Our Finest Gifts | 2 of 2

And to think, I almost quit writing forever without giving you this.

So much gore. So much.

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Our Finest Gifts

Part 2 of 2

The smell was the first indication that he was conscious again. The smell was also the first indication that something was very, very wrong. It was the stink of roadkill made ripe by the sun, and maybe turned over with a pitchfork for good measure. It filled his sinuses, spilled into his throat, and set his eyes watering as he gagged. Devon rolled, clutching his side, and slowly opened his eyes.

He was still high, but not high enough. It was too easy to think, even with the electronic clicking of the lights amplified within his ears. There were too many colors. Devon squeezed his eyes shut.
   
“Weeeeeeelly well well. Looks like sleeping beauty finally woke the fuck up. Was startin t’think I’d have to find your faggy ass a prince or somethin’. Shit.”

Devon’s tongue was too thick, and it was stuck to the roof of his mouth by a mixture of spit and bile. He worked it about slowly, dug his teeth into the side, and breathed out a groan.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what all the bitches say,” Nasr giggled.

Something ropey and wet smacked against the bottom of Devon’s foot. He opened his eyes again, but immediately regretted having done so. They clenched tightly.

“Go ‘way,” Devon grunted.

“Really? I been gone all this time and that’s the welcome I get? Go away?” As he spoke, Nasr’s voice sank from its high tones of playful offense to something darker, something more dangerous.

“The fuck ever. You want me all teary eyed like some military bitch? You just leave me fifty bucks and tell me to lay low for a few days and I’m supposed to be over fucking joyed to see your nasty ass when you bother to show the fuck up again? Fuck off, asshole.”

“Hey. Heyheyhey. I left you fifty fuckin’ bucks. I didn’t haveta.”

“Yeah. That’s good for what? Two days? It’s been months, cocksucker. I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Well,” Nasr said, his voice drifting nearer to Devon, “shit happens. Almost didn’t come back.”

Devon opened his eyes. Two glowing, hellish eyes stared back, drifting closer. They were wrapped in darkness.

“Wonder whatcha woulda done then, huh? Y’big baby,” Nasr growled.

Experience and instinct both told Devon that he should keep his mouth shut. He didn’t.

“I woulda thrown the mother fuckin’ party of the goddamn century.”

Nasr drew to a halt, a burst of sound barking from his lips. It might have been a laugh if mocking and derision could make laughter.The lights bled through the darkness to catch on the edges of the demon’s horns where they curled from the dark coils of his hair. Splotches of color tickled across the rusty coloring of Nasr’s arm, which had been thrown wide and was bonier than Devon remembered it being. Nasr’s long, claw-tipped fingers were extended in mockery of salesgirl display, gesturing to the body mounted on Devon’s makeshift cross.

“And invited aaaaalll yer little friends, yeah?” Nasr taunted.

Devon stared quietly at the corpse. There was a head, and there were arms. There were shoulders, and a chest. All of it mutilated, but certainly present. Beneath the glistening protrusion of exposed rib, however, there was a long span of darkened support beam. The stumps of two feet were nailed in a foot or so from the ground, breaking the gap between bone and floor. Devon’s stomach lurched. Had he done that? Surely not. His head hurt, and once again, he shut his eyes.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Nasr chastised.

The same wet, fleshy smack as before struck Devon’s bare feet. Again. Again. Incessant and steady until Devon opened his eyes.
   
    Nasr’s face was in his own. The demon was gaunt, his skull frighteningly defined beneath skin and muscle. His teeth were pointed and yellow in his smile. Devon cringed away.

“I told you to lay low, Devvy,” Nasr rumbled.

“I’m out in the middle of nowhere, ain’t I?”

Nasr’s tails rasped against one another. It was a sound that Devon had come to know well.

“This,” Nasr giggled as e held up a fleshy lump that glistened in the shifting light, “ain’t layin’ low, Dev.”

“I got bored,” Devon whined.

“I know.” Nasr smacked the meat to his cheek in mockery of a sympathetic pat. “I know. Guess what else is boring. Go on, guess.”

Devon flinched backward. His bare hip stuck to the workbench, but peeled away as he went scooting. Every impulse sent the same signal: Run. Runrunrunrun.

“Aw. Not even one little guess, Devvy Wevvy? Just gonna squirm around when I ain’t even done anything to you?”

