The Men Who Spoke Death

  By J Alex McCarthy

  Book 2 in Sinner of the Infinite

  Copyright © 2017 by J Alex McCarthy

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  J Alex McCarthy

  5232 Corteen pl #25 Valley Village, CA 91607

  www.jalexmccarthy.com

  Table of contents

  Table of contents

  Authors note

  Chapter 1 – Kill the Acceptance

  Chapter 2 – Kill the Mind

  Chapter 3 – Kill the Honor

  Chapter 4 – Kill the Traitor

  Chapter 5 – Kill the Fable

  Chapter 6 – Kill the Coward

  Chapter 7 – Kill the Empire

  Chapter 8 – Kill the Crime

  Chapter 9 - Kill the Momentary Lapse

  Chapter 10 – Kill the Utopia

  Chapter 11 – Kill the Mission

  Chapter 12 – Kill the Meaning

  Chapter 13 – Kill the King

  Chapter 14 – Kill the Dream

  Chapter 15 – Kill the Failures

  Chapter 16 – Kill the Lack of Want

  Chapter 17 – Kill the Good Life

  Chapter 18 – Kill the Love

  Chapter 19 – Kill the Comrade

  Chapter 20 – Kill the Universe

  Chapter 21 – Kill the Memories

  Chapter 22 – Kill the Name

  Chapter 23 – Sea of Blue and Gray

  Chapter 24 – Escape the Fate

  Chapter 25 – Save the Significance

  Post Script

  Authors note

  If you see this note, please redownload this book as I noticed a few mistakes but had to upload in time for preorder. It should be fixed by then.

  Hey all, before you read. I need to make a note of a world building change between The Men Who Killed God and The Men Who Spoke Death. I did not create a naming scheme for the main subjects, the Executioners, until after I’d written The Men Who Killed God. So this note is a retrofitting. Ignore or forget the names of any Executioners that were spoken in The Men Who Killed God.

  Thanks and I hope you enjoy the read!

  Chapter 1 – Kill the Acceptance

  Sometimes, I used to dream that there was a place somewhere for me in this existence.

  I was always wrong.

  A man opened his eyes to an infinite of stars in a black. Stargazer, they had always called him, not because he had a God given name, but for his affinity to stare off into the sky in the most questioning of times.

  He was a calm soul.

  The Perfect subject.

  An Executioner.

  The stars were distant, yet, the man could see his own body if he wished. There was always a light in this dark.

  He had long since given up his hope that it had meant something, the stars, despite being the only Executioner to dream.

  A Stargazer.

  He felt a weight overcoming his eyes, pulling down his eyelids like concrete cased feet being thrown into the ocean.

  It was time.

  His eyes came to a close.

  To do the mission he was made for. To leave the dream that he had always believed to give him meaning.

  …

  The Stargazer’s eyes opened to a white sterile room, laying on top of a perfectly made bed in a crisp black tux and a white button up shirt. A blood red tie was tied in a perfect knot, contrasting deeply against the room and his outfit.

  The room didn’t have a smell but it felt clean. There was a dull ringing in his ears as the absolute silence was near pain inducing. The ringing shouldn’t had existed, but with the lack of sound, his brain replaced the silence with something else.

  It had always started like this, the blinding white light, the sterileness, the odd feeling of lack of self-worth. He wished that a smell or something had stung his nose.

  At least, that would make what he was about to do worth it.

  It always began the same.

  He sat up. A floating display appeared in front of him. His reason for waking in this room came across the display. A feminine voice spoke out what was on the screen.

  ‘Kill James McQueen.’

  The mission requirements scrolled under it.

  ‘Status: Anomaly. Restrictions: Five casualties maximum. Time limit: 24 hours.’

  The projection disappeared and Stargazer glanced to his left. A sheathed katana, pistol, and a pack of cigarettes lay on the small table against the wall.

  He stood up and placed the sword on his hip and the pistol in a holster under his jacket. He picked up the pack of cigarettes and opened it, but then paused.

  No, after.

  He placed them in his jacket pocket. There was always a pack of cigarettes waiting for them when they awoke, enough to give them a feeling but not enough to affect their work.

  He walked up to the door and placed a hand on it, it had an impressive heat emitting from its mass.

  He was an Executioner and it was time to do his one and only mission, to destroy anomalies in the multiverse.

  He stepped through the door into a light. His senses were pounded by thousands of stimuli; cars and trucks beeped and sped through the streets, airplanes flew overhead, people yelled out of high rise apartment buildings surrounding him.

  The smell of exhaust, heat, and piss stung his nose. He was in downtown Los Angeles. The reaching sun marked the time high noon.

  He was used to the sensory overloads by now. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The world’s noise died down and he felt a slight force in his chest. A pulling. A guidance to where James McQueen was. It was how they found their targets.

