The Raggedy Man and the Ebon Soul

The hotel was a dump. Run down, old and dirty. Not far from the Atlantic ocean in a cold empty part of Maryland that closed down shortly after labor day. The fact that the hotel was still open seemed almost a miracle. But there were indeed occupied rooms, as the cars outside attested too.

The man walked up to the manager’s office. He was a sight, with long greasy red hair, a ragged unkempt beard and gaunt, almost hollow features. He wore a camo-patterned army field jacket and dirty jeans. On his back he carried an overstuffed ruck. The man could be anywhere from twenty-five to forty. It was hard to tell, because it was obvious that he had lived rough. Very rough. As he walked into the office, the night clerk, a kindly matronly woman, addressed him. ”May I help you?”

He reached into the upper left pocket of the field jacket and pulled out a wallet, from which he pulled a wad of twenties before he responded. “I would like a room, please.” His voice was shy and retreating. Like he was a man who was not used to speaking to others.

At first the night clerk considered refusing. The man was dirty and haggard looking, like a homeless bum, but the longer she looked the more she realized, this man was more than likely a veteran. The jacket, which had a name badge. Kane. And the unit insignia, a wing “holding” a knife with a patch that said airborne across the top. As well as the rucksack. But what convinced her were his eyes. Pale blue and hollow - the man truly had a thousand yard stare.

“How long will you be staying?” She asked with a forced smile.

“Just tonight.” The man responded in the same low tones.

“That will be sixty-five dollars, oh and I will need you to sign the register.”

The man signed his name - Virgil Kane - and handed the pen pack to her, along with four twenties. When the clerk went to give him his change, he said simply, “Keep it.”

“Are you sure?” She asked surprised.

“Yes.” he replied simply.

“Why thank you sir! It is room eleven Mr. Kane. And here are some extra towels.” She handed both the towels and the keys to him.

He gave her a wan smile that did not reach his eyes and left the office.

She watched him go, suddenly taken by a foreboding feeling that his being here may not be a good thing.

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The woman was by anyone’s standard beautiful. With long shining black hair, wide hips, a narrow waist, large breasts, full red lips and dark brown, almost black eyes. She was well dressed, in tight black slacks, a red leather jacket and matching pumps. She was of obvious Latin American ancestry and she did not belong here - in this cold, empty place in the middle of nowhere. But here she was, an uncommonly beautiful woman in an uncommonly ugly place, and she was hungry and bored.

Then she saw him walking to a room two doors down from hers. A dirty looking skinny man with long red hair and an unkempt beard. “Oh my, aren’t you a raggedy man…” the woman whispered out loud in accented English. She knew that this raggedy man would barely suit her needs. However, she doubted anyone would miss him, and she was very hungry. After observing the area to make sure that he was alone, she realized that the raggedy man did not even have a car! “Perfect.” She said out loud, with a smile in her voice.

The woman walked quickly to the raggedy man’s room and reached for the knob. It was unlocked and she opened the door and barged in.

The raggedy man was only a yard or so from the door and he turned to face her, with only a slight look of surprise on his face. “You are an ebon soul.” He said quietly.

The woman stopped for a second and tilted her head with a wry smile and replied, “I guess that name suits me as well as any other”. Then backhanded him across the face with a stunningly powerful left-handed slap.

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“Ebon soul.” I like that more and more” she said with a smile in her voice. The ebon soul walked slowly toward the raggedy man. The blow had sent the raggedy man flying and he was still stunned and sprawled on the floor. The ebon soul reached down with her clawed hand down and grabbed the raggedy man’s throat - her illusion of beauty was gone and she stood in her horrific glory, a tall dark-skinned humanoid whose “angles” and form were all wrong. As if she did not belong in this world and the very light itself did not want to touch her.

She brought the raggedy man’s face next to hers, hefting his weight as if it was nothing. “Oh little raggedy man...I am going to have such fun with you. Like a cat with a mouse.”

Despite her inhuman and nearly indescribable appearance, the ebon soul still had the same husky, seductive feminine voice she had in her human form, with its deep Spanish accents. This somehow made the creature even more monstrous.

However, this was the moment the raggedy man had been waiting for, and he pulled it from his filthy coat, a punch-dagger. The polished blade was razor sharp and engraved with strange, archaic runes - Enochian. The language gifted to sorcerers by the angels in centuries past. The handle of the dagger was of a yellowed ivory hue - bone. Rumored to be bone from the femur of Saint Sigismund, who lost his life warring against the forces of darkness.

The raggedy man stabbed - once, twice, three times into the ebon soul’s abdomen, the creature’s blood was an ugly yellowish brown ichor that quickly turned into a stinking greenish mist as it evaporated like smoke. It was as if even the ebon soul’s blood was refused by a sane and rational world.

The ebon soul shrieked in rage and pain and threw the raggedy man from her across the bed. And he landed on the floor, momentarily out of her sight. “Who the fuck are you?” She screamed aloud.

In response, the raggedy man’s voice rang out in prayer: “O' Lord, grant me wisdom, shield me, and protect me with your divine light! Let no weapon that falls against me prosper as I invite you O' Lord into my heart and soul! Let thine divine Angels walk by my side to teach me about strength and purity! I invoke thee my Lord and savior for the full ascension of my being!”

The ebon soul stopped in her tracks - this was no normal prey. It had hurt her - severely and she was startled by the sudden realization that this was a trap! That this mortal had a weapon capable of ending her. And THAT was not by chance. Even now more of this treacherous mortals' brethren could be moving in to aid him. But how had they known about her? And who were they to begin with? The ebon soul realized that discretion would be the better part of valor. The ebon soul tried to walk back into the Spaces Between Spaces...and with a searing agony, realized - she COULD NOT! “What is happening to me?” She cried out loud as she fell to her hands and knees.

