#robert black

“You did it,” says Arthur in wonder, turning pages. “Fuck, is this blood?”

“You wanted it put to bed,” says Collins, ignoring the blood, his eyes still locked on me.

“Did you have to fight somebody? Are you all right? Fuck, this is perfect, though.” 

“What is it?” I say to say something.

“The Carfax case. Fucking preacher embezzling from his parishioners. This is proof from his own bank statements. We can take this to the cops.”

“Already did, boyo.”

More sirens pass.

Athur looks up a little sharply. “Without me?”

Collins looks back a second too late. Arthur caught him glaring at me.

The look Arthur gives him—an eyebrow raised, fucking challenging—is a whole sight to see. After all, it meant nothing, right? Hoo, boy.

Arthur shakes his head. “Well. At least tell me they’re making an arrest.”

“Mm,” says Collins.

Arthur takes that as a yes (which it is not) and heads to his desk, rummaging. Which Collins misses, because he’s looking at me again. Whatever. You’re on my list, boyo.

Collins’ eyebrows rise. Don't tell me he heard that.

“Right,” says Arthur, closing the drawer. “If we’re getting Luke back, there are things we’re going to have to do. It’s not going to be easy.”

My heart pounds. “You really think we can?”

"I do." He’s rummaging. “Dennis, where’s the rock?"

“The gray one?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Sirens roll past. I glance at the window, frowning. Fire, maybe.

Arthur looks up. “We’re trading it for a portal.”

And at last, Dennis Collins uncrosses his arms, takes a step forward, and looks like things are actually serious. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, hands up. “What? We’re what? What rock?"

"Dowd and I cracked a case together in upstate New York," says Arthur casually. "Broke up a cult, got them arrested or dead. They had this there." He holds up a gray stone. It's smooth; bigger than his palm. "This has power. A lot of it. They used it for generations. I'm sure it's enough to buy us a portal."

I feel sick. Bad taste in my mouth, bad feeling in my stomach. "What's to stop some fucking god coming through if we do that?"

Arthur looks at me. Then he pulls out a gun.

“You can’t shoot the King in Yellow!” I cry, at the same time as the Butcher goes, “You planning to use that on yourself when it goes wrong?” We look at each other. This is a weird-ass moment to be united.

“No, on his cultists.” Arthur tucks it in his coat.

Has he gone nuts?

He’s gone nuts.

Did I do this?

I did not do this.

“Arthur,” I say.

“We’re going,” he says. “I assume you have the balls to see it through, but even if you don’t, I do. That kid deserves help.”

He has gone nuts. “I’ve got your back, you whacko, you know that. But I'm not risking the whole damn world for my brother. The King? Remember that part? Kind of important?”

Collins eyes me. “Seems you’ve come a far ways in your belief in other things.”

Oh, what’s he know? I flip him off. “This is not your conversation.”

He smiles, but his eyes narrow, like he’s trying to figure out where to start stabbing.

Arthur ignores us both, loads up some more things, slams his desk drawer shut.

And sirens roll past.

You ever know something you shouldn’t know? Just… couldn’t know, but you do?

Something’s wrong. Real wrong. It's in Arthur's weird, sudden desperation. It's in the Butcher's heightened predation. It's in my jangled nerves. And I don’t know why, just instinct, maybe, but it has to do with us. “Arthur,” I say, real even. “Turn on the radio.”

He blinks, frowns, and turns the knob.

“—gunshots, and from what I can see, at least three hard-working cops are down. Lights flash in the windows, ladies and gentlemen, and the flames on the roof are burning even higher, no matter how much water is poured on them. The trucks are running dry. I repeat, if you are anywhere near the church on Federal Hill, if you have loved ones near, I suggest you pray they safely escape. Repeat, there is a—”

Gunshots. A lot of them. Screeching feedback. And then some sound I don’t know, can’t really hear but feel, even through the radio, and I know it’s some kind of laugh. The windows rattle; the bulbs shatter over our heads, and we all cry out, protecting our faces from glass. The broadcasts stops, followed by static.

All of us are pale. “Federal Hill?” says Arthur.

Collins frowns. “That place has never been right.”

And where more and more monsters have been appearing. Where Obed Marsh took his last stand. Where Robert Blake's been fucking around. "Shit."

