Post by codeapathy on Jan 11, 2021 21:27:10 GMT -5
That the blood you bleed
[/color]Is just the blood you owe[/font][/i][/div]Billie Eilish - No Time To Die
Ramsus: You! YOU are my greatest disappointment! My biggest failure!!! Light the fire!
Elizabeth: NO! Father please...Ramsus….don’t do this to me….don’t leave me….
Ramsus: You wretched, thankless whore. I delivered you and this is how you repay me! You have left me no choice...hold her down and make her watch. I want her to see every second. I want this moment burned into her memory. Etched into her mind until the end of time!
++Sister Liselle hated me from the first day she met me. She was Ramsus Palantiri’s half-sister and occasional lover. She worshipped the ground he walked on, as did I. We all did. He was our leader, our voice of reason. He built the utopia we existed in. Those of us who maintained our mental faculties knew exactly what we were involved in. We just didn’t care. It made sense he would have her be the one to send him off this mortal coil. The smell of gasoline permeated the air. It was thick with the scent of fumes. His two closest allies, his right hand men, his henchmen restrained me. I loathed them both so much. As I was forced on my knees, head propped up, forced to watch on in horror as Liselle flicked a lighter and threw it onto the kindling and Ramsus went up in flames, I wondered how did we all get here? It was like time moved in slow motion around me. Liselle made her way behind me, grabbing up my hair tight, screaming at me in German obscenities as her half-brother burned alive, silently, staring at me in one last final judgement. They made me watch until the very end, when his body went limp and his body gave up the ghost++
Liselle: It is done my brothers. We scatter. If this ungrateful whore has any dignity she will take her life and die here, with him. Blood for blood. You shamed him so, and brought this indignity forth the least you can do is spill your blood here and repay the debt…
Elizabeth: No….no I won’t….I did nothing wrong…
Liselle: Says the woman who gave no second thought to the blood she herself shed. This ended as it began, with the burning of another. It should have been you! HERETIC! You gave no second thought to your Aunt dying the way she did nor did you even consider the ramifications of the pact you made that night. You more than delighted in coitus with my brother while she burned alive, screaming for mercy that never came. Mercy you yourself said she did not deserve. He made you everything you are. He taught you everything you know. The Father you never had nor deserved. You never understood loyalty. You never could grasp the concept of submission. Your hands are stained and dripping in the blood of many and yet here you are, defiant and haughty until the end. Unwilling to shed your own blood, yet so quick to snuff out the life of another. Even that of an innocent unborn child…
Elizabeth: The blood on my hands is not my own, it is true, but my biggest crime is retribution and justification. Putting things as they should be, not as they are. You...you used to pick up hithchikers and the homeless and torture and kill them...for fun. You sorry fucking cunt. My work was righteous...you’re just a psychopath that was in love with her half-brother...who chose someone else to be his betrothed…and you just couldn’t handle it. Then again, Daddy was touchy feely and you didn’t mind that, it was when he got a new coked up girlfriend that you lied and told Ramsus that he violated you, so he offed him…
++Liselle’s eyes went wide and she produced a blade from her shoe and held it to my neck. The putrid scent of charred flesh, wood and gasoline rushed up my nostrils as my head tilted back, stretching my neck. While she and I were hashing out the long standing hatred we had for each other, Chase had already disappeared. Not surprising. He was only along for the ride for the drugs, the women and the money. Nailz, forever infatuated with Liselle, stayed put. He was her puppy dog and she knew it. She she pressed the blade against my skin I closed my eyes ready to accept my death++
Elizabeth: Go ahead Liselle, take my life. If you had this much tenacity before you lit the fire you could have done this beforehand, shown YOUR loyalty, sacrificed ME instead and he’d still be here. Or didn’t that cross your mind? Did it ever cross your mind how things would end when you set me up? Your hatred of me, so pure, but you never took in the consequences of what might happen when you planted all the evidence, sowed the seeds of doubt? His blood isn’t on my hands Liselle, it is on yours. My failure...was that I let you get in the way and I didn’t remove you when I had the chance. If slitting my throat will make you feel better...go ahead. I just watched death unfold. There’s no mystery to it anymore.
