Mortals are disgusting, Kinzer thought.

He stood in a lineup with Jerry’s boys. Marzo had made them strip naked before entering the room.

A few uneventful days had passed. Since Kinzer’s wounds had been healing, Jerry hadn’t made him perform any services for his clients. However, as soon as his wounds became less offensive to the eyes, Jerry had decided to go ahead and throw him into their next audition lineup.

Kinzer knew he had to get to Dedrus, but he was going to have to wait until he was in fighting condition before he made an escape attempt. Otherwise, he ran the risk of getting caught and Jerry making future escape attempts even more problematic.

Jerry, Robb, and Marzo stood on the other side of the room, watching as Jerry’s client of the day, a white man nearly as big around as he was tall, paced before the line, scanning his options.

The client appeared to be in his late forties. He wore a button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and the top button unfastened, like he’d just gotten off work. He had a double chin that jiggled as he walked across the room. Green eyes sparkled with a look that Kinzer assumed Jerry’s boys were familiar with, a sadistic awareness of his power over them, of his control over their next sexual experience.

As the client paced, most of Jerry’s boys looked around nervously, avoiding eye contact. Some looked at the floor. Kid fixed his attention on the corner of the room. To Kinzer, he appeared unfazed, uninterested, like he’d done this so many times he didn’t care who the client picked.

This boy fascinated him. He wished he knew more about him. At the same time, the sordid horrors he was certain lay in the boy’s past troubled him. He assessed Kid’s demeanor. So disinterested, so distant, so desirable. Kinzer wondered how many times men like this grotesque creature had abused him.

He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t like to consider the plight of mortals.

The client grabbed Kid’s bulging biceps.

“This the one you told me about?” he asked, turning to Jerry.

Jerry nodded.

Kinzer figured Kid would have to take this asshat to some sort of fucking room and have the man’s most obnoxious feature rubbing across his face as he forced his drug-induced erection into Kid’s hole for thirty minutes, maybe an hour.

Jerry tossed Kid a glare, indicating, “You know what to fucking do. Get to work.”

Kid grabbed the client’s hand and slipped through a doorway beside Jerry. Marzo tagged along behind.

Jerry turned to Robb. “His friends are upstairs. Go ahead and lead them through the back.”

“You sure you want to do this?” Robb asked.

“He'll know why,” Jerry said.

Uh-oh.

He knew this was some twisted punishment Jerry had planned. He was worried about what it might be.

***

Kid had not so affectionately nicknamed Jerry’s client Double Chin, on account of his most disgusting feature.

Marzo opened a door and ushered Kid and the client into a shithole of a room with a cot shoved in the corner. Chains, handcuffs, and a whip were strewn across the floor.

This isn't gonna be fun.

He could take it, though. Under Jerry's control, he'd dealt with plenty of violent clients. He kind of hoped that Double Chin would be just rough enough that he wouldn’t have to work for a couple of weeks.

“What are you waiting for?” Double Chin snatched Kid’s arm and slammed his chest against the concrete wall. The rough texture scratched at Kid’s nipples.

Kid felt something sharp against his neck.

A knife?

“Ah!” Kid whimpered as a blade pierced through his skin.

Did Jerry put me with a fucking stabber?

Stabber was the nickname given to Jerry's more sadistic clients. They commonly left guys out of the pool for months at a time. Occasionally, they were the reason boys disappeared.

The blade dug deep into his neck muscles. Kid struggled.

“Oh, you like to fight?” Double Chin pulled the knife back and stabbed it into Kid’s triceps.

Kid screamed out. He tried to pull away, but Double Chin had a good grip on his arm.

Kid’s assailant twisted the blade.

“Stop! Stop!” Kid cried. He drove his free hand between his chest and the wall and shoved Double Chin's arm back, freeing himself from his grip. He leapt back, the blade tearing through his flesh.

Blood slid down his forearm and dripped onto the floor.

Double Chin held a glistening red blade. Wide, emerald eyes shimmered over a smile that expanded across a drooping, creased face.

