“Too much feel,” the singer croaked. “Too much feel!”

The singer didn’t struggle as he choked, flopping about involuntarily in Gore’s grasp. Gore really wanted him to fight back or something, and quickly grew more enraged at the fish-like singer. So Gore let him go.

Gasping for breath, the singer came up with hands held high in triumph, though he did quickly dance away from the hell knight. The crowd cheered and laughed and the band played along with further excitement.

“You still haven’t answered my question, my question of why you want this sandwich?” the singer coughed, once more placing his arm around Steve.

“I’m hungry,” Steve said.

“But why be with the man of flame too?”

“Burney.”

“Why?”

Burney screamed.

“Why?” the singer asked.

“Burney wants a sandwich too,” Steve noted, as Burney screamed in agreement.

“But why?” the singer repeated, singing the question with the punctuated rhythm of the bass and drum.

“Because.”

“Why?”

“Look, just give me a sandwich.”

“Whyyyyy?”

“Because I want a sandwich.”

“Why?”

“I need a sandwich.”

“Why-ay-ay-ay-ay!”

“That’s it. Gore, grab the grill.”

“Done!” Gore said and leapt off the stage, shaking the whole building with his iron-footed landing.

“Do what now?” the singer asked.

“Do what noooooow?” the sequenced women sang as Gore stomped toward the grill, shoving his way past the quickly-parting crowd.

“Take the grill. We’ll get the sandwich outside,” Steve said and hopped off the stage himself. “Burney, lead the way please.”

Burney screamed with delight, and started walking toward the door, the crowd parting to let him pass.

“Wait, wait!” the singer called as Gore reached the grill. It was a gas grill, with a steaming stack of pulled pork and heating barbecue sauce set on one side and a stack of spices and rubs on the other.

The cook saw Gore coming as the hell knight leapt over the bar. But the cook couldn’t get out of the way in time. Gore roared with delightful fury and grabbed the grill by its base, lifting it out of the wall as the cook grabbed hold in screaming panic to where the buns and sauces were now being lifted.

The cook rode the grill, barely avoiding the heating elements, as Gore hummed a happy tune and hopped over the bar. Then the cook screamed as Gore threw the grill out the door.

“Alright, we’re out,” Steve said and joined the others, and the grill, in exiting the bar. “Dawn, kindly do your thing with the bunnies.”

“Calm down, you’re fine,” Dawn said to the quietly weeping cook who still clung to the grill. As she tossed bunnies into the crowd, Dawn approached the now cooled grill and patted the cook on the back. “Minor bruises at best.”

“You’re blocking the barbecue sauce. Remove yourself from the cooled iron of the grill and proceed to place meat upon two articles of bread!” Gore demanded.

Burney screamed in eager agreement.

Whether it was the hell knight or the man on fire, or the man in the fedora joining them in the dark street that did the trick, something snapped the cook out of his fear enough for him to mutter, “The… the gas is disconnected. There’s no heat.”

“No heat huh?” Gore asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

Taking a moment to examine the grill, Gore put his hand to his armored chin, and looked at Burney. Then he grabbed Burney by the back of the neck and jammed his face onto the grill.

Burney screamed as his face turned the grill once more into a fiery hot cooking surface, while Gore shouted, “Now cook, barbecue man!”

The cook yipped like a frightened animal and leapt into action. A man will act surprisingly fast when motivated by the sight of a hell knight using a burning man as a heating element. He will also have a tendency to burn the buns, which was why Gore nearly cut the cook’s hands off and he was forced to make the sandwich a second time.

“And now finish it with the barbecue sauce! Not too much, curse you, lest you drown my processed pork carcasses in an over-abundance of molasses and ketchup-mixed dressing!” Gore insisted as the cook finished the sandwich with a second piece of toasted bread.

As the cook handed Gore the sandwich, Dawn said to him, “You can go now.”

Into the well-lit club was exactly where the cook went, tripping as he leapt through the door. The singer and the patrons were acting as if the incident had been a wholly enjoyable experience, and they played an impromptu song about the crazy guys who threw a grill through the door and left bunnies in their wake. In this version, Steve was a minotaur, however, and Steve didn’t really appreciate that analogy. Thankfully, Gore was too busy taking a bite out of his violently acquired sandwich to hear the part of the song that referred to him as a giant, angry bunny rabbit that had to be defeated by an army of good bunnies.

There was some sort of metaphor to the song, but no one in Steve’s group understood it for all the chewing Gore was producing.

“Well?” Steve asked, eager to taste the sandwich.

Gore smoldered, staring back at the club’s door.

“Here, give me a try already,” Steve said, and took the sandwich out of Gore’s hands. The bread was warm and crisp, maybe a little too dry, but the juices of the pulled pork had soaked into the bread and softened it. The meat was tender and aromatically smoked so that it gave a nostalgic quality to the nose. It all combined with a tangy barbecue sauce that coalesced into a mixture that sparked off of Steve’s tongue and then… went nowhere.

The taste, while interesting, was flat. It burst with flavor and juices and aroma. But once this initial reaction of heartiness passed, no depth of flavor followed in its wake, leaving Steve feeling like the whole sandwich was just empty calories cleverly hidden behind a surface layer of flavor.

“Ah. It had such potential too,” Steve said as he handed Dawn her share of the sandwich.

Burney screamed a question, his head beginning to melt the grill.

“No! Remain where you are, Burney,” Gore demanded, then called into the doorway of the bright music club. “Grill man! Return this instant and utilize the burning body of my companion to cook a second time!”

