3Jack and Sam got to the square before the rest of the crew. Sylvan Square was not, as its name suggested, an open square. It was simply a large space in a back alley, with a few twisted inner city trees in each corner and dead leaves plastering the weathered bricks.
Jack smiled as the wet leaves shifted under his feet. He'd always liked this spot. The pavement was cracked, and the trees were stunted, tough, and stubborn things that had hung on through smog, rain, fire and a few short-lived attempts at uprooting them. It was a place that was undeniably… real. It gave the impression that it had been here for a long time and that, why yes, it would go on being here no matter what your bloody opinion of it was.
"So what's the plan, Jack?" Sam asked, looking around the dismal yard. "Not much cover… no great ambush spots…" He frowned. "Why'd you pick here for our showdown?"
Jack put the duffel he was carrying down on the wet stone, where it clanked heavily. "Because it's out of the way, and on our territory. And this is the way they're coming. Duking it out on the street would likely result in bystanders getting involved, and that's not something I want to get into." He zipped the bag open and started rummaging around inside. "Besides, if we ambushed them they'd just retreat and come back later when we weren't expecting them, unless we somehow sealed off all the alleys, and even the blues would take offense to us trying to block off an entre neighborhood."
Sam nodded along, and then stopped as Jack pulled out a pair of honest-to-god metal gauntlets and strapped them on.
"The hell are those for?" Sam said, walking over to the bag on the ground and looking inside. His eyes widened. "Is that-"
"Yep." Jack said as he pulled out a pair of metal shinguards and pulled them on as well.
"Why the hell-"
"It's effective. Don't need much training to use one, and if you do have training…" he grunted as he pulled out a heavily reinforced motorcycle jacket with metal plates sewn across it in a patchwork pattern. "It's better than any amount of switchblades or lead pipes." He struggled into the reinforced jacket as Sam gaped at the most intimidating item in the bag.
"Why not a gun, or , you know, anything else?" Sam asked, his voice a bit shrill.
"Guns make it too easy to make mistakes. Forget to put a safety on, forget to stay at the right distance, let a little dirt get into the chamber, and you may as well call the undertaker ahead of time and save him the trouble." Jack grunted as he strapped on makeshift metal greaves. "That, and I find I can be far more scary with that as opposed to a gun."
"Have you ever actually used it?" Sam muttered, no small amount of panic on his face now.
"Once. And he lived. Like I said, I have training. And as I said back at the bar…" he reached down into the bag and pulled the last item out. "This is a last resort."
Soon after, the rest of the crew showed up in twos and threes. A few men were helping Ford Collins with some heavy tables and even some honest-to-god sandbags. Though they nearly dropped these as they saw Jack at the mouth of the square, armed and armored.
"Christ, Jack, you look like you're expecting to pose for a heavy metal album." Ford said, flipping a table over to face the other end of the alley and stacking sandbags in front of it.
Jack smiled, and grabbed the stool from Ford. "The rest of you set up and keep behind the barricade. Be careful, because they might have firebombs, so don't cluster too tight and be ready to leg it down the alley back to the street. Keep this alley closed to them, keep your ground, and they'll have to pile up and squeeze. And that's when we'll pound them to dust, boys, because I know for damn sure that any one of you defending your home is worth five of them trying to take it from you!"
This got a ragged cheer and a few smiles as they hastily constructed their ramshackle fortifications. One of the men slapped Jack on the shoulder. "With you on the front line, Jack, it'll take an act of God-"
"I won't be on the front line, Jim."
The rest of the crew looked up in confusion. "What do you mean, Jack?"
"Jim, you and the rest will be behind the barricade. I'll be in front of it."
"Come on Jack, if we stand all together-"
"Then they'll just shoot at us until we run. Unless they're even bigger fools than we thought."
Sam gave him a sidelong look. "But… how'll you keep them from just shooting you?"
Jack hefted his weapon and the stool and grinned. "By giving them something else to worry about."
The Angels came roaring down the alleyway, whooping and growling. They had heard about the defender's plans to block them off, and they had laughed. They had been drinking for the last hour, working themselves up into a frenzy, and now they poured down the alleys, guns ready, knives out, ready for blood.
