Chapter 12: The Court of Flies
The kick to his ribs woke him up, but not fully. It was a dull thud, distant, as if happening to someone else.
Max was tied to a chair. The room smelled of gasoline and stale beer. He forced his swollen eyes open. He was in a garage, surrounded by rusted car parts and the three Copperheads who had found him.
"Wakey wakey," Gold Tooth said, leaning close. The smell of onions and decay on his breath made Max's stomach churn. "We found your ID. Max. No last name. Just a ghost."
Gold Tooth turned to his friends. "Word on the street is a kid matching his description blew up the Vittorio gala. There's a five million dollar bounty on his head. Five. Million."
The other two thugs whooped, high-fiving. They were already spending the money in their heads.
"But here's the thing, Max," Gold Tooth continued, tapping the bat against Max's knee. "The Vittorios want you alive. They want to skin you slow. So, we have to keep you here until they arrive. But nobody said we couldn't have a little fun first."
He raised the bat.
Max didn't flinch. He couldn't. He was past the point of physical reaction. His body was broken. He was going to die here. Even if the Vittorios didn't kill him, the internal bleeding would.
"They are going to break you, Max. Like a toy."
The voice was clearer now. Suave. cultured. Bored.
"Who are you?" Max mumbled.
"Talking to his imaginary friend," one of the thugs laughed.
"I'm the one holding the wheel," the voice replied.
Suddenly, the garage changed. The oil stains on the floor seemed to pool together, turning a deep, vantablack. The shadows in the corners of the room elongated, stretching toward Max like grasping fingers. The sounds of the Copperheads laughing became muffled, like he was hearing them from underwater.
Time seemed to stutter. A drop of water falling from a leaky pipe hung suspended in the air, glistening like a diamond.
A man walked out of the shadows.
He wasn't wearing a suit or a cloak. He was wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit, grease-stained and torn. But his skin was perfect, alabaster white, and his eyes... his eyes were voids. No whites, no irises. Just infinite, starless space.
The Copperheads didn't see him. They were frozen in time, the bat raised, the laughter stuck in their throats.
The entity walked around Max's chair, inspecting him like a used car.
"Transmission is shot," the entity said, poking Max's dislocated shoulder. Max felt no pain, only a cold tingle. "Chassis is bent. Engine is... resilient."
"Am I dead?" Max asked. His voice was steady in this strange, frozen place.
"Not yet," the entity said, leaning against a suspended tire. "But you're close. You're idling at the edge of the cliff. I can give you a push, send you over into the dark. Or... we can make a trade."
"I don't have any money," Max said.
The entity chuckled. It was the sound of dry leaves skittering on pavement. "Money is boring. I want entertainment. I want to see how fast you can drive on a road made of bones."
The entity leaned in close, its void-eyes filling Max's vision.
"I am the Patron of the desperate. The Saint of the Lost Causes. I offer you a contract, Max. You want to survive? You want to kill them? I can make you better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter."
"What's the catch?" Max asked. He was a street kid. There was always a catch.
"The catch is the fuel," the entity whispered. "Your power will be tied to your status. You are a nobody right now, so you are weak. But as you rise... as you conquer territory, as you command soldiers, as you instill fear... I will feed you power. You climb the ladder of the underworld, and I will make you a god among men."
"And if I fall?"
"Then you belong to me. Body and soul."
Max looked at the frozen Gold Tooth, the bat inches from his knee. He looked at his broken body. He felt the rage that had driven him to bomb the Citadel.
"I want to drive," Max whispered.
The entity smiled, revealing teeth that were too sharp, too many.
"Then take the wheel."
The entity reached out and placed a cold hand on Max's forehead.
SNAP.
Time crashed back into motion.