How the fuck am I gonna get out of this?

The door opened.

Robb entered with two more men.

Kid scrambled through the doorway, slipping past Robb and the new guys.

Marzo, who was just a little farther down the hall, jumped in front of him and grabbed his arms. “Kid, get back in there!”

“Are you fucking shitting me? Let me talk to Jerry!” Kid wiggled, struggling to break Marzo’s hold.

“He doesn't want to talk to you.” One of Marzo’s eyes directed his words at Kid. The other directed them to the wall. “You know what you did. Get back in there.”

“This is ridiculous! I don't deserve this! I’ve been doing this too long to—”

“Chain him down!” Robb shouted.

“No!” one of the two new men exclaimed. Though he wasn’t nearly as big as Double Chin, he was heavy enough to crush Kid if he sat on him. He had a full head of brown hair and looked to Kid like he was in his mid-thirties.

The man lifted a hand in gesture. The sleeve of his blue polo revealed flabby arms with splotches of curly hair randomly arranged from his bicep to wrist.

“We want him to be able to fight,” Splotchy Hair said.

These guys could totally kill me.

Zzzz.

Marzo's Taser was at Kid's chest. He vibrated as he fell to the floor.

Robb and Marzo took him by either arm and dragged him back into the room. They abandoned him, leaving him in the hands of the three clients.

As Kid regained some control over his nerves and appendages, he rose to his feet, the blood from his triceps making a path down his forearm, droplets sliding off his fingertips.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m not doing this. Now, please just—”

The last of the clients, nearly a foot taller than Kid—emaciated, the complete opposite of the first client Kid had met—leapt at him, punching him in the face.

Kid fell back. His head slammed against the gray concrete wall. The shock of the blow was so intense it stunned him nearly as much as Marzo’s Taser. He slid down the wall, the rough texture grating at his back.

Emaciated knelt beside him, and like a boxer practicing on a punching bag, laid one punch after another into his torso.

Kid tried to block the attacks, but it was useless.

“You like that? You like that, you fuckin’ pussy?” Emaciated halted his assault. He whirled around, snatched a chain off the floor, and twisted it around Kid’s neck.

Kid struggled against him, but even with his impressive muscles, he felt far too disoriented to put up a good fight.

Emaciated tightened the chain. Kid gagged and desperately tried to loosen it.

Double Chin and Splotchy Hair snatched him by his wrists. They hoisted him in the air and flipped him, pressing his abs against the freezing concrete wall.

“Let me go!” Kid cried through the chokehold.

“We’re gonna tear you the fuck up, ya little bitch!” Double Chin pressed his knife against the edge of Kid's hole.

“No! No!” Kid’s face turned scarlet as his body demanded a chain-embargoed supply of oxygen.

Double Chin allowed the tip of the knife to navigate inside Kid’s ass.

Please just let me pass out, so I don’t have to feel it.

Kid wished that some deity that he didn’t even believe in would hear his cry and come to his aid. A tear formed at the corner of his eye and slid down his cheek.

“Hey! What the fuck?” Marzo’s voice called from outside.

“You can’t—” Robb added.

Zzzz.

Sounds of punches and shouting muffled together as Kid started to lose consciousness.

He was the only one who seemed to notice the noise. Emaciated and Splotchy Hair were too busy fondling him while Double Chin slipped the tip of the knife inside him.

The door burst open.

Kinzer rushed in, still butt-naked, the veins in his neck purple and blue, his face bright red. He nearly had the same tense, desperate expression on his face as Kid.

“A twofer!” Double Chin’s eyes lit up, his face expanding into a grin like the one he’d had after stabbing Kid.

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Emaciated added.

“You get the fuck off him…” Kinzer’s cheeks trembled like a dog before a bark. “…before I rip your sick dicks off your scrawny balls.”

“Oh, yeah? Make me!” Double Chin pulled his knife slightly out of Kid's hole and started to shove it back in.

