Unrivaled Resilience

Lying on the cold metal autopsy table in a perpetual state of lifelessness was Frederick Thompson, his icy blue eyes staring emptily at the ceiling. His pale, frozen skin was almost pristine, except for the grotesque wound opened across his stomach, which once housed the man’s essential internal organs. The hardened detective John Blythe, inure to the sight of disfigured and mutilated bodies, eyed the corpse up and down, unfazed by the macabre scene that lay before him – his younger counterpart, rookie detective Dale Wilkins, had almost vomited profusely after looking into the unfortunate man’s opened torso.

After a brief silence following the arrival of the detectives, Dr. Andrews finally spoke. “His stomach was cut open by some type of bladed weapon,” he said, shaking his head in pity. “It wasn’t the cause of death, however; he was left in the building where he was found and bled out.”

“Poor bastard,” Wilkins said in an obviously anxious voice. Without even looking to his partner, Blythe knew the rookie was distressed by the absence of his levity – a trait the strong, quiet detective found to be quite annoying. Wilkins often tried to initiate raillery between the two, but Blythe’s cold, aloof personality made it impossible – though, much to Blythe’s annoyance, this didn’t stop him.

“A swordsmith killed with his own blade,” Blythe ruminated after reading the report, which detailed a theft in the victim's blade shop. “How ironic.”

“That’s not ironic,” Wilkins chipped in. “Irony would be if-” he paused, feeling Blythe’s threatening stare without even looking at him. He took his partner’s unspoken hint, cowering back into silent thought.

Blythe continued to examine the body, pushing his contempt towards Wilkins’ jocularity into submission. Right now, there was a more important issue at hand than belittling his annoying young partner’s buffoonery.

The three men stood in silence, regarding every corner of the body. As of then, there were absolutely no leads as to where Thompson’s killer was.

“Who could do such a thing to an innocent man?” Dr. Andrews thought aloud.

“I think I have an idea,” Blythe’s cold, raspy voice muttered. In his mind, he painted a portrait of the killer; corpse-like pale skin, long black hair, and those terrible eyes…

Blythe shook his head, casting his thoughts aside. He turned and faced his partner, who looked to him with confused curiosity.

“And I think I know just where to find him.”

---

“Ah, transience,” the interloper said, his eyes gazing over the pregnant woman’s inflated stomach. “So very, very sad, wouldn’t you agree?” The woman ignored the man's cruel teasing, her mind and heart racing but managing to barely maintain a stiff upper lip.

“You know what?” he said, pacing around the empty concrete room. The woman sat in a wooden chair in the center, her legs and arms bound. “I think I’ll do you a favor; I’d hate to do something so horrible as killing an unborn baby. If you tell me where the fortune is buried, I’ll let you live.”

The woman looked into the interloper’s cruel, inhuman yellow eyes with fear and uncertainty. She knew of the man’s horrid reputation and was hesitant to give up her family’s hidden fortune for a blind hope of survival.

“What’s the matter?” the interloper taunted. “Usually you have such a humorous, satirical nature, but here you are not uttering a single word.” The woman’s face was painted with fear as she came to the realization that this man had been monitoring her for longer than she could fathom. He stopped in front of her, bending over so his face was right in front of hers. “Well?” he asked, growing impatient. Still the woman said nothing, the man’s iniquitous eyes staring deeply into hers.

The interloper sighed, then drew a long, blood-stained sword from the sheath on his back. He pressed the sharp blade firmly against the woman’s neck and inquired impatiently; “Where is the goddamn fortune?”

The woman, in a surprising act of defiance, spat angrily in the interloper’s face, taking him completely off guard. Calmly, he straightened himself upright, still holding the blade against the woman’s jugular, and began grinning sadistically.

“By God, you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life,” the man said as he wiped his face, keeping his growing rage in check. “Remember your brother, Mrs. Thompson? Remember how his stomach had been cut open and he had been gutted?”

The woman was seething with anger, but she nodded weakly.

“Well,” the interloper continued, lowering the malicious blade to Mrs. Thompson’s enlarged stomach. “Guess what would happen if I did the same to you?”

The woman froze in horror, the color draining swiftly from her face. Her body began trembling madly as her assailant ran the blade lightly down her stomach.

“That’s right,” the interloper growled, bending down to the woman’s level once again. “I will tear this fucking baby right out of your stomach and force you to eat the wretched thing.”

