Prisoner, page 42
part #2 of The Contractors Series
“So it was a big boost for you, winning that battle,” Jack said.
“Yeah. Definitely.” Daniel looked at him. “I have no idea how strong I am now, honestly. I haven’t been able to go all out since that fight. Been locked down here.”
Jack tapped his chin. “In terms of raw power, you could demolish me, Rasputin, maybe even Dracula. You have an actual shot at beating Bathory. When this is over, you’ll be like superman. I wonder if the non-magical government will want to work with you. You could end wars, bring peace to the world and all that jazz.”
“Maybe I can do some stuff, but I’m also only one person,” Daniel said. “People won’t ever stop fighting. I want it all to end and go back to my life, not be an eternal savior. We’re just a couple guys that drew winning lottery tickets.”
Jack shook his head. “You’re fooling yourself if you think it’ll be that simple. I respect your principles and everything, but no one will let you go back. You’re too powerful, too important.”
“Maybe,” Daniel said. “I can worry about it after the Vorid give up trying to destroy the planet and I get my family back in one piece.”
“Speaking of getting you back.” Jack looked at him. “You really want to that bad?”
“I have to,” Daniel said. “If I wasn’t before, I have to be the strongest contractor so far. I’m the only one that can fight them straight on right now, or even try to fight them straight on in the first place. You might be right about the magicians, or Eleanor, or Xik. It doesn’t matter. I have to try, and the contractor magic is the only tool we have. Otherwise...I don’t think I can live with myself. I don’t think I can stay here and have it all on my mind every day, wondering what I should have done, or could have done, or if anyone up there is still alive.”
“You said you don’t want to be a hero,” Jack said, “but now you’re talking about how you can’t live with yourself if you don’t do something. I don’t get it.”
“When I first started all this, it was to save my brother. You know Felix.” Jack nodded, having seen Daniel’s brother in video calls back in school. “He had a Vorid spawn on his back. I saw it when Xik showed me.”
“Jeeze,” Jack said. “Talk about putting the screws on someone.”
“I know. I told Xik to go to hell at first. Actually, at first, I thought I was going crazy. But that pushed me into it, for good or bad.
“After that was taken care of, I wanted to keep myself alive, help my family survive what I knew was coming. I didn't buy into Xik's crap about fighting the Vorid and saving the universe or whatever. I didn't think I had it in me. But Rachel...I don't know how to put this. She saw something in me I didn't see in myself. She gave me something more important to fight for than myself. I want to hold on to that. I want to be the person she saw.” Daniel looked at Jack. “I was a lot more cynical before I met you and Rachel. I was a worse person. I didn’t give a damn about anything. It was a safe way to live, but now I know I wasn’t even living.
“Rachel—Rachel, she—” Daniel’s voice stuttered. His lips pressed together as he blinked back the tears that wanted to form. He cleared his throat. “She was fearless. She threw herself in front of the Vorid lord to save me, Jack. And then I took even more from her. I used her to heal myself back up and sucked her magic dry, and she died.
“But I can’t sit here and feel bad for myself,” Daniel said. “I’ve got to fight the battle. Yeah, I guess I want to save the world”—Daniel waved his hands about at the words—“but it's not only that. It’s like I’m fighting who I used to be, too. Getting to know you changed me, Jack. Rachel too. I'm not going back to the way I was.”
“Damn,” Jack said. “What do you even say to that?”
Daniel snorted. “Sometimes I feel like I’m so far down inside my own head I’m coming out my ass.”
Jack took another sip of his soda, then sat it down on the coffee table. The metal can clinked loudly on the glass. “So what comes after?”
“Hell if I know.”
Jack heaved a sigh. “You just had to go and make me feel bad. Fine. If there’s a way out, I’ll help you take it.”
Daniel nodded. “Thanks, Jack.”
“I’m sticking with the Order, though,” Jack said. “I’m not working with the magicians in any form, and neither should you.”
