Gula Invidia: Black Market (Finale): An Old Friend’s Perspective

  --- Tucson ‘Tucker’ Rossi ---

  Tucker was used to feeling like shit.

  Be it because he wasn’t good enough for his father. The trenches from the great war being a hellhole, that made hell look nice at times. People taking insult with his… preferences. Or even just the general alcoholism that made the rest of his century-long existence semi-livable.

  Right now though… He was feeling a whole different kind of fucked up, because even if the oppressively humid air reminded him of summer back in Louisiana, everything else…

  The shadows shifted and moved, something dark and eldritch lurking just out of sight. The water and muck clung to him in a way that made his every movement even worse than the guilt he could feel gnawing at the back of his mind, dragging at his every movement. Forcing him to look into the black water that seemed to reflect the face of every person he’d hurt, every person who hadn’t deserved half the shit he’d put them through just because he was following orders.

  All while the ghosts of his past continued to whisper, chant, and clap to their brutal beat.

  Everything else… was straight out of a nightmare.

  One that had him wondering if this is what all the people Booker had dragged into the bayou felt before the man hunted them down like beasts.

  (If it was, makes sense this would be his True Sin.) While a lot of people developed a Sinner form and more developed magic in Infernus, only a handful were capable of outright warping reality like this. And if the rumors were to be believed it was always in a way that personified the person doing the warping.

  Meaning it made perfect sense in his mind for the Black Bayou Butcher, to summon the Black Bayou. The urban legend that had followed the killer throughout his time back home.

  Honestly, the only reason Tucker wasn’t having a total breakdown as he watched Booker gleeful drown Tom is because he knew that while he was a piece of shit, he wasn’t a bad enough person for Booker to hunt. The man only going after oppressors, rapists, and his fellow killers. People ‘strong enough to sharpen his fangs’ and fucked up enough that the man’s mama might forgive him for killing them all.

  When Tom finally quit moving, Booker seemingly froze, becoming unnaturally still. A state that the Bayou mirrored, reminding him of that too quiet moment in the swamps when a predator was present. And he could do little more than morbidly watch as the stitchwork on Booker’s face split as a red eye looked out, spinning madly before locking onto Tucker.

  Booker’s head snapped towards him with an audible crack and despite himself being able to turn into a Bear and Booker supposedly being a mere rabbit. (Bull fucking shit.)

  The not rabbit stared at him with unblinking eyes, its smile slowly widening.

  He took a deep breath, before shakily letting it out as he remembered the rules he’d learned from dealing with Booker for the near decade they were together. (Don’t flinch. No sudden movements. Mind your manners. And most importantly smile back.)

  Tucker forced his face into a wry grin, he watched Booker slowly loosen up with a chuckle, one that became increasingly mad as the shadows began to fade, washing away with the bayou’s tide and carrying his guilt away with it.

  When Booker was done laughing, the man waved his hands through the air and with a far more casual than he could manage in life he cleared away the filth from both himself and Tucker alike. “Apologies for making such a mess old boy!”

  “N-no problem.” He continued to smile at the madman, as the rabbit skin pulled away to reveal the human underneath it.

  All while pointedly trying not to think about the fact that once the Black Bayou had faded, he couldn’t see Tom’s body anywhere. (Then again…) given what he’d seen Booker do to people he really hated…

  (He stepped into the room, Booker’s eyes flashing in the dark as he smiled in spite of being covered in blood and surrounded by a dozen bodies nailed to the walls.)

  (Yeah, I’m not surprised… If anyone could make people feel the curse of immortality than it’s booker.)

  Not wanting to dwell on those memories, he instead shakily climbed to his feet before taking in the absolutely trashed room around them, as well as the handful of dead guards that had been left behind by Booker’s Bayou.

  “So… what now?” He found himself asking the only question of numerous that he could find it in himself to voice. (Like how the hell you got around the Clean Slate Curse…)

  “Now we reunite with my compatriots in this little endeavor and free everyone else wearing a collar.” Booker answered, arms crossed behind his back as he started towards the exit.

