Chapter 8

I never expected to open my eyes again. I didn't even really WANT to open my eyes again. I was willing to accept my death. I was ready for it, actually. I'm not suicidal ... but there was no way I was going to join crazy man's lunatic army.

"Not so fast, fallen one."

Great. Crazy guy not only denies me my death but he has to keep a running commentary.

My body didn't feel so good. It didn't smell so good either. I was ... I felt ... burnt. I couldn't actually move my head but I could flop it around. I saw my arm. It was bent in a way it shouldn't be. It was also red with extensive black scabbing.

"A single death is too easy for one such as you, defiler." Crazy guy again. Someone should really talk to him about his bedside manner. "Not when I can make you suffer over and over and over again."

"You see, there are a few amongst us who have the gift of resurrection." I swear he was purring. If he was stroking off, I was going to be very, very pissed. I tried to look around but nothing much worked. "A blasphemous perversion of the sanctity of our Heavenly Father's will. I had anticipated your reluctance to join the Order so I made sure one such was in attendance and prepared for your final failure. You are one of the most powerful we've ever encountered. You must be a Lieutenant of the Fallen Prince. It would be remiss of me not to show you the suffering the Lord of Hosts has in store for you should you continue corrupting the humans. Let's go for round 2."

Pain. Everywhere. Pain and more than pain. I could literally smell my flesh burning, feel my teeth breaking and falling away. As the pain seared through me, consuming me, I could only watch in horror as my arm, my poor broken arm, burst into flame. Thankfully, it was the last thing I saw in this life.

"Are we having fun yet, minion of hell?"

I wanted to make a wise crack but I had nothing. My whole being was in pain, more than I could stand. I wanted to cry but no tears would come. I wanted to scream but I couldn't even take a breath. I was dying and more than dying and still he wouldn't let me go. At this point, I just wanted the pain to end. I wanted my life to end. I was done.

"If you expected mercy, you shouldn't have let loose one with the power of resurrection before coming here, evil one. She can hold your spirit here indefinitely ... and she will. A hundred deaths. A thousand. Until there's nothing left of you but ash and dust."

Pain. Again. Pain. Everywhere. I had nowhere to turn, I had nowhere to go as my body was ripped by flashes of electricity. Burned flesh caught fire, burned some more. Thankfully, it was quicker this time. Quicker when the darkness took me.

I'm not sure how many times I died. I'm not sure how many times he taunted me and sent me back to the dark abyss. Each time, he'd kill me gleefully, laughing even as the spikes of power burned through my flesh and veins. And each time she brought me back. I could see her during one or another of the deaths. There was an ecstasy in her face. She reveled in the pain of the soul she had caught between her fingers or caught between her teeth. I watched as she brushed her hands across her breasts, the strain of holding my spirit tethered to my dead body fighting with the unholy lust she was feeling.

And still the deaths came. Over and over. Until there was next to nothing left of me or my sanity.

"Are you feeling it, demon?" Judas crowed, joining in ecstasy the woman holding me tethered to this plane. "How fast are you now, reviled one? How much speed do you have now? Do you think your time has come? Not yet ... not for..."

Something reverberated within me and I stopped listening to Judas. Something he'd said resonated within me. Something powerful. Demon ... and speed. That was me. That was what I'd proclaimed myself to be to the man who had betrayed me. I was a speed demon. I was THE speed demon.

That tightness was still there, tethered with me along with my very soul. I touched it, caressed it like an old lover. I didn't know if this would work but I no longer had anything to lose. I'd died too many times today.

The bitch figured out that something was going wrong. "Uh, master..."

I didn't give her a chance to finish that thought. I loosened further than I'd ever done it before. I sped up more than I ever had before. There was still more, still so much more power to be released ... but I shied from that point, afraid if I went too much farther I wouldn't find my way back ... and I wanted a way back. There were some checks that had been cashed and some debts I had to pay.

I felt the power flooding through me, felt my burnt, maimed body suffused with the power of my ability. There was pain with that power but I almost laughed at it; the pain was nothing compared to what I had felt just moments before. The pain meant I was still alive; Judas had not killed me. Not yet. If I had my way, not ever again.

It took me a long time subjectively; it seemed like days I lay on that ground letting myself heal. My body was broken pretty badly; it was almost nothing more than ash. But it healed. Through the pain, it healed. I think I slept for a while but I'm not sure; maybe I passed out. Whatever it was, when I woke, I was healed, flesh replaced and whole and healthy as if it'd never been damaged to begin with.

I turned and faced my tormentors, looking at the minute traces of worry just beginning to overtake the disgusting shadow of lust etched into their frozen visages. I was enjoying this, enjoying these few moments before I took my revenge – or died trying. I took a moment to stretch, taking a few more to individually stretch each of my muscles. I clenched my fists, rolled my shoulders and then my neck. Then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

It's almost funny but hours or days had passed subjectively and yet my rage burned like a seething volcano. I looked within myself and wondered if I could really do this. Could I really take a life? It was a long step and once I went down that path I could never return. I would never be the person I'd been before ... but I wasn't that person anymore anyway. That person was dead. I hadn't been that person for at least a dozen deaths now.

Judge. Jury. Executioner. The debt had to be paid.

Newton tells us that Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration. When I came here, I weighed just over 210 lbs. but I'd lost weight since being here; that's what comes from a forced, mostly liquid diet. Let's ballpark it at 190lbs.; that's about 86kg and some change. At a normal running speed of 6 m/s, that gave me a force of 516 Newtons but spread over quite a bit of area. I was pretty sure that the steel bars could take it otherwise criminals would be breaking out of prison left and right.

Acceleration, though, is a wonderful thing. Take that same equation and give it an acceleration of the speed of sound (343 m/s). Now we're talking about 29,000 Newtons. Still over a large area ... but I was pretty sure the steel wasn't going to withstand the assault.

Now imagine that you're going multiples of the speed of sound. Many multiples. Like maybe 100 multiples of it. Now we're talking about 34,300 m/s and a force of close to three million newtons. I wasn't really thinking when I took a few steps and rammed the steel bars with my shoulder. I didn't really need to think. I was vengeance come calling and I would have my due.