++There was a strange sort of silence. All you could hear was the wind in the desert, the crackle of the embers and the distant noise of wildlife. Just then his body, fully burned and a husk of itself, collapsed in, his head caved and snapping from the neck. His lower half detached from the rest of the body and slumped into the embers and burning patches of fire. His spine had fused with the pole he was tied too so his torso just stayed stationary. His ribs were half cracked and broken. She shuddered and whimpered as she saw the sight, stepping away and covering her mouth. I slowly got to my feet and turned around++
Elizabeth: Since you are so worried about blood being spilled, Liselle…
++I knocked the knife out of her hand and gripped her wrist dragging her over to the burned mass of body and debris. She kept pulling, tugging, to break free but the rage and deep seeded hatred of the very sight of her face kept a very tight grip. I noticed a particularly sharp rib sticking out on the left side, grabbed it and broke it off then spun around, slicing her wrist and my own hand, pressing the two together and squeezing as a drop or two fell into the embers. I stooped down, grabbed some ashes and smeared them on the wounds, pressing them together again, then threw her away and down++
Elizabeth: The blood you spill...is the blood you owe. After this day Liselle, you and I are one. One blood unified in one death. No matter where you go on this God forsaken earth, I am a part of you. Unified in being tainted, cursed and vexed. Just know that there will come a day when you find yourself finally happy and content and as you do, you find it all waste away into ashes and then and only then will you know the debt has been paid. There was no mercy for them Liselle, there will be none for you.
++Ramsus Palantiri. Looking back now he was little more than an updated, hipper version of Jim Jones. I met him at a coffee shop. Like most men in his line of work and with his particular talents he saw a young, rebellious girl and preyed on her. He was older. Said the things I wanted to hear. That night had replayed in my mind a thousand times. The only reason my cousin got involved and called in a few favors to clean it up was because I was attached. My involvement with that man was the very reason my real father disowned me for so long and wanted nothing to do with me. He was ashamed of me and my choices. When all was said and done, the media touted what happened in the desert as a demonstration of self-immolation for political reasons. A few different stations ran with suicide over involvement with everything from tax evasion to illegal weapons, drug trafficking and even human trafficking. The compound he had went up in flames. Of course arson was suspected but because of the accusations and rumors attached to the man who owned said place, not much effort went into actually solving it. Liselle fled back to Germany. I never stopped tracking her. Nailz OD’d in San Fran. Or so they said. Smelled like a coverup to me. Back in reality I was sitting at a large desk, slumped down in a high back chair. The night was pitch black and my whiskey glass was half empty. It was one of those nights. I leaned forward and rubbed my temples. These episodes were so vivid, even after all these years. Sometimes I swore I could still smell the burning flesh and the embers. The light from the candles on the sides of the desk danced and flickered across my face as I exhaled sharply++
Elizabeth: They left me no choice in the matter...besides, he said if I ever needed anything, I had more than a few favors to cash in. This should account for one or two of them. It isn’t that I didn’t have faith in Scotty’s vision and wisdom, it is just that I am a woman that believes in covering all the bases. I also understand these people. I know them, because I have been them. I understand why they do what they do, because my actions have been the same. It was what made Scotty’s venture so appealing…”
++One could not truly Cure the ailment and malignant tumors, without first understanding what they were made of. Koresh was an Ace that had been sitting comfy in my back pocket for awhile. A card you only play when the maggots and decay force it. They finally did. I had long anticipated a more direct attack. Me? My money was on PMont and his ilk. His arrogance would never perceive Scotty and I a threat, but my refusing his advances may have meant Scotty was caught in the crossfire. Whomever put the blood on their hands, it was a moot point now. What was done, was done. The shots had been fired and the time was now. No longer could we wait in the shadows, plot and measure. The time for accountability was now. The irony was not lost on me. The way one could compare my kindred bond with Nocturnal and my twisted devotion to Ramsus Palantiri. There was a sort of sick serenity in knowing that very few people from back then were still around and very few people I associated with now even knew who that man was. They didn’t know who I was then. It is enough that I remember. It is everything that I remember. I took a long drink from the crystal glass and opened a nearby drawer pulling out a velvet bag and setting it in front of me. I ran my fingers through my hair and exhaled with a bit of uncertainty++
Elizabeth: Every great woman gets started somewhere...I guess you had to be mine Ramsus. If those two harpies fully understood the jabs I was truly making, if they really knew who I was and the influences I have had to mold me into the woman I am, their opinion just may alter but the truth is Ramsus they are stuck in the same cycle I myself once was. Their identity relies on that of another. They are part of a collective in which they are looking up to someone else, not looking down. The truth was, our esteemed Producer didn’t give two fucks if I was in that match or not because I am not seen as necessary, consequential. I’m expendable. Three groups have carved themselves so deep into the fabric of OPW that they themselves deem themselves to be the only people that matter. And that, is the sin.
