Episode 75: Alive (Xander)

He’d had just about enough of being dead.

Hours of ongoing torture by these assholes.

They kicked him, everywhere. They spit on him. They called him names.

“What is your problem?” he asked one of them, the shorter man with the trimmed beard. He seemed like the ringleader.

The problem with being dead was that he couldn’t seem to get injured, so he was just going to get this forever. They could kick under his chin and his head could snap back like his neck was broken and then he’d be fine and they could start over.

It was great, probably, for the type of bastard who liked torturing people.

Or who liked being tortured.

Even at his most creatively erotic, Xander didn’t fall into either category.

“Piece of shit Lavesque,” the guy said.

“Traitor,” someone else called him.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” the first guy told him.

Xander sat up, now that he had them talking. “How touching.”

Someone kicked his head from behind. Hard. He was back on the ground, reminding his body that he wasn’t actually hurt, that the pain couldn’t be real without an injury.

It was fucking real.

Bastards.

“Why,” he asked, “were you waiting for me?”

“Do you know my name?” the bearded guy demanded. He kicked Xander’s ribs. “My daughter, Naomi, is married to your brother.”

Was. And what a complicated mess that was.

He choked on his own laughter.

“You’re the asshole that owned the peninsula house,” he goaded. If they were going to treat him like shit, he may as well have some fun. “Even Scott won’t go there. They say it’s cursed.”

Actually, Scott had his own mansion and his own ego and his obsession with health. No one thought the house was cursed, it was just that Scott didn’t want it and everyone else was dead.

Someone new came over, out of the formless mist. He had a red beard and blue eyes and wings. No way. An angel? They were real.

“What’s going on here?” the guy demanded.

The group looked very interested in everything but Xander.

“Come on,” the winged guy said. He offered Xander his hand.

Xander took it, hoping to fly like those Dells bastards with their dragons, but the guy just helped him to his feet. “Come on, I can get you settled. You can stay at my place until you figure out how to stay away from people who don’t like you.”

He walked with the guy, and every step seemed to make the mist thin a little more, until they were in a clearing with a massive cathedral-like building at the center of it.

“Is this where angels live?” he asked, awed.

“This is where robot-loving abstracted fairies live,” he corrected. “You may not enjoy it, but it should keep you safe while we teach you how to be dead.”

Xander followed him into a vaulted room that was a chaos of books and chunks of metal. In the middle of one area, tools in hand, knelt an all-white angel.

He looked up at them. “Another visitor?” he asked. “Busy day.”

“I’m not staying,” Xander apologized.

The white angel looked at him with pallid blue eyes. “I know you. Not you, the other you, the older one. You’re a Lavesque!”

The red angel laughed. “You know far too many people,” he disparaged. “Especially for someone who isolates himself so much.”

“Are you going to kick me if I am a Lavesque?” Xander joked. It was a half-laugh.

The pale angel seemed more worried than amused though: “Are your brothers and their families okay?”

“I think so. This was more a bad idea death than an avenge-the-Lavesques death.”

The pale angel smiled, beatific. “Lovely. Well, when you die, the trick is to be where you want to be, and you’ll be there. It’s phenomenal. Eat what you like, and you’ll be eating it. You control your reality.”

The red angel shook his head. “He needs to learn defense. The Caelum was attacking him. I’ll be back in a few minutes, once I’ve dealt with them.”

The white angel nodded his head.

“Defensive measure number the first,” he began, once the red angel left. “Don’t talk to people who don’t like you.”

Xander almost laughed, but then he felt a strange tug inside himself.

“Ah,” the chalky angel said. “It seems you won’t require defensive measure number the second just yet. Although the first could certainly be useful to you in staying alive to begin with.”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed.

He decided angels were gay and verbose and unbelievably boring.

Then he was alive.

Alive, and dressed.

Maybe he’d imagined the rape thing.

The creepy girl just sat in the corner, her two dolls in her hand. She smiled at him. “Playing dolls,” she said.

He sat up and looked at the camera. Hopefully Farnum and company were still out there, pissed at him.

Having people pissed at him for being an asshole felt good.

He loved being an asshole.

Even Zero hadn’t come back from the dead.

“Do you want a girlfriend?” he asked Eulalee. He could find some piece of shit girl who needed to be punished and get her to get some of Eulalee’s hair. Price? Possible death. Reward? Freedom if successful.

Yep. That’s what he would do.

“Why do you want to give me a girlfriend?” she asked, suspicious.

“I didn’t offer one,” he argued. It couldn’t seem to be easy for her, or she wouldn’t trust it. “I asked if you wanted one.”

“I want to play outside.” That, she said to her dolls, but then she looked up at Xander. “If I promise to be good and to help you be bad, can we go on a walk?”

“Sure,” he told her.

She stood up, and her voice and body language became commanding. “You will never try to make a spell like that again. You will never use myself against me. Do you understand?”

He nodded his head.

He’d get someone else to do it, some prisoner whose life was already on the line, someone with nothing to lose. “I do,” he assured her. “Let me just go get your guards. We can leave in a moment.”

She smiled and her focus drifted a little. “You’re going to be my best friend. That’s why I made sure you came back.”

“Well, I appreciate it.” Finally, something he could be honest about.

“Why do you keep lying to me?” she demanded. “Lying isn’t very nice. My guards are at the door and you don’t have to get them. There are two by my door and two at the end of the hall and three in the office and five upstairs.”

He looked at her.

She wanted honesty? Fine. He’d be the most honest asshole she’d ever met.

“I’m still trying to learn how to be friends with someone who killed me,” he told her. He used his height to his advantage, staring down at her to hopefully make her feel small. “You’ll have to give me time.”

He walked out of the room.

He was going to get his brothers, and probably Spence because this was his arrogant little fault, and together they were going to ward the fuck out of this room.

Farnum smiled when he saw him.

“Well done, sir.”

Shit-eating bastard. It wasn’t well-done, he’d accomplished nothing and barely survived.

“Did she rape me?” he asked, to clarify what was memory and what was dream.

Farnum nodded his head. “I think so, sir.”

Great.

He didn’t doubt that there would be a baby. She would have planned it that way.

He was powerful, she was insane. It could be interesting to see what kind of kid they had.

“Don’t let anyone hurt the baby,” he instructed Farnum. “It could be useful.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.” Xander started down the hall, toward the residential part of the palace, but Farnum called out to him.

He turned around, to see Farnum holding a stack of folded clothes.

“We thought you’d want to shower and change before anyone saw you,” Farnum offered.

Of course. He had a bloody shirt, his body was a mess, he’d been raped for fuck’s sake.

“Right. Thank you, Farnum.”

He took the clothes and went into one of the empty cells and took the longest shower of his life.

Then he went out to find Team Lavesque so they could trap this girl permanently.

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