EDITOR’S NOTE: This arc takes place before Ghost Rider #1

TWO-LANE HIGHWAY

Part VI: U-Turn

By John Wick

I can turn and walk away
or I can fire the gun
Staring at the sky
staring at the sun
whichever I chose
it amounts to the same…
Absolutely nothing
-The Cure

Pain seemed to be the only state of existence. Pain seemed to be the only meaning to life. In the few short days since Angel had made her deal with Blackheart she had learned new definitions of pain.

“I hope you like the arrangement, I know I do” blackheart laughed through clenched teeth, his face illuminated by a single candle before his face. Angel made a muffled sound but no intelligible speech issued forth from her lips.

“What’s that dear? Oh yes, I suppose it would be easier for you to plead with me without that thing in your mouth, but I like it better this way… really… I do…”

Blackheart tipped the candle again allowing the hot wax that had pooled up over the last few minutes to burn her tender exposed flesh. Angel let out an anguished cry despite the dead rat Blackheart had placed in her mouth as a crude gag.

“Until you learn to eat what I feed you”, Blackheart chuckled, “You’re going to endure more punishment.”

From the corner of the room a child began to cry silently. Blackheart felt the sudden shift in the ambient atmosphere and widened his grin, exposing canines sharp enough to lacerate leather.

“Pay attention Childe… your time for this sort of treatment will come soon.” Blackheart’s maniacal laughter continued to reverberate and echo throughout the room. The helplessly bound Angel winced as she began to chew on the decaying maggot infested rat in her mouth, and a child watched with taped open eyes helpless to fight off the feelings that were beginning to eat at her soul.

Fire consumed him. Fire gave him strength. Fire was the very essence of his being. For the first time in ages the Ghost Rider felt pain from the one element he had always considered his own.

The bolt of mystical energy that slammed into him knocked him back causing him to fall to the ground below. He could live with the impact from the fall. The real trauma though, was only just beginning. Blue flames grew from his midsection where the mystical energy blast had connected. It was a cold fire one unlike anything the spirit of vengeance had ever felt.

Ghost Rider fought to control his body, only to find that it would not respond. He was paralyzed. The blue flame grew and began to consume more of his body. From deep within, Ghost Rider’s own flame fought for control. The deep red orange color of hellfire glowed from behind his eyes, growing brighter as each second passed.

Fifteen slugs slammed into Ghost Rider’s chest causing orange flame to spill forth. Quickly, the blue flame covering his body surrounded the hellfire and began to push into his body. Ghost Rider let out a scream of rage as the pain began to fill him from within. Another bolt of energy hit him intensifying his torment.

“YOU SHALL KNOW REAL PAIN” Ghost Rider yelled into the darkness.

Ten more slugs slammed into his body and a voice called out from the darkness. “Brother, you’re just beginning to know the meaning.”

It had been only thirty minutes but it seemed as though hours had passed. Angel bit down on what remained of half of her lower lip and fought to stay silent. Blackheart had moved on from festering dead rats to live ones and the vermin had, at times, proved themselves to be hungrier than she was.

Angel fought back the few remaining tears her body could hold. She wanted to scream out. She wanted to fight back. She wanted to just die. The few short moments of fear and pain she had known in the dumpster behind the strip club she worked at paled in comparison to the torment she now endured. The only reason she continued to accept the suffering inflicted upon her was that it kept the demon’s hands off the child.

‘So tell me no more secrets, and tell me no more lies… No one goes to heaven, all good girls will die.’

The voice continued to sing inside of Emma’s head; a deranged children’s song warped and confounded by the taint of Blackheart’s evil. In the course of one night she had seen her friends and strangers killed at the carnival. She watched as a creature out of her worst nightmares murder her brother. Emma had witnessed her father’s flesh melt; blistering over until a flaming skull was revealed. The delicate threads of sanity began slowly to strain against the horrors she had witnessed.

Emma watched as Blackheart continued torturing the lady who had been so nice to her. She wondered if the lady had once been a kid like she was and if the lady had been with the monster since she was a child like Emma. The voice continued to sing a new song deep within her mind.

‘Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch some poisoned water. Jack fell down, and Jill, she drown, their souls burning ever after…’

The warehouse was awash in a sickly blue light. The figure on the floor writhed in pain. No sound of anguish though escaped its lips. Ghost Rider drew strength from the pain he was suffering. Each subtle nuance of agony was stored deep within the cold rage that was building inside of him. The demon pulled all of his power within. His body effectively was trying to shut itself down. It had endured so much trauma that the only sensible course of action was to slip into a catatonic state. The demon knew this was what his body wanted, but he also knew that if he lapsed into unconsciousness neither he nor his human host would ever wake again.

A gruff looking man came into view over the figure, which now lay still, awash in blue flames. Looking down at his fallen quarry the man let out a chuckle and aimed his Carbine at the creature’s chest.

