CAEDUS REWIND: For the week leading up to the last Savage Saturday Night in San Diego, California Jim had been staying with his friend "The Monsoon Warrior" George Bartlett in Downtown Long Beach. Jim had convinced George late last Thursday night to take him to his old stomping grounds in the northwest corner of the city with the intent to extract knowledge on the whereabouts of the man who'd murdered him from the man who'd been Henry's business associate and friend. When last we saw Caedus in the wee hours of Friday morning he had forced his way into Anthony's house, knocked him out and was preparing himself for an interrogation that could easily turn to catastrophe...















(classical mood music for the story)


-FRIDAY, JAN 27 2017, 1:09 AM, NORTH LONG BEACH, CA-

--ANTHONY'S HOUSE--



Anthony's eyelids flicker. They struggle to pull apart and my heart skips. He's already stirring, unknowingly still in my left handed grip. I feel him sluggishly try to rise but I keep him pinned down by the throat and his brow furrows in childlike frustration.

He slowly opens his eyes. I watch his pupils wrestle with the meth in his system as he squints in the light from the overhead bulb.

I feel as though I can see the mist of unconsciousness begin to dissipate within his head. A minute later I suspect his brain is beginning to register the information his ocular organs are relaying.

He focuses on the tip of the knife held a millimeter from his cornea. He looks to my face, back to the knife then returns to meet my gaze. I see recognition wash over him.

"Jimmy?"

He's playing it passive...for the moment. I move the blade to a position above my left hand and directly above his adam's apple; the tip digging into his flesh.

"Hi Tony. Where's Buddha?"

Buddha was the name everyone knew him by throughout the neighborhood. I'd only learned of his true name once the law had gotten involved.

"He's with his mom and sister in Oregon. They all moved when he got out."

I'm shocked. That was a lot easier than I'd thought it would be. Unless he's lying. I hope he isn't, specifically in context with the unbelievably convenient fact that the XWF is scheduled to tape the next Savage Saturday Night in Portland. It's like I'm being led to my revenge.

"Where in Oregon?"

".................."

"_Where_," I demand nervously as I push the tip further into his skin, the steel threatening to break through.

"I'm thinking! .............Beaver...Be- Beaver something."

Beaver something. I'm unfamiliar with any towns/cities in Oregon other than Bend, Astoria and Portland. I'll have to look it up.

As to the legitimacy of his testimony I assume he must be telling the truth; I highly doubt the word "beaver" has ever left Tony's lips before Henry told him he was moving there. Then again, this guy could be smarter than I think and still lying. I could be convincing myself of a fib.

"I thought you were his friend, Tony? Why are you telling me?"

"Fuck Harold."

Another alias Henry had been using around here. "Harold".

"You're pointing a knife at my neck. Fuck him and fuck you, just get out. It's none of my business, man. I won't call the cops, I won't do anything. Just get out."

"Where's your wife? Where's your son?"

"Anthony lives in L.A. now. Maria's with her mom in San Pedro."

Then we're alone.

I push the blade into his throat, hard, and Tony inhales sharply with a gurgle.

Instantly he thrashes. The enhanced strength of a human in survival mode kicks in and he shoves me into a backpedal with the soles of his feet.

He rolls off the table clutching at his throat with his own left hand now. I see no abundance of blood as he visually checks on my position before spinning to face the living room and dashing in.

I give chase.

He snatches up a black Gloc sitting out in plain sight on the tv tray beside an easy chair. The clip drops to the carpet from it's apparent former positition on the tray beside the Gloc. I still find myself uncontrollably flinching and halting out of fear.

He points and pulls the trigger to no effect. No chambered shell either. Idiot. I move in.

"Fuck!"

I charge, aiming my blade for his belly, and Tony desperately swings his pistol at my head. He connects to my temple as I feel the knife punch through every-time-surprisingly-tough biological material. The human body is not made of such flimsy shit as portrayed in film. Humans are a lot more resilient in real life and very difficult, in most cases, to kill without a firearm or greater weapon.