  “Your compatriots?” He repeated, vaguely remembering Booker saying something about ‘minions’ during his bout of being pants shittingly terrifying.

  Which wasn’t something Tucker could exactly process in regards to the other man given how much Booker had hated dealing with sycophants around the speakeasy. People who thought he was some kind of big shot entertainer, and never noticed just how irritable the killer got when he didn’t murder someone that week.

  As was he couldn’t help but wonder what it said about him that in spite of knowing this, and seeing Booker turn into a demon worthy of hell, he still considered the man his best friend in spite of the near hundred years they’d been apart. (A lot of really fucked up shit I’m sure…)

  “Oh, yes they’re such a delightful little group of misfits.” Booker smiled, more honestly than the fake one he usually defaulted to.

  “Yeah, you’ve always been one for pulling in the strays.” He and Emily were both proof of that. (Actually…) “There’s something I wanted to ask… Or I’m not sure I want to ask but… I think I have to…”

  “Well that sounds delightfully ominous.” The Butcher grinned, something dark lurking behind his eyes.

  “If you found me, despite the Clean Slate… Have you found Emily yet?” Because as much as he considered Booker his brother, he knew that the first thing Booker would do after breaking it was find Emily. (Then again, if one of us was going to get into heaven…)

  Booker froze in place, once more with an unnatural stillness, before slowly reaching into his jacket and pulling out a stopwatch and opening it.

  (I’ll take that as a no…) He grimaced.

  “Booker!” A young voice yelled, drawing both of their attention to a quartet making their way through the halls.

  Trailing slightly was a pair of Inferni, one an imp and the other a cubi, both looking healthier than any Inferni he’d seen in the last decade. Their good health catching him more off guard than anything, due to having spent years avoiding anyone Tom’s men had yet to ‘break’.

  After all, drowning in the bottom of a bottle was so much more preferable to watching someone’s light fade.

  Which is why he wasn’t surprised when the third Inferni -the one in the familiarly poor health- flinched away from him, or when the other two from moving to protect her.

  What did surprise him however was the final member of the quartet, a human teenager who had thrown her arms around Booker, before Tucker could fully process her. Even more surprisingly was the fact that Booker merely patted her on the back with a fond smile rather than prying her off. (The hell?)

  Even if Booker did have a soft spot for children, the fact was he hated it when people touched him, the only real exception having been Emily.

  When the girl pulled away and Tucker saw her face however… he was pretty sure he knew why Booker let her touch him. Namely that -even if he didn’t remember Emily half as well as Booker- the girl still could’ve passed as her with a few years shaved off the top. (So that thing about kids staying with their parents is true…)

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  He wasn’t sure how to feel about that… After all, he’d known they’d been tying the knot but… the fact that the kid was there with them, down here… He felt almost as bad as knowing he’d missed out on watching her grow up.

  By the time he managed to tune back in, the girl was wrapping up her explanation that, “We managed to turn off the club’s security systems!”

  “Saving the whole day, I might add!” Booker smiled, while moving in that way that seemed to steal everyone’s attention. “When I was done showing him what for, ol’ Tom back there had set off a deadman switch to bring this whole place down on top of us, and you shut it off with such perfect timing! Why, you lot should have seen his face, it was hilarious!”

  “You took care of the pit boss then?” The only male Inferni asked.

  “Was there ever any doubt?” Booker puffed up, clearly ignoring the part of the story that would make him look bad like he did whenever reciting their jobs at the speakeasy.

  (Then again, given how he beat me and turned things around against Tom all by himself… Maybe it isn’t so much bluster anymore.) It’d make sense for the Black Bayou Butcher to be right at home in hell.

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean much when you Sinners get back up when you’re killed.” The healthier pink Inferni pointed out.

  “True…” Booker nodded, before smiling with nothing but fangs as his eyes flashed a mix of red, violet, green, and yellow. “Like I said, I took care of it.”

  (Shit, don’t think I’ve seen someone with four sins.) Most could only pull on one or two, like him and Envy, the fact that Booker could do four. (He’s really right at home down here…)

  “What about him?”

  Tucker blinked, realizing the Inferni were talking about him.

