Renegade Reborn

Part 7

Ren sat in the high-backed ebony chair, his mood as dark as the oil he was using to clean a handgun. The table in front of him was laden with an assortment of weapons, from firearms big and little to all sorts of blades. None of them actually needed cleaning- only an idiot let his equipment degrade when he might need it at a moment's notice. Everything was already in top condition, but the disassembling, wiping, and oiling took his mind off everything going on and gave him something to do.

Ren rarely used this sprawling chateau on the French coast, and he figured he was due for a visit. He owned dozens of properties scattered around the world, all of them ready for whenever he dropped in. He was all alone in the place, now that the immortal staff had mostly been given temporary leave. The silence was almost eerie with not much to fill it, and even though the sun shone brightly through the windows, everything inside still seemed grim and dark. Which suited Ren's glowering mood quite well, actually.

The potted plants in the corners, vibrant and green with life when he entered, were reacting to him, Ren realized as he cast a glance around the great hall. Green fronds had withered and turned brown and were now crumbling to dust under his glare. Ren growled and stood up, putting the gun and cloth down. He stamped over to one of the dying plants and knelt in front of it.

Ren gently held the stem between two fingers and stared down at the twisted brown shaft and its curled leaves. His evaluating gaze stayed on the plant for a while, until, with a disgusted grunt, he plucked the shoot out of the soil, crumpled it in his fist, and reduced the clump to floating ashes with a hard glance. Ren stood up and wiped his hands together, cleaning off the residue. He waved one hand at the table of armaments and everything disappeared, all teleported back to their proper places.

Ren's scowl stayed in place as he walked out through one arch and down a stone hallway. The scowl lightened as he opened the dark wooden door on the left side and stepped through, gently shutting it behind him. Low lights, automatically switched on with his entrance, suffused the dark honey-colored wood floor with a warm glow. Ren surveyed the art studio thoughtfully, his eyes moving to the empty easel and canvas and his rack of brushes and paints and a clean palette. He descended down the step to the sunken central area and immediately headed for that waiting canvas.

Ren's movements were quick and sure as be opened up several of the paint containers and applied daubs to the palette; he spread the brushes out on the table at his side, organized from thinnest to thickest. As Ren went about his preparations, his scowl gradually lifted, replaced by the calm face of concentration. When he finally picked up one of the brushes, he paused before even dipping itin the paint. His eyes narrowed and head tilted to the left as his lips pursed in thought. Then his head snapped back upright and the tip of the brush descended into the red.

Ren's forehead was furrowed, and his face was a mask of fierce concentration. His brush dashed across the canvas, paint shaping the image prominent in his mind's eye. Dark, fiery reds and oranges and grim greys and blacks filled the exact left half of his painting, and a jagged crack ran down the very center. Now his hand began to flash across the canvas again, across the untouched right half.

Something different emerged on this side of the painted crack- the color scheme was completely changed. Serene blues and whites and brilliant golds spread around this portion, forming a separate half-image. Finally, Ren laid his finer detailing brush down and placed the palette on the side table.

He stepped back and eyed his work critically, the paint still glistening wetly in some places. On the left side, he had depicted the walls of the flaming pit of Hell, pitted with the holes of cave entrances. Half of a shadowy, mountainous palace rose against the crack in the canvas' middle. Up against the right side was half of a tiered white city, glowing with sunshine and divine light against a celestial blue background with fluffy white clouds clustered around the bottom.

Ren had signed the work at the bottom, in the middle, so that the 'Renegade' began in Hell and ended in Heaven. Kind of fitting, he thought. Half and half, I am, not completely one or the other.