An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  And of course, again and again, the feeling of my flesh turning inside out when I use the Sativus medallion to take possession of Cairax’s body. Every muscle in my body spasms. Horns tear through my forehead. New teeth shred my gums and lips. Talons rip open my fingertips. He appreciates the irony in this. What was torture for him is now torture for me. After my death I make the transformation tens of thousands of times more than I ever did in life.

  After two months of screaming, or maybe three, he stops. I don’t know why. When he talks to me, it’s with the voices you hear in the back of your head. He speaks with the sound of imagined conversations and half-remembered dreams.

  It shall give me great pleasure to destroy you for this disgrace, little soul.

  I shout back, “No.” My voice only sounds different because I want to be heard. In this place, in the state we’re in, neither of us has a real voice.

  To make one such as me a mortal plaything is a dishonor beyond measure. To sully the unholy titles of Cairax Murrain with acts of selflessness and charity. To make mortals cheer my name when they should shriek and cower and beg. Such a painful insult must be returned in kind.

  I manage another “No” before he begins again.

  My screams are the chorus for a symphony of pain that goes on for another four or five months without interruption. Almost half a year with every agony of my life on a loop. The tattoo needles stab down again and again. A kneecap shatters on my twenty-eighth birthday. Three fingers burn on the stove when I’m four. An absolutely gorgeous dead woman bites down on my tongue and tears it away. My skin crawls with infection while the straps bite into my wrists and ankles. My dog, Muggsy, hit by a car and dies in my arms when I’m nine. A broken nose in a bar fight. Marie-Anne tears away a clump of my hair for the doll and leaves my scalp bleeding.

  Cairax stops again. The pauses let him enjoy the torture even more. He’s a gourmand of agony, making himself wait so he can savor each sweet morsel of my pain. He breathes in my suffering.

  You shall long for the feeble torment of this imprisonment. You shall look back at our time here together with such pleasure and happiness. These shall be the happy memories that sustain you.

  My head is spinning from the lack of torture. It doesn’t know how to work with the constant agony, but it’s hit the point I’m having trouble without it. Part of me wants to give up and just accept it. On some level, I always knew this is how I would end up. Despite all my attitude and style, I knew nobody beats the house in the long run.

  I don’t beg. Begging will just make it worse. I don’t know how it could get worse, but I know it will. “We both know this wasn’t supposed to happen,” I say. “This isn’t my fault!”

  Only the worst of craftsmen blame their tools for their failures.

  But I sense there’s a puzzle piece in front of me, one of the edge pieces that tells you how everything fits together. And Cairax hasn’t seen it. There still might be a chance to get out of this.

  Your cries shall ring out through the Abyss for ten times ten generations. My hands shall deliver unto you every pain and affliction and violation that has ever been known to man or beast. It will take you ten thousand years just to reach the brink of oblivion, and another ten thousand to fall in. And every moment of that time, my sole purpose shall be to make it worse for you.

  I realize what he’s missed. Or maybe what he didn’t want me to notice. We’re still here. Still trapped in a mass of rotting tissue by a short-circuited spell inked into my skin.

  I manage a chuckle and Cairax glares at me.

  What aspect of your future is so pleasing to you, dearest Maxwell?

  “It’s your future, too,” I remind him. “And we’re not there yet, are we? It’s been, what … six months? Maybe seven?”

  I feel the smile on his face. It’s a terrifying expression, even when it’s just a mental construct. Did I miss something else? Some detail that slipped past me? I decide to press on.

  “Over half a year since we died,” I say. “And no one’s shot us in the head or disposed of us somehow. We’re still both trapped in here. How long will you be able to keep this up? A year, maybe?”

  He laughs. I want to drink bleach to clean out my head from the sound. His laughter just gnaws away at my essence, at my fabric of being.

  Dearest little Maxwell, he tells me, we have only been here together for a day now.

  And then he makes me start screaming again.

  I don’t know how long it’s been. The rest of the day? Weeks? Months?

  The only things left in my mind are memories of pain, and memories of memories of pain. There’s no space for anything else. I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t constant agony racking every inch of my body and mind. I’ve lost all concept of what order my life happened in, because it’s all dependent on the pain.

  At some point, Cairax gets bored and decides to let me breathe for a few minutes. It’s like pulling a burn victim from a fire and leaving them sitting on the ground. I’ve hit the point the lack of torture isn’t any better than the torture itself. Even with the pain gone, I writhe and flail from a thousand aftershocks. I have an excess of agony to process before I can think.

  Ahhh, the exquisite torture you have to look forward to in the Abyss. The eons we shall have together before your soul is rent and fed to the lesser reavers. And then …

  “And then what?”

  Cairax Murrain turns to me.

  I’ve said the words without thinking. Now I need to think fast. “Then what?” I say again, trying to buy myself an extra moment or two.

  And then I see it. It’s like magic. Magic isn’t on the surface, it’s the ninety percent below water. I know how I’m going to get out of this.

  “There isn’t going to be anyone else,” I say. “I’m the last soul you’ll ever get.”

  His spines rustle like a buzzard ruffling its wings.

