"Forgive my Lord for I have sinned"

Heorot Hall was said to be the taboo bar equivalent of The Dollhouse of Copenhagen before it even opened its doors to the public. Its far from humble beginnings were as simple as its original shady investors, The Creators of Heorot Hall, wanted a place hidden from the world’s (their own and the public) prying judging eyes to taste the forbidden fruit of the taboo. Of course, the taboo and the experience it offers can’t be expected to be kept a secret.
After all, many mortal souls have the hunger for the taboo, but lack the means to explore them. Heorot Hall created a haven for them with “King” Hrothgar as their protector. King Hrothgar, like his people, was a lover of the taboo. He was the face of Heorot Hall pressing the legal limits with his tastes and his lover, Prince Glenn.
As King and Prince, they stood firm; protecting their people, their identities, and their way of life. Many were disgust with what went on behind its dudgeon doors and many protested its establishment both peacefully and violently. Yet, no human mortal could ever dream to deliver such a protest that was to come…

Ken’s Playhouse, your average full service gay bar. Men danced and stripped in cages hanging from the ceiling with neon lights reflecting off every sweaty or oiled covered body. Flashing lights might as well have been the paint on the walls covering the bar from floor to ceiling. The men who were on the floor, often the slender petite almost child-like, would grind and ride against the poles, the bars, the metal chairs that they sometimes position themselves on, long weapons like swords, or to put simply whatever was handed to them that would gain the crowd’s attention.
After all, they wanted everyone’s eyes on them so that their master’s hands would steal into their pockets giving them every last dollar to see something more. If then those hands became more daring or their master more demanding than what one of the pretending boys had to offer or wanted to offer the bouncer of men, the protector of whores, Beowulf would come to their aid and break their hands or their master.
That was his job, at least the one that paid in cash. It was an odd job for an assumed straight man to have, but it suited the tall pale Sweden. Even though he didn’t look like he was going to exposed from his gapping muscles, he still had an iron curved stomach with strong firm legs. Anyone who knew or saw him fight knew that if by chance you could see one of his lightning kicks there was no chance of stopping it.
It was rumored that Beowulf was an underground fighter who escaped from Sweden because one of his fights went horribly wrong forcing him to leave his homeland. Details and so-called facts fueled this belief as well as others. Thousands of falsehoods fueled curious questioning minds of why a Swedish man, especially one such as Beowulf, worked for a gay bar in Denmark. None of them ever came close to the truth.
Besides perhaps tossing out a few “thugs” who became a little to rough after too many drinks the night was uneventful. Average nights such as these, to someone like Beowulf, were few and rarely lasted.
Heading home, he took the time to think of nothing, but what laid before his eyes, what the wind whispered against his skin, and the sound that molested his ear. It was peaceful, till his feet brought him before the alley that led him to his tiny functional apartment. The alley was empty of doors and dumpsters; and it was narrow with its single inhabitant being the blind homeless man who never left from where he sat.
Beowulf had his reasons to think the man a ghost or some figment of his imagination besides the fact he never left. He never saw him eat, drink, or do something so human like take a piss. Yet, Beowulf would pass him by and this figment or ghost’s tongue would loosen with tales of devils and angels. Things that he couldn’t ignore or take lightly. After all, that was his second job, his real job.
Walking passed him now, Beowulf could sense his average night vanish before the blind man ever spoke, “Parch Skin Angel, Earthbound demon…Grendel brings blood to an unwanted king and prince.”
Damn it…Beowulf thoughts expressed all of his frustration into two simple words as he halted himself to a dead stop turning to a man with an exaggerated wide smile. “Unwanted King and Prince? Do you mean our King?”
The blind nameless man shook his skull skinny head no. (Sometimes Beowulf wondered if one day the man would shake his head and snap his neck, he was so boney.) “The Prince will come begging for a hero, offering flesh…for blood. Go on claim your prize after your defeat, he awaits at a door.” He spoke in the same firm tone with the same lightweight passion pointing in the direction opposite of his apartment.
Beowulf thought his direction was wrong and dismissed it for the obvious of reasons, but his words-his mission remained entangled by his thoughts. Ironically or not, when he came to his door a pink sticky with an arrowed pointing down was taped down firmly . Someone wanted to make sure he received the letter thrusted beneath the bottom of the door. A letter that read plainly in bold black sharpie,
Keeper of Peace, deliver us into salivation. I will await for you at your bar after closing.
The blind man was right in his direction after all.

