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
The girl hovered outside the garage now. She was just standing there, squinting at X and rubbing her nose, her hair askew from sleep. Yet he was so transfixed by her that everything in his body stopped. She had wavy, light brown hair that just barely grazed her shoulders. There was a dark beauty mark on her left cheekbone that drew attention to her eyes, which were wide and glinting and seemed to change from blue to gray even as X looked at her.
He turned away and coughed savagely. Stan’s sins had been polluting his body ever since Regent set them loose in his bloodstream. Now that X had let Stan go free, the pain had intensified. The Trembling was the lords’ way of ensuring that the bounty hunters would follow orders and return to the Lowlands with their prey.
X had never suffered like this before because he’d never refused his duty before. Still, he knew that his misery—the fever, the pain, the delirium—would only increase unless he renewed his search for Stan. Even if X could endure his sickness, the lords would send another bounty hunter after him—or maybe Regent himself would arrive, seething and bent on vengeance.
When his coughing subsided, X turned back to the girl and her family. The mother was holding her children at a safe distance. Still, the boy managed to break free, and rushed at him. X’s body stiffened reflexively—no one ever approached him unless they meant to do him harm—but the boy only wanted to hug him and to whisper, “You saved my dogs!”
He embraced X so tightly that X gasped.
“Stop it—you’re hurting him,” said the girl. “And you’re being weird.”
“Step away from him, Jonah,” said the mother.
The boy did as he was told. The mother peered around the garage.
“My god, it’s hot in here,” she said. “How is that possible?”
X had warmed the air with a simple rubbing together of his hands. Seeing the mother’s concern, he made a circular motion with his palm and the garage was frigid again in an instant.
“Wow,” said the mother, even more alarmed than before.
“A-mazing!” said the boy.
The girl said nothing. She hadn’t stepped any closer. Was she afraid? Disgusted? X couldn’t blame her. He was repulsive even to himself. He saw her notice the bruises beneath his eyes, then look quickly away. Shame radiated through him. He wished that she and her family would flee. He wished they would burn the garage down around him. He did not want them to bind their fate to his. Now that he had betrayed the lords, he was a body in free fall, gaining momentum as he fell.
X touched the boy’s back gently to let him know that he had not hurt him. He stole another look at the girl, afraid he would see horror in her eyes. Instead, he saw a soft expression that he could not identify. Was that what pity looked like?