“After Comanche there went on about the disturbance in the force the way he did I figured you’d be some kind of super adversary. Boy… you fell faster than a dollar hooker at a Navy shipyard.”

*BANG* the gruff man pulled the trigger.

The bullet ripped through the demon. The impact was strong enough that at close range it would have nearly torn a normal man in half. The bullet only succeeded though, in pushing the demon’s rage past its limits. A deep red flame leapt out from the wound in his chest knocking the gruff man back several yards. The orange hellfire began to consume the man as he screamed on the ground.

The blue flame that had encompassed the Ghost Rider’s body suddenly weakened as the assailant that hid in the darkness focused his attention on extinguishing the flames of his compatriot with mystical energy.

The bright orange flame grew from the wound Ghost Rider had incurred. It spread over his entire body engulfing the blue flame joining it together with his own. Ghost rider felt a new power come over him. It was as if the powers of Heaven and Hell itself had merged together and the raw power that both possessed were now his to command at will.

“SHOW YOURSELF!” Ghost Rider yelled into the darkened warehouse. There was no reply. Only the sounds of the man on the ground moaning as the last of the flames began to disappear.

“SHOW YOURSELF NOW!” The demon commanded into the darkness. The pure rage he felt consumed him now more than any time he could remember. His entire body began to burn brighter in flames mixed in blue and orange. The warehouse lit up bright enough for him to make out where the second assailant was waiting for him.

“You’re as strong as I thought, Devil,” the man yelled out to Ghost Rider.

“YOU SHALL TASTE THE TRUE FURY OF HELL!” Ghost Rider responded.

Ghost Rider gripped his chain and swung it through the air. He focused all of his mental concentration into what he wanted to be done. Each link of the chain began to separate in mid-air. Ghost Rider Pushed his fury towards his assailant. Each of the links glowed white-hot and suddenly burst into flame.

Three of the links hit the wooden crate behind the sorcerer. Two more, sailed over his head as he dove to avoid the flaming fury that approached him. One of the links managed to imbed itself in the sorcerer’s leg. Ghost Rider smiled his skeleton grin and the flames around him grew brighter with his satisfaction.

The sorcerer let out a cry of pain. He quickly reached down with his bare hand to pull out the link only to find that it was pulling itself from his body. Within a matter of seconds it had removed itself and was flying back towards the demon with unnatural super speed. The man watched as the demon caught the chain in mid-air. Flames leapt along its length and absorbed themselves back into the demon’s body.

“YOU SHALL REPENT FOR YOUR SINS!” Ghost Rider yelled out.

Without a sound the man stood up. The flame that wrapped itself around his leg grew brighter and then suddenly died out. Ghost Rider suddenly felt a cold chill hit his spine like a well-placed dagger. His body began to convulse. The sorcerer smiled to himself and another bolt of mystic energy shot its way through the air towards Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider felt the pain in his spine intensify. His body had convulsed involuntarily. It was as if every synapse in his system suddenly misfired and continued to do so at an exponential rate. He could feel the power his adversary possessed. He knew that whomever he was fighting ranked right up there with the Sorcerer Supreme himself. The bolt of energy approached. This time, however, he focused his willpower and shook off the convulsions. At the last possible second he held out his hand before him and the blast stopped in mid air pooling itself into a ball within his gloved hand.

Ghost Rider felt the power within him growing. He reached his other hand towards the ball and began to press them together. The black leather of his motorcycle jacket glowed in a blue hue and then suddenly returned to normal.

“YOU SHALL KNOW PAIN!” the demon roared.

*BANG*

*BANG*

Two bullets ripped into Ghost Riders back knocking him to the ground. A strained voice called out from the darkness, “Brother pain just became your wife,” a man yelled out. The burns that had encompassed his body from earlier had healed over though he still looked as if he had tried to take Niagara Falls without a barrel.

“Stay out of this!” the sorcerer screamed across the darkened warehouse.

“I save your ass and you tell me…”

Ghost Rider stood once more and raised his shotgun towards the mercenary.

“Jesus Christ, don’t you ever die?” he yelled out.

“Christ has nothing to do with who I am,” Ghost Rider replied angrily. “If I were around when Christ was crucified a great wrath would have fallen on the head of mankind and none would have survived my wrath.”

Without another word the demon pulled the trigger and a blast of hellfire shot forth towards the mercenary. The mercenary had anticipated the blast however and dove out of the way before the flames could once more consume his flesh.

Ghost Rider turned to face his mystic attacker but found that when he did, the man was standing directly before him. Without a word the sorcerer reached up and placed both hands directly on each side of the demon’s skull. Flames raced along his arms, yet he did not burn.

“I will banish you from this world and return you to your realm!” the man shouted out while looking directly into Ghost Rider’s face.