But instead of the ten trembling shopkeepers they had expected to find, cowering in their presence, there was a man, in motorcycle leathers and metal plates, sitting on a stool in the middle of the square, with the rest of the neighborhood watch grimly standing, guns poised, behind a barricade in the opposite alley.
The man was… intimidating. Perhaps it was his darker skin and hair. Maybe it was his outfit, like he'd stepped out of a Road Warrior movie. It could be that it was the way he was simply paying them no mind, like they were insignificant.
Or it might be the fact that he was sitting on a stool, casually running a whetstone over an immaculate, wickedly sharp machete.
The frenzied charge stopped, confused as this turn of events. This was not according to plan. In the Angel's experience, people either turned and ran for their life, or they charged right back and everyone just tried to kill each other.
The whooping and shouting slowly died away, until the only sound was the rustling of dead leaves and the beat of the rain and the steady rasping of the whetstone.
There were a few murmurs from the Angels' ranks, until one tough pushed his way to the front and laughed.
The tough swaggered forward. "Well now, look at this! We got ourselves a bona-fide nutjob!"
The Angels all laughed, and began to jeer at the man on the stool, who continued to ignore them.
The tough seemed annoyed that the stranger wasn't even looking up. He pressed on, "I'll bet you think you look like some sorta fuckin' superhero or sumthin', sittin' there like you own this alley! Well, dumbass…"
The tough stood right in front of the blade-wielding "nutjob" which said a great deal about either his confidence or his schooling. "I say this piss-stained alley is mine now! What do think about-"
In a blur, Jack whipped his arm up and threw the machete into the rain above him. The tough, along with everyone else watching, took a step back in surprise as they watched the blade fly.
And while they watched the silver blur, Jack rose and drove a metal-plated fist into the gut of the tough in front of him, who was still staring at the machete. He doubled over in agony, and Jack drove a reinforced elbow onto the back of his lowered skull.
The tough dropped to the pavement, out like a light. Jack sat back down on the stool, raised his empty hand…
And caught the machete neatly as it came back down, inspecting the edge and continuing to sharpen it as if nothing had happened.
The whole encounter had occurred in less than five seconds.
The spectators were all in various states of shock. Some shouted, some laughed, and some just stared with their mouths open.
Back at the alley, Sam ran a hand over his face, thinking, "Christ, where the hell did he learn how to do that!?"
He looked across to the Angels, the scarred, vicious gang that had terrorized neighborhoods all around the city, and saw how they all shifted their feet nervously and didn't take their eyes off of Jack.
Sam's eyes widened in realization.
"They're terrified! They could just shoot him, right now, and they'd be able to roll right over us. Hell, there's enough guns in that crowd to make swiss cheese seem like a pleasant alternative! But they're terrified of this machete-wielding maniac…"
The Angels started to murmur amongst themselves, deciding on their next move, and while they squabbled, a younger Angel shoved his way to the front and turned to his criminal friends.
Sam, along with a few others in the watch, winced. "Geez, he's just a kid."
"Come on! He's just one guy, and all he's got is a knife! We've got guns!"
"Bloody big knife." Sam thought.
The kid waved his pistol in the air emphatically, "We've taken on tougher shit than a hopped-up shopkeeper! We can-"
At this point the speaker noticed that his fellow Angels were edging away from him. He turned around just in time to feel the machete prick against his neck.
Jack loomed over him. He was six and a half feet tall, and the Angel was only an inch or two shorter, but he still gave the impression of towering over the kid. He held the blade, unmoving, at the Angel kid's throat.
The Angel kid looked into the face of the crazy bastard who would bring a knife to a gunfight, but met the cold brown eyes of a perfectly sane man.
Perfectly sane, and willing to fight tooth, nail and bloody, bloody blade for his home.
Even on the other side of the square, Sam could hear the kid whimper and saw the stain spreading down his pant leg.
Then he heard Jack growl. "Drop. Your. Gun."
The Angel dropped his pistol as if spikes had grown on the handle.
