Issue #3: No Quarter

“You look like hell,” the shadowy man whispered. “Honestly, like you’ve been through hell and somehow lived through the experience.” He avoided the candlelight, flittering between the glimmers that slashed out against the curved walls of the room.

“Dying, Richard. Simple as that,” coughed the second, dishevelled man. He covered his mouth as he hacked up something black and bloody from his lung. “You know how it is, make a few too many enemies, don’t pay some debts, lose your kneecaps, and get given cancer as your prize. But you can help me, you know that? You have what I need?”

The educated man placed his hand within his black coat, and withdrew a scroll. “Took me a while to find it, and killed many a man on that journey. But yes. It’s old, so be careful. You know your rituals, your sacrifices. Good luck with it.”

“Thank you,” rasped the man, as his friend vanished into the shadow. “Thank you,” the ailing man repeated, and then, when he was sure his friend and saviour had left--

--He got to work. He had everything prepared for this moment. He unravelled the scroll, and examined the sigils. His finger moved slowly above the brown material. He stroked it, felt its texture beneath his thumb, and withdrew his hand suddenly. It was flesh. Old, dried, thick flesh. Thick enough for the ink to be clear and concise upon it. Ink, or whatever it was. It smelt strange. The reader took a deep, knowing sniff, his large nostrils flaring and absorbing all he could. He took the dagger that was by his side, and slit his wrist, a single bead of blood trickling down the shining metal blade. Then he began to read, even as he felt his body begin to crease and fold in on itself. His organs shuddered, a living death rattle signalling the end was near. He groaned as every syllable left his lips, and then, finally, when he felt his heart squeeze shut, his blood freeze in his veins, his brain spark off one last time, he took a final, sweet gasp of air, and plunged the knife into his chest.



He peered through the raggedy edges in the world, for that was his place to watch from. To step through within a sigh, to take what needed to be taken, and then to step back, between breaths. He was everywhere at once. Nowhere in truth. And when he saw what he had to take, he moved.

Time crawled to a halt.

Outer reality fractured like a mirror. And he stepped into existence one foot after the other.

He moved toward his quarry like nothing. Like he didn’t take steps, just… moved. Flickering into place, movement after movement, flicker after flicker, until--

A hand grabbed his arm before he touched the forehead of his target. A voice. Eyes burning with inhuman determination. “I. See. You.” Impossible. Literally impossible. How could this person be doing this?

Death cannot be seen. Death cannot be caught. Yet right here, in the now, a hand was grasped tightly around his arm. A mouth, old and ancient, opened to scream. The hand gripped tighter and tighter. The voice whispered faster and faster, and then drew the knife out from his chest, and pulled it upwards, snarling with intensity. Whispering what? A spell. Magicks weaving in and out of time. Binding. Containing.

Death screamed for the first time since his birth. For the first time since his creation. For death was born out of nothing. Created from a need. And if you take away this… this need… What is left? The knife plunged deep within him. Black blood sprayed on the formerly dead man’s face, and he licked his fingers with relish and delight. His chest, where the blade had resided, sealed shut. His skin tightened, his body suddenly appearing like a living skeleton, and then it flexed outwards. Muscle rewove it self around bone, and where he was once full of cancer and anger, he was full of defiance. Because now, his plan was complete. He had become Death. And he would have his revenge.

“I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds, who has come to annihilate everyone.”



Cold hand on cast iron. The twist of a door knob. He stepped through the entrance. The room was musty. Unused. Smell of old ink and ageing paper. The library. He smiled. Awake. For the first time in… Years, it felt. He wore a white shirt and tie, black trousers, and a purple silk gown presented to him in Japan when he exorcised a demon-dragon from a secret princess in a hidden world below Kyoto. He ran a hand through thick black hair, and then sat in his leather chair. The fire crackled. He chuckled. He thought he had extinguished it the last time he had sat here. But in the House of Mystery, a fire can last a millennium, and a glass of wine… Well. He looked to the empty whiskey glass on the table next to the chair. A thick layer of dust had formed at the bottom, congealing with the scant traces of alcohol left from his last glassful. He took the tumbler, tapped it twice on the old table, and then smiled. Magic swirled on the ceiling, blue and red, flashing and swarming, and then descending. Dust vanished. The fire intensified as fresh logs appeared. Books were cleaned. Refreshed, he looked at the glass. Full.