  “He’s an old friend, one that was collared just like your kin.” Booker easily explained, smile unflinching. “Kin that we really should be freeing before anyone else wakes up from their deathly slumber.”

  “Right.” The kid nodded, even as the Inferni continued to give him distrustful glares he couldn’t quite blame them for. Not when he knew what had happened in this particular hellhole.

  “Um, this way.” The kid told them before heading down one of the halls.

  A path that was actually one of the longer ones to where the Inferni were kept, but… even if it would speed things up, he couldn’t bring himself to draw attention to his familiarity with these tunnels. (I’ll… I’ll just kill anyone that finds us… Keep everyone safe if this fucks things up more…)

  Taking far longer than he liked, they eventually made their way to where the prisoners were kept. A place that was filled with ten times as much misery as he remembered, (which means the alcohol was doing its job…)

  “Hmm, I almost feel like I was a little too lenient with Thomas and company.” Booker confessed, a tenseness to his smile that usually preceded an act of extreme violence or a rabid escalation of the situation.

  “Well, if you want… we can probably rig the traps in this place to bring the whole thing down once we get everyone out. Bury the people responsible for… this alive.” The kid offered with a ruthlessness that normally would have surprised him in one so young, though in this particular case all he could think was, (Yep, definitely Booker’s kid.)

  “A wonderful idea Lydia!” Booker grinned with a pat of the girl’s head, before turning his attention to the various Inferni lifelessly watching them. “For now however…”

  Booker drifted amongst the Inferni, undoing their collars much like he had Tucker’s, though each stared at Booker with a level of awe and gratitude that made his stomach twist with the knowledge that even if unwillingly he’d been a part of their suffering.

  Still he made himself stay and watch. Just like he’d stayed and watched every time he and Booker had busted up a rival gang’s brothels and drug dens and Booker had helped those trapped there. Just like he’s stayed and watched the aftermath when they hunted kkk fuckers across the bayou and made them pay for the people they’d hurt.

  He didn’t have the strength, stomach, or will to do the things Booker did, but he’d stay by his side and help him the way he’d helped Tucker. (After all, the world ‘s a fucked up place, so we’ve got to at least try to un-fuck it.)

  When the people kept on coming, the Inferni pair bringing in even more from the rest of the club, he found himself hunched over in a dark corner hating life but enduring it still.

  At least until the kid that could’ve been his niece had the world not fucked him over walked up to him and asked, “So you and Booker are friends?”

  He couldn’t help but snort at that, somehow not at all surprised that Booker’s kid would call him by name. (Booker has even more daddy issues than I do…)

  Pushing drunken confessions to the back of his mind, he instead told the kid that, “Yeah, Booker and I go way back… Don’t suppose he’s ever mentioned Uncle Tuck?”

  “Uh… No?” The kid -Lydia- frowned.

  Something he tried not to do given how much that response cut. (Then again, if this kid is anything to go off of… Booker and Emily lived a good twenty years without me…)

  Clearly picking up on his mood the girl was quick to assure him that, “He probably just hasn’t brought it up because we’ve only known each other for like a week now.”

  It was his turn to frown. “A… week?” (That… that can’t be right…)

  “Yeah, he pulled me out of Ira Invidia and has been helping me get my feet under me.” Lydia shrugged.

  “So… you’re not Booker’s daughter?” He found himself awkwardly asking, preferring not to think about the kid in front of him being stuck in the prison district.

  “Booker has a daughter?” Lydia asked back.

  They both stared at each other for a moment, a very long and awkward moment.

  At least until Tucker coughed into his hand, “Uh, I seem to have misunderstood a couple things…”

  “Yeah…” The kid nodded back, before glancing towards Booker with a considering look and a mumbled, “Booker’s daughter…”

  He felt the need to cough again, nowhere near used to dealing with kids in this life or the previous, and not wanting to even try to tackle whatever can of worms he just opened. “Uh, introductions I guess. I’m Tucson Rossi, uh, friends call me Tucker.”

  “Oh! Uh, Lydia… Smith. Yeah, Lydia Smith.” The kid lied poorly.