Arthur looks at both of us, and now, I know another thing: we’re supposed to go. I don’t fucking know why, but we are. Maybe because we’re all in such deep shit that whatever’s happening is calling us. Maybe because of everybody in this town, we three are able to handle it. Maybe fate. I don't know.

What I do know is my city is screaming, and I won’t leave her to die. “Get your shit together. We’re going to Federal Hill.”

They both nod. Even weirder, to be on board with both of them, but this time, nobody argues.

#

Car is still out of gas, so we book it. That should be a lot more upsetting than it is, but it feels like we're caught up in something now, trapped in a current, and couldn't change plans if we tried.

I’m not used to running without that cape and mask, but I ain’t going back for them. I think I may never wear them again. Still, I set the pace; Arthur’s a wiry little hound and keeps up. (Please don’t be crazy.) Butcher’s got that long-stride going, tireless, breathing easy. (Don’t fucking attack anybody right now, you dick.) And it’s easy to see where we’re going.

Fire paints the night, hiding stars, turns the clouds above Federal Hill flickering orange. People are running down the hill toward us, some of them crying, holding each other, holding kids. They ignore us completely.

So many cop cars. So many fire trucks. But I see neither cops nor firefighters. Do see bodies, though.

All over. Everywhere. Uniforms on, badges glinting, hoses flat like skinned snakes, eyes dead and gathering rainwater.

We are nuts to be here. Something horrible has happened here. We have to be here. Fuck, I should have gotten my—

“It’s him!” cries Arthur.

Because Charlie is climbing the fucking building, wearing my cape, my mask, and he slips right in a window, visible literally for one fucking second because lightning showed him clear.

I gawk at him. I can't believe what I'm seeing. He—

Drizzling rain suddenly becomes a downpour, strangely hot and stinging.

Arthur runs for the chapel door.

I start to follow, and the Butcher grabs my arm. “I thought it was you,” he says, water sputtering from his lips, not bothering to pretend nothing. “It isn’t. I misjudged you, boyo.”

Oh, fuck this guy. I yank my arm away from him and bare my teeth. “Either help or fuck off.”

He just smiles. “Doesn't mean you’re not interesting, though,” he says, and follows Arthur.

I’m irrationally pissed he makes it in first.

#

Fucking dark in here. Fucking dark, made harder because the outside is bright with fire and lightning, and the windows are boarded up. A shout. Somewhere above me. Fuck.

I don’t know where anything is, but knowing Arthur, he just went straight, so I try that, tripping over old moldy hymnals and a couple of busted pews, and finally find the stairs.

The army fucked this place up. It's rubble. Holes everywhere. Even the circular stairway is ruined, narrow with half its steps missing, leading up into fire I can smell though I can’t see. Did lightning hit the roof? The hell happened up there?

Butcher laughs up there somewhere, so he must like it.

I run. Right hand on the wall, covering my mouth with my sleeve, because the smoke is getting thick. A huge boom shakes the whole fucking church, and I fall, go hard onto my knees on the last step, shouting as dust and stone pelt me from above.

Coughing, I look up.

It’s not dark any more. I get to my feet, ears ringing, whole world tilting, but there’s a full moon now? Clouds are gone? Lightning and rain is gone? Top of the damn church is gone?

But it wasn’t a full moon tonight. What is that? What is that?

“We already had several full moons in this sub-plot, after all,” says a voice I don’t know, and whoever it is cackles.

That’s the laugh from the radio. The one that busted the lights.

I make it to the top, wheezing. Collins grabs me at once, yanks me aside, and I would fight him, but I see why he did.

Top of this church is completely gone. The walls, the ceiling, big holes in the floor like boulders punched through, all open to the night. Jagged wood claws at the sky, snapped, smoke still rising. Arthur’s in front of us, holding a gun. And in front of him…

Blake? Oh, fuck me, I knew he was trouble. There he is, neat jacket and polished shoes, looking every bit himself except for that smile.

art by @flamdoodles for the malevolent big bang 2025

That smile is madness. His eyes aren’t black, but if he's not infested, I'll eat my hat. Gods-damn idiot!

“Let him go,” says Arthur, low, and pulls the hammer back.

“If that is human, I’m a donkey,” the Butcher whispers in Blake's direction, and his eyes… that glare, that gleam, like he’s seen the only thing he ever wanted in his entire life.

Blake (or whatever’s wearing his skin) brushes rubble off his shoulder. “No,” he finally answers Lester.

“Then you’re about to learn what mortal death is like,” says Arthur.