Kinzer lunged at him like an animal—ferocious, violent, and untamed. He slugged Double Chin in the face. Double Chin shook it off. Sliding the blade out of Kid's ass, he jabbed at Kinzer.

Kinzer jumped back to avoid the knife.

Emaciated smiled broadly, as if he was thrilled that Kinzer had come to play with them. He released the chain around Kid’s neck and ran at Kinzer, throwing a series of punches in his already battered face.

Kinzer bobbed a bit. The hits hardly affected him.

Kinzer threw a punch that knocked Emaciated against the wall so hard that he collapsed to the floor.

Kid uncoiled the chain around his neck. He took a deep, refreshing breath. As his senses returned, he looked to Kinzer.

Across Kinzer’s back, black marks appeared, stretching in vertical parallel lines between his shoulder blades.

What the fuck? Kid thought.

Splotchy Hair came up from behind Kinzer and wrapped another chain around his neck. Kinzer grabbed at it.

Double Chin came up beside him. He slapped a cuff around Kinzer’s wrist and affixed the other to a pipe in the wall.

Oh, shit. This guy's in way over his head.

“Hold him!” Emaciated said, crawling toward Kinzer.

Kinzer kicked at him.

Grabbing him by the ankles, Emaciated forced Kinzer’s legs apart.

Double Chin slid Emaciated’s pants and boxers to his knees.

Emaciated’s erect head tapped against Kinzer’s hole.

“Fuck, this is hot!” Emaciated exclaimed.

Everyone was distracted, too busy to notice Kid, who lunged at Emaciated, grabbed him by his full head of hair, and rammed his skull against the pipe that Kinzer’s hand was cuffed to.

He rammed his head into the pipe again…and again.

The pipe split open.

Double Chin seized Kid by his ankle and dragged him across the floor. Kid’s shoulder blades burnt against the cement as the now-unconscious Emaciated collapsed.

“Get over here, you rat!” Double Chin flipped the knife so the blade was facing Kid.

Kid did the fastest sit-up of his life and bashed his fist into Double Chin’s balls.

“Fuck!” Double Chin dropped the knife and curled into a fetal position.

Kinzer slipped his cuff through the break Kid had made in the pipe with Emaciated’s head. He pointed his fingers out and threw them behind his head, jabbing them into Splotchy Hair’s eyes.

Splotchy Hair screamed out and dropped the end of the chain.

Kinzer loosened the chain tied around his neck and gasped for air.

Kid was impressed with his and Kinzer’s handiwork. Watching the wounded johns writhe in pain was satisfying.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Marzo stood at the door, his face red and covered in welts Kid presumed he’d received when Kinzer’d beaten his way into the room.

Marzo zapped a Taser in his hand.

Kid’s excitement diminished.

“Kid,” Marzo said, shaking his head. “You’ve been a bad boy.” He stomped toward him.

Kinzer kicked Marzo’s ankle.

Marzo fell forward, the Taser flying from his hand.

His elbow hit the bare concrete floor.

Kid caught the Taser mid-air.

“Fuck,” Marzo said, nursing his elbow.

Kid knelt down and pressed the Taser against the back of Marzo’s neck.

“This is called karma, asshole,” he said.

Zzzz.

For a moment, Marzo’s pupils appeared perfectly symmetrical as his body tremored, just as Kid and so many of Jerry’s other boys had done before.

Kid smirked.

Revenge felt good. Very good.

Robb ran into the room, his Taser out.

Kid ceased his attack on Marzo, who was now a spasm of muscles and nerves. He held his Taser out in front of him.

“Want a turn?”

Robb looked around at the battered victims. A bead of sweat rushed down his forehead. He raced out the door, down the hall.

Kid sprang forward, ready to chase after Robb and give him exactly what he deserved.

From his side, Double Chin tackled him.

“Kinzer, catch!” Kid tossed the Taser across the room.

Kinzer caught it as Double Chin slammed Kid’s shoulder against the wall.

Double Chin wrapped his sausage fingers around Kid’s throat. “I’m gonna kill you, you motherfucker!”