Overflowing with the will to live, my target relinquishes his other hand from his throat, revealing the thin, ugly, seeping hole I made. He grabs me around the waist as I move to stab him between the ribs or in the lower side and he tosses me over onto the coffee table with an amateur hip toss-esque maneuver. I black out as he closes in.

When I come to, after however long it's been, I'm straddling Tony in the same spot I'd been tossed. He isn't fighting anymore and it's peacefully quiet. This has happened to me before in struggles of life and death. The training takes over and my mind blocks out any memory of the event.

I look down.

Tony's dead with around 30 entrance wounds in his abdomen, punctuated by spreading blood absorbing into his wifebeater, and five to his face. His left cheek has been sliced open.

There's blood soaking into my pants. There's cast off patterns all over the nearby walls, furniture and television; even a few drops on my Killjoy shirt. I'm sure there's probably blood on my face and in my hair. My right hand, still clutching my bloodied hunting knife now held in a downward stabbing position, is also covered in crimson.

A crime scene.

I pay no mind to my normal routine of sanitizing; LBPD knows Tony by name, they know his occupation. This'll be assumed to have been a deal gone wrong or an addiction fueled robbery and rampage.

What I _am_ concerned about is any evidence left behind leading to my identification.

I rise and pocket my knife. I check the area for bloody boot prints I may have made and I thankfully come up empty.

I think of fingerprints. There's no bruising surfacing on Tony's throat but there is the one entrance wound. They could think to dust and probably pull prints from my left hand off his skin. I pull a tissue from the Kleenex box on the couch and I gently rub the area down, removing the oils I left behind, as blood surfaces out of the wound from the slight pressure. I pocket the tissue when I've finished. I find myself hoping I haven't touched him anywhere else.

I next walk into the kitchen and check myself for any wounds under the light. I come up clean.

I turn on the water faucet and cup water with my hands onto my pants where Tony's blood had been soaking in. It's still fresh. I tear paper towels from the mounted roll and I dab, I soak. It takes what feels like a lifetime and ten more towels before the latest torn section appears to only soak up a very faintly pink hue.

Good enough. My pants are black after all.

I wipe the faucet clean and drop the paper towel into the kitchen trash with the rest of the expended and bloodied wads. I then remove the bag using the yellow plastic straps, tie it and head for the ajar back door.

I return to George's truck as quickly and quietly as I can. I place the trash bag in the bed and I open the passenger door, climb in and close it, waking him.

He yawns.

"Let's get outta here, bro. He didn't know anything and I don't think he was too happy to see me."

"I told you-" A second yawn. "-this would be a waste of time Jimbo. You lucky you didn't get into some serious shit."

He turns his key in the ignition, the F-450 rumbles to life and we're off.

I can't wait to get to Oregon.

(TBC)
=================================

"Like a Moth to the Flame"






-TUESDAY, JAN. 31, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL-

--Hotel 1900, R. Artur Bernardes, 29 - Catete, 9:00 PM GMT-2--


As I finish viewing the fourth promo of the one active opponent in my upcoming Triple Threat Elimination Match on Wedsnesday Night Warfare I can think only one thing:

This is why it's risky to frighten your enemies.

'A cornered and injured animal is the most dangerous.'

Even as he claimed the same of me in a futile attempt to disguise his own fear, I'd scared Robert Main and given him such a gut check he now appeared incapable of unleashing the same type of torrential tirade he'd been letting loose before now. Clearly, in most cases, that should be seen as a victory.

Clearly..."The Omega" didn't fall into the category of "most cases".

I'd told him to elevate his game. He had. I told him not to make the same mistakes. For the most part, the best anyone can ask for, he hadn't. I'd warned him not to overestimate himself and underestimate me. He'd taken measures to justify his self estimation and in doing so he'd shown just how seriously he was now taking me. He'd reacted proactively, as far as his position was concerned, to my explosion and baring of his mistakes. And how he'd enacted his reaction...sent a shiver up my spine.