“But see that's the thing!” says Blake, and claps his hands, and smiles like the damned devil. “This has nothing to do with you, for once. This is the main plotline, ladies and lovers, right here, and you’ve stumbled into it like some drunk tourist bungling his way onto the stage when he just wanted the bathroom. It just figures you of all people would fall into it dick-first.”

Huh?

Blake’s looking at Arthur, and that smile… it’s worse than when the Butcher had him on the desk. It’s worse than the monsters I fight at night. It’s worse than anything I have ever seen, utterly hateful and possessive and malevolent, like he wants to fuck him and destroy him at the same time.

Ice crawls down my spine. I don't know what possessed Blake, what's come to town, but I have a choice, and I make it. I move to stand by Arthur’s side. I don’t want him alone facing a smile like that.

Blake or whoever glances my way. “Fucking Batman?” he says. “Wait. Phantom? You know, I think that’s too many ideas to pull off with grace, but whatever. Gentlemen, it’s been fun, but—”

Arthur fires.

Good shot. Right through the chest, right where the heart is.

Or should be.

Blake looks down at it, at the lazy, slow trickle of black ooze, and goes, “Huh.”

My breath goes shaky. That’s should’ve done something.

“Next one’s in the eye,” says Arthur.

“Oh, you are bloodthirsty,” Blake purrs like Arthur just gave him a bouquet. “And you two are at odds, I see. Oh, this should be fun.” He snaps his fingers.

Arthur doubles over, gasping. Golden lines, weird and jagged and golden, start sizzling all over his body, shining under his clothes, cooking his veins, and he screams.

“Oopsie,” says Blake, and looks at me. “Removed the bindings. I’m telling you because you just don’t know enough, and that’s boring, and I want you to know that Arthur would have tried not to kill you if he’d had a choice.”

“What?” I say, and that’s when Arthur’s left hand gets me around the throat.

His eyes. They’re golden. His eyes—

I can’t fucking—

“You could kill him first!” Blake calls through cupped hands like he’s razzing the umpire. "Fair's fair!"

Is there lightning in the distance, or is that just flashes because my brain’s dying? I don't… what's happening?

Can’t let this happen. I grip his wrist with my hands, swing up my legs, and kick his chest as hard as I can.

Arthur lets go, stumbling back. I fall on my back on some rubble, hard enough to cost my breath and send electric jolts through my limbs. Arthur stumbles and falls and suddenly he’s gone, gone through a hole, just fucking gone.

Blake laughs, clapping.

Arthur! I can’t fucking… get my breath…

Blake holds up some weird thing I've never seen before like he got it on vacation and wants to show it off: it's like a big fucking diamond, a marquise shape, flickering weirdly like it's got sick rainbows trapped inside. "It's a trapezohedron! I left this here on purpose like… a billion years ago. Okay, twenty. Left it neat and bound with my own personal symbol inside. I knew someone would find it and let me in. I mean, cultists are nice, and all, but all anybody honestly needs to get the party started is one arrogant, curious fool. Just so smart." He laughs again, and it's crazy, a crazy laugh, and I clasp my ears as he does, and it stabs me anyway. "Hey," he says to me. "Do you know you always die? What’s up with that? Death wish? At least you don’t have all the gambling debts that certain other Parkers—”

Collins comes out of nowhere. He’s silent. He’s fast. And the only reason I know he’s there is Blake holds out one hand, and Collins just… freezes. Strains, face red, unmoving. Trapped.

I gotta help. Gotta move. Gotta do something. I always die? What did that mean?

“Exploding you is getting boring,” Blake says as if to himself. “Maybe remove the bones? Wait, I know! You can fight yourself, which should be good for at least a couple—”

Charlie leaps onto his back and stabs him with my obsidian knife.

Blake shrieks.

I didn’t see him. Didn’t hear him. Apparently, neither did Blake. Charlie pulls it out and does it again, wielding it like a shard of night sky, and it goes right in where that bullet did.

Blake goes staggering like a lunatic, flailing like he’s in a swarm of bees, and Charlie hangs on and stabs again and again.

And I hear, “Help,” and it’s Arthur, it’s Arthur!

I crawl over (something in my back is… not okay) and find him clinging to a broken piece of wood with his right hand. It’s bleeding, splinters everywhere, and he’s dangling forty feet at least above the ruined chapel floor.

I grab his wrist and pull.

Takes everything I have.