Beowulf didn’t bother to do much more than relock his door before heading off to meet the “unwanted prince”. His expectations lacked any foundation leaving him open for almost anything. When he saw the boy (whom gendered he guessed) waiting by the door he was caught off guard. Everything about the boy seemed to be unsexed besides his tight baby doll clothes, which were obviously a woman’s.
“I take it you’re the one who left the note.” Beowulf spoke raising the letter to eye level, holding it between his two index fingers. (Unable to say much else) The prince at first just stared distantly through veil of black hair that lingered in his face with his ghostly pale blue eyes. Beowulf tensed beneath the unthreading stare, but held his composer by remaining blank. “Yes, I’m Glenn. Your-” “Beowulf.” He cut him off simply to avoid the boy’s soft voice from saying his name. “Ah, Beowulf” The boy unknowingly mocked him, “Is what the blind man said true? Can you save our home?” Glenn suddenly became a princess by his stare alone giving Beowulf no choice, but to be his knight, “I can’t say I know what the blind man said to be true. Simply because I know not what he said. What I can say however is that I’ve never known him to lie and whatever it is your facing will be challenge by me. I’ve slayed swarms of beasts and brought gigantic forms of the devil to their knees. I’m beyond qualified…if that’s what your asking. Just what is it that has brought someone like you to someone like me?”
“Prince” Glenn turned away his silence saying more than his words. His current expression draining everything from him, “No one really cares for people like us. Those who dare to break society’s mental prisons. Everyday we when one of us steps out on the street we are prosecuted if we are known for what we are. Heorot Hall… it became a home to most of us and is the only place where we can be who we really are. Course, we have had fires set, windows broken, and rallies outside our doors. That was nothing for our King to protect us from, but…” Glenn paused to take a moments breath struggling to say what came next, “Twelve days…” Then like a glass rose kissing concrete he broke falling to his knees, throwing his hands out just to keep himself from going into complete submission. “So many dead…so many left as nothing more than shreds! A head here and a bone there. Blood flooded the floors, flowing over the stairs and walls- Bodies hanging from the ceiling! We tried the police, but they wouldn’t even come to our fucking street! We are nothing, but unwanted scum in their cities! They think we are better off dead!” The prince fell lower to the ground, “ We, my king and I have tried everything…criminals and hitmen…all of them were just added to the list…Its unhuman what has been done.”
Beowulf watch the unwanted prince or princess collapse beneath the weight of his heart, his people. He was a pour soul who cared to much…

Afterwards there wasn’t much left to be said, besides of course the address. Beowulf had lived in Denmark for a while, but was far from familiar with the city. He had heard of the bar only through tabloids, which were never kind to things such as these. Apparently, it was a playground where the sickos played. Truth be told, he could have cared less then as he did now. Who was he to judge?
The bar from the outside reminded him of a castle with it dudgeon doors and windows painted over with a heavy black stone designed. Inside it reminded him of a slaughter house. Glenn’s outburst was far from exaggeration. Even with the bodies gone and the attempts to clean up the gallons of blood, you could see the evil that had over swept the place, someone like Glenn, called home. It was obvious to Beowulf eyes that the creature who redressed Heorot Hall was far from finish with his work.
Night drank in the day and Beowulf sat waiting sipping on mead to warm his temper rather than his body. The creature would come…

Grendel would sleep to avoid his haunting state of mind. Everything on earth was a mockery to his being and his condition. A cruel joke by God, at his angels expense. Whether fallen, serving in heaven, or reigning in hell, all was a mockery.
Humans, God will always hold them higher despite their sinful ways. They could burn his houses, denounce his name, and at death utter a single phrase and all would be forgiven.
What about his first born? Did they not deserve forgiveness? What made humans so much better? Why did God love them more?
The questions and demands grew louder and louder within his sleeping mind with every sin being committed then forgiven. It made Grendel hunger for some compensation. One night, the hunger was enough to awaken him. The bone winged angel stretched his skeleton wings breaking the earth around him, while his burned skin hands crumbled the stone above him. Crawling out of his earthbound hell beneath the haven of Heorot Hall in the “forgiven” sky, he chose to lay waste to its occupants. Heorot Hall would be his stand, his mark against God injustice among his children and Grendel would return every night upon night to relive the blood oath until God chose to end it.
The angel entered from the basement door to Beowulf surprise. This demon whose masterpiece laid before him never left his canvas. A creature with what could have once been called a human body burned beyond recognition of gender or identity. The flesh of half his face ripped from the skull hanging by the other half that remain attach. His remaining eye hung out of his socket by its vein that moved up and down as the demon walk, still searching and noting everything within its vision. Yet, what Beowulf took notice first was what he consider to be the most dangerous of its features. They grew from its back, huge made of nothing more than blood stain bone…the angel’s wings.
The first thing that came to Beowulf’s mind was how he could kill something that was already dead and decaying. Vampires and zombies were easy creatures to deal with. You simply had to torch them, but a hell’s angel that survived the flames once could prove to be more challenging. Nothing he had read contain such a creature as a decaying angel.
Still, he had a job to do. Slowly he crept in the creature’s shadow as Grendel walked around dragging his feet in puddles of blood appearing to study his art. The angel lowered himself to his knees…
Beowulf jumped to strike the creature’s open neck with his loyal sword, coming within inches of his intended target before the angel sent him flying with a single backhand strike. He turned following his strike with a loud banshee screech of anger that shattered the windows and mirrors.
When his horrid screech subsided, despite his anger, he walked over to Beowulf who remained slumped against the wall unmoving coughing up blood. His sword was out of reach…
“Another human…another soul to be forgiven. I should deliver you to hell before you have a chance to utter those words, that simple phrase that stabs God’s love for you into out eyes!” Grendel screamed and Beowulf remained as he was.
Grendel grabbed Beowulf’s shirt, lifting him off the ground despite the misleading fragile look of them, “I could rip out your eyes with my tongue..swallow them, and it would be as if I was eating your soul.” He hissed his breath heavy with the smell of death.
Beowulf raised his head, smiling to Grendel’s confusion, but before had moment to ponder Beowulf’s hands were on his face twisting his head off his neck. The snapping sound was followed by the thud of the creature’s body. “Forgive me, my lord for I have sin.”