Forsaken

CHAPTER TEN

Now the memories flooded back to Jason, horrifying images of years spent in the Netherworlde, of Sitri keeping him on a leash hooked to the ring on the back of his mask, no better than a dog. In fact, to the amusement of his peers, Sitri had often paraded Jason around exactly like this, forced to crouch and scuttle at Sitri's side, his spine hunched, his knees bent, his body stripped nude, just like one of the Hounds. He'd raped Jason repeatedly, violently, frequently, always drawing his mind just conscious enough to make him aware of the painful, humiliating violations, but helpless to prevent them.

Sitri had also enjoyed setting Jason and the Eidolon against other creatures in brutal close combat, always in front of a crowd of caterwauling spectators and always to an uproarious din of shrill, screeching approval. He'd make the Wyrm rouse Jason for these occasions, giving him just enough cognizance to be aware of what was happening to him, in often excruciating, horrifying, shameful detail, but not enough to wrestle any sort of physical control from the Wyrm and resist or fight back.

Jason remembered being brought abruptly to consciousness by the Wyrm in the middle of one of these bouts, a vicious, impromptu and apparently rules-free tournament against another man. Like Jason, he was naked. A good half-head taller and fifteen pounds heavier, he wore a different kind of headpiece than Jason, some sort of exotic muzzle that left his face and bald pate exposed but forced his mouth open wide in a perpetual gaping maw. Framed by metal prongs that kept his lips peeled back in a rudimental square, his teeth revealed, the bridle looked painful and ghoulish.

His nipples had been pierced, as had his penis. His earlobes had been stretched down nearly flush with his chin with plugs as wide in circumference as half dollars. His nose was bleeding; his lips were too, his forehead rived with a deep fissure that left blood smeared down the right side of his face. His eyes were black. Like Jason, he had an Eidolon inside him. He was a Wraith.

Jason heard himself utter a hoarse, nearly animal-like cry; then he dissipated into the shadow form of the Eidolon, materializing in midair, hovering within a foot of the tall man. Before gravity could overtake him, drag him down to the floor, he swung his fist around and down in a sharp, powerful arc, smashing his knuckles into the man's already battered nose. He struck hard enough to send searing pain radiating up from his knuckles clear to his shoulder. As he dropped to his feet, he saw his hand was swollen, scraped raw and bruised, the bones in his fingers crunched and broken from what apparently had been repeated, vicious pummeling on his part.

His opponent toppled to the floor and huddled here, shuddering, wheezing for breath. The crowd, which had closed in around them in a tight circumference, shrieked in sudden shrill approval. The Wyrm turned Jason's head, made him spit, and when Jason tasted blood in his phlegm, he realized the fallen man had gotten in his fair share of punches too.

He caught a glimpse down at himself, his body nude, sweat-soaked and blood-smeared. He'd gained at least ten pounds since he remembered stepping outside Sully's on a cold, rainy night to get some menus out of Sam's car, and every single one of those pounds appeared to be nothing but lean, strapping muscle. He might have been more impressed with this new, decidedly ripped physique, had it not seemed to come with a nightmarish sentence in hell.

"Get up," the Wyrm made him say to the man, only instead of words, it came out of the base of his throat more like some kind of guttural string of grunts. It wasn't English, not exactly, even though the sounds in his minds were roughly translated as such. Whatever the language, the intent behind it was clear, as was the malice.

The Wyrm drew his foot back, made him deliver a brutal, powerful punt to the man's vulnerable midsection, his groin, and the man choked for breath, writhing weakly on the floor.