#halloween 11th

[rwbybutincorrect]

It’s Halloween 11th! Happy birthday Ruby Rose!

[deadalex]

Halloween 11th

The mapping of the enemy's movements is going well they seem to have a few consistent hide outs they cluster around. My general has informed me to not initiate them until I finish my map work and they can send reinforcements. On another note the middle child has taught me the grandest of treats! You put a bowl of m&ms in the microwave for 36 seconds and they get all melted on the inside but the outside is still hard and crunchy! I can't wait to get back to base and tell everyone about this, especially cal.

[mikeyj529]

Hellfire Blues

Sometimes a certain case comes along that shakes you to your core, reaffirms your belief that everything happens for a reason.

The problem with finding and rescuing the kidnapped daughter of a senator is that it was my only successful case. Each of the four that followed all ended in blood. Guilt like that will drive most any man into a bottle forever.

Which is how I wound up at a dive in El Paso called Hellfire Blues, as the bouncer put it: A place where the music plays, the liquor flows and the women come, all for cheap.

Billy Deacon was my latest assignment, a blues guitarist from Baton Rouge who vanished following his gig at a local honky tonk. The trail I followed was soaked in rock n roll and bourbon and ran across the southern US.

"You carry a heavy guilt," said a man who introduced himself as Blue Zebbe, the proprietor of Hellfire Blues. "Drinks are on the house tonight."

"But--"

The air came alive with a lively blues riff and my eyes found a lone man on stage with a beautiful Gibson Les Paul that glowed a sickly shade of red. I had found my man.

"Is that Billy Deacon?" I asked before I drained my glass.

An errant note marred the song, but the guitarist quickly recovered and began his lyrics. "Left my lover back in New Orleans / got behind the wheel / ain't seen nothin' but road ever since--"

"The one and only," replied Blue cautiously. "But he don't give out autographs.

"I've been paid to find and bring him home."

Blue winced with shock. "I didn't even know the boy was missing. Well, if he has people who want him back, I suppose we can arrange something. But right now he's got to finish his set."

I kept the drinks coming and watched Deacon rip song after song on his guitar. All ten fingers nimbly worked the instrument, which seemed to watch you behind its odd color. Hour after hour, I was mesmerized by his music.

When the set ended, Blue introduced me to Deacon and brought us to a cellar room to discuss why I was there. He left to get a fresh bottle of bourbon, but Deacon laughed as soon as the door closed.

"He's not coming back, you know."

I shook my head. "I told him that your family paid for me to bring you back."

Deacon removed his jacket and eased into a chair, casting a sidelong glance at me while lighting a cigarette. Everything about the man oozed resignation, which contradicted everything I saw of him on stage.

"Once we're brought here to this room," he said, shifting his gaze away from me, "we can't leave--at least not of our own will."

"That's plain crazy talk," I replied, rising to my feet to test the door. It was locked. Deacon laughed again.

"Told you."

"This--this is abduction. He can't do this."

"The devil can do anything he wants."

Now I laughed. "You're saying the devil has taken us prisoner?"

"No." Deacon looked me dead in the eyes. "We came of our own free will. Me? How do you think I play so good? I sold my soul to make that kind of music."

I remembered watching his set, the way his fingers moved and the sounds he made from those six strings. Guaranteed no blues rock like Deacon's existed. Did he really make a deal with the devil?

"What brought you here?" Deacon asked with a smirk. "You make a deal?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

But perhaps I had. After all, the guilt I carried after four failed cases worked hard on me. Though I didn't pull the trigger, I was indirectly responsible for their deaths. Did I make a deal for Deacon's safe return?

"Well, maybe it's because you're interfering with my deal." Deacon's expression didn't change.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity in the quiet of that cramped room, waiting for Blue Zebbe to return, and both of us knowing he wouldn't. We had to find a way out. If the door wasn't an option, there had to be--

"Deacon, help me. Maybe we can get out through this window."

He shrugged threw down his cigarette. Maybe he'd already tried it, but I needed to see for myself whether or not it wouldn't work. I was lifted up and given one chance to unlatch the pane. It worked. The window gave.

The sound of footsteps seeped in from underneath the door. I quickly wriggled through the opening and took Deacon's guitar, which he offered up next. Blue Zebbe stepped into the room and cried out with surprise and rage.

"Go get the car!" ordered Deacon. "I'll meet you out front!"

Before I turned away, I saw him knock past Blue and out the door. Once my hand found the guitar case I sprinted pell-mell for the truck. It took only a moment to start up and pull around to the front, but I was in for a surprise.

Hellfire Blues, or what was left of it, stood as a condemned building of twenty or thirty years, covered in boards and a thick layer of dust. I broke inside, but there was no trace of life, let alone of Deacon or of Blue Zebbe.

I returned to Baton Rouge and delivered the news, or a digestible version of it to Deacon's family. They wouldn't accept his guitar, believing it was possessed by an evil spirit. In lieu of cash payment, I took the instrument.

One night on a lonesome road, I took out the Gibson and weighed it in my hands. The red sheen looked into my eyes as it had at Hellfire Blues, and I couldn't resist raking my fingers across the strings.

Its music instantly came alive. Me and the guitar, we worked a magic I never thought possible of my fingers. Ever since, the blues has owned my soul and I've never stopped playing.