There was no response from the bar except the merry singing of people dancing to a song about an enormous angry bunny rabbit learning the magic of friendship.

“Come hence or meet your doom!” Gore challenged, unsheathing his sword and calling forth a rising black whirlwind at the tip of his blade.

“Don’t bother, Gore, he’s not going to do any better,” Steve said.

“You don’t know that! And I suddenly feel rage enough to cast this entire bar into oblivion!”

“Then you’ll be out a cook,” Dawn pointed out.

“And thus my point shall be firmly in place.”

“Really? What point would that be?”

“That I have cast them into oblivion!”

“That’s not really a definitive point.”

“It is an eternal point! For they shall be thrust into oblivion! Thus proving my point that for not making me a good sandwich I can thrust them into oblivion!”

“Hmm. Good point.”

“No thrusting into oblivion, Gore,” Steve said.

“What about limbo?” Gore asked.

“No.”

“Jersey?”

“No! No thrusting anywhere — it’s not the cook’s fault anyway.”

Burney screamed a question.

“Yes, Burney you can get off the grill now,” Steve said.

Burney screamed in relief and helped himself to the condiments still remaining on the grill. Unfortunately, when he touched the plastic containers, they melted against his hands, making him scream with sadness as barbecue sauce evaporated off his fingertips.

“Look, we’re working on a flawed hypothesis here,” Steve said. “I think pulled pork was a bad idea for the best sandwich in the world. It’s a good sandwich, but there’s only so much it can do.”

The remaining buns and other implements on the grill also liquefied as Burney attempted to consume them.

“Even under tortured distress,” Steve added.

“It was a pretty good sandwich, just not quite good enough,” Dawn agreed. “And I’m sorry to say, Gore, but that means you can’t do anything to the people in that bar.”

“I can’t even send the singer to the depths of torture and pain in a realm of existence few fear even mention by name?” Gore whined.

“No. In fact, you stole their grill. I’d say you should give it back to them.”

“Fine.” Gore sheathed his sword and walked back to the grill, where Burney was still attempting to eat the last container of barbecue sauce. With one heft, Gore threw the grill through the doorway and into the bar. Burney screamed in flight as he crashed into the crowd.

“There,” Gore said, wiping his armored hands. “Done. Let’s go.”

“Burney, stop screwing around and follow us,” Steve shouted to their screaming friend. “We’re heading back to the car.”

“I suppose it wasn’t likely we’d find a sandwich good enough at the first place we stopped,” Dawn said with a shrug as they once more walked along Beale Street, this time in the opposite direction.

“Guess not.”

Through the darkened streets they went, Burney following. As he ran, Burney wiped a clinging piece of red-hot iron from his shoulder, thankful no one asked how it’d been acquired.

Lighted neon signs cast blue hues upon the patrons entering and exiting jazz clubs and bars. Upon sight of the four demons, not a soul dared remain on the street, and sought refuge in the taverns and restaurants along Beale. Normally this would have been cause for alarm amongst the people. However, it had been a slow summer for tourists and the bars and eateries were so happy that people were fleeing inside to get beers and snacks that they decided to ignore the walking terrors just outside their windows.

Plus it gave them all stories to share, and there’s no better a bar buddy than the man who just saw a burning man and a hell knight walking down the street and ran fearing for his life toward the closest pint. Save that, of course, of the man who is a burning man running fearful for his life from the hell knight and attempting to drown his flames in the closest pint, but that was a one-time occasion and only happened because Burney told Gore the meaning behind the giant bunny rabbit song.

Before long, they were back at the end of Beale Street and making their way to the parking garage. It was late, and Steve noted that it would be a good idea for them to find a hotel.

Burney screamed a question as they passed by a large hotel, the parking garage situated on the opposite side of the street.

“No Burney, that hotel looks too expensive. We’ll just drive a little way out of town and get a cheap hotel in the suburbs,” Steve said.

Burney screamed and pointed at the sign bearing the hotel’s name.

“I don’t care if there is a duck on the sign it’s too expensive,” Steve said.

Burney, flustered from having been thrown into more than one cooking apparatus over the course of the evening, and, you know, being perpetually on fire, decided that he wanted to go into the hotel whether Steve agreed to or not.

“Burney. Burney, wait, I really doubt there’s actually ducks in the hotel,” Steve called as Burney ran across the street and inside the hotel.

“I’d like to see the ducks,” Dawn said.

“There’s no ducks. Burney, you’re going to singe that door. I think it’s made of wood!”

Ignoring Steve’s urging, and the fact that it was actually a wooden door and he’d left a blackened imprint on its surface, Burney ran past the wide, singed door and into the hotel.

Steve and the others, hot on Burney’s trail, though obviously not as hot as he was, entered just behind him, and stopped as they stared at the enormous fountain in the middle of the lobby.

An expansive lobby, like that in a movie from the golden age of Hollywood, the hotel boasted a walnut-paneled bar with carved wooden features playing out against a high, wide ceiling. In the midst of this hookup-worthy, heavily-carpeted lobby was a three-tiered fountain. The fountain cap-stoned the lobby, and dribbled water into marble pools. In the pools, flapping around and swimming in simple glee, were half a dozen ducks.

“Well what do you know. There are ducks,” Steve said.

Unfortunately, the only feature that was completely undesirable in this picturesque hotel was the burning man causing an eruption of steam as he stepped into the fountain.

“Burney no!” Dawn cried.