The Loch Ness Mobster- backstory

Had this idea and when ctrl-alt-del announced a contest for backstory to win a beta spot I wrote this up real fast. I'll add in the details and such at a later time. Figured I would share my quick story and find out what others think.




The Loch Ness Mobster

Shamus MacDougall was born In Whitebridge on the Eastern side of Loch Ness in 1915, the 4th son of a shepherd. The life of herding sheep left him little time to do much else let alone travel but Shamus had dreams of finding his place in the world and seeing the big cities of America that he read about in all the books he read. Not being the first born of his family meant that he would never be more than a shepherd.

On his 17th birthday Shamus left home. He had saved up a small amount of money and had hoped to find passage on a ship to America to find his place. He didn’t tell anyone that he was leaving but felt that he wouldn’t be missed too much. Upon reaching Southampton all of the Scotsman’s money had run out. He tried to find work to earn money but being fairly unskilled in anything that didn’t involve Sheep and Herding he was hard pressed to do anything but survive. He was large for his age so he took on tasks such as loading ships and menial labor.

One evening, while loading a trade ship, Shamus happened upon a dirty deal going down on the docks. He saw two men dressed in dark suits talking to a local politician who was known to be part of the port council, who controlled what came into and out of the ports. As Shamus stumbled on the exchange it appeared that the men in the suits were strong-arming the man into looking the other way as they made some transfers of something through the port. Seeing the large Red-haired man in the kilt witnessing the exchange, the two men took action.

Before realizing what was happening Shamus was looking down the barrel of a Tommy gun. The men asked what he was doing there and if he had heard anything. Shamus told them, unconvincingly, that he saw and heard nothing but wasn’t believed. They took him, at gunpoint, onto the ship nearby and tied him up and left him in the hold to decide what to do with him.

Shamus looked around the hold while dreading his death at the hands of these mysterious men and his eyes lit on what he was surrounded by. All through the hold were various artifacts from all over Europe. He noticed that he was leaning against what appeared to be a large stone with archaic Gaelic symbols carved into it. He understood quickly why he was being held. These artifacts were priceless and were likely taken without permission.

The two men returned a bit later with a older man in a similar suit. The man inspected Shamus from a distance and then turned to speak with his companions in hushed tones. Shamus couldn’t hear everything that was said but got the impression that things didn’t look good for his survival. When the smaller man turned and left, the other two turned to him and one drew a large knife. Shamus struggled against his restraints to no avail as the man brought his knife to Shamus’ neck.

The blade cut swiftly along his neck and Shamus felt the life drain out of him. His life sprayed out over the deck and hit the stones behind him as his body convulsed in its death throes. As the blood splattered the stone he felt something odd course through him. It was as if the stone was glowing and adding its power to him. Shamus felt a presence in the back of his head as his vision faltered. He heard a soft voice speaking to him. It said that it was the voice of Cerridwen who was the keeper of the Underworld and that the stone upon which his blood flowed was a shrine to her. By letting loose his life force upon the stone he had awakened her to the world and she was aware of his plight.

The two men saw nothing but the dying Scotsman and cursing themselves for not thinking to kill him somewhere that would be easier to clean up. They turned and walked out figuring that they would send down someone junior to them to take care of the mess. Meanwhile, Shamus was speaking with a goddess.

Cerridwen told the young man that she needed to use him as a vessel for her wishes and a means for accomplishing her tasks, at which Shamus reminded the deity that he was laying mostly dead on the floor. Power coursed through him at that and the wound on his neck closed on its own accord. Shamus began to feel his life ebb back into him and more. He felt stronger and more alive than he had ever felt. He still felt the presence of Cerridwen in his mind but she had faded to just an inkling of thought. She filled his mind with images of what he must do.

Shamus opened the door to the hold the rest of the way and made his way out into the corridor. Looking left and right he found that he could “Feel” which way the men had gone. He followed this path until he came on a door that was cracked and he could hear low voices. The two men were telling the older man that they had done as he had asked and that they were getting someone else to clean up the mess. The man said that it was good and that the “Boss” would be happy that his little secret hadn’t gotten out.
An hour later, Shamus MacDougall left the ship wearing a nice if slightly ill-fitting suit jacket, black fedora hat and a kilt. The port police would find what was left of the bodies of the men who had been on the ship along with thousands of priceless artifacts and on the wall in the hold there was a symbol painted in blood that upon investigation it turned out to be a symbol for Cerridwen.

Reports of a large Scottish man in a suit and kilt surfaced a few months later in Detroit near the site of a massacre of a Mafia family. From these reports it sounded as if he was super strong and fast and that bullets just bounced off of him. A few “families” lost most of their members to similar circumstances. After that he disappeared…until now.