The memory of falling was a cold stone in his gut. The memory of drowning, a phantom pressure in his lungs. But the memory of the chained god was a brand on his soul, a constant, humming power that had rewired his very being. Max walked through the familiar, stinking streets of the Grime-Rot slums, and for the first time, he did not feel like prey.
He was a wolf returned to a land of rats.
His form was shrouded in a long, dark duster coat that hadn't been there before his… transformation. It was made of a material that seemed to drink the weak light, and it moved with a whisper of its own. On his face, perched perfectly, were his spectacles with lenses the colour of freshly spilled blood. Through them, the world was tinted in hues of crimson and shadow, a hellscape made literal. He saw the fear in people as pulsing auras, the decay in the buildings as crawling black tendrils. And beneath it all, he saw the thin, silver threads of life, so easily severed.
His destination was the old hideout, a hollowed-out storage container stacked precariously on a mountain of scrap near the sector's edge. It was where he and Stella had stored their meagre treasures: a cracked view-screen, a tattered poster of a Western hero, a tin box with a few salvaged trinkets. It was their sanctuary.
He moved with an unnerving silence, his footsteps making no sound on the broken asphalt. Scavenger birds, great, bald-necked things with beaks like rusty sickles, scattered from a carcass as he passed, sensing a predator greater than themselves.
The hideout was a ruin.
The door, once a carefully concealed sheet of corrugated metal, had been torn from its hinges and cast aside. Max stepped inside, the red lenses of his glasses adjusting to the deeper gloom. The place had been ransacked. The view-screen was a skeleton of shattered glass and twisted wire. The poster was shredded. The tin box was gone. The air was thick with the smell of dust, mildew, and the pungent, musky odour of the large, six-legged rodents now scurrying into the shadows, their glowing red eyes blinking at him before they vanished.
*Stella.*
Her name was a prayer and a curse on his lips. He had hoped, foolishly, to find a note, a sign, some clue she had left for him. But there was nothing. Only the evidence of violation. His hands, clad in black leather gloves, clenched into fists. A low, almost subsonic thrum of power vibrated in the air around him for a moment before he forced it down.
He had to ask. He stepped back out into the narrow, trash-choked alley. A woman was hurriedly dragging a squeaky-wheeled cart laden with scrap metal. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched against the world.
"You," Max said, his voice calm, level, yet it carried an authority that made her freeze. "The girl who lived here. Stella. Where is she?"
The woman didn't look up. She shook her head, a frantic, jerky motion, and tried to push her cart faster.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Max said, taking a slow step forward. "I just need to know if she's alive."
At the name 'Stella', the woman flinched as if struck. She finally looked up, her eyes wide with a terror so profound it was pitiable. She looked past Max, at the empty air, as if expecting a monster to materialize."Don't… don't say that name," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Please. They hear. They always hear."
Before Max could ask who "they" were, she abandoned her cart entirely and broke into a shambling run, disappearing around a corner. Max stood alone in the alley, a cold certainty settling in his chest. Fear was a cage in the Grime-Rot, and Stella's name had become one of its locks.
He tried two more times. A man patching a roof with a sheet of plastic recoiled and scrambled away over the crest of the building. A pair of children playing with a cracked data-slate saw him, and their laughter died instantly as they fled into a crack in a wall. The silence that followed was heavier than any noise. It was a blanket of dread smothering the entire sector.
Frustration, hot and sharp, began to pierce the cold mantle of his new power. He walked back towards the main thoroughfare, a wider street colloquially known as the "Artery," where the black market thrived in the open. He needed a new angle, a different approach. The direct method was a dead end.
It was then that the sound reached him. Not the usual background cacophony of Limbo, but something specific and brutal. The wet, meaty thud of a fist hitting flesh, punctuated by pained grunts and cruel laughter.
In a small clearing between two shanties, a boy, no older than fourteen, was curled on the ground. A giant of a man loomed over him, a mountain of muscle packed into stained leathers. With each of the boy's feeble struggles, the man delivered a kick, a punch, a stomp. He was a craftsman of pain, and this was his art.
"Think you can skim from the Baron's take, you little maggot?" the brute grunted, his voice a gravelly rumble. "Think we wouldn't notice?"