Zzzz.

Kinzer stood beside him, the Taser flashing blue sparks just a few inches from his face. He held the bloody knife in his other hand. “Any of you fuckers try something and I will fry your fucking brain.”

 

***

 

“You fucking dicks!” Jerry shouted.

He lay in the bed Kinzer had woken up in, his wrists cuffed, his ankles chained. Kinzer and Kid stood over him.

It’d been an hour since their encounter with Jerry’s perverse clients. In that time, they’d managed to apprehend all of Jerry’s guards and unlock all the doors in the house, allowing his imprisoned boys to come and go as they pleased. They’d also found some nice clothes, most likely from boys that Jerry had abducted. Kinzer wore a form-fitting polo and jeans that fit perfectly around his sculpted ass. Kid’s hard nipples poked out of a too small brown-and-white striped T-shirt that he’d picked out to show off his impressive muscles.

“Kid, you don’t know how good you had it!” Jerry exclaimed.

Kid slipped a Taser out of his pocket, then pressed it against Jerry’s neck.

Zzzz.

“Fuck!” Jerry cried.

“That’s how good I had it, you asshat.”

“We’ll be leaving now,” Kinzer said. “I just wanted you to know who was responsible for ruining your little operation.”

“Go to fucking Hell!”

“Already done it,” Kinzer said. He and Kid headed for the door.

“I’ll get you bastards for this!”

They stopped in the doorframe. Kid turned back around.

“By the way.” He smiled. Kinzer wondered how long it’d been since he’d smiled that big. “You have a few guys that wanted to schedule some time with you, so I just went ahead and booked everyone at the same time. Have fun.”

He winked and skipped out behind Kinzer.

They passed a line of Jerry’s boys, their faces stern, some with Tasers in their hands. They filed into the room.

Kinzer heard Jerry groan, “Fuck.”

***

“Order whatever you want.”

Kinzer dropped onto a bench in a booth. Across from him, Kid fidgeted with a laminated menu.

They sat at a table in a nearly empty diner. A cook and a waitress chatted behind the front counter.

After leaving Jerry to suffer with the consequences of his disgusting actions, Kinzer had stolen a car. They’d driven for a few hours before stopping so they could grab something to eat.

Gotta warn the others, Kinzer thought.

It was the only thing that mattered right then.

“That thing on your back.” Kid cocked his head to the side. “What is it?”

Kinzer picked up his menu, studying it as if it were an instruction manual. “A scar.” He shrugged dismissively.

“You think I’m an idiot? Scars don’t just magically appear out of nowhere. And even if they did, they wouldn’t look like that. So what’s it really?”

Kinzer set his menu back on the table.

“Y’all know what you want to drink?” The waitress approached their booth. Her black-as-night hair was in pigtails. A purple streak, matching her apron, ran from her bangs through one of the pigtails.

Kid eyed the menu uncertainly. “Um,” he stammered. “I uh…”

“What you got?” Kinzer asked, trying to help Kid out.

The waitress set her hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. Her purple-streaked bangs covered her eyebrow. “We got orange juice, milk, coffee—”

“Coffee!” Kid exclaimed.

“Cream and sugar?”

Kid stared at her blankly.

“Yeah,” Kinzer replied by proxy, “I’ll take a coffee, too.”

“'Kay.” She slipped back behind the counter.

“How long were you in that place?” Kinzer asked.

“Few years.”

“How’d you end up there?”

Kid shot him a look that let Kinzer know he didn’t want to talk about it.

“You gonna tell me about that scar?” Kid asked, mockingly emphasizing the word scar.

Kinzer hesitated. There were rules against talking to mortals about immortal affairs, but at this point, Kinzer didn’t care. His world had been ripped out from under him, and right then, with his thoughts jumbled and disoriented, he desperately wanted someone to talk to. And given Kid’s circumstances, he didn’t imagine there was much that could shock him. He took a breath, recognizing the consequences of what he was about to do. That wasn’t going to stop him.

“You believe in God?” Kinzer asked.

