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