The boy whimpered, trying to shield his head with arms that were already bruised and bleeding.
Something twisted in Max's gut. It was a reflection, a distorted echo of his own past. He saw himself in that boy, helpless under Rake's boot. The cold power within him stirred, eager, hungry. He took a step forward, the muscles in his jaw tightening.
"Hold it!"
The voice was female, sharp with forced authority. From the shadow of a nearby awning, a figure stepped out. She wore a patched and faded brown duster, and on her chest was a tarnished, barely recognizable star-shaped badge. A sheriff. Or someone playing at one. In her hands, she held a heavy-calibre revolver, cocked and pointed at the brute.
"Let the boy go, Gorn," she commanded, though Max could see the slight tremor in her arms.
The giant, Gorn, paused mid-kick. He slowly turned his head, a bored, contemptuous expression on his broad, scarred face. He completely ignored Max, who had frozen a dozen paces away, a silent observer.
"Ah, Sheriff Kora," Gorn sneered. "Still playing cops and robbers? Put the pea-shooter away before you hurt yourself."
"I said, let him go," Kora repeated, her voice tightening.
Gorn laughed, a sound like rocks in a drum. "We all know you ain't got the balls to pull that trigger, girlie. You're a joke. A sheriff in Limbo?" He took a step towards her, his bulk blocking out the light. "My ring," he said, raising a meaty fist and flashing a heavy iron band stamped with the familiar, dreaded insignia of curved ram horns. "See this? I'm protected by Baron Malakor himself. You touch me, and they'll feed what's left of you to the Wyverns."
Kora's resolve wavered. The barrel of her gun dipped an inch. Her eyes flickered from Gorn's smug face to the terrified boy, then back. The weight of the city, of its impossible, crushing reality, pressed down on her. The gun lowered further, until it was pointing at the ground. Her head bowed in defeat.
"That's what I thought," Gorn spat, turning his back on her as if she were nothing.
It was the ultimate insult. The dismissal. The confirmation that in this city, the law was just another word for the will of the powerful.
As Gorn turned, his triumphant sneer still plastered on his face, he found his path blocked. Max stood directly in front of him, having closed the distance without a sound. The man's blood-red glasses seemed to glow with an inner fire.
Gorn blinked, startled for a moment before his anger returned. "The hell do you want, spectre? Get out of my way before I decide to redecorate the street with your insides."
Max's voice was quiet, yet it cut through the air like a shard of ice. It wasn't loud, but every syllable was perfectly, terrifyingly clear.
"You woke up today," Max began, his head tilting slightly, "thinking it would be just another day. Another day to push people around. Another day to prove you were the biggest, meanest dog in the kennel."
Gorn's sneer faltered, replaced by confusion. "Shut your mouth."
"But you were wrong," Max continued, his tone conversational, almost gentle. "Today isn't that day. Today is your reckoning."
With a roar of fury, Gorn threw a punch that could have felled a concrete pillar. It was fast, brutal, and direct. It never landed.
Max's right hand snapped up. He wasn't wearing the glove on that one. His hand was pale, almost grey, and the skin seemed to be etched with faint, pulsing black lines. He caught the massive fist in his palm. The impact should have shattered every bone in his arm. Instead, there was a sound like sizzling fat.
Gorn's eyes bulged. Not from the stopped punch, but from the sensation. A wave of absolute, soul-deep cold shot from Max's hand into his own. It was a cold that burned, that devoured. The black lines on Max's hand seemed to writhe and flow, transferring across the point of contact. Inky, necrotic veins spiderwebbed up Gorn's arm, visible beneath the skin. The flesh itself began to change, turning a gangrenous grey, then black. The muscle withered, the skin flaked away like ash. In a matter of seconds, his hand and forearm were a decaying, useless ruin.
Gorn's scream was not one of pain, but of pure, unadulterated horror. He stared at his own decaying limb, a sound escaping him that was more animal than human.
Max didn't flinch. With his other hand, he drew his weapon. It wasn't a energy pistol or a slug-thrower. It was a heavy, long-barrelled revolver, its metal a non-reflective, smoky grey. He cocked the hammer with his thumb, the click ominously final.