“YOU WILL KNOW FEAR!” Ghost Rider replied. “TASTE THE WRATH OF MY PENANCE STARE!”

Ghost Rider looked into the man. His eyes grew with red flame as he peered deep into the sorcerer’s soul. For a brief instant both joined in the same spirit world. Small sins began to creep up from beneath the waves of the collective consciousness of mankind. The Spirit of Vengeance witnessed the Indian sorcerer as a boy; his best friend dying during a camping trip. He watched as the young boy was ostracized from his family and friends. He saw the old medicine man take him in to be raised as his own.

The scene shifted, and suddenly countless people began to writhe and scream. Though the demon would love to have this pain reflected back upon the mystic twofold, he could not. Each of the spirits that writhe and cry for vengeance are evil and murdered innocents, they were not innocents themselves.

The environment shifted again and suddenly Ghost Rider saw the Mercenary standing in a swamp. A hundred or more dead Indians from the mystic’s tribe lay dead around his feet. The fury began to grow within the demon until he saw through the sorcerer’s eyes that the mercenary was standing over the bodies of twelve men dressed the same as him. Suddenly, understanding pushed itself upon the demon’s consciousness and he heard the voice of the mystic whispering to him through the void.

‘He killed his own men when he found them murdering my family and friends. Though they treated me as an outcast I never once felt they deserved a death like this. He killed his own friends to avenge the wrongs my family suffered at their hands.’

Ghost Rider tried to shake off the image before him but he could not. For the first time that he could remember he was not in control of the direction the penance stare took.

‘Please forgive me,’ the mystic whispered, ‘had I known who or what you were I would not have attacked you. The taint of hell itself is upon you and it is often hard to know if the spirits of evil have returned to the earth to do good or have merely returned to work more evil for their own goals.’

The demon shifted his thoughts and pushed into the mystic what his purpose was, indeed the only purpose he could think of. That of rescuing the daughter of John Blaze from the hands of a demon darker and more sinister than anything the sorcerer had ever known.

Screams filled the night air. The sound of an Angel being tormented shattered the stillness of the night. Rats and other vermin scurried away from the scene. Stray dogs and cats ran from the place and cringed together in what shelter they could find.

Mixed amongst the screams two other sounds could be heard. One was that of pure jubilant laughter. That of a child who has suddenly found a favorite new toy or pet to play with. The other sound was also laughter, but it was dark and filled with malice. The screams continued for hours throughout the night. The voice that laughed with malice shouted into the night in hysterical laughter…

“Yes Childe, time to play… time to play all the games you’ve always wanted to. Time to pull the wings off an Angel. Just like a butterfly… Pluck one… stab two… yes yes… time to play…”

“Uh, Comanche?” the mercenary said nervously. “Shit man, wake up, I know you got all this mystic crap down and all but if you don’t snap out of it right now I’ll put a bullet through him just on principle. That son of a bitch seared my favorite coat.”

The sorcerer shook violently and his hands dropped to his sides. Two bodies hit the ground hard and the mercenary wasn’t sure what to make of it. With his gun trained on the figure that was not his friend he looked down at his partner.

“You all right?” he asked.

Both figures stirred on the ground and his friend came-to first and pushed the barrel of the gun away from the other fallen figure.

“There’s no need for that.” The sorcerer said calmly. “The battle is over, we fought against the wrong force this night.”

“Oh can-it already! I just shot a flaming skull man several times tonight, watched him throw a flaming chain at you, witnessed him spontaneously combust, he flame broiled my ass like I was a Whopper and it was lunch time for the school field trip… I sure as hell am not taking my gun off him, I don’t care how he looks now.”

“Don’t worry old friend. There’s still a fight that must be fought, and it will be bigger than the one we have just finished.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’d like you to meet our new friend. Until our mission is over we fight by his side.”

The mercenary looked like he had just been slammed by a ton of bricks. The man on the floor shook off the bout of nausea that threatened to rip his intestines to shreds and held a hand to his head. Looking up into the barrel of the gun he cracked a crooked smile. The pain within his head felt like a jackhammer.

“Jack Murdock, I’d like you to meet John Blaze. While his name adequately describes his nature, I’m sure you’ve come to the understanding that our friend here is more than he seems.”

Blaze stood up on his shaky legs and held an outstretched hand towards the man who pointed a gun at him.

“Sorry bout the mess…” Blaze coughed between breathes.

The mercenary lowered his gun and stared quizzically at the man before him. In a short amount of time he had witnessed this man revert from a flaming skull with a bad attitude into a quite mild-mannered normal looking man.

“Seems our friend here is looking for his daughter…”

NEXT: Ghost Rider and his new allies follow Blackheart’s trail. Blackheart continues his insidious plans. A broken Angel will be revealed, and dear Emma Blaze may have a few surprises of her own. Stick around… This fire’s just getting started.