Then he heard "Take off your jacket."
Sam's eyebrows lifted at that. The jackets the Angels wore, according to rumor, were only earned if a new member would endure being stabbed by another member. It was a symbol of commitment, and to force an Angel to take off his jacket was asking to have your guts spilled on the floor.
The kid took off the jacket and dropped it over the pistol without a second thought.
Jack removed the deadly edge and pointed toward the neighborhood watch. "Run."
The Angel turned toward his gang and made to leave, but Jack grabbed him by the collar and spun him around roughly.
"No. That way." Jack said, pointing towards Sam and the watch. "Run past the neighbors you would have killed, down the street past the shops you would have torched, the people you would have burned alive because they wouldn't cower at your feet."
Then he leaned close to the Angel and whispered, and Sam just barely heard, "This is mercy. This is your second chance. You won't get a third."
The former Angel looked back at his gang, then back at the leather-and-steel apparition before him. He avoided his gaze and slowly walked across to the watch's barricades.
Sam and the others silently opened ranks to let him pass through.
Sam almost made a comment before his eyes were dragged back to Jack, who had strode back to the middle of the square and turned to the clustered Angels.
"You came here to fight? You came to make this neighborhood fear you? You came to make us burn!? Well, we represent this neighborhood. We are its champions! We are its caretakers, its keepers, its lovers, and for our care and love it gives us a home! It gives us a place that is ours, and ours alone!"
He brought the machete up before him. Behind him, the watch raised their clubs, their tools, their pistols and shotguns. The Angels took a step backward.
"Can you fight us, frighten us, make us burn? Will you try to take our HOMEI? Do you dare!?"
Jack slammed the machete into the stool, cleaving it in half in a shower of splinters as his voice thundered down the alleys.
"You may lose. You may win. But rest assured, no matter what happens, if you attempt to cross this square, many of you will not make it to the other side. And, with all of your enemies, how will you defend yourself when they hear that a bunch of shopkeepers cut you down to size?"
The Angels looked at each other nervously. Sam noticed that a few were even edging toward the back of the crowd.
"Your move, gentlemen. You only get one chance."
The tough that had come forward earlier for a steel-plated pounding was struggling to his feet. Almost absentmindedly, Jack punted him back toward the Angels, who scrambled out of the way as their recumbent comrade rolled across the cobbles.
"Turn around. Say that we weren't worth your time. Else…"
Jack shrugged, planted his feet and settled into a low stance, blade at the ready, and growled,
"Come on if you think you're hard enough."
The words bounced around the square, with a menacing presence heavy as lead.
Sam stood, transfixed along with everyone else in the square, while his thoughts raced in circles.
"Shit shit SHIT! There's only ten of us and there's twenty of them and we've all got guns and this'll be a bloodbath if anyone moves to do anything except run!"
Sam looked toward Jack, who was standing in the middle of the square with a scowl on his face.
"I hope you have another plan, Jack, otherwise we may not be getting out of here in anything bigger than a fucking thimble."
The staredown lasted a full minute. Then there was a commotion from the back of the Angels. There was a cracking sound, a scream, and then the ranks of the Angels hastily parted to let a man forward.
The man was about 6' 3", dressed in white biker leathers, which were, despite the general decay around them, perfectly clean. There was a design like a pair of black angel wings on the front, open wide along his shoulders and down his sleeves. His hair was black, but his skin was pale, very pale, to the point of nearly looking like an albino or just sick, but his face was strong and healthy. He wore a sawed-off shotgun in a holster on his hip and a white bandolier with shells strapped along his belt.
But the strangest thing about him was his presence. When he walked forward, the Angels stepped aside almost reverentially. As he walked to the center of the square, the watch began to feel anxious, like he wasn't quite right, like he fit the world wrong.
Sam had a gift for talking to people, and a strong gut feeling that gave him an edge in knowing when someone was someone to trust or would rob you blind as soon as you turned your back. And this man was just… wrong. He walked too gracefully, was too cold, too perfect… he wasn't just strange, he was alien. He didn't move like a human, he moved like a predator.