A practitioner of brujeria.

It's becoming well known that I'm a believer of many things and since facing Isabella Ravenwolf I'd made it quite clear witchcraft is included. There exist a number of beings, creatures and energies of malevolent and magickal providence hidden in the uncountable dark corners around the world; only a fool would deny it. Miss Ravenwolf represented the truth of this in the XWF. She'd nearly destroyed me in Antarctica. Now that I was intimately familiar with the forces and fiends who's very nature defied "rational thinking" but kicked your teeth down your throat anyway, I felt a feeling of dread set in to accompany the spinal shiver.

I don't know what to do and I'm running out of time. I need to locate a shaman to counteract the curses I can already feel worming their way into what remains of my very soul, but how? I don't speak Portuguese and any nearby native Brazilian rooted in his homeland who knows of any local shaman most likely won't speak English very well. Any Brazilians who _do_ are most likely in tune with current majority global societal views on the subject and probably don't believe in sorcery. ...I don't what to do and I'm running out of time...

'Calm down, dammit, calm down. _Think_. Think of _something_, _anything_.'

Maybe I should see if there's a Craigslist Rio de Janeiro and check it out?

'Ok, A: Anyone advertising services as a shaman on Craigslist should be considered untrustworthy.'

You never know...

'B: Like you said, you're running out of time. Walking the streets in search of info won't garner any help in time, if at all actually...and even if the ridiculous notion of a regional shamanic ad on Craigslist turned out to be true, you don't have time to wait for a response. Come up with something else.'

Like _what_!? What the _fuck_ am I supposed to do!? He's gonna fuckin' KILL m- .........Wait.

'Yes. That line of thinking right there. _That_ is your one and only legitimate defense against this threat. You don't need magickal/subtheological intervention.'

I feel confidence radiating from within me now, the fear melting away. There IS only one thing in context with myself that serves both as precedent and representative of the fact that Robert Main, curses, beast-unleashing and all, would not be able to stop me from collecting another win and another head, as it were, for revenge...MYSELF. And if our counter challenges were to be included in our match-up, I'd be defending my TV Title for a third time and striking Robert's watered-down version of my Burning Hammer from his allowed maneuvers in the XWF.

'You know what to do.'

I ready my phone to promo.

...........................

"So it's come to this has it, Robert? Enlisting the aid of a wetback warlock to peer into my immediate and 'terminal' future? To curse me? To allow you the power not only to defeat me, not only to end my career, but to _KILL_ me as well!? I have to admit, you did have me shaking in my boots for a good five minutes there. That may sound as if it's an insult but that five minutes of fear and uncertainty was enough to last me a lifetime. Until, of course...I had an epiphany. I'll save that for the coup de grace...

Allow me to begin my response by pointing out how you failed to grasp the meaning behind my ranting on the concept of luck even though it was _you_ who brought it up in the first place by stating something to the effect of I've "kept the TV Title through luck', I'm 'very lucky' and 'luck must follow (me) where ever (I) go'. I was being rhetorical in my questioning if luck had been behind my thirteen years of shared and personal tortures, Robert. To shine a light on your asinine assumptions.

