3 Days Remaining: Shootout.

2 Ibuprofen, and I was back in business today. Snore grabbed coffee, and I grabbed coca-cola. As we drove to the Portuguese Shaman's place, we got into a discussion about the merits of Hip-Hop. The thing is that it's not that I don't like Hip-Hop. I've heard stuff I liked plenty well enough. What I don't like twenty minutes of "Bitches and Ho's" blaring on the speakers. So really, when you get down to it, the only two things I really can't stand are Bad Country Music (there is a LOT of it) and Bad Hip-hop (in my opinion, there's a lot of that too).

So Snore and I arrived at Old Man Donato's. I didn't like what I saw. Everything about the place felt wrong. It was like looking at guy in his fifties wearing a schoolgirl outfit. You know what he's TRYING to be, but everything about it is grotesque and unreal.

I straightened out my jacket. The Man In Blue had arrived. Yeah, there was no way I could prepare myself mentally for this. I tried though. Snore of course, forged ahead, opening the door, calling on Old Man Donato.

The house was nicely furnished. The cheap carpeting was brown and faded, and covered the entrance and the living room. Stairs lead up to the second floor to my left, and there was a window to my right. I kept that in mind. Always, always keep the possibility of a window escape in mind. There was dim light from candles all around the room. There was a television, a couch, some photos on a coffee table by the couch. It didn't look like this guy had kids. I saw someone who must have been his wife in one of the photos by the couch, but Old Man Donato was Young Man Donato in those pictures. She must have been gone for a long time now.

I don't know what exactly was said between them after we went in. It must have been pretty funny, because they were both laughing after they hugged. I already know why Snore didn't just go to this guy when he realized he had an ancient entity of evil problem. He knew instinctively that there was something up with this guy. Most people do when someone is this far gone. I could see the very depths of madness in this soul. Take a man and twist him, wrap him like a rope around a solid core of something that looked like a white-washed Washington Monument, get the knot good and tight...that's what I was looking at. It stared back at me. Donato and Snore continued to talk, but I wasn't listening.

My hands went down to my hips, as though they were reaching for invisible guns. I made no attempt to hide what I was feeling. Donato watched those hands.

Donato said to me, "You look like you're getting ready for a fight."

Snore gave me this look, but my eyes weren't leaving the core of this tortured soul. I had known about people in my line of work who had forgotten their duty, I had seen people succumb to outside forces, and I had watched a woman I adored get turned into a psychotic monster that could never be made whole again. The difference between this man, and her, was that I could bring myself to put him down now that he was rabid.

I said to Donato, "So. What have you done for your community lately? Sent any evil spirits packing? Helped tend to the sick and wounded? How about helping to ease the divide between man and nature? Had any luck with that?"

Donato gave me that smirk that only a true madman can manage.
He said to me, "Well, everyone has a price, and it made me an offer. I can do so much more now."

I said, "Yeah, serving a giant phallus has to be good for the soul."

I know he's been doing this for a long time. I know he can see my insides just as well as I can see his. I always wonder what other people see when they look at me. No two people see the same thing, and they almost never get it right. In this arena, I've got an advantage: I sense much more than most people ever will.

By this point, Snore's pulled out one of his guns, and it disappeared in his hand. I felt the threads through the world pull and twist, I sensed the Obelisk acting as an amplifier, giving him that extra push needed to bypass the Veil and trade one object there for one object here. In this case, the trade was a pile of goop for a gun. Somewhere on the astral plane, there is a gun laying around looking very lonely. Snore stumbled backward, flicking light blue goop from the astral off of his hand, and it evaporated when it touched the ground. He had this look of confusion and terror on his face, and I started to grin. As insane as it may sound, I've been in this position before. I know how to operate from this angle. This guy had infinitely greater firepower he could deploy in the physical world than I ever would. I haven't ever intentionally caused anything to happen on our physical world with my talents. I deal with spirits and upheaval on the astral plane, the physical world is not my turf. But I'm used to being outgunned.

Donato said to me, "I wish you had never been here. I could have kept this game going so much longer."

I tried to sound as intimidating as I could, "Well here we are. Can we get this over with?"

I grinned like a madman, my bladder remaining steady by force of will. I feel the threads twist again as something came through the astral plane, and then he and I are doing an ancient dance of the mind. There are three points to remember when you find yourself dealing with one of the one-in-a-hundred-million people who can actually bring cosmic force to bear in the physical world.  Point one: where is the power coming from? The Law of Conservation of Energy isn't a joke, he had to get power from somewhere other than our world to throw mean and nasty craziness if he wanted to do it with a flick of the wrist. Point two: How is he bringing it here? You need to make a hole through the Veil or barrier, whatever you want to call it, or find a way to finesse around it. He was just boring through like a drill, which is such a waste of power. After you do all that, it can move from it's point of origin to Point three: his target, me. Of course, connecting cosmic death from Point Two to Point Three isn't a point and click process. You need to use your mind to bridge the gap between Point Two and Point Three in order to make it work. I wasn't going to let him get that far.

I blocked him at point one, pressing hard with everything I knew on that point of the astral plane. It instantly turned into a wrestling match: his will against mine, to see if he could actually bring this fiery death to our world to destroy me.

It was no contest. The obelisk had given Donato all the power in the world, but he had none of the skill needed to really use it. Raw skill had saved my ass so very, very many times. Donato would not give up, constantly pushing and pushing against the veil and my will. It was useless. I was about to say something cocky, when everything changed.

The Obelisk stepped in, creating Point 0: the point at which another entity beyond our world hijacked a point of energy that someone at Point 1 was pulling from and tried to brute force it through into the someone's Point 2 so they could complete the chain at point 3, also known as my scrawny ass. I was five seconds from being broken by whatever it was that the Obelisk and Donato were trying to brute force into our world. I just couldn't hold that much back. My mind starting going through all these pointless things, and it just wouldn't stop:

The woman I loved was dead.
There were no angels on the way.
Time Lord was messing with my head.
I'd spent eight years getting my ass kicked left, right, and center.
Green Man was in the hospital because I was an idiot.

Good people were dying.

I was sane.

I suddenly pulled my will away from the point he was pulling his energy from, and used it to give this energy a nice top-spin. He'd get the power he was asking for alright, but he wouldn't be throwing it at anyone. I could sense him try to control the sudden influx of force with his weak will, and watched him break under the sudden and brutal impact. It turned out he had been calling on the fires of hell. His body became a whirling inferno, and I saw nothing for a while. I'm thankful that the fire was so bright, I never want to see something like that. I can still hear him scream. Snore grabbed me and pulled me away. After a minute or so, I could see again and we were looking at a building that was on fire.

He had lost an old friend, who might never have been his friend. He must have so many questions running through his head right now. I just killed a man. No vagaries, I had knowingly brought about someone's death. Fuck.

I'll be okay. Really, ignore the demotivational poster. We're going to drink ourselves silly, and tomorrow I'm going home. And tomorrow, I'm going to tell as many stupid jokes as I can to try and feel better. I killed someone. It was more like putting down a rabid dog. how many people did he warp and twist and destroy? How many people like Snore weren't as lucky, and became this guy's victims? How many people had he turned into puppets or food?

Fuck. I can't believe I just did that. Fuck.