“Better,” sighed Richard Occult. It was. He felt healthier. Yes, the pain in the back of his head, his demon tumour, it was still there. The ache of burden he should not have been bearing alone. But after Xanadu’s reading, the magic had touched him. It helped, he thought. He thought. He could be wrong. It could be masking the pain. He downed the whiskey in a gulp, and took the book from the table, the same book he had been reading for decades. He licked his finger, and turned the page…



Prospero Lancey, warlock to the Mafia, sat in his living room, the television screen buzzing static. It centred him; the white noise of nothingness entering his being and broadening his senses. He was aware of everything in his rundown apartment. He heard the cockroach scuttling behind the refrigerator. He heard his boiler creak. He heard the pipes ache and groan. He had a simple task, given to him by Don Vincenzo. Kill a witness that would cause trouble down the line. Make it look natural. Easy, thought Lancey. He could give him a blood clot. Cut off his life from an artery in his brain. Or he could give him cancer. Yes, that would be gruesome enough, wouldn’t it? Metastasise it all along his lungs. Give him a day to live. Hacking up blackness and life. He held the doll in his hand. Old reliable Vodoun magicks. He took a long hair from a pouch on his lap, taken from his intended victim’s shoulder as he walked past Lancey in a bar down on Morrison and Trevail. Easy pickings. He opened the back of the doll, and gently and accurately placed the long hair inside. With a brush of his thumb down the spine of the doll, the materials sealed together. The white noise suddenly came to a stop. He lost all awareness. His hands started shaking. He looked to the television screen, and saw that the screen had frozen. Strange. He placed the doll down on his chair as he stood up. He moved toward the screen, and placed a hand there. Nothing. His hand didn’t feel the irritating buzz of light. He didn’t hear the noises. He heard a noise. Like ice breaking. He turned around, to see a man clad all in black sitting in his chair.

“Who’re you?” whispered Lancey, his hands still shaking. He wasn’t focused! He couldn’t perform! He could barely move without his concentration! Without his white noise!

“Don’t you recognise me?” replied the man, his black gloves playing with the voodoo doll Lancey left on the seat. He had somehow undone the spine of the doll, and he held the long hair in between thumb and forefinger.

“What’re you doing?”

The man looked at Lancey with empty eyes. All black and no whites. He wore all black. It was strange. He wore a long black coat, a black jacket and a black tie. A black shirt and black trousers. Black shoes with black socks. His hair was long and of his features, all Lancey could see was a glint of light in those black eyes.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he lifted a hand up, and dropped the long hair to the floor. Then he pointed at Lancey, and a hair was torn from his scalp. He yelped. The hair shot over to the stranger, who caught it between his thumb and forefinger. He placed it inside the voodoo doll. He then licked his thumb and rubbed it over the material, the back of the doll sealing with a burning efficiency.

“What’re you doing!?” screamed Lancey, as he tried to move toward the man, but was blocked by some unseen force. He thrashed against nothingness. No escape from that what is not there!

“You know what I’m doing.” He moved his hand over the doll, holding it tightly with his other. “And as I do it, you’ll remember who I am.”

“Oh, God,” whispered Lancey. “No.”

“Yeah, Prospero,” replied the man. The doll began to smoulder in his clutch. The smell of burning flesh filled the room. Lancey screamed as his skin blackened. “Me.” Material began to singe and burn. It peeled apart. The screams got louder and louder. Flesh melted. Eyes turned into soup and dribbled down their owner’s face. White noise filled the room. Cockroaches scuttled. Pipes groaned. And Prospero Lancey, warlock to the Mafia, sat in his chair, a charred husk.

There was no one else in the room.

And as the white noise seemed to get louder…

And as the cockroaches scuttled…

And the pipes groaned…

A withered breath rose from the charred husk’s chest. Black, ash-ridden lungs battled for breath.

A voice spoke to the undying, charred, pained body. “I deny you.”

If the husk had eyes, tears would have been filling them right then.



Doctor Occult looked up from his book, a noise somewhere near him alerting him. The fire crackled and he watched the flames dance among themselves. Shadows played along with them on the wall.

“Well,” he muttered. “That didn’t sound right.”

He placed the book back on the table, extinguished the fires with a glance, and then headed for the door. With a nod, the candles went out. He closed the door, leaving his library in silence. He hurried along the halls, tightening his tie, and passing guests in his abode. They smiled and nodded in recognition. Magis. Warlocks. Ghosts. All benevolent. All rightfully deserving to be under his roof. The House of Mystery was a way station between the then and the soon-to-be. If you were on ‘the list’, of sound mind, and wished no harm to those who resided within, you would be granted access.

He swooped into his own quarters, and closed the door behind him.

“You felt it too, Richard?”

