Everyone called the warden sir if they knew what the best for them was. His boys might have cursed him under their breath behind his back but when they saw him coming, they could only stare at their feet and wait for him to pass him by. Had they dared to look him in the eye, they might have shit themselves from fright. Just the way he wanted.
The warden knew how to treat his boys.
There was only one way to treat unruly boys in Saint Nicholas’s School for Wayward Boys. With a firm hand. To break them out of their bad habits you had to break the boy and then put the pieces back together, so you had something useful. His boys would come to him lost and leave the school walking down the path he set them on. With Jesus in their hearts. Or they were taken away by that strange goblin and his wagon in the death of the night.
The warden was proud of his work and prided himself never failing to teach his boys manners.
Which made his failure with Maximo sting even more and every day the warden found himself thinking of Maximo. Even if only for a few seconds. He still remembered the day Maximo had been brought to his school. By Luciano Riggi himself. The most famous detective in Leoden with whom the warden had had a good working relationship.
And with him… Luciano brought Maximo.
The warden had welcomed his doom in with a smile on his face. Maximo was only a boy of twelve with a head shaved clean which the warden thought was a sign of lice. But despite being only twelve, Maximo had the eyes of a giant and a frame that promised that one day the rest of him would match his eyes. Then there were the chains. A boy of twelve had been chained up like a rabid animal.
“Luciano.” The warden said.
“Sir.”
The warden smiled and then looked at the boy.
“And who do we have here?”
Luciano yanked the boy’s chains and forced him on his knees.
“Don’t get too close. He bites. He bit one of my men’s finger off then the damn thing got infected. He lost his entire arm.”
Maximo snarled at him, and the warden shivered when he saw dried blood on the boy’s teeth.
“Does he have a name?”
“Maximo.” Luciano said and then leaned in closer: “House Rossi would appreciate it if you… taught him some manners. The way only you know.”
The warden smiled.
“That’s why I am here for. I’ll make sure he finds Jesus.”
Maximo was left in the warden’s care, and he decided to give the boy a tour of his new home personally. Of its high walls, vigilant guards, cold rooms, and hard floors.
“I hope you’ll like it here. Saint Nicholas’s School for Wayward Boys was built for young men just like you. We have a school where you’ll learn a trade. That’s where you’ll spend most of your time from now on.”
The warden pointed at the living quarters.
“We have a bed for you ready. I am sure you will make a lot of friends.”
The warden pointed at the kitchen.
“The kitchen is a popular place to work in. If you play nice, I can get you a job there.”
Then he pointed at church.
“We can’t forget the church, can we? Tell me, Maximo. Have you found Jesus?”
Maximo didn’t answer and just kept staring at him. The warden’s cheek started to twitch.
“It’s rude not to answer when someone is talking. I asked, have you found Jesus.”
This time Maximo answered. By spitting on his shoes. The warden’s face grew crimson and the guards keeping watch on the yard reached for their batons. The warden took out a handkerchief and swiped the sweat off his brow.
“There is… one more place you should know about.” The warden said and pointed at a brick building standing in the shadow of the church: “We call that the Paint Shop. You go in lily white and come out black and purple.”
The warden gave the sign and the guards dragged Maximo away. Away to the Paint Shop. Some of the other boys watched him go horrified and prepared to hear screams. They always screamed. They always screamed before breaking.
Maximo never screamed.
When he was dragged out, he was black and purple, and his face was swollen unrecognizable, but the fire had not gone out of his eyes. It burned even brighter. And Maximo kept staring at him. The poison green eyes were boiling with hate.
“Have you found Jesus?” The warden asked.
Maximo never answered and just kept glaring at him when he was taken away.
Once Maximo was out of sight but not out of mind the warden swiped more sweat off his brow and summoned the captain of the guards to him. The captain of the guard played with his golden lighter while they spoke. A gift from a rich patron after the captain had made an embarrassing bastard child disappear.
“Bunk him up with the Hound.”
“Yes, sir.” The captain said and lit a cigarette with his golden lighter.