Nasr’s tail caught Devon’s in a scaly slide. It was hot, nearly scalding. Devon grunted, but he was still just high enough that he didn’t care about the discomfort as much as he should. He was much more concerned with the what than the pain.

“Get. That. Fucking. Shit. Offa. Me.”

“Hmmmmm. Nuh uh.”

One skeletal hand shot out and caught Devon by the forearm. It gripped tight, bruisingly so, and cut where Nasr’s claws caught at pale skin.

“I don’t fucking know,” Devon screeched, his voice breaking in his throat. “Get that shit offa me!”

“Watchin’ your ass sleep off your high is fuckin’ boring, Dev. Knowin’ you was fuckin’ up again is fuckin’ borin’. D’ya wanna end up with your hand in another goddamn garbage disposal? Huh? Cus I can make that real fuckin’ borin’ real fuckin’ fast.”

Devon jerked, thrashing as the edges of his vision grew dim, and everything else turned fuzzy. Nasr’s touch was fire. Devon’s ears took to ringing. His skin was too tight. His insides were twisting and burning. He was coated with sweat, and not the healthy sort.

“Fuck. Fuckfuck fucking fuck,” Devon hollared.

“Nnn. Eeheehee. I told you,” Nasr exclaimed between giggles. “I told you to stay off that shit. Lookit this fucking mess.”

Devon panted, his breath seemingly impossible to catch. He wanted to vomit, and he couldn’t stop trembling. Everything stank even more than it already had, and the lights had gone from soothing to annoying.

“Fuck,” Devon gasped.

“That’s what you’ll be if they get ahold of you, Dev. That what you want? Wanna be proper fucked, huh?”

Nasr’s tails went twisting and turning. They snaked their way up Devon’s legs even as the demon’s impossibly strong hands gripped at Devon’s arms. He was hauled up, ass and head dangling. The world spun and flashed. Nasr’s giggles filled his ears and burned at his thoughts.

“Dun want that t’happen, do we?” Nahnahnah.” Nasr reeled Devon in close. Breath poured along Devon’s cheek, hot and fetid. “You’re my fuckin’ toy, goddamn it. Not theirs.”

Devon’s stomach gave another threatening twist. He pulled against Nasr’s hold, but the man seemed to have grown even taller than he already had been, and in so doing he was stretching Devon further. Further, and well beyond the bounds of comfort. Devon’s spine popped. His head dangled and lolled. His joints ached. It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe, and his quickened pants had turned to shallow gasps.

“‘Sides, Dev,” Nasr purred, “you did your crucifix all wrong.”

The world lurched again, and Devon’s heart leapt into his throat. The tails about his legs gripped, jerking his legs up. Nasr released Devon’s arms at the same time, so he was left flailing as he toppled backward, caught like a hare in a trap. Devon’s head struck the gore and gristle on the floor, and beyond that the cement of the floor itself.

He heard his head impact an instant before the pain set in. It was so intense that he found it difficult to breathe. His arms dangled, heavy and limp. He wanted to catch his balance. He couldn’t see. A handful of simultaneous thoughts ran through his mind, but the blow had him unconscious before Nasr had raised him from the floor.

-

    With Nasr, a lack of consciousness was a blessing. Devon sometimes suspected that it was given only for the sake of the demon’s convenience. Like a cat giving a mouse a sound smack before relocating to play with it elsewhere. In this case, they had not relocated far.

He woke to find himself bound to the post, suspended upside down with his arms stretched wide. His palms and feet were nailed through much the same way he’d nailed the boy’s, but more than that he was constricted. Tied into place with thick, smooth rope. His hands and feet were throbbing balls of pain, and his head felt fit to burst. Devon was cold and shivering, and whatever dampness clung to his skin had seeped into his eyes to leave them stinging for their irritation.

“Y’anno who Saint Peter is, Devvy?” Nasr’s voice echoed about him, bouncing off of the high ceiling and distant walls.

The twinkling lights had been shut off. Instead Nasr had flicked to life the single bare bulb that dangled from a length of chain and wire at the far end of the room. It swayed slowly back and forth, though there was no breeze, and set the shadows to swaying with it. Devon squinted at Nasr, peering up at the demon who was silhouetted one moment, and lit along the plane of cheek and curve of horn the next.

“Don’t fuckin’ care. Gonna saint your fuckin’ peter if you don’t let me the fuck down,” Devon snapped. Or, he meant to. It was not as vehement as he would’ve liked. He couldn’t breathe properly, and the words were more groan than growl. How he wished his head would burst as it seemed intent on convincing him it would.

