STANDOFF: GOOD AND EVIL AT MIDNIGHT

Leroy was not fully aware of how much power the being had accumulated until he looked at the computer, at a picture of himself, and he noticed the malevolent inky black spread of the being, in binary starkness, from the middle of his back, from just below the shoulderblades. The image had not been there when he had taken the picture, of that he was certain.

Verily, viewed quickly, the Black Spread had reminded him of Fantasia, the part in which El Diablo had unfurled his massive black wings from the top of the mountain and had stretched them across the sky, blotting out the sun, rendering all below in shadow. The theme from the score echoed in his mind as his spine turned to ice: dum-duh-dum-duh-dum-dum-dum-dum dum-duh-dum-duh-dum-dum-dum-dum.... Images of the militant ghostly equestrians galloped across his mind and he wondered when he had gone wrong. Had he not tried to be morally and ethically beyond reproach? Had he not strove to live his life in adherence to the Golden Rule? Had it all been for naught? Had it?

He scratched a wooden ruler down his back, following his spine, and gasped as he ran the implement over the area at which, in the snapshot on the computer screen, the Black Spread originated. It was a singular sensation. The only thing to which Leroy could equate it was a slow melting drip of an ice cube, directly above the bone of his spinal column. That was not to say that it was an unpleasant feeling, though. Actually, quite the contrary. Rubbing the ruler against his back was directly proportional to the waves of pleasure that blossomed from his groin. The harder he scratched, the more powerful the pounds of pleasure.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to pull the ruler from his back and he threw it into the corner, breathing heavily, a heretofore innocuous means of measurement now seen in a different, much more malevolent, light. How was he to combat something that, instinctively, he knew to be evil, but that felt so damned good?

He and the Dark Prince were set to do battle. Back to back, they stood, the clock at high-up midnight, the battle for his spirit about to commence. How does one combat tidal waves of dopamine and seratonin, ill-begotten though they may be? Where does one start?

For the first time in a very long time, Leroy was afraid for his immortal soul.

And, on the computer screen, the Devil silently mocked him, blooming from his back like some inverse poisonous toadstool.