Takes more than I have. Electric zaps are racing up and down my arms and legs now, but I won’t let him fall, I won’t let him fall, even if he’s… even if…

His eyes are… normal?

“I stopped him,” Arthur gasps, shaking, in shock, not okay. “I fucking…”

“Stopped who?” I whisper. But I know. I know. “Why was the fucking King in Yellow using your hand?” And giving him magic. And… oh gods. Charlie was right?

“Trapped a piece of him,” Arthur snarls. “After I did what I had to do, he showed up in my head, tried to take me, to control me. I…”

The King jumped into his head?

I can't tell if I'm breathing like this because I'm so wounded, or so shocked, or so betrayed, or so scared, or… “Those lines?” They left jagged black scars on his face, like somebody fucking branded him.

“Bindings. He had to do what I said. Had to obey me.” He's snarling. "That fuck had to pay for what he did."

So all these years, he had a piece of the King in… torment?

That… that’s not right. He should pay for his crimes but that isn’t… justice, that’s—

“He's quiet now," he rasps. Arthur’s bleeding from his ears. He’s bleeding from his eyes. I think he might’ve hurt his brain. "I hurt him so much." He raises his left arm.

His hand’s gone. Fucking gone. Blown off, exploded, like some of those guys from the War, only this is mangled, chewed into, hanging gobbets and veins and nerves, and I don't even know how he's not bleeding out. “Fuck, Arthur!”

“I wove in a failsafe,” he gasps, leaning into me while the Butcher strains and Blake staggers and Charlie stabs. “Even if he broke free, he’d only get a few seconds. He’s dead. I killed him.”

He killed part of the King in Yellow? Holy fuck! "You were the mortal host! How can he be dead?”

Arthur just shakes his head and don’t answer.

Charlie must’ve hit something important, because the Butcher can suddenly move. Gasping, abruptly tripping forward like his inertia thawed all at once, Collins falls to his knees beside us, gasping. Looks like he couldn’t breathe. “Fuck!”

We’re all fucked, buddy.

Blake slams Charlie onto a jagged two by four and impales him through the shoulder.

Charlie cries out. Lets go. Blake staggers forward, gasping. Looking down at his hole-ridden body. “You fucked it up!” he cries, accusatory. “Do you know how fucking hard it is to get some boffin in place and willing? You little shit. Damn it!” He sounds about as put-out as if somebody spilled milk all over him.

But that should’ve worked. The thing inhabiting him should be dead, released, escaping. The only way something like that could survive something like this and keep its host…

It can’t be a god. I gotta be wrong. Please, I gotta be wrong.

With electric zaps in my arms, with my legs going numb, I crawl for Charlie, who has the cape and mask, who has the only power we’ll have in this situation, who’s still alive but won’t be if I leave him there.

“Ugh,” says Blake, flicking black blood off his hands. It sizzles when it hits anything. Arthur cries out.

“Get up,” I wheeze at Charlie, tried to lift him off the damn wood. I can’t do it. My body’s betraying me. I’m not fucking strong enough.

“Don’t you mean not fast enough?” says Blake all sly, which he shouldn’t know, but hey, if Oscar’s god is a nightmare god, maybe this one’s a god of bad memories. Sure making a few of them tonight!

“Ha! You’re funny. Want to see a trick?” Blake spins once.

The wounds are gone. Gone.

This is a god. We're done. It's over. This world ends tonight, and nothing I ever did mattered.

No, no, I won't give up. We can kill the body. The human host. But how?

"I'm no Obed Marsh," says Blake like it's supposed to be funny, and applause comes from nowhere, and he buffs his nails on his shirt.

Arthur stands, left arm pressed to his chest, head down. Collins is looking at Blake like he’s thinking of trying again.

“Ew,” says Blake happily.

“Run,” Charlie says, blood bubbling in his mouth. “Run. It’s him. It’s N—” I never get to hear who it is. He coughs so much blood, getting it all over me, and his eyes roll back.

There’s a pulse. He isn’t dead. But he’s dying. Fuck!

Collins is frozen in a weird position. He definitely tried to attack again. Fuckwit.

Blake cracks up like that’s the best thing he’s ever heard as Arthur gets over to me, and together—me with my failing body, him with one fucking hand—we somehow get Charlie off that wooden wreckage and to the ruined floor. Charlie’s breathing real weird. He won’t have long.