A voice. “That I did, Jim.” He knew who it was, of course. He turned to the window, and to the silhouette that leant there, watching the world outside. Occult continued, “Something is shifting the balance of life and death.”

“The dead are not dying, Richard.”

“Then why is the Spectre not acting?” Richard smiled, as he took his black jacket from the chair where he’d left it before heading for the library, and then removed his silk dressing gown.

“Because for all the tipping of the scales,” grumbled the silhouette, as it emerged from the darkness of the corner and into the glittering shaft of moonlight that arched out from the window, “whoever the culprit is, has bound Death to themselves.” This was not the Spectre. There was no billowing dark cape, no pale white skin. It was Jim Corrigan. Red hair slicked back and out of fashion. The white streak racing down the middle of his scalp. The immaculate suit, starched and pressed. Dead for going on seventy years. And he looked good.

“And none of you higher-ups can interfere with Death.” Occult pulled on his jacket, and grabbed his fedora. “What the hell, just tell me what’s happening.”

“Like I said, someone has bound Death to themselves. They have power over life and death, and I… We…” he patted his heart, and nodded, “cannot act.”

“So you want me to do something about it,” smiled Occult.

“You need to release the binding spell the murderer has on death… Then the Spectre may act.”

Finally pulling on his long, brown, ugly trench coat, Occult nodded in readiness. “That I can do. Take me to where I need to be.”



“Hello,” growled the husky voice, as Richard Occult appeared in darkness. Occult flinched, nearly panicked, remembering his time in the Shadowlands when the Shade had transported him there days before.

It wasn’t the Shadowlands, but the chill still shivered up his spine. Richard turned around, and saw the Spectre float slowly away from him in the darkness. Corrigan ushered him onwards with a nod, and Occult turned back to where the husky voice was speaking. “Hullo,” said Richard with a smile, putting on a façade of bravery.

“You are the conduit....? Chosen…?”

Richard turned back to the Spectre, and shrugged his shoulders. “Makes sense, yeah.”

The man who was speaking came into view. He was pale and naked, hunched over in a stone chair, and as Doctor Occult stepped forward, he saw that there was a blade of blackest metal jutting out of his chest. “I am dying. And that does not make sense.”

“You’re Death,” nodded Occult. “You can’t die; that’s a--”

“--Paradox,” finished Death. Black blood pooled from the chest and into his lap, his legs and crotch stuck with the ichor. “If I were to die, then the world would twist inside out.”

Richard stepped forward, and his fingers played against the knife handle. “This is enchanted. Old magicks.” He stepped back, grabbed the weapon, and pulled. Neither Death, nor the knife, moved. “Enchanted. God. Okay, so I guess you need your powers returning to you. Soon.”

Death looked up through glassy eyes. “Very.”

Doctor Occult felt the blade handle in his palm, the inscription lifted, able to be distinguished by his hand. Sigils. Old school magic. He hadn’t read about it for a while. He only had a few books on the subject in his private library. Strange. He looked up. “But how can I stop someone with the power of death? Death can step between blinks and claim a soul to take them wherever he or she is going… I’m one man…”

Death hacked up more black blood and then grabbed Occult, and then pulled his face close to his own. “With help. My help. Before long people will stop dying. Life will reverse itself, and then reality will unravel.”



The warehouse boomed with music. Loud, vicious, visceral tones, bass lines making the floor shake as the girls and boys in their leathers and chains and latex danced up and down like they were reaching for the heavens. Lights flashed across the ceiling, spotlights by the DJs booth jutting and jiving about, searching for the next track to be played. Shots were downed by those who should know better, kisses exchanged like promises easily broken, and the dancing continued on and on. He moved through the crowds, not caring who he bumped into or knocked over. This man, this presence, clad entirely in black like some character in a film that you’re not sure whether you want to see or not. He headed to the bar, and watched as two girls, young, probably too young to be there, looked at him with adoring eyes.

“Hey.” He nodded at them, and then turned to the bartender. “One of everything.”

“Excuse me?” questioned the bartender, his string net vest not even attempting to hide the tattoo of the dragon scarred into his chest. Red scales chequered up his breast, and the tail of the beast looped around his bicep and ended on his palm. The jaws of the dragon opened up and stretched up his cheeks.

“One. Of. Everything,” he repeated. He winked at the girls, removed five hundred dollar bills from his jacket, and placed them on the side. “For me. And then screw it, buy everyone else a round.”

People watched him. He downed the shots as they were laid out in front of him. “Heyyy,” whispered one of the girls as they both latched onto his arms.

