“If anyone is to be struck, it should be moi,” Ripper interjected. “I must insist, I really must.”
The guard cursed, then shuffled back to Ripper’s cell. After a furtive look around, he gave her a quick jab with his club. She was cooing with pleasure when he limped away.
“Nothing for me?” Banger called after him.
“Nyet,” said the guard, “because you are jackass.”
Silence reigned awhile. X lay back on the rocky ground, the bones of his face still glowing with pain. Just as his heart had begun to settle, he heard Banger’s annoying whisper.
“Talk to me, man,” he said. “Tell me your life story. I’ll tell you mine.”
X fought back a wave of anger. He had no desire to talk. He spoke harshly to snuff out the conversation.
“Banger, your story is well-known to me,” he said. “Do you forget that it was I who conveyed you to this place? Or that it was I who trained you to be a bounty hunter just as Ripper trained me? I know your crimes only too well. Hearing them again would only disgust me.”
“Jeez,” said Banger. “Way to be a dick.”
When it was quiet again, X closed his eyes, already regretting his outburst. He had collected 14 souls for the lords of the Lowlands, and Banger was by no means the worst of them. But X hated telling his story: it only reminded him of the injustices of his life.
X had committed no crime.
He was an innocent.
Unlike every other soul he’d ever encountered, he did not know why he had been condemned. He did not know what outrage he had supposedly committed—or even how or when he might have committed it. But rather than making him feel pure, X’s confusion only convinced him that there was something vile and corrupt in his heart that he would one day discover.
The pain beneath his eyes was excruciating now.
It was time.
Even Banger knew it. He was standing at the bars of his cell, gazing out.
“You got company, stud,” he said.
X looked through the bars, his heart like a drum.
A lord had leaped from the stony plain, and was hurtling at him through the air.
The prisoners were forbidden from knowing the lords’ names, as well. But the personage who swept into X’s cell now had a royal, African bearing and was quietly referred to as Regent, out of respect for his proud posture, his great height, and his shining, ebony skin.
X lay down on his back, readying for the ritual that was to come.
Regent came and towered above him, the golden band around his throat and the brilliant blue of his robe shimmering in the darkness.
He lowered his hand over X’s face like a mask, and began intoning a speech X had heard many times before.
“The Lowlands require another soul for its collection,” he intoned. “He is an evil man—unrepentant and unpunished. I bring you his hateful name. Will you receive this name and will you bring the man to me on his knees?”
“I will,” said X.
“Will you defend the secrecy of our world all the while? Will you defend the ancient, inviolable wall between the living and the dead just as bounty hunters have defended it since before time was even scratched in stone?” said Regent.
“I will,” said X.
The lord gripped X’s face harder with his taloned hand. X’s skull seemed to ignite. The pain coursed down his neck, traversed his shoulders, and so on until it had consumed him entirely. He could not breathe. He knew from the 14 previous occasions that the terror would pass, yet he could not prevent himself from bucking and kicking. The lord’s hand pressed down harder still.
But X did not think Regent cruel. Even as the lord held him fast, he stroked X’s hair paternally with his other hand, taking care that his nails did not lacerate X’s skin. Soon something behind X’s eyes burst like a dam, and he saw nothing but an overpowering whiteness. When he retrieved his senses, he found himself in the Overworld—on a mountain, in a blizzard.
Regent had set a man’s sins swimming in X’s veins.
X was like a dog who’d been given the scent of his prey.
Now he could hunt.
The man’s name was a boring little brick: Stan. It wasn’t just Stan’s story that rushed through X’s blood, but also the story of everyone whose lives he had infected. There was an old couple called Bert and Betty. There was a boy lost in the woods without a coat or gloves. A pair of dogs.
And a girl.
X could have summoned her face and pictured it with perfect clarity, but he was careful not to. He merely glimpsed her out of the corner of his mind’s eye, and saw enough to know that she was too lovely—too fierce and full of hope—for him to recover from.
five