  They were connected to them in some small way, a connection that would be cut with either one of their deaths.

  Stargazer could feel him, his movements, his moods, and feelings.

  His trip here would be a short one.

  …

  James McQueen was a tall handsome black man, he served a customer their plate in a mid-sized diner.

  There was a smile on his face as he went to talk to the chefs in the back. He was genuinely happy, he loved his job and it finally seemed like his life was turning around.

  Stargazer could tell as much by their connection as he watched him through the window. He hated it. The ignorance of the world around him. The happiness he couldn’t have. He couldn’t wait to cut off the connection.

  Sometimes, he felt envious, that his targets got to live a full life up to the point he killed them. He would die someday and his only regret would be that he died failing his mission. As that would be the only way he could die. He would never experience love, hate, passion, true human emotions, and James was experiencing it all as the Stargazer was stuck behind a glass looking in.

  To counter this, every Executioner had their own set of rules, a law they followed to make killing less of a burden, for Stargazer, it was following the stages of grief.

  Nobody noticed the black suit wearing katana wielding man peering through the glass. It was because he wasn’t from this world, or any world to be exact.

  It was a trick of the mind, the brain doesn’t want to see what shouldn’t be there.

  The only ones who noticed him before he took action were the inept and the ones who had been graced by a certain power. Stargazer raised his pistol to the glass and aimed at James who turned just in time to see him.

  Powers that James had.

  James’s eyes widened.

  Stargazer fired.

  The first stage is denial.

  James bobbed and weaved past the bullets and leapt to the ground as the diner went into a frenzy. “No, no, no!” James screamed.

  He glanced up at the door through the kitchen and ran to it as the Stargazer fired and somehow missed his mark.

  James ran up the stairs that were through the door and came out into a hallway. He ran into one of the rooms and halted. It was the owner’s bedroom.

  He ran and hid behind the dresser. Tears entered his eyes as he cried. “He…he warned me…why…why did I take his fucking offer! This isn’t happening…It’s…it’s okay…I can beat him!”

  James paused as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He ran into the hallway and a bullet clipped his shoulder. He spun and slammed into the wall. Blood splattering on the floor.

  He clutched the new hole in his shoulder and peered at the Executioner whose gun was raised at him.

  Then comes anger.

  “You think you’re fucking tough huh!”

  A blue transparent wall appeared in front of James as the Stargazer fired again. The bullets bounced off it like rubber. The Stargazer lowered his gun.

  James continued, “Yeah, you’re not so tough, you punk bitch!”

  In a blink, the Stargazer appeared in front of James’s shield and his hand touched it.

  It exploded back and a great forced slammed into James’s chest and he flung across the hall.

  He smashed through the hallway’s window and slammed into the fire escape’s railing. He spat up blood and struggled to his feet.

  Then comes bargaining.

  James raised up his hands as the Stargazer slowly approached. “Please, please! Why are you doing t
his! I’ll… I’ll do whatever you want. I have money, I… I can get you drugs… please!”

  The Stargazer never answered him.

  Seeing how useless his pleas were, James stood up and ran up the fire escapes stairs. He made it to the top and broke through the window and limped down an empty hall. Trailing bloody footprints behind him.

  He felt his energy leaving his body, his shirt was soaked in blood. He stared at the red exit sign at the end of the hall. Its red light was the only thing lighting him.

  As he walked, it never seemed to get any closer. He turned lazily to the sound of crunching glass, Stargazer was across the hallway.

  James raised up his hand to him and a blue light erupted out of it and rocketed toward Stargazer.

  It was swatted away like a fly.

  James chuckled as his knees gave out. He couldn’t go any further.

  He sat against the wall, leaving a bloody streak as his back slid down.

  The worst was always the depression.

  Sobs came from James as the Stargazer approached him.

  “I’m…I’m sorry. For everything…I’ve done…God…Please forgive me…someone help me…Momma…Daddy.”

  They always asked for forgiveness.

  But who were they to know that their seemingly innocent actions would have led them here? Under the Executioner’s blade.

  The Stargazer peered down at the young man as James stared up at him. “Why…Why are you doing this? Why me?”

  “It is powers far outside of your own that brought you here. It’s not your fault.”

  But that wouldn’t change a damned thing.

  James closed his eyes. His tears had finally stopped.

  Acceptance.

  The Stargazer pulled his Katana from its sheathed. The milky white blade reflected in the little red light that lit the hall. It was time for her to taste death once again.

  He rose it over his head, the red from the exit sign painted his body like a blood thirsty red moon.

  My mission is complete.

  He drove down the blade and James’s blood splattered against the wall. His head rolled in front of the Stargazer’s feet.

  The connection was cut and the Stargazer felt a weight being lifted off of his chest.

  Rest in peace.

  Sirens broke the silence.

