The Sin Hunter: Double or Nothing

A Sweet Little Guppy

Bile crashed into the laboratory space, startling everyone including Griffith, who had been working with trembling hands on the final pieces of the serum in its container. As the last drop was prepared, this painstaking drop which would determine the life and death of his beautiful experiment, the doors blowing off of their hinges caused Griffith to react instinctively. Opposing the idea of screwing up the serum, Griffith flung the vial of Hydroxide in the opposite direction where it smashed against the wall inches from a light fixture. Griffith reached for a towel provided by his assistant Carlyle, dabbing at his face in anxious relief.

"Thank goodness," he breathed before Bile stormed up the platform steps, dragging his nails through the hide of the aluminum table by the corner. Griffith paused his sweeping up glass from the vial, picking his next choice of words very carefully. The trouble with Bile, as Griffith had come to learn through years of painstaking experiences and work, was that starting a conversation with the right hand man of the former Ruler of Greed was akin to walking the tightest wire in Hell. Every choice had to be no less than perfect, or the consequences would be grave. "I take it the meeting went horribly?" Griffith asked after a long pause.

The sound of a chair scraping on the floor deafened the scientist's ears as footsteps approached Griffith by the wall. Planting a shadow across Griffith's smaller, hunched form, the pillbug-like demon turned to face the tiger shark, whose watermelon-sized biceps rested on the wall beside the Exit door. "The Sin Hunter broke through our defenses. And unless we get this serum working now, we can't keep lying to the Stripe." Griffith nodded, finishing his sweeping as he drained the dustpan into a garbage can. Slamming the lid shut, Griffith puffed out his insectoid chest, eyes narrowing.

"Well," he gestured, "you're Bile, Beelzebub's right hand man. What do we do?" Bile slid a hand through the ripples of his fin, sighing. "Yeah. You're right." Griffith nodded, returning to his chemical tubes and hooks. "Progress is at seventy eight percent, Bile. The serum's too close to pass up thanks to this work." Bile nodded, slicking back his shimmering scars and the tinted green lenses on his face back. "I've got some calls to make and a pub I need to drink at. Let me know when you finish up here." Griffith nodded, stacking a pile of folders in his cabinet beneath the scratched table. "Will do, Boss."

The Sinner's face exploded against the garbage can as the tiger shark bouncer pummeled the gang of crooks against the walls, smashing bone and blood into brick and iron. Maybe these Sinners have lives outside of their day-to-day businesses. Or, the alternative, nobody will miss them when they're too crushed underfoot to speak. Bile hefted one of the largest of the crooks from the ground, driving his fist square into the jaw with a sickening crack. Bile thought about how they had tried to approach him minutes ago. How he had tried leaving the alleyway, and they had blocked him off. He reasoned with them, yes. 'I tried to give you a chance to run,' Bile thought to himself, slamming the Sinner into the lip of the dumpster.

A security spotlight above the alley began observing the scene with fixated intent, zooming in on the murder in progress as Bile recalled the scene. He had raised his hands, offering a chance to leave. "I'll just be gone, fellas. You never have to worry about me again." Another sickening crack as the Sinner began wriggling now, sporadic movements throwing off Bile's timing just enough to become irritating. "Nah. That's a nice watch you got there," the first of the Sinners, a skinny, six-eyed freak of a punk had laughed, walking forward with confidence and a pocket knife. The knife and his confidence were stuck oozing from the skull now, one arm draped against the corner of a box.

Bile cracked his bloodied knuckles, dragging the blood over his pocket square. "People call me a Devil. A monster, a crap show for the weak." The Sinner on the cold stone alley floor crawled for a box in the back, wire fence shaking as they struggled to climb. Bile closed his eyes, walking as slow as possible toward the Sinner. "I was like you once. A frail little guppy whose mom and dad cared so much for. I was their precious little jewel in a sea of pearls." Bile lifted the bleeding, damaged Sinner from the ground, dragging them toward the fire hydrant in the open of Pride, inches from shadows. "And then your kind came along. All it took was one bad night..."

In the reflection of the bloody light above, the Sinner was beaten through, his jaw hanging slack on his shoulder, an arm sagging by strands of organic mass and bones shattered and jutting from the skin. "I make sure that what your kind did that night, in a drunk, self-serving, free world lovin' state of 'the common good', never, EVER," Bile snarled, leveling his gaze with the scared and wounded eyes of the Sinner in his hand, "poke your ugly heads higher than your god ever let you. Sinners deserve every damn ounce of crap you've been dragged through, put down, shoved, choked, stomped on, burned out and harassed with, and do you know why you deserve all of that?"

Bile carried the Sinner through the street to a lamppost, setting the bleeding, beyond helping Sinner against the pole in agonizing cold. Bile cracked his knuckles, fixing his glasses and sharpening his teeth. "Because humankind is flawed. And the people who say they're not? They're more screwed in the head than anybody around 'em." Bile stepped onto the curb as floodlights from a large truck swept over the street, bathing the road in shadows as the Sinner let out something that sounded like a muffled scream. "Now I ain't gonna kill you, sir. Or you're a girl with short hair, I could care less." Bile crouched on the curb, sliding his hands around the Sinner's legs like a child taking a baseball bat.

"Can't say I ever could. But I can let other things do the heavy lifting for me. And you've gotten enough blood on my suit as is." As the truck barreled forward, sliding along the curb oblivious to the tall, muscular killer by the street, Bile swung the Sinner into the air by the legs, catching the bleeding human in a spray of blood and red foam as they exploded against the surface of the truck. Bile was left holding two stumps of legs, tattered with ragged pants. Chuckling, the tiger shark cracked his knuckles, dropping the stubs down a sewer grate on the curb. Dusting off his hands as the truck behind screeched around in wild panic, Bile whistled a tune to himself, disappearing into the crowd of people in the heart of Pride.