“The punch dagger. It stops your kind from leaving our world, foul one.” She heard her foe’s voice from across the room. Looking up, she saw him standing there. But he was a raggedy man no longer. It was the same man - but different, changed. He had the same long hair, but the beard was trimmed and neat. The camo field jacket had been torn off as she flung him across the room, so he stood bare chested. No longer gaunt and malnourished, but muscular and healthy - but what stood out were the tattoos. Numerous tattoos of religious iconography covered his chest, abdomen, arms and even his face. A golden, black and blood-red gothic cross dominated in the center of his chest. It seemed to glow in the darkness. He stood holding the punch dagger in his left hand and with an archaic looking, long barreled pistol held in his right.

The ebon soul did not fear a mere pistol - such weapons were useless against one not of this world. But the blade that she feared greatly. As her eyes fixed upon it, the blade glittered like silver in the darkness.

As she concentrated upon the blade and made ready to strike or flee, the man took a step forward and the gun’s loud bark filled the room. The first round impacted her chest and her form exploded with agony. She fell backward and gasped, “how...” Her answer came in the form of a second shot which hit her mere inches from the first, and as she lay on the floor, a dying immortal, a hunter of humanity, mere moments from being slain by her intended prey. The man stood over her and prayed. "Lord Michael the Archangel and General of the Heavenly Host, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of those who dwell in the void; May I AM smite them, we humbly pray; And do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of I AM, thrust into the hell that is the void all fell spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen!" And then the gun barked a third time, and the shot tore into the ebon soul’s head. The ebon soul wailed as her existence ended in a burst of stinking yellowish green vapor.

The man, the knight, the Templar, Virgil Kane stood there, for a second he felt pity for the creature. No. No, it was a monster and had tortured, murdered and fed on countless men, women and children in its time. It deserves no pity. He said to himself, as he looked at the gun in his hand. It was a Mauser C96 Broomhandle. Well over a century old, it was engraved in Latin and blessed by countless holy warriors and servants of I AM. Likewise, the bullets were holy relics. Silver, engraved with blessed Enochian runes and anointed with the blood of the martyrs. The man quickly packed the gun back into his rucksack and put the punch dagger in its sheath at his belt. He grabbed his ruined jacket and shirt, and quickly exited the room. He pulled a cellphone from his pocket and dialed the one contact in it.

“Yes?” A man’s voice answered.

“It is done.” Virgil Kane responded.

“Deus Vult Brother! Your extraction is on its way.” The voice responded.

“Deus Vult brother.” And Virgil Kane hung up.

He walked to the manager’s office, and the night clerk was there on the phone, undoubtedly she had heard the shots and had called 911, and of course the police were already on their way. She looked at him as he walked through the door and stopped talking.

“Mr. Kane?” She asked. Hesitantly, as he looked so different.

With a viper’s speed he tapped her softly in the center of the forehead with his right index finger and the woman fell back unconscious. He caught her and laid her down gently. He took five more twenties from his wallet and put them in the pocket of her blouse. He then hung up the phone, retrieved the guest registry and walked out into the night.

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He jumped up out of the massive bed with a start, disturbing the two naked sleeping figures that lay on either side of him. The figure to his left, a slim young-looking woman of mixed European and Asian descent was actually knocked from the bed and slammed into the night-table next to her, spilling large amounts of cocaine onto the floor. The one to his right, a bald African woman with jet-black skin and large eyes, stood up and asked in an annoyed and uniquely British accent, “What the fuck? Are you alright?”

The man she addressed stood naked, with his back to her. He was like a fabled Adonis. The very portrait of male beauty. Early thirties. Tall and leanly muscular, with golden hair and piercing blue eyes. The bald woman was beginning to be aroused just by looking at him, even though she was angry to have been awoken so roughly.

He really had no heart, not like we would understand it at any rate. But if he did it would have been hammering. He had heard her psychic scream in the void. A cry of pain, fear...and of...death. But how?! And what? What could have done this to her? He asked himself. And for the first time in his multi-millennium existence he felt two unfamiliar emotions...rage and grief. She was gone...his kin...his child...someone would pay...this three dimensional shit hole of a world would pay…

As the Eurasian woman was picking herself up off the floor and brushing the white powder from her skin, the black woman approached him. “Hey are you okay?” As she touched his shoulder he spun on her. She would have screamed if she had a chance, as instead of his handsome face, she gazed upon a nightmare visage...three shifting blood red orbs and a mouth of needle-sharp, eel-like fangs. His right arm “morphed” into a mace-like appendage, complete with bone spikes, and he smashed it down upon her with lightning speed, her head collapsed in on itself with the audible crunch of shattered bone, sounding like a cracked walnut, and her lifeless body fell to the floor.

The other woman started screaming, and the once-Adonis reached toward her with his left hand - through angles of space her three dimensional eyes could not even perceive, he reached into her chest and crushed her heart in his clawed fist. “Shut up bitch!” He screamed. She began to choke up blood and her eyes rolled up in her head and then she too fell lifeless to the floor.

He stood there alone for several minutes, then he morphed back into his beautiful form. He looked down at the two bodies for a moment before speaking aloud. “No matter I was going to kill both of you anyway, it was just easier for you like this.” The Blood on his hands was quickly absorbed into his flesh and in a blink of an eye he was fully dressed. Clad in a tailor made suit complete with a long overcoat. I will find who did this to her! And then by all the dark ones there will be a reckoning! And he stepped from the room into another place thousands of miles away.