  “I was right before. We’re still in here. No one’s put us down. And considering we’d be pretty damned dangerous as one of the walking dead, I think it’s because there’s nobody to do it.”

  Cairax stalks around me. He’s angry, but the anger’s not directed my way for the first time in … well, a long time.

  “If we ever make it out of here,” I say, “you’re going home to a dwindling kingdom in the Abyss.”

  Your prattling tires me, dearest Maxwell. Your screams are such better company.

  He raises a claw to begin again.

  “Wait!” I shout. “Wait! What if we made a deal?”

  Your gall is beyond measure. The jailer is willing to bargain when his prisoners free themselves and rise up against him. What could you possibly offer that could serve as compensation for the dishonor you have brought upon the name and title of Cairax Murrain?

  But he’s amused now. Interested. He thinks it can see where I’m going, but it wants me to say the words. That’s how these things always go. Even when the deck’s marked and they’re holding all the cards, demons want it to seem like you’re the one with the strong hand, you’re the one controlling the game.

  “The world,” I tell him.

  And there it is. A steel wheel, five-high straight flush. I can’t think of anything he could have to beat this. This is how desperate I am. That I’d try this game with these stakes.

  Cairax is caught off guard. At this point, most losers are promising to sacrifice six hundred and sixty-six people or some such idiot payment. It’s where some of the world’s best serial killers have come from. The demon’s annoyed and interested I’ve offered him something else. Considering the circumstances, I hope he’s more interested.

  The rustling spines settle down. His talons tap together.

  The world, as you have pointed out, is empty. It is devoid of all but the soulless ones.

  “It’s not empty,” I say. “You and I both know that. There’ll be survivors. Only a few millions, but they’ll be there. And they could be all yours. Every living soul on Earth. It could be the
Black Death all over again.”

  He makes a dry sound like the death rattle of a snake. He’s sighing with pleasure at the memories.

  And, assuming your terms were pleasing to me, what would we need to do for this, dearest Maxwell?

  “Once this body is destroyed, the Marley will operate correctly. You’ll return to the Abyss, I’ll remain on Earth as a bound spirit. I can begin working to prepare a body for you. Depending on who survives, I may have the perfect one for you.”

  Or perhaps you will flee and try to avoid your debts.

  I shake my head. “I can’t flee. You know that. The Marley leaves me bound in spirit form. I can either stay a spirit or find a new body and die, which brings me right back to you.”

  We talk. We talk for a long time. I know how the game goes. If I leave anything to chance or miss one loophole, this could all go wrong for me.

  Eventually we stop talking. The demon mulls things over. I’m just starting to think he’s going to reject my offer when he speaks.

  This would seem to be a beneficial contract for both of us. Your terms are accepted.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ve done it. I’ve beat the devil.

  And your offenses? How shall we balance the books on those?

  “I’m offering you the world, Cairax Murrain. The goal of every fallen one and demon since the beginning of time. Surely such a gift makes up for any inconvenience I’ve caused you in the past.”

  No. It does not.

  “I … I don’t have anything else to offer.”

  Oh, but you do, dearest Maxwell. You can entertain me until this body is destroyed.

  And now I’m screaming again.

  ST. GEORGE COULD lift almost seven tons under perfect conditions. Fourteen thousand pounds. He was strong enough to pick up a car if he could balance it, and move a semitrailer when he had the right leverage. He could snap steel aircraft cables without breathing hard. His fingers could crush brick and concrete and pavement.

  He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and pulled.

  The glistening red cords that held him weren’t much thicker than shoelaces. They had no knots or fasteners. The lines looped around his wrists and ankles, barely tight enough to touch his skin. Max and the demon had him strung up between a streetlight and the signpost for a Trader Joe’s on the north side of 3rd Street.

  Smoke whistled out between his teeth. His eyes watered from the effort. His shoulders burned and his wrists screamed with pain but the thin lines didn’t budge. He took a few deep breaths and tensed his shoulders again.

  “Flex and strain all you like, my dear little hero,” said the demon. Cairax’s legs raised a little too high and reached a little too far, like a huge spider. It stalked across the road to stand face-to-face with him. “These are blood ties. They cannot be broken.”

  This close St. George could see the scaly texture of the demon’s skin. The burning blue eyes locked on his, each one the size of his palm, and dared him to look away. It felt like a staring contest with a rattlesnake. The slitted nostrils trembled as Cairax sucked in air and exhaled on the hero. The monster’s breath was hot. It reeked of disease and meat.

  Max bent over the road with a dagger he’d pulled from his coat and put the final touches on the circle he’d scratched into the pavement. He straightened up to stretch his back. “Anyway,” he said, picking up as if there’d been no interruption, “breaking Josh out was the easiest part. It’s not like he needed much convincing, either. A bit of alchemy turned the cell wall to water vapor for a minute, he walked out, and the bars and mesh reformed behind him. No sign of anything being tampered with. I’m sure it drove Stealth crazy.”

  St. George risked looking away from the demon’s eyes. “She knew he had outside help.”

  “Because nothing else made sense in her little worldview,” said Max. “Your girlfriend has one big blind spot, George. She’s inflexible. She can’t think outside the box. The box she does think in is gigantic, I admit, but she can’t put her brain outside it even just for a moment.”