“I’ll be more careful in the future,” Daniel said. “I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“Good,” Jack said.
Another silence passed between them, floating over the room; more comfortable this time, the good quiet of matters settled. Daniel was building up the motivation to get off the couch and grab a drink when his armlet beeped at him. He checked it to see he had a new message from Rasputin.
Bathory had accepted the duel.
“The fight is on,” Daniel said.
Jack practically jumped half-off the couch. “When?”
“Tomorrow,” Daniel said. “That was quick.”
Jack shook his head. “You are gonna set a new ratings record, Mr. Popularity.”
Jack’s jibe was true—Daniel’s messaging application on his armlet had been completely flooded with notifications. He’d gotten fan letters, hate mail, advertising partnership offers, more interview requests, even marriage proposals. One particular message offered a bribe in exchange for throwing his next match.
“Hey, Dan,” Jack said.
“Yeah?”
“You sure about this?”
“About what?”
“About fighting her,” Jack said. “Not in general, I mean, right now. PrisonWatch is known for throwing in things to screw people over, to keep ratings going. They aren’t going to want you to succeed too quickly. But you don’t know Hell well yet, you don’t know the rules, the system.”
“What are you trying to say?” Daniel said.
“I’m saying you should get your feet wet, get some experience,” Jack said. “Maybe build up your prison points a little while, get a nest egg going for emergencies. Come back at her later.”
Daniel shook his head. “I’ve officially got a shot now, she accepted the fight. This is my best chance.”
“She’s going to be a tough nut to crack,” Jack said. “Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure,” Daniel said. “But I’m the main line of defense if the Vorid mount another assault. If I don’t do it now, it might be put off months. Years even. Earth doesn’t have that kind of time.” Daniel considered explaining his deal with Beelzebub, but decided against it. Jack was on his side for what counted, but he still didn’t trust others not to listen in. “If Bathory’s got some super-secret entrance back to Earth,” he said, “we have to check it out.”
“I figured you’d say something like that,” Jack said. “Alright, superman. Maybe if you circle the globe in the opposite direction fast enough, you can turn back time.”
“Ha, ha,” Daniel said. “That’s hilarious.”
Jack smirked. “Hey, a day isn’t a lot of time. Better start prepping.”
“I need to digest this lasagna,” Daniel said, patting his belly, “so I think practicing is out of the question. Maybe we’ll still have time for those demon video games you wanted to show me.”
“No way, man,” Jack said, shaking his head. “We gotta get you ready to go.” Jack reached for the remote and flicked on the TV.
“By watching television?”
“PrisonWatch reruns,” Jack said. “Stuff over 10 years old is free to view. With commercials.”
“I guess the demons beat us to streaming services,” Daniel said. “So we’re going to do some research.”
“She has a lot of different spells she likes to use. Hard to predict her.” Jack looked at him. “If you ask me, she’s certifiably insane.”
“Probably has something to do with all that mass murder.”
Jack searched for Bathory’s name. Her PrisonWatch profile popped onto the screen, along with several subheadings, including Recent Bouts, Fan Favorites, and Most Viewed. Jack clicked on the fan favorites section. “She’s got a couple hundred years of publicly accessible combat footage. So that’s something in your favor—there’s not much known about the extent of your abilities, not as many fights under your belt.”
Daniel leaned in as the video started up, a wide-panning shot of a battle arena. The humor left him as they began to watch, and Daniel focused in, determined to scrape out every piece of information he could from the footage.
It became clear to him, a few minutes in, that it was going to be very, very hard to win this battle.
Chapter 17
Pregame
Jack sat in one of the restaurants in the Order of the Dragon’s territory.
He sighed, then looked at his half-eaten lunch. The food itself was fine; he wasn’t hungry. Incoming events had robbed him of his appetite.
