nextgenerationmarvel | A Demon Cultist In the Closet, Next to the Tea Cozies ((Bendytime before the Godstorm))

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A Demon Cultist In the Closet, Next to the Tea Cozies ((Bendytime before the Godstorm))

New York City felt taut from the skies. As Vesper winged his way around buildings, he could feel the tense anticipation brought on by wall-to-wall coverage of the huge storm heading their way. Though that didn't mean the gangs he tracked did less.

It just meant they got more trigger happy and frantic about the next shipment getting in before the rest of the city blew away. He was on his way to a meeting. He'd overheard part of it. He didn't have all the details but enough to get there and make these drug-pushing gangs regret it.

He kept his ears tuned toward the ground as he flew. It was always good to know if he was spotted and going to be shot at. Which is why he didn't fly right by a set of apartment buildings in Brooklyn when he heard a blood-curdling scream.

Vesper adjusted course and swooped lower to try to figure out what that was and where it came from.

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Vesper crashed through the window, folding his wings in before impact. Glass and wood sprayed all over. Vesper rolled with the impact and came up to his feet.

He was poised and ready to...

... take on an empty room.

He let out a small sigh and headed for the door across from him. It might not have been the right apartment, but it was at least close to the actual one.

Ghost Rider kicked in the door to the building and marched up the first set of stairs he could find. Residents who poked their heads out of their doors and saw him immediately shut them and prayed they were simply drunk, crazy or some mix of both.

He moved onward.

Vesper quietly stepped out of the apartment he had crashed in. He tilted his head slightly as he made sure he listened to find the right place. A muted conversation in between ritualistic chanting about someone breaking into the apartment next door lead him to the right door.

He moved over to the correct door and raised his left arm. He bent his hand toward the inside of his wrist to activate the gauntlet. An air blast with 2 tons of concussive force blew the door in and into pieces.

The Rider walked up the stairs to the next floor.

Someone thought to ask him a question, but a single cold glance made them rethink the idea.

When he saw Vesper blow the door in, the Rider gave his erstwhile teammate a nod, then followed him.

Vesper blinked at the nodding flaming skull guy. They'd work together once or so, but it still was surreal. He idly wondered if it was a good thing they were in a rundown building so the sprinklers didn't go off on a hot head.

He brought his arm back in and stepped through the doorway. Splinters of wood were embedded in the entry way's far wall. He got his other gauntlet ready as he headed into the apartment proper.

Vesper whipped around the corner, ready to use his sonic attack. Except he slipped on a bit of viscera.

The vigilante wasn't quite ready for the sight of the cultists interrupted in the middle of a bloody ritual.

The stench of dark magic was so strong that Ghost Rider, even without a nose, could smell it. Could Vesper detect it? Few humans were so mystically inclined.

Vesper entered and Ghost Rider followed behind him, holding out a hand to steady the other vigilante.

The cultists were in the middle of a ritual.

"Sinners, all! Surrender and be judged!"

The Rider's chain appeared in his hand and he slung it in the direction of a culist, attempting to yank them from the circle and disrupt their ritual.

Vesper sensed nothing but ick. From the blood and the dimness and the... what was that smell? Outside of some leavings from a lab accident, he was about as human as one could get.

With the small assist from Flame-Head the Occasional Teammate, he managed to not fall flat on his butt. Though he had a thought as he brought his arm up.

"I hope loud noises don't bother you." Because he sure didn't see any ears on the guy, but the cultists all had them.

The cultist half-fell, half-ducked away from the chain, but the Rider wasn't deterred. As soon as he had another shot....

"Do what you will. These sinners will pay." he said, encouraging Vesper to engage in his plan.

Vesper released the sonic blast from his right-hand bracer. He was thankful it didn't misfire. So, while it still produced a sound like a thunderclap from his wrist, the bracer fired a concussive blast at a group of the cultists.

He hoped it didn't turn the people into paste. Though it did pick them off their feet and into a wall. Vesper was aware he was going to run out of tricks soon.

"My turn."

The Rider would attempt to move past Vesper, heading deeper into the apartment. The first cultist to try to move past him would be snatched up by the hem of their robe and pulled up to look him into the hollow sockets that passed for his eyes.

The Penance Stare would hit the cultist full force, making him relieve every horrible thing they'd ever done across their lives over the course of a few seconds. Most souls burned in agony from such torment.

The Rider dropped alive, but unresponsive cultist back to the floor.

"Surrender to him or be judged by me." he would tell any that hadn't already given up as he indicated that Vesper was the less-painful of the two options before them.

Flaming skull guy was creeping Vesper out. Not as bad as the blood splattered environs they were in, but enough. It made his spine itch as he tried to carefully move across the apartment without stepping on something bloody or arcane marking.

"Yes. I'm the nicer option. Not that you'll listen to the man with the calm, rational voice that doesn't give people the heebie jeebies." He had picked some old timey American slang watching black and white movies while waiting for his wife to finish her homework. It helped cover his real identity, he hoped.