Like a monster.
The stranger stopped in front of Jack, who appeared to be the only one unaffected by this strange newcomer.
The stranger looked him up and down. He cocked his head to one side, as if trying to make up his mind.
Finally, he spoke, and his speech was smooth but commanding, like an iron fist in a silk glove.
"I believe there is a problem?" The stranger asked, looking bored, despite the steel in his tone.
"That remains to be seen." Jack replied, no expression on his face.
"Hmm." The stranger asked, looking at the Angel Jack had struck earlier and then the jacket and pistol the kid had dropped.
Then he smoothly pulled his shotgun out of the holster and shot the downed man, splattering blood and brains onto the square's cobbles and the feet of the Angels, who jumped back in surprise.
His suit remained perfectly clean.
"I do not tolerate fools, nor failure." The stranger said, holstering the weapon. He turned to Jack. "Many would see you as foolish, to stand before a crowd of armed men and taunt them."
Jack's eyes narrowed "I did not taunt them. I just informed them of how this would go."
The stranger's eyebrows rose. "Oh? And wouldn't you say that your estimation of how this would end was a bit… optimistic?"
"Well, I just always look on the bright side, I guess." Jack said, sardonically.
Several members from both sides of the alley snickered.
The stranger coolly continued. "I must ask, why do you bother to stand in the Angels' way? If I tell them to attack, you will die, if you are lucky. Or they may keep you alive in… inventive fashions. You cannot hope to win against that many."
"I'm not exactly alone here, mister…?"
"Call me Azrael. And your companions are silly little grocers with no training, no decent weapons, and a shoddy barricade."
This caused an angry stir in the watch, especially from Ford, who muttered under his breath, "Shoddy? I'd like to bloody see how the bloody hell he does with only half a bloody hour…"
Azrael ignored them. "So why? Why bother?"
"Why the hell should I tell you, Az? You seem to think you can just roll over us, so I invite you to try."
Azrael sighed. "It's Azrael, Mr. Kiel. And you should tell me because it may be the only way to keep this from… escalating."
Jack gritted his teeth. "…Fine. To put it simply, this is my home."
"No, your home is a tiny apartment with a terrible TV and even worse beer. Why protect this street, this neighborhood?"
Jack glared. "I'm not going to bother asking how you know about my apartment. Anyways, who says how big a home has to be, Az? My apartment isn't my home, it's just where I sleep. Home is what you make of it, and I've made mine big."
"It's Azrael." Azrael, said, annoyed. He calmed quickly, and continued. "Still, I intend to claim all of the Barrens, and your neighborhood is next in line. However," Azrael said, raising a hand as Jack opened his mouth, "I'm certain that we can make it so that no one will be harmed. Even more, we will be able to assist each other! We could form a… coalition, you could say, where we protect each other. Indeed, I can see how one such as you, Mr. Kiel, would be a great lieutenant for my-"
"No."
Azrael stopped, surprised. "I'm sorry?"
"No."
Azrael smiled. It was a perfect smile, gorgeous even, but all teeth and no warmth. "Come now Mr. Kiel, surely we can-"
"You want us to sell our home? What would you do then? Tax us? Protect us, and charge us for it? Push drugs on our kids? Kill any who refuse to do what you say?" Jack spat at Azrael's feet, causing the white-clad man to choke in outrage. "We've seen where that leads, Az-hat." Several watch members chuckled as Azrael's face shone red with fury. "I do not follow anyone except those I respect, and you aren't worth the shit of the cow that died to make that ridiculous suit of yours."
Jack brought his machete back to a ready position. "So you can shove your downtown conquest where the sun doesn't shine, Az-Hole."
Azrael shook with barely suppressed rage. Jack watched calmly, unperturbed. "Hell," he thought, "if he doesn't want to get his shiny new suit wet, he's probably not a problem." But then he noticed that Azrael had opened his mouth, and he saw a hint of…
Fangs?
His curiosity must have showed, because Azrael composed himself quickly, and turned back to the Angels, who opened hastily to clear a path. He strode back through angrily, stopped in the middle of the pack and turned around.