“Hospital,” Arthur says, because we all need to go there, and fuck Charlie's paranoia about doctors.

“Sure, sure,” says N-whatever. “You’re all cute, but I am done, so done, dee-oh-ehn-ee done. But before I go, just for shits and giggles…” He raises one finger.

We all tense, brace, waiting.

“Aaaarthuuuur,” he sings it, and everything goes still. The clouds freeze. The sirens and screams outside go quiet. It’s just for Arthur, and the whole world is paused. “The kid who was murdered last week?” says N so sweetly, a love note, a crooning song of his own. “He did it.” He points at me. “Also that young lady three weeks ago, the twenty-one-year-old university student. Oh, and remember those chess players found beheaded in the park? He’s got style! The Phantom, ladies and gentlemen. Take a bow.”

I do.

It’s not my choice. I scream, something in my back hurting, burning. My body just obeys.

“Wh… what?” says Arthur, his voice so high-pitched, so pained. “What?”

“Oh, and this guy?” says N, pointing at Collins. “Carfax is dead, of course.”

“What?” Arthur cries.

“So is Ransom. Oh, and Smith—both of them, two for the price of one! In fact, all your clients are dead, and he did it. The Butcher, live and in person! Come on, you crude little thing, be polite.”

Looking like he’s trying to break his own teeth through jaw pressure alone, the Butcher fucking curtsies, and I know he didn’t have no more control over that than I did.

Why? Why is he doing this?

N beams. “Because it's fun, sweetums. Incidentally, Arthur, you have terrible taste. Good luck! With… you know, the triangle.” And he laughs. And laughs. And walks down those stairs not so much as tripping, not even bleeding anymore, looking like some human, and this is disaster, this is apocalypse, this is a god free in this world, and we have to do something, we—

Arthur steps away, out of reach. He’s white like the impossible moon glaring down at us from the tarnished sky. Staring at us both.

“Arthur,” I try. “Arthur, you don’t… We gotta go. We gotta stop him. Remember the god taking over the mortal form? Arthur! We gotta go after him, find a way!”

Collins says nothing.

Arthur’s breathing real fast. He looks back and forth, his eyes horse-crazy wide, his left arm bleeding weakly against his chest, flesh sticking to his shredded shirt.

No, no, no... “Arthur!"

“Well, I didn’t think you were ripe just yet,” says Collins, "but the fucking god was right. He’s the Phantom.”

“Arthur!” I point at Charlie, who’s breathing, but it’s bad, wet, uneven, what they call gulping, which means he is fucking dying.

Arthur’s got the gun. When did he get the gun? “You… you…”

Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck— “Arthur don’t. Don’t do this. We have to stop that guy."

The gun swings between us. Back and forth. Because right now, Arthur thinks I’ve just been murdering kids.

No! No! No! “Arthur! It ain’t what you think!”

“Oh, Arthur,” Collins says so gently, so sweetly. “You’re a magnificent beast when you’re stressed. Isn't it nice to know you and I can focus on ourselves, now? We don’t need to worry about it all working out, do we, not with this vigilante doing what needs done and culling the weak.”

He’s… he’s doing something. He’s making it sound real. Like I'm some psycho, out there just killing people for laughs. Oh gods. I suddenly think about weird deaths I know, about Elijah Strong supposedly killing himself in prison, about the Phantom standing still and letting himself get shot, about people doing insane things like walking into traffic. How much blood has the Butcher spilled? ”Arthur!”

Collins laughs. “Do it. If you’re fast enough.”

Arthur doesn't understand, looks from him to me. From me to him. Gun’s gaping end switches from him to me, me to him.

He doesn't understand! “I had to!” I shout.

Collins laughs.

And Arthur pulls the trigger.

————————

Notes:

Story name from this drink, invented by Hemingway and named after one of his books.

I have shamelessly borrowed (some might say. mutated) Obed Marsh from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and Robert Blake, the chapel on Federal Hill, and the Church of Starry Wisdom from The Haunter of the Dark by H.P. Lovecraft. In that later story, Nyarlathotep enters the world through the Shining Trapezohedron. Because you see, that was the actual plot of this story. Parker and co. just happened to stumble in. Oops!

Written for the Malevolent Big Bang 2025 event! Huge thanks to @flamiart and @iconiccookie for creating absolutely amazing artworks to go with this. I am blown away, and I know you will be, too.

There WILL be a sequel. Thanks for reading!