The twisted body lay in a deep red pool of blood. The poor man was unrecognizable.
His features were crushed and mashed out of socket and his face could hardly be seen through the stream of blood. All you could see were the eyes – the deep brown ovals that emanated the man”s intelligence.
The man”s mockery and contempt for the people who were now being so cruel to them flowed from the chocolate caverns. The man slowly pushed himself back off the now-red cobblestones. In a last show of scorn for his torturers, this brave, stupid man spat on the street at their feet.
Holding his head high, the man drew a dagger from his belt.
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“I would rather die than tell you anything,” the man hissed, and with a cry of triumph, he drove his rusted dagger into his breast. His now useless corpse slumped to the ground, never to rise again.
One of the torturers slowly stepped toward the paling corpse. This new man was not a plain torture master, he was the King of torture, but even that is not enough to describe this man. Not even close. He had to be the god of pain as nothing less would suit his cold, black heart.
This man, so cruel and merciless, would kill his own mother without thinking twice, his own child without a blink of an eye and even his employer if the time was right.
He is not a man with scars all about his face or blood covering his clothes or even a man to carry weaponry. This man was a tall dark character. Everything about him was black, from his soul to the thin goatee he was now stroking. Except his pallid skin, paler than those touched by death, which made him more terrifying than anything.
Now picture this image, a man with hair as black as the abyss with such white skin as to be envied by all the French and Chinese maidens. A man who wears a large hat with an even larger feather, all the color of charcoal. His entire ensemble was like looking into the void.
If anyone is unfortunate enough to be so close as to be able to see his eyes, they would find a stark contrast to the now corpse at his ebony-clad feet. That corpse had eyes intelligent enough to be full of hatred. They would reflect the soul of the being that used them.
Our dark man was a conundrum. His eyes did not seem to reflect the darkness of his soul. They were the lightest of blue, so light they appeared colorless against the pupil. Laugh lines edged the forsaken eyes, making him appear more human, more real. Less like a reaper out hunting. On closer inspection, though, even an animal would notice they were blank, desolate reflections. No joy or love. Only malice and contempt. That is why he could do his job, no, excel at his job.
This dark man stared down at the corpse. A sort of guilt formed at the edge of his mind, but not as a sign of human compassion. It was quite the opposite. He felt guilty because he had pushed too hard on the poor soul. He felt guilty since the man had been able to take the easy way out. In the future he would be sure to prevent that. No longer would his victims rob him of his amusement.
In a sudden outburst, he slapped his thigh with his ebony gloves. With a decisive flick of his wrist, he dismissed the corpse on the cobblestones bathed in red. Some of his men quickly collected the body, throwing water onto the stones, washing the evidence into the gutter.
Our dark man crossed the street to a hulking black Hackney stallion. The beast wore a finely detailed silver saddle and bridle, the only distinction in the dark that this beast existed. With the finesse of an acrobat, the torture god swung himself into his saddle to survey the men at work. The body was gone, the knives put away, the light shutters opened. His work here was done.
A click of a tongue, horseshoes clattering in the quiet night, and cobblestones stained red with blood.
The night was still young.
Claire Whitley can be reached at [email protected]