Jack left his apartment with Daniel not long ago, seeing him off at the arena before getting lost in his thoughts on the way back. He didn’t feel like returning to his apartment straight away, and he’d come up to the pub in taking the long way home. The place was pretty cleared out, just the barkeep and four or five Order regulars occupying scattered tables; good enough to be left to himself without feeling quite so cooped up. Most of his team would be back at the headquarters building, schmoozing and drinking while watching the duel. That was usually what happened when they had a big match, but he wasn’t in the mood for rubbing elbows.
There were TVs in the restaurant, hung up in corners and near the bar, so he could watch the match while he ate. They weren’t TVs, really, but the demonic equivalent, relying on mana to function. They knew about and used electricity, but the demon civilization had grown up on magic and physical science together. It resulted in some pretty unique devices—and in the fact that the demons had colonized their solar system, and even beyond that, while mankind was still stuck on Earth.
Jack only had a vague understanding of the relationship between the human world and the demon world. In the past, things used to be closer, more linked and intermingled, like rivers running together. You could sail down and then up the other river without too much trouble. That was the source of most of mankind’s myths and legends; the supernatural had once been as real as anything else.
The current regime of worlds was a strict separation. Hell itself was an artificial space inserted between the human and demon worlds, a mini-universe that was basically a big rock, bordered on all sides by nothingness. Or, more precisely, edged by a dimensional wall that would rip you into your component matter and dissolve you into energy if you tried to cross without the right magical protection. Fun stuff.
The walls of Hell created a permanent traffic barrier. Travel between the human and demon universes was now very costly, and Beelzebub’s empire had a monopoly on the method needed to make the portals from one universe to another. In other words, it didn’t happen much.
Travel was easier if you were invited, so to speak—by a mage on the other end. Otherwise, multiversal travel was prohibitively difficult. It explained why the demons hadn’t absorbed humans into their empire, which supposedly spanned multiple solar systems—or simply stamped them out—but it made Jack wonder how the Klide and the Vorid did it.
Pre-game talking heads were displayed on the TVs. They were all tuned to the same show—PrisonWatch. The PrisonWatch logo was garishly printed all over the walls, along with photos of notable team leaders of not only Purgatory but the other levels of Hell. They never missed an opportunity to remind everyone that they were being televised at all times.
Jack could see a camera out of the corner of his eye; they dotted the ceiling of the bar. In the eternal, joyful cynicism of PrisonWatch, inmates were allowed to purchase back their own privacy, or make certain moments secret from even the viewers, but that cost money on a scale that would bankrupt smaller teams. All of PrisonWatch had a one-week delay for other inmates, aside from the direct combat footage. That allowed a buffer period so inmates could make short-term plans in secret, even if they couldn’t afford private talks. Dracula, for one, always paid to keep his offices a camera-free zone, so the team had a space to discuss strategy without others finding out about their long-reaching plans.
When Jack first arrived, he might have avoided eating while watching a match that could very well involve brutal death and dismemberment, but there wasn’t anything you couldn’t get used to given enough time. Or maybe he really was messed up in the head by all this—being a contractor, the killing, locked in Hell, treated like a bug under a microscope for entertainment. Maybe Daniel was right, and he was only working hard at justifying it to himself.
Himself. Jack felt less and less like himself lately. The concepts of right and wrong were mixing together, growing grey and vague and hard to hold, like trying to cup water in his fingers.
Dracula wanted Jack to make up any wrongs he felt he’d committed with service to the Order. Daniel said that he should follow society’s rules, mostly. The two weren’t necessarily in opposition, but if Dracula’s rules clashed with what society said was acceptable, Jack had no doubt Dracula would go his own way.
Jack didn’t regret what he did in Boston, but what he was so sure about a few days ago had been torn to pieces by the tornado that was Daniel’s arrival in Hell. Ideas he’d built up as pillars of purpose were crumbling in the wind. For all the ranting and the arguments over the past few days, Jack felt like it was less like he was trying to convince Daniel of his points and more himself that everything was fine.