I fear though that Scotty may not approve of my decision to bring the Koresh family into this. They represent chaos. But I also fear he underestimates the people we are trying to...Cure. You can’t redeem a company, cure a business unless you can really truly isolate the plague that is infesting from the insides and properly and efficiently eradicate it. You wouldn’t try and cure leprosy with Tylenol, such as with this, half measures will not suffice. I believe that Scotty will deliver, he said as much. But I look at where we are now, him being attacked so ruthlessly and cowardly, and it is clear to me that we have made no progress. While he is ready to put everything into motion soon, as soon as the coming show, we are in a weak position.
I look at the others, the tainted and diseased and they are all interlinked. Their history is thick. Their stories revolve around another. They have intricate pasts. They are all familiar with each other in some way or fashion. The majority of them are even linked to or have history with Johnny somehow. That is a strength they have that we do not. Familiarity is a commodity that can be very precious. In abundance it creates a safety net. A sense of inner strength. We lack that. Scotty and I have history of course but it is very slim. Two ships passing in the night. Our past is spotty and sparse. A few matches here and there. Some jabs traded on a professional level. While he and I got off to a rocky start with this conquest, it was fated. We were both traveling the same path just at different distances. I realized a little later than I had liked that I, alone, couldn’t change things.”
++Nocturnal. His name alone was enough to strike fear into a mere common man. I, myself, always admired him. He truly was an innovator of violence. I respected what he did and I always enjoyed stepping in the ring with him. Working alongside him was also a pleasure. I could feel the dull phantom ache on the small of my back. The skin was scarred but healed now. The mark of the grand master of torture and brutality himself. Pandora and I were his fallen angels. To those on the outside it looked like a mere ménage à trois. Alexander Koresh was a gothic God. A genius of pain and well versed in the sickness that was, humanity. And no friend of Johnny Stylez. The last time I saw Nocturnal I was blowing him a kiss of death with the strap hung over my shoulder. Never one to hold a grudge. He liked challenges. While he was busy waging his war with Johnny, I slipped right in and bested them both. I still remember the smug look of approval and sarcastic clapping from Alexander as I got into the backstage area that night. A part of me feared he would be irate and bitter, like Johnny, but he was impressed. I opened the velvet bag and pulled a well carved bone, and a vial of dark matter, setting the bag aside and chuckling to myself++
Elizabeth: Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh...she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.
Alexander Koresh is everything you THOUGHT you were Ramsus. Looking back now I see the difference between the lies you force fed me and the truths he showed me. You preyed on my weaknesses and insecurities. You read me like an open book and spun a beautiful web of deception to keep me hooked. You made me dependent on you where as Alexander was an entirely different matter. Alexander values loyalty and respects women of my caliber. To you I was a pawn. The lessons you taught came with a hefty price tag. I never forgot them though. I breathed you in. I willfully drank down everything you could teach me. I was a desert desperate for rain and you were a monsoon. It may seem nostalgic or even silly to you but I had to keep these remains. The rib of which I scarred your sister. The ashes of you. I’m sure that in whatever level of hell you were burning in you watched in disgust as she scurried away like a frightened rat. Left alone to take in those surroundings, my stomach sick with the stench of burned up human life, we both know something happened then. Whoever Elizabeth Devereaux was before that night, died in a silent scream. Whatever innocence that remained, suffocated like oxygen in the very flames that melted your skin.
It was then that I realized that it was not I that was the failure. I was not the weak link. I wasn’t the card that brought the tower down. No. That was you. Your fragile ego. You hyped yourself up, with cocaine lines and acid trips. Built that castle tower so high into the atmosphere that you couldn’t blink without getting a nose bleed. In the end you fell for your own line of shit. You sold yourself as a savior, and you truly believed that you were the second coming of Christ. You touted yourself as an alternative reality. A beacon of hope for all those the world shoved aside. You built your desert utopia under the guise of freedom to be who you were, loose of the strings of the cruel and monotonous real world. The more drugs you took, the more you believed you were an actual messiah. I was far too young and naive to see then that all you were...was a copycat. Just a carbon copy of Manson, Jones, Rajneesh and every other self-prophesying, kill the rich, eat the weak leader through history.