"Evil must be punished," Max murmured, placing the barrel against Gorn's forehead.
"Stop!" Kora shouted, her gun was up again, but this time it was pointed at Max. "I can't let you do that! It's against the law!"
Max didn't turn. "He was beating a child to pulp moments ago. You were about to let him walk. Your law is selective, Sheriff. And selective justice is no justice at all."
"You don't understand!" Kora's voice was desperate. "This isn't about him! You kill him, and Malakor's enforcers will sweep through this sector. They won't just come for you; they'll burn it all down, kill dozens, to make a point! Is that the justice you want?"
Max was silent for a beat. "It is a flawed logic. To allow a monster to live out of fear of his master only creates more monsters."
While they were locked in their standoff, Gorn, clutching his decayed arm, saw his chance. Gritting his teeth against the agony, he scrambled to his feet.
"You're a dead man!" he snarled at Max, spittle flying from his lips. "You hear me? Dead! I'm gonna bring the whole damn garrison down on you! You'll beg for death by the time we're through with you!"
He turned and began a staggering, panicked run down the Artery.
Max raised his revolver to take the shot, but Kora lunged. She didn't shoot; she tried to tackle him, to disarm him. It was a brave, foolish move. Max moved with preternatural speed. He sidestepped her charge, his free hand snaking out, catching her wrist, and using her own momentum to spin her around. He twisted her arm gently but firmly behind her back, and with a subtle shift of his weight, sent her sprawling to the ground. In the same fluid motion, he was on one knee, his revolver now pointed directly between her eyes.He looked from her wide, terrified eyes back down the Artery. Gorn was gone, vanished into the labyrinth of the slums.
Max sighed. It was a sound of profound weariness. He uncocked the hammer and smoothly holstered the massive revolver under his duster. He stood and began to walk away, leaving Kora on the ground, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Hey! Hey!" she shouted, scrambling to her feet and brushing the dirt from her coat. "What do you think you're doing? Where are you going?"
Max didn't answer. He walked directly across the street to a seedy establishment called The Rusty Nail. The sign was a flickering hologram of a bent nail dripping something brown. He pushed the door open and stepped into the gloom.The air inside was thick with smoke, cheap synth-ale, and despair. A few patrons hunched over their drinks, their faces etched with the harsh stories of Limbo life. Max ignored them all. He went to the farthest booth in the corner, his back to the wall, and slid into the shadowed seat.
A bartender, a thin man with a permanently nervous tic, was wiping a glass with a dirty rag. At a table near the bar, a large, boorish man with a flushed face was holding court, a half-dressed prostitute with a swollen cheek and a black eye sitting listlessly on his knee.
"Whiskey," Max said, his voice cutting through the low murmur. "The bottle."
The bartender nodded, his tic worsening. He pulled a bottle of amber liquid from a high shelf. As he moved to bring it over, the drunkard at the table reached out and snatched it from his hand.
"I'll take that," the man slurred, sloshing the whiskey onto the table. "And this spectre here," he jabbed a thumb in Max's direction, "is paying for it. Consider it a tax for wearing such a fancy coat in my bar."
The prostitute placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Jax, honey, leave him be. Let's just go upstairs, yeah? Have some more fun."
Jax's affable drunkenness vanished. "Who asked your opinion, you dumb bitch?" he roared, backhanding her across the face. She cried out as she tumbled from his lap onto the sticky floor.
He turned back to Max, a triumphant, cruel grin on his face. "Now, where were we? Oh yeah, you're buying my drinks for the…"
*BLAM!*
The gunshot was deafening in the confined space. Jax stared, dumbfounded, at the bloody stump where his hand, still clutching the whiskey bottle, had been a second before. The bottle hit the floor and shattered. A moment later, the pain signals reached his brain.
"MY HAND! MY HAND!" he shrieked, falling out of his chair and writhing on the floor, clutching his wrist.
Max calmly blew a wisp of smoke from the barrel of his revolver. He looked at the terrified bartender. "I said. Whiskey."
The bartender, moving faster than he ever had in his life, scrambled for another bottle and practically threw it onto Max's table along with a reasonably clean glass.