"You'll regret this, Mr. Kiel." His eyes shone strangely, Jack thought, a sort of red tint to them.
"I'll regret a lot of things, Az-monkey, but this is not one of them."
Another flicker of rage, another hint of… something, underneath that man's face. Who was this guy?
Azrael turned his back to Jack and stormed off through the Angels. As he reached the back, Jack let out a slight sigh of relief.
Until Azrael snapped his fingers and said, "Kill them."
The Angels rushed forward, eager not to suffer the same fate as the comrade Azrael had executed.
Jack snarled in frustration. "God damnit, it was so damn close…"
The first two Angels at the head of the pack rushed forward, murder in their eyes and knives in their hands.
Jack screamed in defiance and rushed forward to meet them. He threw the remains of the stool into the face of one, knocking him to the ground, and swung the back edge of his blade into the wrist of the second, causing an audible crack as the impact broke the thug's bones.
More came, and Jack met them with fury tempered with strategy. He changed position constantly, using the flat of his blade to goad his attackers and focus their attention on him, and a plated fist to put them down when they gave in to their anger.
He felt knives and chains scrape across his armor, but nothing managed to penetrate. He felt glad that none of the thugs had thought to shoot first, and now that the melee was underway, no-one had a clean shot.
So why did he hear gunfire?
He spun around as he planted a steel-toed boot into an Angel's gut to see the barricade was under fire. A few of the Angels had slipped around the side and were firing pistols into the assembled watch, who were firing back, without much success.
"Fuck!"
He was about to move to help when a knife drove into his gut, piercing the reinforced material. He swung the machete at the bastard that had stuck him, and heard a scream as he stumbled forward. He didn't know if it was his or the Angel's. He felt a kick to his side and landed heavily on the ground, where several Angel's tried to jump on him.
As he fended them off from his prone position, he heard a scream of agony from the barricades. He glanced over to see Sam hauling Ford, bleeding from the shoulder and yelling in pain, farther back into the alley while the rest did their best to cover him.
"You fucking bastards!" Jack screamed as he rose like the wrath of kings, throwing Angels off of him. He kicked his nearest attackers off and ran toward the Angels firing at the barricade. He reached them just in time to see another of the watch fall, a bullet in the gut.
Jack could never recall what happened next, but he knew that he stopped using the flat of the blade. His senses seemed to dull, everything just fading away to a gray haze. He knew he was still moving, still fighting, and he felt another cut, in the arm this time. He felt warmth on his face, a wet warmth, and that shook him back to the real world.
The Angels were fleeing back down the alley. Many were limping. The square's cobbles were drenched in red, and there were eight Angels lying on the ground, groaning, bleeding, or unconscious.
Except for the one Jack was currently standing over, who had the machete in their back.
It turned out the warmth he felt on his face was blood. It wasn't his.
The Angel he stood over was, quite definitely, dead. Living people usually have a spine that's not split down the middle.
Jack looked down at the corpse. Then he pulled the blade free with a sickening crack, grimacing as the long cut on his arm protested.
He turned toward the barricade. The watch was looking at him with a mixture of relief, fatigue, and… fear?
He gestured to the wounded men. "Get them back onto the street and get them medical attention! And see if any of the damn blues can show up to bring these scum in. Might as well do part of their fucking jobs." He finished as he prodded one of the living Angles with the toe of his boot. He turned back to the square and started to cross.
"Jack! What the hell are you doing?" Sam shouted from behind.
Jack didn't even turn around as he picked up speed. "I'm going to put the fear of Rhine Street into them!"
"Jack! We've won! Let it go!" Sam said, running out from behind the barricade, grabbing Jack by the shoulder.
Jack turned to face him, and Sam backed away. Jack noticed his hand was bloody from where he grasped him.
"Gods, I wonder what I look like right now." Jack thought, finally noticing that he had blood splattered all across his armor. He looked at Sam, and then to the crew, and saw that both were definitely looking at him with fear in their eyes. "Damn, I wonder what I look like to them?"