You blaming me for my own problems, in part, was at least a refreshingly well made point I find difficult to argue with. Of course, it isn't news; I owned up to my own mistakes when I was warring with words against Thomas Nixon and I'll admit 'em again. Yes, as pertains to subjects such as methamphetamine addiction and abuse, it was all my decision. My mistake. My fault. I own who I am and I'm not afraid to do so. Judging me by calling me a junkie does nothing to dissuade me, even if you don't realize my being homeless and my being an addict are situations separated by over twelve years. Was it my fault I was murdered? Yes and no. Yes, I accept responsibility for ultimately putting myself into the position. No, I'll not be faulted for being betrayed and I refuse to accept responsibility for the decisions made by others. Can it be hung on my head that the DEA caught wind of my competition-crushing, state-legal, burgeoning business and decided to intervene? Not any more than anyone else who follows the rules but is victimized anyway can be blamed for the bending and breaking of said rules by the enemy. Was through my own actions that led to my family and I homeless? No but because I've yet to fill in the blanks in that aspect _you_ can't be blamed for that mistake. You can, consequently, be blamed for missing the underlying positive points to your attack on my character. See, you unfortunately fail to understand that none of those instances, my fault or not, led to my destruction. 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger' is an adage you should know, as fond as you are of using them against me. It may rattle cliché but there is unyielding truth behind those words. How very unlucky for you that what came out the other end of that tunnel wasn't a man of light, good and grace but a self-serving psychotic with more strength and will than you could ever pray to survive. You need not take my word for it...you'll experience it soon enough.

Now...allow me to wind up for the piercing pitch by stealing the thunder you've been booming about 'mind games' and 'getting under my skin'. Save for those five minutes of panic dealing with your bringing witchcraft into this, the one who's been gotten to is _you_ Robert. Did I not urge you to switch up your tactics and did you not then do just that? I got you to doubt yourself Bobby. I made you change. For the better future, yes, but at the end of the day, futile in regards to your opponent. I also see I got you to agree to my stipulation regarding you dropping that Katabasis clone. Who's playing mind games with who, Robert? Like a moth to the flame you allowed ME to get under YOUR skin, you allowed ME to manipulate YOU into giving ME power over YOUR bag of tricks...and you never even saw it coming. Get used to that feeling; when I've got you and Seraphina within the ropes I'm gonna blindside and bludgeon you with more bone-breaking blows and unrelenting punishment than your miniscule mind could ever conceive of."

Nothing to say tonight?

'You don't need my guidance on this one. Time's running short though, so make it snappy.'

"And when it comes to death, Robert...MY death at YOUR black magick-blessed hands...you've made the gravest error of all. I've faced the powers of witches and witchcraft and I still live. Not only that, I stand victorious. Isabella Ravenwolf is an actual sorceress 400 years of age. She gave me the lashing of a lifetime but I still Purgatory Punched her ass right off the side of the cruise ship we were battling upon. She brought all the forces of Hell she could to bare but I managed to defeat her. Period. You...you aren't a witch, a warlock or anything other than a man now more determined than ever to accept an ass-whoopin' because you believe a blasphemous black blessing to be your own personal coffin nail driver. But still...even if you WERE now capable of killing me I ask you to review the facts. I've been dead once, remember? What happened? Heaven hocked me, Hell wouldn't hold me and purgatory couldn't imprison. The reason Bobby: I can't die...the deities that be won't let me. Purgatory? Purgatory can't contain an energy like mine. I control the power of purgatory in my left hand and I'll gladly wield it to send you to that unconscious outer darkness on Wednesday. Hell? Hell refuses to allow me access because Satan can see I'm more sadistic than He. I'd have every flame-dicked demon and the goddamn Devil Himself kneeling at my feet as I sit upon my throne of horned skulls. And Heaven? God will NEVER take me in because He knows I intend to DESTROY Heaven should I ever find myself meandering past the Pearly Gates. Of all the beings in existence on whom I seek vengeance Elohim has remained at the top of my list. A spirit such as mine would SLAUGHTER to no end and not even God Himself as Alpha and Omega would be able to thwart my ends. Kill me, Robert? You can try...and fail. I'll rise before your very eyes like the fucking zombie I am and cover the canvas with your blood. There IS no silver lining, no HELP, no HOPE...when your opponent may as well be an immortal maniac Methuselah. This game, Robert Main, is over and now the true battle begins. Fuck your inner beast. Fuck brujerian beaners. I'm Jim. Fucking. Caedus.