  Tucker couldn’t help but huff, remembering when Booker introduced himself as ‘Henry Booker’ instead of his real name. (Maybe she’s his grandkid instead.)

  He gave a snort. (Great granpappy Booker.)

  “Alright, I think… I think that’s the last of them.” The imp Booker brought with him called.

  “Yes, I’d hope so.” Booker confessed a twist to his seemingly ever present grin as he flexed his hand, faint sparks of black magic surging across his flesh. “One can only hear the same dreary song so many times without wanting to yell at the band…”

  He recalled the song that seemed to reverberate through the air when Booker had summoned the Black Bayou. “I know what you mean…”

  “Still I believe all our business here is now complete, yes?” Booker checked with the red Inferni.

  “Yeah, I’ve got everyone by the club entrance and I’ve been double tapping any bodies we see to make sure no one here gets up before we go.” The Inferni nodded, thumb thrown over his shoulder. “V said she’d meet us by the entrance once she’s done with the security circuit.”

  “Wonderful.” The Black Bayou Butcher grinned, before turning his attention towards Lydia and tucker. “Don’t dally you two, fireworks are best watched from a distance after all!”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle as he remembered the time he and Booker had gotten drunk and attached some fireworks to a guy who got a little too handsy with one of the girls at the bar one fourth of July. (We really should’ve been standing further back.)

  As they made their way out of the club, he couldn’t help but pause as he came to the steps leading to the station exit.

  “What’s wrong?” Booker asked, having noticed he’d stopped.

  “This is the point where for the last decade another step would’ve taken my head off.” He admitted, staring down at where everyone else had turned to look at him.

  “I see.” His best friend nodded in sympathy, before promptly shoving him down the stairs.

  “Fucking asshole!” He yelled at the bastard.

  “You were taking too long.” Booker shrugged, completely unbothered as he continued towards the exit.

  “I was- I was taking a moment!” He stammered out. “There was a-a gravitas to that and you just shoved me! Ruining it!”

  “Again, you were taking too long and I do have a very busy schedule you know.” Booker waved him off.

  He couldn’t help but scoff at that. “Oh, we both know that’s bullshit! You never plan to do things when you go out to kill so you don’t double book! At most we’d swing by a speakeasy if we were too wired to sleep!”

  “So you’ve a busy schedule too!” Booker exclaimed with a wide eyed grin. “Why are you trying to waste so much time, old boy?”

  Before he could say anything, a rumbling began behind them as the graffiti of the entrance staircase began to glow.

  “Oh shit.” He blinked as he realized what this meant.

  “Quite, if less vulgarly.” Booker nodded before continuing three steps at a time and straight out the exit.

  “Hey! You know my legs aren’t as long as yours!” He yelled, rushing after him and out of the detonating building.

  They were barely three steps out the door when a series of explosions echoed through the subway tunnels, all of which were quickly followed by a detonation of smoke that absolutely overwhelmed them. Knocking them both onto their faces as they were blasted off their feet.

  After a tense moment, when the smoke and debris had begun to fade from the air, he heard Booker yell. “Couldn’t you have waited but a moment my dear?”

  “You were both taking too long!” A feminine voice yelled back.

  “No I wasn’t. We were merely appreciating the gravitas of the moment.” Booker argued as he stood up.

  Something that Tucker couldn’t help but laugh at as he sat himself up.

  Booker turned an equally amused grin onto the bear sinner. “I believed you mentioned something about a speakeasy?”

  He looked up at his brother in all but blood, the one person he’d legitimately missed from his old life, before grasping his hand. “Yeah, we’ve a busy schedule after all.”

  Patreon Thanks

  Thank You:

  -Rush99999

  -Kcx1

  -Spheal Lover

  A/N: Okay, so this is the end of the 'Episode' so chapters are going to slow for a bit as I focus on other projects. That said, I will still be trickling out Memories of a Monster just to keep you sated until we can start smiling again.

  Also, since this is technically the end of this Book/Season feel free to let me know what you think of things so far. Feedback helps me figure out where to take the story going forward.

  So first Level Up is Envy, which memory are we getting back?