The End is Only the Beginning

"You've got nowhere to run, Puppy." The gravelly voice of Johnny Halloumi called out from behind his cover.

He wasn't wrong. This was bad. My back was up against the edge and the only way out was down.

Lifting my face, I let the salty rain splash against my cheeks for the last time, flowing down my horns and soaking the shoulders of my leather coat. I cracked my neck, feeling the collar tighten against the movement and the leash dangle down my front.

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah." I mumbled to myself, reaching into the coat and pulling the pack of cigarettes into the downpour.

Shit. I thought, pulling the last spliff from the paper packaging and placing it between my lips. How fuggin' poetic.

With a snap of my fingers, an azure blue flame lit the tip of the middle one. Raising it to the end of the cigarette, I shielded both from the rain as I lit the fyreleaf and took a long drag.

"You hear me!?" Johnny yelled out again, poking his head around the corner. "Give me your leash, Puppy. And give up the girl!"

"Yeah?" I replied, exhaling a cloud of smoke, watching as the rain cut the vapour like knives through a curtain. "Suck my dick, Johnny. How about that for a proposition?"

"You're a dead man, Puppy. You hear me?! Dead!"

Taking another drag off the cigarette, I stepped back, resting my heel on the ledge.

"Yeah? That's what they all say," I laughed, the smoke coming out as small clouds. "Promises. Promises. You want me so bad, Johnny, then come and get me, pussy."

I took a second step back, resting both heels down over the edge. I felt the wind kicking at my coat as I glanced over my shoulder. I was at the topmost level of the Termine, at the edge of the world, and beneath me was the three-mile plummet to the nethers. The bottom. Where this all began. The place that sewer rats like me call home.

By the time I glanced back, it was happening. A dozen goons were rushing me in their fine pinstriped suits. Their guns were drawn as they formed a half-circle around me and prepared to fire. And then there was Johnny, with his gold chain and that greased-back hair.

He walked towards me, his Termine Typewriter drawn, the submachine gun that those goons loved so much to use. But he only held on with one hand. The other reached towards me, still trying to take my leash.

I smirked, plucking the cigarette from my lips with two fingers as I pointed towards his weapon.

"You man enough to keep hold of your toy with one hand?"

By the time Johnny had opened his mouth to speak, it was too late. The cigarette was falling from my grasp as the fingers that held it pointed the goon's way.

"CRASAAK!" I hissed in my hellish tongue, expending the last of my magic to fire a single bolt of azure flame through the space between his eyes.

His body didn't have a chance to hit the ground before the gunfire began to rip through me. Tumbling backwards, my body began to fall. The wind was whipping at my coat as the rain seemed to race away from me, climbing its way back up to the ceiling. The lights of the ascendant grew distant, becoming stars painted on the ceiling as I fell.

Hell of a way to go.

I flipped myself over so that I faced the darkness beneath me. The lights of the nethers blinked into existence as I fell towards the bottom of the world. Towards my end. Towards home.