  …

  On a rooftop, Stargazer stared out into the horizon that was Los Angeles, his eyes followed the sweeping mountains, the epic sprawl of buildings that stretched out mile after mile.

  A cigarette was half burnt out in his mouth. He was already done with the pack. The rest of the buds were at his feet.

  Executioners loved rooftops. It was the only place they could see the world’s for how they actually were, something they couldn’t always see at ground level. The ever so slight differences between universes.

  This time, the only difference the Stargazer could see between the last Los Angeles he had been too and the one he was in now was two more skyscrapers filling the blue horizon. Someone who didn’t build them in the previous universe built them in this one.

  A beep went off and the Stargazer pulled back his sleeve to reveal a watch, his time in this world was coming to a close.

  He put out his last cigarette and gave one last look at the skyline and this world.

  He felt a pull from the rooftop’s door. His quiet time never lasted.

  He walked to the door and touched the handle. A great heat came from it and he turned the knob.

  He stepped back into the room of white, the bed and table were exactly how he left them. He sat on the bed and begun placing his weapons on the table. The door closed on its own accord.

  This room, his home, this purgatory, his hell, it was the only place he could call his own before he drifted back into the infinite. Just to be yanked back to kill again.

  He laid on the bed and a display projected above telling him of the successes of his mission.

  For that was his only purpose of being created. To go to different universe’s to kill anomalies. But, it was never that simple, the reason the multiverse was in chaos, the reason Old Man Gloom had created this room and the Executioners, was to kill a single man who had God’s hand, the power to tear holes in reality and give his powers to others, the bane of his existence, The Omniscient Man, the man who betrayed God, The Sinner of the Infinite,

  Ethan Boyer.

  As the Stargazer lay there, he felt sleep coming to him. He would close his eyes and open them again to this same room in a different universe.

  For the 1327th time with the end game never changing. To kill the Sinner who was destroying all and the problems he created.

  And yet, when he closed his eyes, instead of the endless sleep that brought the other executioners to different universes, he would go to a place of dreams. A sky filled like stars with the infinite possibilities of universes that he wished could be brought upon him. To a place where he could escape this endless hell.

  Chapter 2 – Kill the Mind

  Repetition.

  A pair of dark brown eyes opened up in a white sterile room.

  The act of repeating, repeated action, reiteration. Something made by or results from repeating.

  His name was the Lightless Walker. He sat up and a screen projected in front of him, the light radiating off of his black skin.

  ‘Mission: Kill Emma King. Time Limit: 24 hours. Casualties: None,’ the voice said.

  The Lightless Walker moved to the edge of the bed in a robotic manner, his eyes traced over the sheathed katana, the pistol, and the pack of cigarettes, that he had never touched, that was on the side table next to the bed.

  Repetition was what made his short life work.

  Every time he awoke, he went through the same motions as if he was a machine starting up. He would pull off his red silk tie and unsheathe his katana.

  The blade was spotless, perfect, always without fault. And yet, he always used his tie to clean it some more. He would then sheathe it and replace his tie in a double Windsor knot.

  Then he would stand and in a few wordless phrases, place his blade on his back as it was held in place by the magic of his listless breaths. It always stuck with those thoughtless words, as he had done this enough times before that barely a free thought had ran in his head any more, as the repetition had destroyed any maundering anticipation out of his once acclimated mind.

  Although, he never had a mind to give anymore. As it was always the same, each universe he went to, his targets always died the same, pleading in a pool of their own cooling blood.

  In some, he never lamented the loss of his active mind, the voice he had once spoke through, the silence helped it all.

  The eternal hell that was his mission to kill without regard.

  He approached the door, an impressive heat came off the portal, and he pressed it open.

  He stepped out into a world of black and red. All around him were a forest of black barked trees with leaves of the purest of blacks and the bloodiest of reds.

  An idea came in his head that never sparked into a full thought as he had long suppressed his ability to think.

  This world was different from the usual modern worlds he had been too. Through the canopy of trees, the sky was ash fallen, the clouds above swirled in a chaotic sea of gray and black, the grays gave the little light that lit this world.

  As he stepped through the door, the knowledge of this world had downloaded into his head. He knew all that was in this world, the gods they worshipped, the cultures they lived through, about the never ending darkness that never lit up.

  It was a world of red and absolute darkness.

  The sky rained down harmless gray ash. It evaporated like snow as it touched the blacks of his suit jacket.

  As he stepped forward, his shoes crunched on the red leaves that had fallen from the trees above him. He paused and glanced down at them.

  Are they like—

  A shock went through his brain and he stopped himself from asking any quizzical questions. His fist squeezed and he moved forward, he didn’t exist to explore and ponder, he existed for one reason and one reason only.

  To kill.

  After a few minutes, he stepped out of the thicket and into a small village. There was a single road that split down its middle with gray and red clay huts on both sides of it.