“Hello, ladies.” He turned away from them, downed another shot, and then grabbed them each by the face, one after the other, and kissed them deeply, passionately, and they looked at him, frozen as he turned away and downed another shot. “You like that?” His lips were like ice, but when his connected with theirs, a shiver raced down their spines, and then lights blinked out in their heads, and their eyes… clouded over.

The girls touched their lips. “Wh-who are you?”

He chuckled, and then turned to the DJ: “TURN THAT OFF!” The voice was louder than the thrashing sound of the music, and the DJ turned it off within seconds. “Okay, okay,” he said, resuming his calm, collected tones. The bartender stopped pouring his drinks, but made sure that the money was still in his pocket. “You are all my bitches.”

The crowd was silent.

“What do you to say to that?” his eyes exploded with black light. “Drink it in, my children of the night, drink in my essence and be completed!” Every man, woman, and barely legal teen shivered, lights blinked out, and then--



“ARRRRRGH!” Occult screamed as his soul was bathed in light. Every negative thought and action that had ever littered his mind was washed away, every painful memory, every piece of fractured hurt that scarred his mind, suddenly gone, in an eye blink. Death released the magician, and he fell back... both of them, fell back, Occult to the floor, Death back to his stone throne, his skin smouldering.

Doctor Occult looked up, clutched his head. “Oh, Jesus, oh, my God, what, what…” He groaned, grimaced, hissed and writhed about where he sat, and then turned to Jim Corrigan. “Whatttt has he DONE!?” He jabbed at his forehead with his finger. “Can’t hear, can’t hear it…”

“Death is not defined by gender. Death is not defined by any of your human preconceptions. Death is. Death does as Death will.” Jim waved his hand nonchalantly. “Sorry, that old rhetoric gets old after a while. It’s like I’ve memorised it by now.” He strolled further away from Death and the doctor, whistling an old tune as he did so.

“You don’t understand, Jim! You don’t understand! I can’t hear it anymore! The voice in the back of my head whispering for me to give up and die, the scratching in my heart and soul, I can’t hear it! What has he DONE?!” He clawed at his stomach, frantic.

“Gone, all gone, all that is left is the man, and the potential now…” Death fell silent, and Doctor Occult looked at him, frantic.

“Oh. God. He saved me.”

Corrigan rolled his eyes. “Par for the course. Now GO and save the WORLD.” He put out his hand, and Occult was still staring at Death in disbelief. “Richard.”

Occult turned to his old friend. “Jim…” He smiled. “You know what this means?”

“Yes,” nodded Corrigan, as Occult took his hand. “I do. And I’ll back your play every step of the way.” Corrigan’s Spectre form began to appear as the dark faded, and as Death sat atop his stone throne, a quiet rattling eerily piercing the veil as the seemingly-eternal figure neared its end, Richard couldn’t help but feel… excitement.



“Surely, friend, this isn’t legal.”

“Who?”

He looked at the new player in the game as they stepped forward, clad entirely in white, creating a stark contrast with his own black wardrobe. Doctor Occult had entered the building. “You have been causing quite a stir. You and your little stunt pulled me away from a good book, a good glass of scotch, and made me get done up in this colour scheme.” He motioned to himself, his white trousers meeting white shoes at the floor. “Now look, you just give up right now, and I won’t have to hurt you. Simple as.”

The man shook his head, and appeared hurt. “My children, this man wants to take me away. What are you going to say to that?”

Doctor Occult was almost ready for anything, but when dozens of ravers pounced on him, fingers scratching and teeth biting, he was surprised. The man he was chasing had exerted control over all these people so soon? He would have to act fast, before Death… died.

He slammed a hand upward, scattering his attackers. The power he channelled was immense, nearly uncontrollable, but he had a basic grasp of it… Whilst this man, his enemy, held supreme power over death, he himself held power of living. Yin and yang.

“You think you can stop me?” The man was upon him within a blink, moving inhumanly fast. “I have died for this, and I intend to keep my new powers until the very end of time itself.”

Occult grinned and landed a solid head butt on the man’s nose, causing it to crack and become horribly misshapen. “The end of time itself is only a few hours away if you keep flaunting the powers you’ve stolen. Death isn’t meant to be going to an industrial rave, he’s meant to be collecting the dead! You’re a selfish little half man and I’m here to ensure you get back to where you were supposed to be going!”

The man raised his fist, and Occult swept himself around the back of the man, suddenly grabbing the attacker’s arms and holding them in a full nelson. “I’d take this whole reality with me if that’s what it takes! My children--”

“Are doing nothing.” Occult pulled the man’s head up, revealing the ravers frozen in space. “We can step in between time now, in between heartbeats, and you were flaunting that killing old enemies. You can exert control over people, and I can remove it. You’re nothing.”