  The sorcerer twisted at the hips, then leaned to either side and stretched his arms out. He bent over to scratch a few more Latin words along the edge of the circle. “After that it was just a matter of getting you alone out here, so Josh’s escape killed two birds with one stone. Thanks for letting me paint all those sigils and agreements on you, by the way. It saves us about an hour and a half.”

  St. George tried to ignore him and looked at the demon. It gazed back at him with its saucer-like eyes. He was pretty sure it was smirking, but the forest of teeth made it hard to be sure.

  “Josh,” he said, “you’ve got to fight this. I know you hate all of us because of what happened, you hate the world because of what happened to Meredith, but you can’t let—”

  “You waste your final hour calling to your friend,” said Cairax. The demon reached up and tapped its fingers against the crown of horns. They made a noise like the crack of billiard balls. “His lonely mind was broken long before what was left of it accepted our offer. He submitted to dear Maxwell’s preparations, turned over his mortal form, and retreated to nonexistence with no resistance or second thoughts. Through me he found the end he has searched so long for.”

  The demon twitched a finger and the red cords holding St. George pulled tighter. Not much. Just another half inch. He felt it in his joints.

  He managed to glare back at the creature. “Next you’ll tell me your only weakness is wood,” he said. “Before you know it you’ll give your whole plan away.”

  “Such bravado,” said Cairax. Its tongue darted out and snapped like a whip in front of St. George’s face. “You are a credit to your namesake after all, my little hero, but soon your soul shall be my plaything. We shall see how brave you are then.”

  “Just try me.”

  Its tooth-filled mouth twisted into another grin. Fangs and tusks pointed in every direction. The demon looked over its shoulder at Maxwell as he scratched more symbols inside the new circle.

  “It’s easy to be brave when you’re ignorant,” said Max without looking up. “Believe me, if you had any idea what’s going to happen to you, you’d be wetting your pants right now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Smoke streamed out of St. George’s nostrils. “Is that your excuse for siding with this thing? For betraying all of us? You’re scared of what it could do to you?”

  Max shoved the dagger into his belt and walked up to the bound hero. Cairax moved out of his way with one step of its long legs. The move was graceful and unnatural all at once. “Yeah,” he snapped, “I am scared.”

  “You used to be a hero.”

  “I used to be a paperboy, too. So what?” He shook his head. “Let me tell you something, George. I know what Hell’s like. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. And you know what?” He waved his arm over his shoulder, back in the direction of the Big Wall. “I will sacrifice anything not to go through that again. You, Stealth, Barry, Danielle, my parents, every girl I ever loved, every single person in the Mount—Cairax can have all of your immortal souls as long as it means I don’t go to Hell.”

  St. George took in a long, slow breath. “You’re a coward.”

  “No,” Max shook his head, “I’m a realist. There’s only so many ways this can go down, and they all involve a lot of people dying. I just made the choice not to be one of them. Like I told Stealth, I chose to survive.”

  “And that’s the way it is?”

  “Yeah,” said Max. “That’s the way it is.”

  “Then I don’t feel too bad about this.”

  St. George exhaled hard, spraying fire down at the sorcerer. It was a good-sized cone, enough to cover the man from head to toe. The blast exploded over Max, and splashed out across the pavement. The flames lit up the street for a block in either direction. They burned for a few seconds and then sputtered out.

  Cairax Murrain’s hand stretched out in front of the sorcerer. The fingers sprea
d wide in front of Max’s face. A last few licks of fire danced on the knuckles and talons, like flies caught in a spiderweb. The demon closed its hand into a fist and the flames were crushed.

  Max wasn’t even singed.

  The demon snorted and pulled its impossibly long arm back. It strode halfway across the street and snatched up an ex through the barrier. It spun the dead thing in its claws, plucking off arms and legs and then the head.

  “That was foolish,” said Max. “Even if Cairax wasn’t here, I’ve got two different fire wards on me.”

  “Maybe I don’t give up as easily as you.”

  “I didn’t give up,” said Max. “I made a deal.”

  “Come on,” St. George said. “Do you think that thing’s going to hold up its side of the bargain? After everything you’ve told us about it? What’s going to stop it from killing you?”

  “Well,” said the sorcerer, “one is the contract. I’ve offered it a lot of prime souls in exchange for its leniency. A bunch of heroes. And a deal’s a deal.”

  St. George glared at him.

  “Two is that I’m going to be a lot harder to kill in about twenty minutes or so.”

  He wrinkled his brow at the sorcerer. “How so?”

  Cairax Murrain picked up another ex, a dead woman, and tossed it from hand to hand. A chuckle slithered up out of the demon’s throat. It caught the ex and scissored the woman in half with its talons.

  Max waved a hand at his chest. “Stealth was right. This isn’t much of a cheat. Jarvis was in pretty good shape, but in five or ten years I’ll just need another body. Unless I found a better one sooner than that. One that was strong, almost completely invulnerable, and would last a hundred years or so with no problem.”

  He gestured at the circle and symbols he’d been scratching into the pavement, then looked the bound hero in the eye.