++I fingered the bone fragment, passing it between my fingers. A smirk crept across my face as thinking back on it now, it all seemed so...pathetic. I thought back to something I had just said. An alternate reality. It dawned on me that the same could be said about FoCuS, Riggs Legacy, Syndicate and those damn mongrel Wolves. I set the bone down on the desk and pushed away from it, standing. As I brushed past the candles, the flames danced in the same direction. I stopped in front of a mirror, turned on the lights surrounding the mirror and turned a bit, lifting my tank top up in the back and stared at the small area of scarred, but healed flesh was on the small of my back. I switched hands and bent my arm backwards, reaching around to brush my fingers against the patch. I let the material fall as I returned back to the desk and picked back up the length of bone. I exhaled through my nostrils and slumped in my chair gently setting the tip of the carved rib bone to my temple. I rested my head back and exhaled deep. I started dragging the token down the length of my face and down across to my neck and that was when I felt it pass over the small scar on my neck from that night. I stopped, holding it there for a second. Suddenly I heard my phone begin to vibrate. My personal phone. As I reached for my bluetooth to answer I set the bone aside and muttered++
Elizabeth: The price of slitting one's own throat…
++I put the earpiece on and answered. On the other end Scotty sounded like a man shaken. I sat stoic and quiet, listening to him explain his situation, his state of mind and I nodded, even if he couldn’t see it, as you do when in deep conversation. I half expected this. We were in a weak position. We had made no headway and I knew he carried that burden on his shoulders. He blamed himself for our shortfall. As he finished his positioning, damage control became my purpose++
Elizabeth: Scotty...doing the right thing is never easy. It comes with a heavy price and I know you and your wife are both paying that. You and I have had a lot of long talks about your situation with “Zion”. I know you were surprised to see I understood. In all honesty I was expecting this call to be about Nocturnal. I know I didn’t run it past you but after you were attacked, my hand was forced. You have been candid and honest with me and I respect that. I respect that you have put so much trust and faith in me. Now allow me to be honest with you…
The cause isn’t lost Scotty. While this epidemic, this plague has intensified and the infection has worsened, we haven’t lost. I don’t know if it ever dawned on you Scotty but all of them have the same thing in common, they all promise their own alternate reality. The reason why the plague is so predominant is that they are all the same. Each of their leaders promise the same thing. An alternate path. They pick and choose certain subclasses of a bigger sociological entity and they craft a perfect vision based around that subclass. FoCuS exists solely as the chaotic evil. They sell vices, greed, abuse of power, and all of those ideals target a specific people. Look at the Montouri boys, they are not just dregs and bottom feeders of this industry but in life. Look at who they associate with. Megalomaniacs, narcissists, the “enlightened”. They, in their own words, want to run OPW their way. And they have done nothing if not try and SELL their way all this time.
Paul Montouri thought he could flash a dick and a smile and I would buy it. You know why? Because he was trying to get a read on me. You can see through those cunts in the Wolves, the Syndicate and even Michelle, no problem. They aren’t hard to figure out. Montouri is nothing if not observant and when you see them fucking around, literally, like they do, swapping from one brother, to the uncle, back to the half cousin twice removed, it doesn’t take much to leap to “let me try and get them horned up and then I can take advantage of em”. The Riggs are complicit in this same bullshit. Look at them all, they are interlinked, their stories are intricate and intertwined. They feed off the energy they create. How could we even begin to affect that in our current state?
You underestimated them Scotty, but there is still a chance. He’ll be there at the show. That was the one thing we were missing Scotty, an equalizer when it came to Johnny. Those were all pawns the other groups had in play. We did not. That’s changed. By positioning ourselves as a threat, we can’t be ignored now. I still believe in you Scotty...I believe in what we set out to do and I want us to see it through but...if we fail on Bourbon Street, and you still feel like the cause is lost...then I will personally deliver the news to the others.
++He seemed receptive but I could tell he was tired and weary. I knew that feeling. I had been where he was now. I had the very same talk with my own self more than once over the years. I knew most of the time I was just bullshitting myself, but I also knew when someone meant it. He was on the verge of it. I could feel it in the tone of his voice. He thanked me for letting him get it all out in the open and we ended the call. I pulled the bluetooth off and set it back down. I Moved one of the still burning candles in front of me, opened another side drawer and pulled out a purple velvet bundle, rolling it open in front of me. I picked up a sachet and clutched it in my hand++
Elizabeth: A day will come. When you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth. And you’ll know the debt is paid.
++I held the sachet over the open flame until the material began to burn then dropped it into a bowl as it continued to burn. I closed my eyes and sat back into the chair a slow, sinister smile creeping across my face++