The woman began sobbing hysterically, the images of pain endlessly flooding her mind. The interloper grinned with satisfaction, pushing the sword back into its sheath and began pacing the room again.

“How can you do this?” the woman finally cried between terrified sobs.

The interloper burst out laughing. “This murderous tendency within me has been carved over eons of violence and bloodshed. I am merely the personification of humankind; greed, violence, and hatred beyond reason.”

The woman found his explanation none too comforting. She continued sobbing horrifically, her stone-cold face finally broken by unrelenting threats.

The door to the concrete room opened behind the interloper, flooding the room with blinding sunlight. The man turned around and hissed; “Damnation, Jack, I told you to leave the room closed until-”

In the doorway stood a figure familiar to the murderer; a tall, strongly built man with a badge on his breast and a gun in his hand. The interloper’s unnatural yellow eyes gleamed with delight as the man moved slowly into the room, his heavy bootsteps echoing off the bleak walls. The detective regarded the sadistic murderer with utter disdain.

“Detective John Blythe,” the interloper said with a grin. “How’s your partner, Detective Mire?”

“Edward Vernon,” Blythe said coldly. “He’s dead, thanks to you.”

“Oh, that’s right. I’m terribly sorry.”

“Get on the floor, you son of a bitch. You’re not escaping this time.”

---

“This appears to be the weapon used in the murder of Frederick Thompson,” Blythe remarked, gazing over the eerily stained sword. He looked down to Edward Vernon, who sat handcuffed against the concrete wall next to his restrained brutish partner, Jack Macmillan. “A bang-up job you did with that bank, by the way – cleaned out the entire vault’s worth of gold.”

Edward smiled with satisfaction. “All in a day’s work. I thought it would’ve taken you yanks a millennium to solve the bloody case.”

"But why?" Blythe asked. "You can't seriously expect to be able to spend all that money and get away with it. What were you trying to gain?"

Edward's face twisted into a sickening smile. "We just love to see the world burn; to see all that has been created reduced to nothing in the blink of an eye. And best of all, to see pathetic wankers like you rush to try and stop us before being crushed into dust."

The cold, hardened detective ignored the murderous Englishman. He didn’t feel the need to defend his dignity, knowing backup would arrive any second to take the two away safely – separated. His rookie partner was outside with the victim, Jennifer Thompson, waiting for the patrol cars to roll in. His pistol in one hand and the ominous blade in the other, Blythe felt more powerful than he ever had before; finally, after years of strenuous work, he had caught the infamous murderers. For the first time in his life, he felt truly happy with himself. His nigh-monomaniacal resilience had finally paid off.

Blythe remembered this room all too well; just six months ago, he and his squad at the Homicide Department had tracked Vernon down here, discovering an empty room instead of the expected arsenal of weaponry – and evidence. But now, he had avenged the deaths of so many worthy police officers and innocent people.

“You seem proud of yourself,” Edward remarked, noting the look of smug satisfaction on the detective’s face.

The detective let out a grin. “I’ve finally beaten you bastards, after all these years. Soon, you’ll be getting a nice little injection that’ll make sure you don’t hurt another soul.”

Edward let out a wide, malevolent grin. “Trust me, as long as I’m still extant, you have everything to worry about.”

Just at that second, a tremendous sound erupted from outside; the sound of a massive explosion. Instinctively, Blythe dropped the sword to the floor and pointed his pistol to the open doorway, trying to ascertain the source of the sound.

Edward Vernon leaped to his feet, tearing the chain of the detective’s cuffs with inhuman strength and charged forward with great speed. He grabbed the fallen sword just as it clattered to the ground and thrust it forward, running the bewildered detective through. The detective screamed in agony and fired shot after shot in desperation, but to no avail. His body emitted a loud thump as it hit the concrete floor, pistol still in hand and blood gushing from the wound in his torso.

“It appears the diversion worked perfectly,” Edward said as he helped Jack to his feet, releasing his hands from their cuffs. “The car bomb out back was a little delayed, but it served its purpose. That rookie is almost definitely preoccupied with the explosion.”

“Ed, you’re a bloody cunning devil,” Jack laughed heartily, prying the lifeless veteran detective’s pistol from his cold, dead fingers. “Now let’s get our arses out of here before the police arrive, we’ve got banks to clean out.”