Crime Does Pay...

It was midnight, and under the all seeing eyes of the stars, four shadows pulled up at the back of the National History Museum in a dirty white van, the perfect disguise for a quick getaway. They had planned a quick break-in, targeting only one artifact in particular, the newest and most interesting piece in the whole building; the Spear of Thanasis. They did not care for it's mythical properties, no-one believed that rubbish, they were only interested in its value; £12 million.

The four were excited and they had good reason to be. If they pulled this off, they would all be £3 million richer, it seemed easy enough. They had planned everything for weeks, and they felt that they should get past the heavily guarded defences without much fuss.

The shadows got out of the van, and now they could be seen as four men, grasping an array of tools and devices which would aid them in their probable victory. There didn't seem to be a leader, but one did take control more than the others. His name was Mark, and at 5'9 and with a heavy build, he could intimidate the bravest of men; very useful in his favorite hobby rugby.

"Ben, you know what to do?" Whispered Mark.

"Yeah exactly," Replied a thin and handsome, 5'6 man in his late twenties, "Piece of cake."

"Good, just do it quickly. We don't want to be seen out here with this gear, there's loads of security guards walking around."

"Sure, I've got it, just hang on."

He walked towards the large back door (a bit like a garage only five times the size), took a strange electronic device out of his bag and attached it to the door's keypad. In a matter of minutes, the door raised up a quarter of the way and everyone crawled through the gap. Ben was the electronics expert and no-one was better in the whole city. He could do all kinds of tricks with government computers and such, long before anyone else started to. Of course, nowadays, that kind of programming isnt anything special, a lot of thrives did it, but not as Ben could.

They closed the door after them to avoid suspicion from nearby guards and started heading towards the lobby, being careful not to make too much noise as they knew there would be guards inside aswell. They all carried a gun in their bags but that was a heavy risk to take, letting one of those go off would make a serious problem and it was a last resort only.

They knew the artifact was on the 4th floor, and would not risk using the elevator, so they climbed the four flights of stairs quickly but silently.

When they came to the right floor, they stopped just at the tip of the stairs to allow Ben to turn off the whole floor's defense system with his little electronical gadgets at a control pad on the wall beside them. Once that was completed, they speedily crossed through the rooms to the very end, where they came across a vaulted door.

Unfased by this, Leo, the explosives expert, who was 5'8, dark and well built, searched his bag for the explosives he prepared earlier with a timer to countdown the blast. He placed them on the door's lock and set the timer, signalling for everyone to move backwards as he moved back quickly himself. After just ten seconds, the lock exploded noisily but effectively and they all hurried inside, someone would have definately heard that and they'd be up here momentarily.

Ben and a man called Dave rushed to the glass case in the centre of the new room, (there was no other security measures as the curators never thought that someone would get past that door; but they hadn't known just how dangerous Leo's chemicals were) and hastily got to work on getting that spear out.

Dave was a lock picking expert, building his reputation as a burgular from a young age, but this line of work definately paid better. The museum would pay the valued price of the object to see it's return, and £12 million was a lot of money, hell, £3 million was a lot of money.

Once the case was open, Dave and Mark caught each other's eye, a knowing smile crossing their faces. This was it, the big one, the theft that Dave and Mark had talked about doing for years. They went way back, their relationship that of a father and son rather than that of friendship.

Dave had always been a quiet one, talented, but quiet. Mark spotted his abilities as he spotted him burgularing a neightbour's house quite amaturely and unproffesionally, but now Dave knew better, having been taught and shown by Mark how you really did it. Mark remembered him as a fragile and unconfident teenager when they first met, not realising the intensity of Dave's past. His father beat him regularly, and his mother too, until he actually killed her, leaving Dave distressed and nervous. But things had changed since then, that was ten years ago, and know Dave was a lot happier.

Dave lifted the spear carefully with a cloth and put in his bag for protection. Now they just had to get out of there. They turned to leave but stopped short of the door. They could hear footsteps echoing in the direction of the main staircase.

"Shit," Exclaimed Mark quietly, "We need to move now. Try not to be seen so we don't have to use our guns. I don't fancy a murder charge or something. If we shoot they'll be cops everywhere."

The floor was like a donut, with the staircase at the centre. If they could make it round the opposite way as the guard was they could run down the stairs. They moved quickly and kept rounding the corners on the opposite side, not anticipating that there was more than one guard and they were covering every area of the floor.

"Could our luck get an worse?" Whispered Ben, "What are we going to do now?"

Mark thought for a moment and replied swiftly in hushed tones, "We need to split up and hide in one of these rooms until they leave. There must be about six guards up here. We'll meet back at the van."

