• Prologue: The Beginning of the End

    Conflict builds character. Crisis defines it. - Steven V. Thulon

    A delicate ribbon of cigarette smoke curled upwards towards the rafters and then disintegrated. A meaty hand slammed a shot glass on to the mahogany surface, smashing it into smithereens. Grot, the bartender, gave the owner of the hand a cold glare but refrained from uttering the complaints that were threatening to burst from his mouth. He continued cleaning the pint glass with his old chequered cloth, a family heirloom, and kept a close eye on the great bulk of a man who seemed to have something against his mediocre quality shot glasses.

    The Sixth Circle Bar had stood sandwiched between the marble grandeur of the city bank and a suave tailor’s shop for over two centuries. Crumbling limestone walls and a shabby thatch roof made it a safety inspector’s worst nightmare. But then again, in Hell nowhere was safe, which was why safety inspecting was a declining profession. However Grot kept his bayonet in good working order just in case one of them decided to venture through the decrepit doorway.

    “Gimme another,” the glass smasher slurred.

    “I think you’ve had enough, General,” Grot stated firmly.

    The Underworld was fighting a losing battle against the heavenly legions and Grot was not surprised. General Bardus could not have run the army anymore incompetently if he had tried. Some demons had even gone so far to suggest that he was secretly working for the angels. Of course the words had no sooner flowed from their mouths than their tongues were cut from them. At first glance Bardus resembled some sort of human-potbelly pig hybrid. His dull grey shirts, decorated with stains of every colour, never quite seemed to stretch over his swollen stomach. The skin hung in folds around his face giving him the appearance of a bloodhound that had long since seen its day. His small cruel mouth was twisted into an ugly pout and two squinty black eyes now glared at Grot for refusing him one of his many vices.

    Bardus attempted to focus on the three identical bartenders who wavered and swayed in front of him like mirages in a desert. Leaning, or rather falling, forward onto the bar counter Bardus shook his finger at Grot. What little neck there was struggled to keep Bardus’s huge head from crashing on to the counter. The general wrinkled his snout-like nose while he mustered the wit to form words.

    “Now, now, now,” Bardus repeated drunkenly, “You three obvi…obvi…clearly don’t know who I am.”

    Grot raised his eyebrow at the general’s attempt at a condescending tone while looking around puzzled. The bartender came to the conclusion that the general’s brain must have been drowning in alcohol because he was seeing double. A few of the pub’s customers were watching the exchange with a vague interest.

    “I know very well who you are, mister,” Grot answered icily, “And frankly I don’t give a…”

    It was that precise moment when the disgraced general fell unconscious to the rotting floorboards with an almighty crash. The easy chatter in the room ceased immediately and a dozen eyes turned to the snoring man on the floor.

    “I hope he ain’t dead,” someone said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

    Running a tan hand through his thinning chestnut brown hair Grot came out from behind the bar, placed his hands on his hips and pondered what to do with the man. Of course this sort of thing had happened before; weekly to be precise. However this was no ordinary case. This demon had single-handedly caused more poverty than a hundred successive natural disasters. Most of Hell was nothing more than shanty towns and wasteland because of the scandalous military spending. Grot could not help but think that it was Bardus’s fault that the bartender could not afford a decent dowry to get his daughter off his hands and finally enjoy his golden years. The shiny bayonet hung temptingly on the wall. Finally Grot sighed, placed his hands under the demon’s armpits which were now soaked with sweat, and began to lug him towards the door. Cleaning a blood stain off the floor just seemed like too much work.

    Grot stopped half way to the door in order to catch his breath and panted, “If any of you boys is even thinking of stealing so much as a drop, and I mean a drop of alcohol when I’m gone then may Lucifer have mercy on your soul.”

    The men in the bar quickly diverted their gaze from the aging bartender and mumbled hurriedly into their drinks. Satisfied that he had instilled a sufficient amount of fear into the drunkards Grot returned to his task of getting Bardus off the premises. Eventually he managed to push the general through the door and out onto the pavement. The warm glow of the bar lights flooded through the cracks in the wood and illuminated the general’s features. Leaving him in front of the pub’s only exit did not seem like a good idea because you never know when a small fire might start and Grot may need to be around to collect the insurance. Grot groaned with effort and dragged the unconscious mass into a narrow alley. After mopping his brow with the chequered cloth which he had tucked inside his trouser pocket he quickly returned to the Sixth Circle.

    Grot knew something was off as soon as he strode into the crumbling building. He walked back behind the bar counter and checked his inventory. Everything seemed to be in order. Perhaps his mind was going like his old man’s had. Shaking the thoughts from his head Grot retrieved his trusty cloth from his pocket and began to meticulously clean imaginary grime from a pint glass. It was then that the realisation hit him. He turned around slowly and looked at the place where the bayonet had hung on its rack, undisturbed for twenty years. An empty space had never looked so sinister.

    “Where’d the bayonet go?” he asked the residents in a trembling voice.

    They stared at the space blankly, frozen to their rickety chairs.

    “Who took the damn thing?” Grot yelled at them.

    “We never saw nobody,” a man with a double chin replied.

    Leaping over the bar, Grot sprinted out to the alley where the General lay dead to the world. He stopped when he saw a figure crouched over the dark shape which was Bardus’ body. Synthetic clouds in the artificial sky above them gave way to the red orb that was supposedly reminiscent of the moon. The figure’s face was lit with a scarlet glow; he was a young man, no more than twenty, with black irises. His hands were crimson as well, but a much darker crimson than the moon’s glow. Suddenly the side door of the neighbouring tailors was pulled open and the murder scene was lit up like a downtown disco. The general’s face was contorted in horror, his arms sliced in every direction and lying at odd angles and his dull grey shirt was now burgundy. The blood spattered young man looked up as the tailor, Mrs. Witock, began to scream.

    “It wasn’t…found him…call someone,” the young man’s desperate explanations could only be half heard through the woman’s repetitive blood curdling screams.

    Grot’s feet had rooted him to the spot. With one last look at the general’s contorted face and the tailor’s tear streaked one, the murder suspect darted past him and down the street. There was a loud clatter as the tailor collapsed with shock beside the general’s corpse.

    “Call the police,” Grot whispered to no one.

    Instinct kicked in as he ran into the bar and shouted, “Call the police!”

    When Grot looked back on his life he realised that statement was his biggest mistake. A simple bartender, an alcoholic general, a missing bayonet and a suspicious young man had started the dirtiest, bloodiest civil war Hell had ever seen.