On the floor, the prostitute looked from Jax's screaming form to Max's impassive face. A spark of defiant life flickered in her bruised eyes. She quickly patted down Jax's pockets, pulling out a small pouch of gold coins and a few other valuables. Then, with a grimace of pure hatred, she kicked him hard in the ribs twice.
"That's for my face, you bastard," she spat, before turning and running out of the bar, her newfound wealth clutched tightly in her hand.
At that moment, Sheriff Kora burst through the doors, her gun drawn once more. She took in the scene: the screaming Jax, the pooling blood, the shattered glass, and Max pouring himself a measure of whiskey, utterly unperturbed.
"You are under arrest!" she yelled, aiming her revolver at him, her hands shaking with adrenaline and rage.
Max didn't even look up. He brought the glass to his lips and took a slow sip. The whiskey was terrible, burning like acid, but it was a sensation. It was real.
"I said you're under arrest!" Kora repeated, stepping closer.
Finally, Max turned his blood-red gaze towards her. He didn't raise his voice. It was barely a whisper, yet it silenced Jax's whimpering and seemed to freeze the very air in the room.
"Get that gun out of my face," he said. "We both know you won't use it."
Kora's jaw clenched. Her finger tightened on the trigger. She wanted to shoot him. She wanted to prove him wrong. But the spectre of Gorn, of Malakor, of the certain, horrific retaliation, loomed too large. After a long, tense moment where her every instinct warred with the grim reality of her powerlessness, her arm dropped. She holstered her weapon with a frustrated, jerky motion.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, striding up to his table but not daring to sit. "What are you doing here? What was that… that thing you did to Gorn's hand?"
Max sighed, the sound full of a bottomless fatigue that seemed centuries old. He took another slow sip of his whiskey, then leaned back in his seat, his crimson gaze fixed on the door.
"I'm waiting," he said.
"Waiting? For what?""You heard the man. He said he'd be back." Max swirled the amber liquid in his glass. "And there's something I'd really like to ask him."
Kora stared at him in disbelief. "You're crazy. If you have any sense, you'll run. Now. I wear a uniform, but *they* are the law around here. And when they come, I won't be able to protect you."
A dry, humourless chuckle escaped Max's lips. "Do I look," he asked, his red lenses glinting as he finally turned to look directly at her, "like I need protection?"
"You don't understand!" she insisted, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "He won't come back with more thugs. He'll come back with Devilmen."
The word hung in the air, sucking the warmth from the room. Devilmen. The Baron's personal enforcers. Rumours said they weren't just Nephilim like Rake; they were something else, something worse. Beings touched by dark sorcery, their bodies twisted and infused with powers that defied comprehension. They were walking blasphemies, and they were unstoppable.
Max held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to the door. He said nothing. He simply placed his boot on the chair opposite him, tilted his wide-brimmed hat down over his face, and became as still as a statue. The message was clear: the conversation was over.
Kora stood there, fuming, terrified, and utterly confused. She couldn't leave. Her stupid, stubborn sense of duty wouldn't let her. So she sat at the bar, her back to the door, and ordered a drink herself, her ears straining for any sound from the outside.
Hours bled together. The weak, bruise-coloured light from outside began to fade into a deeper, more profound darkness. The few other patrons had long since slunk away, sensing the storm on the horizon. Even the bartender had finally fled, abandoning his own establishment. The only sounds were Jax's fading moans from the corner and the frantic beating of Kora's heart.
Then, they came.
It started as a low rumble, the growl of powerful, anti-grav engines. Then came the sounds from the sky—piercing, reptilian shrieks that tore at the nerves. Wyverns. Trained and ridden by Malakor's scouts.
Outside, the Artery emptied in seconds. Shutters slammed closed. Doors were barred. The city held its breath.
Inside The Rusty Nail, it was just Max, Kora, and the barely-conscious Jax.
Kora spun on her stool, her hand going to her gun. Her face was pale. "It's them."
Max didn't move. The hat remained over his face. But from beneath its brim, a faint, red glow began to emanate. The reckoning he had spoken of was not just for Gorn.
It had arrived for everyone.