Kid snorted. “You serious? Listen, I don’t need you or anyone else shoving their religion down—”

“You want me to answer your question or not?”

Kid eyed him skeptically. “Okay, okay. Go ahead.”

“God’s a bad word. It means too many different things to too many different people. What I’m trying to say is, there is a creator of this world. A very powerful being that we call the Almighty. Before he created this planet, he created another set of creatures. People here usually refer to them as angels. We call them higherlings. These immortal creatures were his pet project, designed to imitate his most self-appreciated attributes.”

“You trying to tell me you’re some sort of angel? I was actually curious. You don’t have to be a douche.”

“Not an angel.”

The waitress approached their booth. From a tray she carried, she set two white mugs with brown-stained rims before them. Black fluid waved against the white sides of the insides of the mugs. She placed a plate of sugar and creamer packets in the middle of the table.

“You fellas know what you want to order?”

“Fuck,” Kid said.

“Can we have another minute?” Kinzer asked.

“Whatever.” She went back to the counter.

“If you’re not an angel, what are you? A demon?” His arched eyebrow assured Kinzer that he wasn’t buying it.

“We prefer to be called fallens. Will you look at your menu before she comes back and gets bitchy with us?”

Kid scanned it again.

“Ooo! They have waffles! I haven’t had waffles in forever.” He sipped his coffee. “Mmm. That’s really good.”

Kinzer tasted his. It was burnt. He scowled. Grabbing five packets of sugar off the plate, he ripped them open and emptied them into his mug.

“Sorry,” Kid said. “You were saying? You’re a demon?”

“A fallen.” Kinzer stacked a few of the creamer packets by his mug.

“You trying to steal my soul? 'Cause I think you’re a little late.”

Kid was so much giddier than he’d been at Jerry’s. Kinzer imagined it was his excitement over his new freedom.

“You mortals have a pretty fucked up sense of what’s really going on. That’s not even close to how this works.” Kinzer peeled a packet lid back and poured the creamer into his mug. “After the Almighty created the higherlings, He fell in love with the one you guys call Satan, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. We fallens know Him as the Leader. They had a fling. According to legend, they had some pretty great sex.”

“God’s gay?” Kid asked. “Top or bottom?”

“Eh. The Almighty’s kinda a hermaphrodite, so I don’t know if He’d be considered gay, but I think you can rest assured that He’s a top. Anyway, they were lovers for eons. During this time, the Almighty created a present for the Leader: the world. However, the Almighty was so disgusted by it that He tried to hide it. Eventually, Satan found the world, and when the Almighty explained that it had been intended as His gift, the Leader…Satan…thought it was pretty sweet. Not long after that, they split up.”

“Why?” Kid’s eyes widened, as if he was surprised that he’d asked that.

Kinzer figured he must’ve sounded like the nuttiest guy in the world. Maybe it was better that way.

“The Leader and the Almighty always fought over the hierarchy of Heaven, which divided higherlings into different classes. The Almighty’s most beautiful and intelligent of creations made up the ruling class. His more usual creations, like me, belonged to the lowest class.”

“Oh, you’re not usual.” Kid’s gaze lowered, clearly indicating Kinzer’s dick.

“You’d be surprised. Anyway, the division and inequity enraged the Leader. He inspired a lot of us with speeches and writings about equality. After eons of social strife and protest, the Almighty cast the lowest class out of Heaven with the Leader, allowing us to form our own society in Hell. This was called the Fall. Part of the agreement between the Almighty and the Leader was that anyone who went with the Leader was banished from Heaven forever, and they had to char their wings as a symbol of their transgression against Him. He was very overdramatic about the whole thing.”

The waitress re-approached. “You guys figured out what you want?”

“Um…yeah,” Kid said. “Can I get three pecan waffles, two chicken parmesana omelets, and a chocolate pie? Oh, and hash browns covered in chili?”

Kinzer and the waitress eyed each other.

She turned back to Kid and smirked. “Hungry?”

“Yup.”

“And you?”