His friendship with Daniel had always been like that, in a way. Daniel was someone he trusted; someone he could tell things. But in trusting what Daniel said, it changed how Jack looked at the world, because it opened him up to having holes poked in his excuses.
Daniel had a way about him—sometimes too cocky, or too presumptuous—but there was something about the way he did things that was convincing by itself. He had a kernel of confidence, of self-reliance, that most people lacked. He was someone that could make you see things in a way you’d never considered. He had the ability to ignore the crowd and take his own road, but in a way that made sense. It wasn’t rebelling for the sake of rebelling, but because he had a knack for discovering a third path. He lived life outside the box, and he did it without realizing he was doing it. It was who he was.
Jack admired that, because he felt it was exactly that ephemeral quality he himself lacked. It was that state of mind he was trying to reach. And now—in finally having arrived at what he thought was his own version of it as one of Hell’s top gladiators, a member of the Order of the Dragon, defying the mundane conventions of society and rewriting the rules—Daniel came along and told him he had it all wrong. Contractors weren’t different than other people, they should be held to the same standards and within the same boundaries of law and order. But how could he say that when those very rules had condemned them both to imprisonment?
Maybe Daniel would say it was different with the mages. Jack wasn’t certain. Another addition to a long list of uncertainties.
A chipper, high-pitched voice distracted him from ruminating further. Jack looked above the bar. The match was finally about to happen, narrated by everyone’s favorite female devil, Ky, dressed as usual in the red-orange-yellow colors of PrisonWatch. For once, he was grateful for her cutting in; he was sick of dwelling on everything.
Jack leaned over his plate, focusing on the screen as the camera did a flyover of the arena. Daniel seemed confident even after watching the reruns of Bathory’s fights, though he acknowledged it was gonna be tough. Jack didn’t share his opinion—he’d hoped they would convince Daniel to back out for the time being—but he did his best to put up a positive front. Worst case scenario, he lost, and they tried again next time, better prepared. It wouldn’t be the first time the Order of the Dragon had been beaten back by Bathory. With two contractors fighting on their side, they would snatch up more territory in the city and get another crack at her sooner or later.
“Hello Jack.”
Jack flinched. Rasputin slid into the chair next to him at the table. “Oh,” Jack said. “It’s you.”
“That’s no way to great a superior.”
“My greetings, vice-captain,” Jack said flatly. “How may I be of service?”
Rasputin sighed, drawing a hand along his scraggly beard. “We’ll work on it. Has the match started?”
“Not yet. What do you think of his chances?”
An ugly smile crawled its way under Rasputin’s nose. His beady little eyes creeped Jack out. “Not a chance in Hell,” he said.
Jack felt a flare of annoyance. “I think Daniel will win,” Jack said, even though he thought nothing of the sort. “Bathory doesn’t know what to expect, and Daniel can hit her hard and fast.”
“You would know about that, wouldn’t you?”
Jack cocked his head. He’d never explicitly told Rasputin about his personal history with Daniel—especially not about how they’d once fought. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know what it means.” Rasputin tilted his head forward, looking up at Jack from the shadow of his brow. “He’s no friend of yours, is he?”
“What?” Jack tried to leave his seat—but his arms and legs felt heavy, like he was waking up after a deep sleep. He couldn’t quite bring himself to push his chair back. “What would you know? Of course we’re friends.”
“We know you fought, Jack.” Rasputin still stared at him. Jack couldn’t look away from his eyes, glimmering black in the low light of the bar. “We know where your true loyalty lies. With the Order. Not with this fool that pretends to be your friend.”
“Pretends to...” Jack felt so tired. He tried to blink it away, shake himself out of it. “He’s—it’s not pretend. What are you—”
“Look at me, Jack.”
Jack found himself drawn back to Rasputin’s eyes. There was something there waiting for him, at the edge of his perception, like a hint of movement inside a deep stone well.
