was vacant after all. At least now, as people ran out. They were all stabbed, with cold, calculated throws. Through the sternum or the head.

“Stay inside!” Dion screamed at the remaining open doors. There were only a few left, he could hear their broken breaths.

He shouldn’t have turned. Not to scream, not to lead the sheep.

Another crystal came at him. He jumped, it went in between his legs. Two cars were struck on the parking lot. They exploded almost instantly, the shrapnel fell and blew over him. He could feel the splinters. Glass, metal. More than that, the concussion of the explosion itself left his head ringing and shoulders bruised and heavy. He struggled with both hands to lift himself.

He had to lift himself. Fast. It was coming again, fanned out, an array of black bullet-speed crystals. As if a sick game of darts, and him the lonely red target.

"Run, little man, run," Floyd said, his voice morphed and incomprehensible, booming as if the Devil himself

"Dance, dance for me," The witch said. "Dance for Jezebel, for the Wolfe’s"

He looked up. The blood covered his left eye. He could only see the blur. It was the blur of a monster, standing high above him. Deformed. Green. Vile. With great wafts and strokes of his hands, it rained black.