“Just two eggs,” Kinzer said, “over easy.”

“Be right out.” She dashed behind the counter.

Kid pressed his thumb to his cheek. “So, God and Satan fuck. Breakup. And Satan and his peeps go party in Hell?”

“Pretty much.”

“That has nothing to do with your scar.”

“I’m getting there. After the Fall, the Almighty and the Leader agreed to leave the world alone—to let it run its natural course. However, the Almighty went behind the Leader’s back and tried to destroy it. This started a war between Heaven and Hell, a very brief war that ended in far too much bloodshed. The Leader created powerful weapons, Morarkes, creatures with one purpose: to kill higherlings. To prevent them from attacking fallens, the Leader gave Morarkes a keen sense of smell to distinguish between higherlings and fallens. But the Leader discovered that he couldn’t control them. They turned against the fallens and wreaked havoc in Heaven and Hell.

“For a brief period, the realms united and fought against the Morarkes. And fearing that another war would wipe out not only the world but Heaven and Hell, the Almighty and the Leader created a special assembly, the Council, to moderate any immortal activity that happened in the world. Like the United Nations for immortal realms. The Leader hoped that the Council would prevent God from trying to destroy the world again. The Almighty hoped it would prevent the Leader from creating another devastating weapon.

“As you can probably imagine, if the Almighty doesn’t destroy the world, then He looks like the Leader’s bitch and like any immortal can walk all over him. So the Almighty is still trying to annihilate the world, but in a very sneaky way. The Leader has figured this out, and it’s turned into a massive chess game.”

“So…when you say this kind of shit, do you know you sound crazy? Or do you think, ‘This is going to make total sense to someone else’?”

Kinzer was relieved that Kid wasn’t taking him seriously. It meant he could ramble on without having to worry about him freaking out about the horrors of mortals’ vain plight in the Leader and the Almighty’s petty feud.

“In Hell, there are a lot of fallens who, for whatever reason, are trying to get in good with the Almighty again, to restore their place in Heaven. These fallens will do just about anything to get back, including helping to bring about the end of the world. One group is called the Raze. I’m with a special operative for the Leader, the Leader’s Allies. They sent me to investigate this group, to see what their plans were. But someone ratted me out. They clipped my wings, and I’m guessing their leader, Veylo, sold me to Jerry just to piss me the fuck off.”

He wasn’t going to tell Kid about Janka. That would be too much for him. He’d lose control of his emotions.

“Bullshit,” Kid said. “You’re telling me that shit on your back used to be wings? Like bird wings?”

“No. Like fallen wings.”

Kid shook his head. “Whatever. If you’re really some immortal demon, prove it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you have powers or shit? Don’t you do things different from people? Isn’t there some way you can show me?”

“When they clip you,” Kinzer explained, “you lose your powers. And other than having unusually large genitalia, we’re pretty similar to humans. We’re actually the original model. But maybe if you get a closer look, you’ll get it.”

***

“Where are they?” Kid whispered.

Kinzer, his eyes closed, sat on the toilet, shirtless. He looked like he was meditating.

Kid, crammed between Kinzer and the stall door, stared at his naked back.

“We could totally fuck in here,” Kid said.

“Shh!”

The foul restroom stench filled Kid’s nostrils. He cringed.

Oily marks—the marks he’d seen back in Jerry’s place—started to reappear, until they were black with tiny points protruding from them.

Kid leaned down to get a good look. They were sharp, barb-like. He moved his fingers close, but just as he was about to touch one, several shifted together.

“Holy fuck. What is it? A mutation?”

“That’s where the wings used to be.”

The marks were weird, but it was too big of a leap for him to believe Kinzer’s story. Kinzer was either lying out of his ass or bat-shit crazy. Either way, he didn’t care. Kinzer had rescued him from Jerry’s, so he would swear his loyalty to him regardless…even if that meant going along with all this nonsense about angels and demons and wars between Heaven and Hell.

“Okay,” he said. “What do we gotta do?”

“I gotta warn some higherlings.”