“So, this mother fucker, he gets himself arrested for being Christian. Now, he’d been arrested before, and got outta that shit, but not this time. This time, Nero was in a bad fuckin’ mood over these fires that were goin’ ‘round, and he decided he was gonna blame the strange fuckin’ Christians for it. And as we all fuckin’ know, the Romans loved their goddamn crucifixions.”

Nasr stepped around Devon as he spoke, circling the cross so that the bouncing of his voice continued to shift and distort at different angles. Pain lanced up Devon’s left leg and into his gut, and he was left choking on a curse from something so simple as an idle flick of finger to toe.

“And,” Nasr paused to giggle uproariously, “And this motherfucker— This motherfucker, he goes ‘Wait!’ Like the Romans are gonna listen to his ass? He was such a fuckin’ little bitch the whole time that they went and nailed his ass in instead of just tyin’ him. So they get this old man all strung up, and he’s whining and bitching like you’d expect some motherfucker on a cross to do, and then this fucker. This fucker! He goes, ‘No! Wait!’” Nasr pitched his voice high in mockery. “I have an even better idea!” The demon paused his story, and his circling, to giggle anew. He snorted and horked as he quelled the roil of sound. “Fuckin’ says he ain’t worthy to die like that illegitimate bastard brat. Says he wants them to raise his cross upside down.”

Nasr’s silhouette stopped in front of Devon. It tucked in on itself as he laughed. It wasn’t the good, jocular sort of laughter that meant that Devon got to share in. It was laughter that was dark in its mirth, and unpredictable in its promise. It set Devon to whimpering, his bindings flexing for how his chest heaved.

“Course you know, they fuckin’ did it, cus that shit’s hilarious. Best fuckin’ part is now all these little baby wanna-be Satanists are running around with ‘I-ain’t-worthy’ crosses round their necks.”

“Yeah, well,” Devon croaked thickly, “I ain’t no fuckin’ saint.”

Nasr tittered and leaned down to smack Devon’s cheek. It was a mockery of affection, too hard to be comfortable.

“No,” Nasr agreed. “No; you ain’t.”

Nasr stepped back, then turned away from Devon entirely.

“How long you think it’ll take you to die that way?” Nasr went rifling through a misshapen pile that Devon could not see clearly in the hard, but limited light of the single bare bulb. Devon could hear the thump of a plastic jog, a slosh of something wet. The clatter of metal against metal was dull and then high, and something gave a wet, flashy slap to the cement flooring. “Maybe you won’t.” Bare feet smacked their way over.

“Maybe you’ll just hang there for fuckin’ ever,” Nasr taunted. A small, limp, and cold hand flopped against Devon’s face. The stink of it through the reek of the room had him choking. “Keep your fuckin’ ass outta trouble, huh?”

Nasr’s teeth caught the light when he turned, all sharp, glistening edges past the wicked curl of his lips. Devon coughed and wheezed. His face was starting to tingle, the pressure to bother him less. Rank, lifeless fingers probed at his nostrils.

“What you think, Dev-o? Think you’n keep yer nose clean?”

Nasr laughed. Devon did not. His stomach twisted. But then.. then he felt it. That distant dulling of sensation. Maybe he really would die like that.



Alas, it was not to last. Devon woke again to a cold splash of water over his face. Nasr had flipped on the dying florescent tubes recessed into the drop panel ceiling. Devon sputtered as the water ran from his chin to his chest, sluicing toward his feet for how he’d been turned upright while he was out. The demon was all grins, and he dropped the bucket he’d been holding with a loud clatter. The basement stank, and it seemed there was blood everywhere. Even Nasr’s bare torso and grungy jeans were mottled with the stuff.

“Again, Dev? Your ugly ass don’t need all that beauty sleep. Shit.”

Nasr’s fingers pinched a fresh bruise to Devon’s cheek. Devon worked what paltry bit of spit through his mouth that he could sum up, then sent it flying with all of the force he could muster. The result was a pathetic trail of drool that hurled itself down along his chin and dribbled cool onto his chest.

Nasr pointed with one long, nearly human finger. “HA! Poor widduh baybeeee.”

Devon grunted against the pain that continued to run through him in waves of hot and cold.

“Fuck you. Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou. Let me the fucking fuck down from here you fucking cocksucking mother fucker.”