The Hound had been a wild dog living in the streets of Leoden like an animal eating trash and mugging other street kids. When he had been brought to Saint Nicholas’s the warden had recognized his potential immediately. Any abused animal could be tamed with treats and turned into a loyal guard dog. The school ran the smoothest when his boys kept each other in line.
He had turned a wild hound into his hound.
Maximo was thrown on his bunk next to the Hound’s and the guards knew not to make their rounds in the living quarters no matter what they heard after dark. The Hound was the biggest of his boys and he had nastier appetites than just eating trash. This time the warden got his screams.
Just not from Maximo.
When the captain of the guards came to give him, the man looked… shaken. A veteran of the Twelve-Year-War looked… unnerved. This time he was gripping the golden lighter so hard it was in risk of breaking.
“Well?” The warden said.
“I… sir… I…” The captain said, lost at words: “… you should see this.”
The warden was taken to the sick bay. Where the guards had taken what was left of the Hound and when the blanket was pulled aside, the warden saw something he would take with him to the grave. The worst part was that the Hound was still somehow alive.
“… how?” The warden gasped.
“He… well… Maximo… after gouging out his… and biting off his… he headbutted him… until… well…” The captain said.
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The warden stared at what was left of his mighty hound one last time. His Hound… his boy… torn apart by a vicious ogre.
“Mauled by a wild dog. That’s what happened. Have the doctor sign the death report.” The warden said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And give Maximo a baby. And heavy labor. Until his mind or body breaks.”
Earning a baby was a rare treat but Maximo was a rare breed. From there on, his ankle was shackled to a fifty-pound steel ball. His baby. But becoming a Mother just made him more intimidating in the eyes of his boys… and even the guards. Not even the warden was looked at with such terror as Maximo. No one ever heard him speak but he only had to look at you to get his point across. The warden hoped to snuff out the fire in those poison green eyes and he was sure that hard labor would break him. An hour’s walk to crushing rock while carrying his baby with the other problem children. Then endless hours of crushing stones with a sixteen-pound sledgehammer followed by long march back.
His boys cracked. They always did.
The longest anyone had survived the hard labor had been two months but even he had broken down in tears. The work did not only torture your body but your mind as well. The backbreaking labor would wear you down while the dull monotone of a boring task corroded your mind until you were a crippled imbecile. Eventually they all were broken. Tamed. Ready by to remade.
Maximo never broke. He was never tamed.
But he was being remade.
Right in front of their eyes.
The previous record of surviving hard labor had been two months.
Maximo lasted four years.
Instead of breaking his body, Maximo adjusted, and the four years of hellish labor made his muscles grow and swell until his flesh was so well-developed, he looked like a twisted mutant. Every part of him hammered past human perfection. On some days the warden made it a habit to watch Maximo while he worked… and could see what Maximo saw.
Maximo was not crushing stones.
In Maximo’s mind he was crushing the skulls of his enemies and he saw the whole world as his enemy. Every day he crushed the skulls of everyone in Saint Nicholas. The warden had sworn to lead Maximo to Jesus… but now he feared what Maximo would do if he ever got his hands on their lord and savior.
“That should not be possible.” The captain said while watching Maximo on the yard and playing with his lighter: “With the amount of food he is getting… he should not be getting that big.”
The warden did not answer. The captain would not have understood. Maximo was not sustained with food. That little ogre supped on hate. The more they hurt him, the more he hated and the more he hated, the stronger he became. All that mind breaking, dull, monotonous laboring just made his hatred focused and just like the labor mutated his body, it mutated his mind. While looking at Maximo, he wondered if God ever looked at what he had created and trembled. With Maximo growing into a horror, the warden started praying to God that someone would take the monster off his hands.
And one night the warden thought his prayers had been answered.
When the goblin whose carriage was pulled by demon horses arrived at Saint Nicholas. The warden had stayed at his office to catch up on paperwork when he saw the gas lamps flickering out and his small kingdom was plunged into darkness. The warden stood by the window and his hand reached for the crucifix hanging by his neck. He had heard the stories. They all had.