“I am everything!” The man pushed Occult back, and then span around, his fists clenched, his long black hair swaying to meet him. His body morphed and shifted, and then rushed toward Occult like water. Richard threw up his hand, but the blackness that the man had become solidified, became razor sharp, and tore through him. Occult screamed in expectation, and when no pain came, he looked down at himself. He was a mess, true; his body had been sliced and torn at, but instead of blood there was a solid whiteness inside him. “Ahh… You…” stuttered the man, as he reformed in front of his enemy.

“I,” winked Occult, as he moved toward the man, reforming and becoming whole again, “apparently am everything too. Who would have thought it?”

Occult grabbed the man by the face, pulled him forward, and wrenched a glowing hand through his chest. The man screamed, and black light beamed out from inside him. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“Your black shrivelled heart contains the power of death. I control life. And so I take life away from you and return death… to Death.” Occult yanked out his hand, holding a thick, full, human heart, though where pink muscle was supposed to be, there was black. He leaned toward the man, and whispered, “You have no protection now. I am done. Let me introduce you to a friend.”

He pulled the man up by his hair, and turned him around. Jim Corrigan smiled. “I can’t say I’m not going to enjoy it this time.” The dead police officer began to unravel, coming apart at the seams, and in his place, forming slowly over the top, like a superimposed image, was the Spectre.

“You hid for so long, and now you are found. Prepare for your final judgement.”

The man screamed, and was engulfed by the green cape of the Spectre. There was a flash of light, the Spectre vanished, and Doctor Occult was alone, surrounded by the frozen-in-time partygoers. “Hmm.” He looked around. “Hello?”

From where the Spectre had vanished, the ghost spirit of vengeance began to pool upwards, until he stood before Occult. “It is time.”

“For what?”

“To return to Death.”

As Spectre finished talking, they were back in the dark place. But Richard was no longer afraid. He walked up to the stone throne where Death lay, and then took the knife that was buried deep within the chest of the embodiment of death, and pulled it out. Death screamed like a banshee, a howl of pain and gust of wind, and the heart was snatched from Occult’s hand.

Occult covered his face, and looked past his now normal clothes and saw Death rise up, fill out, his cloak, as black as ink, wrapping around his body. “Wow.”

“You have done me a service, Richard Occult, but a warning now.” Death stepped up from his throne. “A friend is not as he seems. A threat has returned to and from Hell. And in the final moment, a sacrifice of two will have to be made, whether you want it made or not.”

“Wh--” Death vanished, and Occult was back in his library “--at?” He looked around, frantic. He was alone, the fire was crackling, his drink was there… “Oh, come on, that is not… That is not…” He clenched his fists and screamed at the ceiling. “THAT IS NOT HOW YOU THANK SOMEONE.” He kicked his chair. “THAT IS NOT HOW YOU THANK SOMEONE WHO JUST SAVED REALITY.”

“He doesn’t really talk. So you’re lucky you got something cryptic out of him.” Jim Corrigan sat in the seat opposite where Richard stood, and sighed. “But there are rules. You know about the rules. They’re there for a reason.” He shrugged. “I can’t stay for long. I can feel the Spectre pulling at me.”

“Wait, wait, you said, he said, argh, I can’t remember, that the dead weren’t dying. What does that mean? What happens now? Is everything alright?”

Jim Corrigan smiled glumly. “It caused a bit of a… problem. Somewhere. When people don’t die, there’s bound to be a bit of a spark of something going on. And… well.”

“You’re scaring me, Jim.”

Corrigan looked at his hands, and then up to Richard, who had slumped down in his chair and was staring intently at him. “Gotham. Something in Gotham City sparked up and started churning out evil. But I cannot go there; there is evil somewhere else and I have to deal with it before it gets out of hand.”

“What do you mean ‘churning out evil’?!”

“A demon engine. In Gotham. Alien in nature and powered by dead souls. Today was the spark that started it all, and there are--” He groaned. “Look, it’s being dealt with by other people. There’s a map and it’s being followed and I have to go.” And with that, the Spectre was gone in a puff of green and black smoke, leaving Richard Occult alone once more in his study.

He scratched his head, and then opened his eyes wide. Death had done something, he remembered. He hadn’t had time to linger on the thought, but now he could… The thing in his head was gone! The demon seed that…

“Oh, my God.”

He downed his scotch.

“Oh, God.”

A smile grew on his lips. “This means… I can…”

He ran a hand through his hair frantically.

“I can get back Rose!”

To be continued…

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