They separated and went off on their own, slipping through the shadows of the dimly lit museum and avoiding the guards. As they were choosing their hiding places among the exhibits, a fight broke out betwen the guards and something lurking in the shadows. Gunfire went off and bodies hit the ground.

Leo peeked out into the main area and stared at the carnage. Six bodies were lying on the ground in dark pools of blood, and one man was standing in the middle of them, clutching the Spear of Thanasis in one hand, blood dripping from it's tip. The man was calming down as if he had turned off a switch in his body, the same one which had made him commit this. Leo was about to pass this man off as a stranger when he realised who it was; Dave.

He walked closer to him, being careful not to slip on the bloody mess of the once sparkling clean floor.

"Dave... what have you done? We said this wouldn't happen, we said..."

"We said that we didn't believe in the myth behind this spear," Interrupted Dave, "But now I know." He laughed softly, excitedly, but Leo heard a hint of evil in that laugh.

"Know what?" He asked nervously, maybe he shouldn't know.

"That," Began Dave, "Would be telling."

And as he turned towards Leo, Leo was over come by fear and he knew what Dave meant.

A few minutes later, the bodies of the six guards, Leo and Ben were lying unneatly on the bloody floor, all with just one stab wound throught the heart, the place of the soul. Just after he had killed Leo, Ben walked in on the mess as he too had heard the shots. He had asked what had happened too and had met the same fate as his friend. Now, only Mark was left, and Dave knew where to find him.

Mark was hiding in a rather large, but practically empty store room unaware of everything that had happened. The room was soundproof, and as he stood there in the dark, all he thought he had to deal with was a few guards; how wrong he was.

Suddenly, the door swung open with a crash, making Mark jump in terror, but he soon calmed as a friendly face emerged from the shadows.

"Oh, it's just you," Said Mark, "What happened to those guards? Have they gone?"

"You could say that." Replied Mark, an evil smile spreading across his face.

"What do you mean?" he asked, concerned about Dave's weird expression and tone, but Dave changed the subject.

"It's amazing what this spear can do." he whispered as he brought it up in front of him. It gleamed in the soft moonlight coming in from the window, giving it an eerie and disturbing identity, but what was more disturbing was the deep red blood still dripping from it's tip.

"Oh God. What have you done?!" Exclaimed a shell-shocked Mark.

"It gives so much power to it's weilder," Continued Dave, " It's incredible. I feel so...alive."

Mark was confused, what did he mean? "What have you done?" he persued.

"What I had to do to stay alive."

"How..."

"You know what, I don't have to tell you."

"You killed them, didn't you? All six."

Dave laughed, "You are mistaken in your numbers sir, I killed eight." He screeched in immense pride.

"Ben and Leo?" Replied Mark horified.

"Yeah," he replied casually, "I needed their souls."

"You what?" This guy was a nutter he thought.

"I never told you the myth about the Spear of Thanasis did I?" He smiled, "Then let me enlighten you. By stabbing through the heart of a victim, their youth and soul gets trapped into it." He moved into the light more, forcing Mark to move back too in fear. "By collecting nine, the weilder gains immortality."

Mark counted the number of deaths tonight, six guards, two friends, Dave needed another, if this story was true, Dave certainly believed. Fear and numbness spread through his body.

"And as you have probably worked out," He continued, "I am one short."

"What are you?" asked Mark shakily.

"Good question," He replied, "I'm just pure evil, that's all you need to know," He paused, "That's all you'll ever know." He lunged forwards and plunged the spear deep into Mark's heart, the blood came thick and fast, he died in seconds.

Dave removed the spear from Mark's chest and wiped it clean. It now contained the nine souls he needed for immortality. All that was needed to do now was to plunge it into his own heart and recieve the gift he had been denied thousands of years earlier. How he had ever lost the spear to the curators he will never know, but it had kept him alive all this time and it would do so forever.

He plunged it deep into his heart without wincing and felt the familiar power and energy he had never felt before. The victims energies re-energized his body, bringing his form back to life properly. It felt good to be alive again after all this time surviving as a horrid manifestation of the form he once was, the basic life form he hated to be.

The Spear was bound to him, keepig him alive in the simplest form, forever denying him the power he desired. Everytime he was on his last victim, the spear had disappeared, supernaturally or naturally.

But now he knew why it had done this. It was not time for him to return, to spread evil across the world like he once had, but now was the time. As he took the spear out of his chest, he felt his own powers coming back to him, and as turned on his heel, the demon disappeared into the shadows. Pure evil had been released into the world and no-one could stop it...