“Nahnahnah. We’s havin’ a history lesson here, Dev!” Nasr stepped wide around Devon. “Now this. This is closer to how that so-called fuckin’ son of the Almighty was crucified, yeah? ‘Least in your pretty little stories. Now, I ain’t got no lance…”

Nasr raised a paint stick with one of the cheap steak knives from the kitchen strapped to it. Devon stared at the wads of gray tape that circled the thing rather than at the blade. It made things easier that way. It still didn’t stop him from thinking about how dull the blade was, though.

“Put that fucking shit down.”

“… but I figure this’ll do,” Nasr continued as though Devon hadn’t interrupted. “So this guy, he wants to see if this fucker is dead before they break his legs to hurry him along, cus he sure is taking his sweet fucking time. And he takes his lance like, and he sticks good ol’ Jesus right here like this.”

    The knife caught Devon in the ribs, right through his bindings. Devon hollered, his head dropping as he reflexively sought the wound to gauge its severity. It was impossible to see past the coils of gray, dead intestine that wrapped him. He pulled his head up again, gasping eagerly for air as he did so.

“Or was it here?” Nasr asked lightly.

The knife struck carelessly to the other side. The blade was dull and nicked. It tore a ragged path through Devon’s skin and pierced into muscle in a burning shot. Devon roared at Nasr and made to thrash, but that set him to stilling and shrieking as he encountered the resistance of the nails embedded in his hands and feet.

“Naaaaah,” Nasr mused right through the volume of Devon’s agony. “What about.. heeere?” The knife drew a fine slit through soft tissue before plunging past and into the heat of Devon’s belly.

Devon choked. He shuddered and broke into sobs, tears rolling hot and fast along his cheeks. It was too much, even with all that Nasr had put him through. Being wrapped in that boy was bad enough, but the pain went beyond agonizing. Every time he started to adjust to it, Nasr would find aw ay to bring it screaming back again. He couldn’t even die to get away from it.

“Wait, no. I think I had it right the first time.” Nasr leaned close with a smirk. “Ohohoh! I almost forgot. Good ol’ Jesus had himself a crown of thorns or some shit, yeah?”

Nasr dropped the knife to the floor as he turned away, adding to the collection of blood around the beam. He stepped around Devon, but returned in short order with a filthy, battered ball cap that looked to have been fished up from the bottom of a dumpster. It had half a logo embroidered on the front, and it stank of shit and rotten food. Small brass circles gleamed about its base.

“Now, I ain’t got no thorns, but I pulled some real Martha Stewart shit here.” Nasr hooked the cap onto Devon’s head. It prickled and poked in a tight circle, the points of inlaid tacks digging at his skin. The demon’s grin was full of glee and teeth. “It’s amazin’ whatchu can do with carpet tacks, ‘ey Dev? Maybe I should get me my own fuckin’ talk show.”

Nasr’s too-large hands pressed along the base of the cap, securing the circle of tacks into Devon’s skin. The discomfort escalated to join the hymn of pain resounding through Devon’s body, turning briefly blinding. He licked at the tears and snot on his upper lip, and blinked rapidly against the rivulets of blood that ran into his eyes.

Nasr stood back to admire his handiwork, hand propped to chin. Just when it seemed his grin could go no wider, it did so anyway. The demon stepped nearer to Devon, then leaned to press himself close, chest crushing against chest past the malleable loops of intestine. A long, hot trail of spittle eased the passage of Nasr’s tongue along Devon’s cheek. Nasr bumped the tip of his nose under the ridge of Devon’s cheekbone, his breath rolling over skin and saliva both.

“These fuckers’ll do more than crucify you if they get ahold of ya, asshole.”

Nasr’s teeth needled and tugged at Devon’s lips. Devon’s heart raced for the bursts of silvery pain that shot into his cheeks and sinuses for it. His heart raced, and his eyes watered anew, but he didn’t dare move. Even moving to sob had hurt. A soft, strange grunting filled his ears. It reminded him of the noise rabbits make in their death throes, but he was distantly aware of the fact that he was the one making the sound.

Nasr released Devon’s mouth and turned away. The demon’s tails twisted and dragged behind him, jutting from the filthy skin above Nasr’s waistband. One long finger hooked over the switch near the base of the stairs, flicking it down even as Nasr’s head went turning to peer over his shoulder. Devon gasped into the darkness, his head rocking back against the beam. A single, malevolent eye glowed in Devon’s direction.

“You just lay low, Devvy-poo. I’ll see ya in three days.”