Chapter 11: Fairness
Marcus, having confirmed everything was ready, carefully checked his coat pockets before heading toward the door.
He had already received news.
Kirsty's father had cut his hand on a nail while moving the couch and needed stitches.
Therefore, Frank and Shadow (the woman in the baseball cap) were likely already escaped from hell.
Marcus, carrying his briefcase, got into his car and drove directly to Larry's house.
Kirsty's stepmother, Julia, was still inside.
According to the report, she hadn't come down from the attic for half an hour.
She had probably already discovered Frank and Shadow in the attic.
Marcus decided to capture them while they were still in their resurrected corpse state and hadn't yet received blood restoration.
He could also rescue Kirsty's father, Larry, which was the best Marcus could do for Kirsty at the moment.
Furthermore, once the timeline progressed and Julia started luring men to the house to feed Frank and Shadow, restoring them to human form, the two damned souls would be much harder to capture.
Arriving at the house, Marcus slowly unlocked the door with his key.
He had obtained the key on his first day in Staten Island through various means.
After entering, he gently closed the door behind him, leaving it unlocked to avoid cutting off his escape route.
Marcus then took out a shotgun from his briefcase and carefully made his way up to the attic.
The dark house was quiet, without a sound.
Marcus slowly walked to the attic door where Frank had been killed, without encountering Julia along the way.
Suddenly, Marcus kicked the attic door.
In the instant he kicked it open, he quickly retreated, simultaneously pulling the trigger, emptying the magazine of his shotgun.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of gunshots rang out, bullets piercing the attic door, splinters flying everywhere.
Just as the door was kicked open,
Julia's remaining upper body, gripping a dagger, suddenly lunged out from inside.
She missed, falling straight down the stairwell.
By this time, Marcus had already used the recoil from kicking the door to retreat to the landing and was reloading his gun.
Julia's lunge landed perfectly on the shotgun's trajectory, catching all the bullets precisely.
Her skin was torn to shreds like paper, revealing a withered skeleton struggling on the ground.
Bang bang bang!
Marcus emptied the gun again before quietly observing Julia.
The skin on Julia's face was completely shattered, falling to the ground and revealing the skull beneath—a predominantly male skull, clearly Frank's.
Only then did Marcus begin to examine them closely:
Frank's body consisted only of the upper skeleton, with bone fragments protruding at the tailbone.
A trace of flesh clung to the bone fragments. His hand bones had been broken,
leaving only half a bare skeleton, helplessly slumped on the ground, writhing by gnawing at the floor with his teeth.
The Julia skin he was wearing was tattered and riddled with bullet holes.
Marcus ignored Frank and shouted into the attic,
"Come out, you damned souls, or I'll throw grenades!"
With a creaking sound, a female skeleton—its upper body only reaching its chest, its heart still hanging exposed—slowly emerged, using its two fleshless arms to support itself on the floor.
This skeleton was Shadow, the woman in the baseball cap.
Marcus looked at the horrific state of the two on the ground.
He was glad he knew the plot and had planned his resurrection.
He hadn't expected them to kill Julia, who was supposed to be helping them, and their recovery was so poor—even their skeletons hadn't fully regenerated.
But then again, Julia in the movie did it because she was still attached to her past passion with Frank and was lured by the skeletal Frank's promises.
And now, not only Frank had been resurrected, but also the woman in the baseball cap.
Julia was likely too terrified to accept Frank's promises and refused to help them, which led to her death.
Marcus never considered saving this woman who, in the story, seduced men to feed Frank and even had an affair with her own brother-in-law.
He had even planned to shoot her if she lived, to prevent her from causing more trouble down the line.
"Ahhh!"
"I'm going to kill you, hehehe!"
Frank roared, glaring angrily at Marcus.
Marcus ignored Frank's gaze.
"You're angry?"
"You think anger can change your fate?"
"Stop yelling! Have some pity on your poor lungs!"
Marcus stood quietly, reloading his gun while coldly staring at Frank. "Oh, sorry, I forgot you don't have lungs."
"Who are you? Why are you doing this? Why are you killing me? Why?"
"I can sense we're both damned souls. Let me go, please! I'll serve you. I'll let you..." The woman in the baseball cap pleaded frantically.
Marcus still had no intention of revealing his true identity.
He picked up the loaded shotgun, pointed it at the two of them again, and said expressionlessly,
"Who am I?"
"I'm definitely not your friend!"
"Lady, you're too smart, frighteningly smart!"
This woman, based on just one glance, drew Marcus's real appearance, which meant Marcus couldn't let her go. He had vivid memories from his previous life of people being hunted down in infinite space scenarios.
Frank was gnawing on the ground, slowly crawling toward the small knife that had fallen to the side.
"You seem very dissatisfied?" Marcus, confirming the two were no longer a threat, strode forward and kicked the knife aside:
"Come on!"
"I'll give you a chance now—both of you come at me together."
"We're all damned souls. I can take on two of you without guns!"
"If you've got the guts, let us return to human form!" Frank, unable to move, could only desperately gnaw at the sole of Marcus's boot. "Watch me tear you to shreds."
"Even your chance is useless. Who else but you will die!"
Bang~ Bang~!
"Bang!"
Marcus fired three more shots,
aiming at the two's cervical vertebrae.
The gunshots ended, and the two skulls fell to the ground, rolling a foot away, their remaining bodies still writhing.
Marcus pulled out a garbage bag and removed Frank's heart from his still-twitching chest.
Holding it in his hand, he felt a surge of energy within it.
A thought struck him, and he tentatively used his supernatural blood-draining ability to absorb it.
The corpse-heart in his hand suddenly deflated.
A surge of energy flowed into Marcus's body, feeling as refreshing as drinking ice-cold water when parched.
Moreover, Marcus could feel his body become slightly stronger, albeit only by about 2%.
He estimated that absorbing the entire heart would enhance him by 10%.
Supernatural entities could strengthen themselves by absorbing energy from blood.
Marcus remembered that in the Hellraiser comics, it was mentioned that the Hell Priest Pinhead had absorbed the power of three hundred mages, yielding a tremendous amount of energy.
It seemed even damned souls possessed this ability to absorb energy from blood.
However, after being transformed into Cenobites, besides the basic energy absorption, they were also endowed with a central nervous system capable of feeling pain.
They could strengthen themselves by absorbing the essence of suffering. He, a damned soul, was far from that level.
A thought struck Marcus, and he planned to directly absorb the two damned soul hearts in his possession.
At that moment, a powerful gust of wind shattered the window, and a bone dragon covered in ghostly fire appeared in the air.
It transformed into the form of a vagrant and materialized in the attic.
Ignoring Marcus, it went directly to the sleeping bags, picked up the Lament Configuration with its metallic patterns from the floor,
then went to the window, transformed back into a bone dragon, and flew westward.
Marcus watched the bone dragon leave with the box. He knew this was a top-tier intermediary—only the Hell Priest Pinhead could afford such a servant of hell.
"Damn it!"
Marcus's heart sank as he looked in the direction the bone dragon had flown.
This was toward his apartment building, in the direction of Forest Avenue.
"Kirsty!"
(End of Chapter)
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