The Sin Hunter: Double or Nothing

Collection Time

Griffith sat in the laboratory late that night, his eyes baggy and worn from lack of blinking. The formula had been prepared through hours of excruciating chemical combinations and scientific experiments. Griffith felt as if he had endured every minute of his old Chemistry IV classes all over again. Fifteen experiments, twelve lab reports, and notes taken at such an exaggerated rate that five notebooks had been filled and Griffith worried his fingers might fall apart like the crumbling lead in his three used pencil shavings.

As Griffith trembled violently, every muscle in his body aching from the excitement, he pressed down on the buret and the titrated concentration in the long glass tube. Twisting the knob on the stopcock at the bottom, one drop plunged from the tube to its demise in the dark green chemical combination below, rippling on the surface as jade green flashed and shaped into a beautiful emerald green. Griffith collapsed into his chair, one hand clasped over his mouth and the other hanging slack by his side. "Holy shit," he muttered, "it's finally done."

As Griffith wheeled away from the table, spinning in his chair, the elevator doors into the laboratory slid open, and the dark green tiger shark stepped through, sleeves rolled tight around his elbows and a cigarette swishing around his razor-sharp grin. Griffith spun slow and cautious, keeping his hands pressed behind his head. "Thank goodness we arranged that deal. Lo and behold, sir. The Nocturne's Corpse formula." Bile stepped past, removing his shades. Two pairs of beady black eyes flashed in the darkness of the laboratory, inspecting Griffith carefully.

"You've pulled my leg so hard it's dislocated, haven't you?" Griffith sat forward, clasping his hands together and rubbing his sweaty palms back and forth. "Not at all. With five notebooks filled and enough lab reports to make your head spin, I created the perfect, unalterable substance for our beautiful breed of super soldiers." Bile lifted his sausage fingers to gently cradle the bottleneck, lifting the tube into the air and swirling the glowing green contents. "Hmmph. You even made it green." Griffith smiled, removing his fogged glasses from his face.

Sliding them into his pants pocket, he said, "It's nothing, really. And the green was necessary for the final touch. A pinch of chlorine to tie together the unstable acid and base combination." Bile set the tube back in its case, turning slowly to face Griffith. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, Griff. And you've stuck with this project for weeks." Griffith raked his fingers back across a bare scalp, his eyes twitching slightly. "It's nothing at all, boss. My family lives in Sloth, so I figured I'd be doing them a service by producing the future in a bottle."

Bile paused there, his arms crossed behind his back. It was here that, even in the dark of the isolated laboratory, Griffith could see the blood dripping from his fists. "You're hurt. What happened out there at your meeting?" Bile turned, fixing his shades before he tilted his head to the side, eyes flashing in the light from a single lamp by the edge of the room. "I'm not the one getting hurt. The ones who got hurt tonight deserved their pain and untimely demise."

Griffith slowed his breathing, popping out the collar of his old college hoodie. "Right. Sinners, probably. Nobody important." Griffith himself was a Sinner who had joined the party a bit late. At the request of a loathsome ex-girlfriend who registered him for the wrong class, Griffith had promptly thanked a fuming Demon for signing him up for a new career path. The rest is brief, but fascinating history. Though Griffith could sense the twinge in Bile's tone. As a Sinner himself, it made the conversation uncomfortable.

"I get how you feel, Bile. I may not have been the one setting you on your path, but it's my kind of people who did that. And I take partial blame for that." Bile turned slowly, as if he was winding up for a large clap back. But the tiger shark Demon said nothing, instead pushing his driver's shades back over his snout and turning away from the workbench, facing Griffith. "Can you make more of these vials?" The Sinning Scientist sucked in a long, deep breath, puffing out his chest before responding. "Could be days, could be weeks. But with a definitive formula locked down? Yes."

Bile nodded. A lack of a devilish smile and a concerned expression told Griffith enough about where Beelzebub's old right hand was about to go. "The Stripe's onto us. And I don't think he's just looking for our formula anymore." Griffith exhaled, standing up from his chair with an abrupt shift. "Well, then I know exactly what to do." Bile watched as his top scientist snatched the vial of pulsing green liquid from the shelf, then drew a strange box from his coat. "Mind giving me a light?" Bile stepped back, surprised by the request.

"You...you can't be serious," he stammered, but Griffith clenched his jaw tight, drawing a match from the box. "Dead as I am now." With a scritch and a snap, a matchstick flung through the air of the laboratory and struck the table full of documents and tattered notebooks. In seconds, the lab table was engulfed in flames, leaving nothing behind but the vial which Griffith tucked into Bile's large, dark green fingers. "The Stripe thinks you're the one who knows the formula. You don't, but you do have the only vial."

Bile felt the corners of his mouth twisting, curling into a smile and a flash in his impressed eyes. Flicking his shades up over his eyes, a large, terrifying smile pushed his cheeks back. "Damn, you got some spunk, kid." Griffith exhaled, dusting off his shoulder in the flickering flames of the lab. "Just doing my job." Bile tilted his head to the air, sniffing feverishly. "What's wrong?" Griffith's words echoed in the air around him, paying no heed to their tone. "Not smoke," the tiger shark Demon growled, "something bloodier."