The Rider did not know what a "heebie-jeebie" was, but he figured it was some kind of demon. He would have his host investigate in case it needed to be judged.

"Who are you? And what are you trying to summon. Do not lie." Ghost Rider demanded, looking at the remaining cultists.

"We will know if you lie."

There was a weak flailing to try to stop Vesper from grabbing a cultist. The vigilante tried to get a zip tie out of a leg pouch to bind the cultist's hands by their thumbs.

One of the other cultists found some bravado and said they wouldn't stop the start of making an army of cambions.

"A Queen song?"

"Cambions. You would dare create those on this plane?" Ghost Rider asked.

"They are the offspring of incubi or succubi and humans. If allowed to survive, they would possess fearsome power. If these fools are trying to create them, they muddle in powers they have no knowledge of."

"Oh. Well, I'll take your word for it," Vesper commented as he cast an eye over the ritual area. His wife would not appreciate him bringing a succubi home. Though he didn't see any. He would cling to that ignorance like a shield. If he didn't see it, he wasn't taking it home.

A cultist tried to fight Vesper binding his hands behind his back. The cultist was the winner of a left cross that should have made his eyes rattle. "No demonic baby-making for you."

He bent over to get the cultist's hands bound.

"Do you plan to turn these fools over to your mortal authorities?" Ghost Rider asked.

The Rider held little faith in human constables, even less than his host did.

He moved to the next cultist to bind her like the one he just finished.

"They killed someone." He glanced at the bloody mess in the room. "Or something. I'm not sure what this is or what demons might tear the seven veils or whatever. As you're not a blind woman with a set of scales, I don't think you're the embodiment of justice. If a person died, then their friends or family need to know what happened. You going to do that? I'm definitely not. Law enforcement needs to get involved."

It sounded like a normal solution to a paranormal situation, so he clung to his normal mode of working.

"I am the Spirit of Vengeance, not the Spirit of Compassion or Comfort. When innocent blood is spilled, I destroy the ones responsible." Ghost Rider said, looking at the dead in the room along with the cultists.

He looked at one of the unbound cultists. Walking over, he snatched the cultist up from the floor with one hand.

"Where did you learn the ritual you performed? Who gave you this knowledge?"

Whoever put them up to this was the one that the Rider needed to deliver vengeance upon.

"Compassion is more powerful than anger. It makes one less of a monster." Despite his own path of vengeance, he understood the human toll. Eavesdropping on people as part of his patrols gave voice to exactly who he fought and who else was affected.

Though he was going to let flame-head do his own interrogation as he moved onto one of the remaining cultists. So he totally missed the cultist dangling off the floor biting his tongue off to not reply. His stomach would thank him later. He didn't want flashbacks of tentacle-biting.

If the cultist refused to answer, Ghost Rider would make the man face the weight of his sins. Staring into his eyes, he gave the Penance Stare to this one as well, allowing him to feel the horrors he'd unleashed on his victims and others in the name of whatever volatile god he served.

Making sure to keep his back toward the Ghost Rider, Vesper winced. He really didn't want to know those noises a tongue-less man could make. He temporarily put a silence field around the upper half of his head.

Years of practice let him keep his voice level when he spoke without hearing his surroundings. The jig might be up if he started shouting like he was deaf. "Anybody else up for that? Because he wants answers."

"If they refuse to speak, then we should hunt the rest of them. This cannot be the only cell."

Vesper had been watching the cultists' eyes to see when to drop his silence field. He only caught the last half of what the Ghost Rider had said, but it was enough for him to get the gist.

He turned toward the flaming skull guy in leather. "Do you have a better way of tracking mystical hoodoo? I usually deal with gangs and drug dealers. When you use your whatever that was, they don't become talkative. More screamative. And they're fanatics if they're this far gone."

He gestured at the ritualistic and bloody room.

"They won't be hard to find. They're using young women as their sacrifices. They'll make a mistake. And then we will destroy this cult and its master." the Rider said.

Vesper looked at the windows covered in... he wasn't sure if that news paper or very thin tattooed skin. He wasn't going to ponder the later option.

"Big storm coming," he noted quietly. He cast his hearing out of the room, through the building, into the neighborhood, and out to it's limits. He heard a lot of things, but no piercing screams, death rattles, or weird chanting.

He shook his head to focus back in the room. "Nothing going on within a couple miles. If you have a better way of tracking, you might want to do it. I'll..." Did he really want to hang around a guy who could toast marshmallows on his head? "... get these people into the hands of the authorities."

"I'll be in touch. There are places we can go that you cannot. Once I know where to find them, I'll make contact." he said.

With that, he turned to go and let the masked human deal with the mortal authorities. If any of these fools continued using dark magic, he'd see them again eventually.

And there would be no one to save them, then.

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A Demon Cultist In the Closet, Next to the Tea Cozies ((Bendytime before the Godstorm))

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