Jack sighed and looked back to Sam's royal blue eyes. "You're right. Of course you are." He shook himself and straightened up.
"Right, how bad were we hurt?"
Sam shook his head. "Ford took one in the shoulder, but James stopped the bleeding. Darson…" He shook his head. "Darson took one to the belly. He's stopped bleeding, but he's unconscious."
"Damn… Faith's gonna be pissed about that…" Jack said, thinking of Darson's hot-tempered bride-to-be. "Okay, look, you guys get looked after and make sure the authorities that show up know where to go. If you can, help em out, since there probably won't be many." He added darkly. "I'll go run the rest of them off."
He held up his hands in front of him as Sam started to protest. "Don't worry Sam, I'm just going to run off any stragglers. No horrible vengeance or anything, I just want to make sure they don't double back."
Sam gritted his teeth. "Fine." he said, "But if you die I swear you'll never hear the end of it!"
Jack smirked, saluted, and sprinted down the alley, on the heels of the fallen Angels.
Jack didn't have to search long. He soon came across a group of three, crouching behind a dumpster and speaking quickly under the light of a back door.
"What the hell man? What the fucking hell!?" one was saying, hysterical.
"Damn it, man up already! We're Angels!" another said, smacking the first upside the head.
Jack crouched low and crept closer, peering around the dumpster.
The first turned to glare at him. "Fuck that! That bastard broke nearly half of us on his own! What the hell is wrong with him?!"
The second pushed him. "The hell is wrong with you?" he shouted, "We're the baddest fuckers around! We've rolled over a dozen neighborhoods like this one, and we'll get this one too!"
"Hell no! I'm not going back there! He broke Graeg's arm! And he cut off one of Loredo's fingers!"
Jack winced. He hadn't meant to do that.
The third one, another kid by the sound of him, pushed both of them. "Shut up shut up shut up! What he'll do is nothing compared to what Azrael will do if he figures out we fucked this up!"
They all shut up instantly, and Jack could smell the fear rolling off of them. What was so damn impressive about Az-hat?
"Fuck man, what do we do?"
Jack rose up and walked around the dumpster and into the light. "I would suggest running."
The trio looked up at him, covered in blood with a dripping machete, their faces ashen with sheer terror.
So Jack was a bit surprised when the kid actually lunged forward, screaming plunging a knife at his heart.
Jack sidestepped quickly, and the kid overbalanced and crashed into the dumpster. The other two ran forward, knives bared, and Jack easily blocked their clumsy attacks, parrying and dodging effortlessly. When they both ran forward together in desperation, Jack knocked their knives away and smartly bashed their heads together. As they collapsed in a heap, Jack knelt down and knocked them cold with two quick jabs.
As he rose, he felt a sharp pain in his side. He growled and whirled around to see the kid that had went down earlier drunkenly weaving, pulling his knife out of Jack without any sort of grace.
Jack grunted, and looked at the new wound. It wasn't serious, or even minor, just a lucky graze. He dropped the machete and folded his arms. "Kid you've got a lotta nerve doing that when both your buddies are down."
The kid staggered against the wall of the alley. "I got-… gotta kill you, dammit…" He stumbled forward, knife ahead.
Jack easily slapped the knife away. And the kid surprised him once again by trying to punch him in the face.
Jack caught the fist as it flew. "Jesus, will you just give up already? At least that other kid had the sense to stop fighting!"
The kid struggled feebly against the grip. "Damn it, you… *kaff*… you have to die! Or Azrael…"
The kid slumped to the ground, still held tight, where he proved his resourcefulness once again by trying to bite at Jack's knees.
Jack watched, stunned and bemused, as the kid tried to chew through his metal shin guard. Finally, he pulled the kid up to eye level. "Geez, what the hell will Az-hole do to you that's worth cracking your molars as an alternative?"
This time he wasn't too surprised when the kid attempted to headbutt him. Jack just caught him as he came forward and gave him a push away. The kid half fell, half collapsed to the ground, and feebly tried to get up again.
Jack watched, unperturbed. "Damn, if you could actually fight, you'd be a terror. You're wasted on the Angels."
