The Sin Hunter: Double or Nothing

An Unexpected Visit

Back in the hotel room on the twenty eighth floor, where the window out overlooked a beautiful scene of the Manhattan skyline, Cynthia paced back and forth, rubbing her eyes as she stepped past a stack of papers and piles of thread and rope. The ordinarily sunny, even rarely flashy scientist had pushed through the night with organizers and folders to further analyze their enemy and the plan of attack. But with nothing arriving with further news, Cynthia was becoming distraught, doubling back on herself and panicking as if mentally insane. After tripping over a stack of papers, scattering the folds of white and beige across the floor, Cynthia paused, eyes twitching wildly.

Everything was simply too tired to keep moving. Cynthia wanted with every ounce of her being to swing at the stacks of paperwork and clues, but her eyes would not let her get a chance to strike. Instead, she wandered into the living space, crashing onto the couch and falling asleep in record time. As Cynthia rolled over in her couch bed, she felt herself moving her hands down, lying flat before her glasses nodded off with the rest of her silver hair. "Just five...minutes..." Cynthia whispered.

"Doctor? Hello? Is your communications transmitter functioning?" Cynthia opened her eyes in stunned shock, sitting forward in a grassy field in what she could only presume was Iceland. The sky was deep, gloomy gray, indicating some time around 9:30 at night. Cynthia didn't understand how she knew that number. Most dreams don't outright speak the truth nor lies. But that voice...she recalled a voice like it all too well. Fixing her welding goggles-wait. No, she wore glasses. Cynthia removed the welding goggles in stunned puzzlement, inspecting the nicks and grooves in the lenses. "I haven't worn these things in years," she muttered, and then the being appeared.

He walked slowly through the fields of moss, stone and volcanic residue, a large, shredded cloak giving way to a pristine suit of black and blue armor. Morpheus removed a black-coated gauntlet from beneath the cloak, reaching his titanic fingers to tip the brim of his sea captain's hat. "Doctor Cynthia Aurelias Florence. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." Cynthia crossed her arms, chuckling as she approached her former employer. "What's with the black? Never took you to be a secretive cephalopod of your stature." In Hell, Cynthia had been Morpheus' right hand woman, serving as the chief of bioengineering and chemical industries in her research.

Now, having fled the land of the Damned, Cynthia was a modern physicist and professional marine biologist. "You've changed," she commented, "what's happening?" Morpheus removed his breathing apparatus, tentacled beard and scarred, clam pale flesh revealing itself beneath the steel black coat of arms. "Oh, Doctor. You made the right choice, leaving Hell when you had. Three steps ahead of your former." Cynthia brushed back her lab coat, surprised. "What do you mean? What's going on?" Morpheus waved a gauntlet forward, the silver of his fingers clashing with the pearl black flashing along his sleeves.

"Hell has prepared itself for a war. The Overlords, those who deem themselves worthy of our audiences, have formed an alliance and are in hiding, biding time until the bloodbath begins. Those who cannot support themselves have found fortunate circumstances in my home and in Satan's empire." Cynthia stamped her foot on a pile of volcanic rock while a constant breeze rocked the tall clumps of grass across the field. "That's awful! You mentioned a war, however. Who's fighting it?" Morpheus shook his weary head, gauntlets crossed while pulsing blue wires snaked across the chest plate through the leggings.

"We do not know. And that stresses the circumstances, given how little even my own team understands." Cynthia nodded, strapping her welding goggles around her neck in a fidgety motion. "I see. That's not good. If Hell's bracing its walls for a war, then we need to get Jack right away. He'll be able to bring everybody together." Morpheus nodded, strapping his breathing apparatus closed over his face again. "I agree with that. The influence the Sin Hunter had on all of Hell is far too large to disregard." Cynthia pounded one hand into her other, a flashing grin striking her face. "Great! Then that's settled." Morpheus waved a hand as rumbling rocked the Icelandic field.

"Oh, and Doctor?" He called. Cynthia turned for one last moment, feeling something dragging at her heels. "Yeah?" She yelled back. As the volcano in the distant East exploded, dirtying the sky with blacks and oranges, Morpheus' final message was muffled out as Cynthia sat upright, eyes blinking wildly. She was back in the hotel room.