"Funny you should use the term "terror", Mister Kiel." Came a familiar voice from right behind him.
Jack spun around low, scooping up his machete and swinging as he went around at head height. Which didn't make a difference since Azreal, in his immaculate motorcycle leathers, was standing fifteen feet down the alley.
Jack kept the machete up in a guarded position, narrowing his eyes at the white-clad man. "Looks like you finally decided to show, Az-"
"Save it, Kiel. I'm not interested in your childish name calling. I'm more interested in what you did to my men." Azrael said, waving a hand dismissively toward Jack.
"And I'm sure they're so glad you care." Jack said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he turned to look at the kid, who was pale as death, or Azrael's clothes. He promptly fainted.
Jack turned around just in time to see a gloved fist slam into his chest, throwing him over the recumbent Angels and down the alley.
He rolled as he landed a solid six feet from where he was, and pushed himself off the ground coughing. "What the hell!? How'd he move that-"
He didn't have time to finish the thought before he felt another blow to his side, a kick this time. Once again he rolled down the alley, and he felt his bruises forming as he tried to get into a standing position.
He looked up in time to see Azrael leaping down on him from above. He jumped to one side just as the man's gloved fists slammed into the alley floor where his chest had been, cracking a crater open in the asphalt.
Jack was on his feet and his machete was still in his hand, but he sure as hell felt fear right then. "How the fuck did you just crack the street!?"
Azrael straightened up and adjusted his gloves. "Quite easily, I assure you, Mister Kiel. And I can also guarantee that your ribcage will not be nearly so difficult to break."
Jack gritted his teeth and stepped forward. Before he could do anything else though, Azrael took a step and blurred, and before he knew it Jack felt two heavy blows to his chest.
He felt a rib crack. And as he tried to move his body informed that, no, in fact, it hadn't been one rib…
He nearly fell over right then, but managed to stay upright and swing at the white blur in front of him, which yielded a loud rip and a deep gash of red against the perfect white.
Azrael staggered back, looking down at the deep slash in his suit. A cut, more like a gouge, ran from one side of his shoulders down across to his opposite hip.
Jack smirked, but then he noticed three things.
First, the Azrael wasn't showing any signs of pain, more just a slight interest that Jack had managed to hit him.
Second, a wound like that should have been spilling buckets by now. It wasn't bleeding at all.
Finally, the wound, the large gaping hole, was quickly closing over itself.
Jack stared with his mouth open as the torn flesh knitted, pulsed, and grew back together, not even leaving a scar.
Azrael cocked his head, then nodded as if satisfied, before looking back to Jack. "I must admit, I am impressed. Even with a broken rib…" he cocked his head again. "Several, in fact, you managed to cut past my defenses and deal me a strike that would've killed a mortal."
"Mortal?" Jack thought, his mind reeling at the impossible things he had seen as he staggered back.
"As I said before, I believe you would be quite the asset to my cause…"
"Fuck… off… Az-hole! I'm…" Jack coughed violently as he felt his wounds through the adrenaline. "I am NOT… going to join… your fucked-up crusade!" Jack finished, grimacing as he brought his machete to bear.
Azrael raised an eyebrow even as his mouth twisted into a scowl. "I'm impressed once again. Even wounded, exhausted, and without backup, you defy me. I admire that. However." He said stepping toward Jack. "As for whether or not you join me…"
Jack watched as the man in white's eyes shifted from cold ice to a glowing bloody red. He seemed to grow taller, and his presence pressed on the alley like he didn't fit, like he was wrong somehow. And when he spoke, his teeth lengthened to a vicious point and his voice carried the weight of granite tombstones.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice in the matter."
Jack rushed forward, swinging, but the… beast swung a fist, striking him in the chest.
He felt his remaining ribs give as he flew back into the alley wall.
And after his head crashed against the dumpster, he felt nothing.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Second chapter! Took a little rewriting and experimentation with different viewpoints and time lapses to get the feeling right, but I think it paid off well.
Still editing chapter 3, but it should be up soon. Thanks for reading, and please review!