Orphanages spoke of Old Flea in hushed tones.
The ancient goblin would ride into town with his demon mounts and summon naughty children to him then whisk them away into the Wyrding. A place that turned naughty children into evil spirits. No guard could stop him. No door could keep him away. No lock could shut him out. The warden’s predecessor had warned him about Old Flea. There would be night when the goblin would ride into Saint Nicholas and not even the name of a saint would hold any power over the fae. The warden could only watch from his window while guards doing their shifts on the yard ran into the goblin… and slumped over.
The warden did not know if it was a sense of duty or macabre curiosity that made him act.
There was a revolver on the top drawer of his desk. In case his boys ever rebelled and had to be put down when they tried to break down his door. With the arrival of Maximo, he had begun to train with it regularly. The warden took the revolver and left to meet Old Flea who had taxed the orphanages like a thief in the night.
With every step he took outside of his office, the smaller he felt. The more alien Saint Nicholas became.
He knew this place. It was his kingdom. A part of him. Saint Nicholas would never let any harm come to him but now… when a fae was out there… the darkness surrounding him felt suffocating and his lantern too small to keep it away. It was like the darkness was out to crush him.
“I know you’re there.” The warden said: “Show yourself.”
He could hear footsteps in the dark. Just outside his lantern’s reach. Then someone snickered.
“Is this any way to greet your good pal, Old Flea?”
A drop of cold sweat ran down the warden’s back when he pointed the revolver at the darkness. The voice was scratchy and mocking. The kind of a voice only cruel old men had whose sole enjoyment was mocking others.
“Do you think that a bullet can kill me?”
Then the goblin stepped into the light.
“Then take your shot if you’re not afraid to feel the back of this paw.”
Old Flea was dressed in a worn-down pinstripe suit and a bowler hat like he was trying to fit in. The warden aimed between the goblin’s eyes that were the color of dirty pools of water and fired. The shot ran in the night, and he waited to see the goblin’s hat be blown off along with his brains.
Instead, the goblin plucked the bullet from the air and studied it.
“Full marks for effort and little else.” Old Flea said and threw the bullet over his shoulder: “If you’re done embarrassing yourself, give me the gun.”
Old Flea was no bigger than a child, but the warden felt smaller than an insect next to him. His hand trembled when he gave the gun to Old Flea and the goblin took it apart in seconds. After that he lit a cigarette and regarded the warden for a moment. Would he be spirited away?
“… please…” The warden said while clutching his crucifix: “… take the children… not me…”
“What possible use would anyone have for you?” Old Flea said while smoking: “Even Screaming Beasts shouldn’t have to put up with someone like you.”
Old Flea blew out a smoke ring that hit the warden in the face.
“The place has changed since my last visit. Take me to the sleeping quarters.” Old Flea commanded.
The warden could only obey, and he began to lead the monster to his boys. Any guard they came across fell asleep with a simple order from Old Flea until no one stood between them and the sleeping quarters of his boys. He had named the sleeping quarters the Crab Bucket. In markets, fishermen never bothered covering the bucket that they used to store the crabs. If one of them tried to climb out, the other crabs would just pull them back in.
It was the same in Saint Nicholas.
Fear of punishment kept his boys in check and if anyone tried to run after the lights went out, his boys would deal with their own. They knew that escaping was everyone’s sin, and no punishment was more brutal than collective punishment. If any of his boys tried to leave the Crab Bucket, the other boys would pull him back in.
“By the Grey Mother’s tits.” Old Flea said: “You make them sleep like this?”
“…we give them blankets.”
Old Flea flicked his cigarette at the warden’s polished shoes and started walking among his sleeping boys. Except not all of them were sleeping. In the darkness Maximo rose like a patient tiger hiding in the grass. Old Flea spotted him first and for the first time his smug contempt was replaced by puzzlement.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Old Flea asked.
In response Maximo jumped at him. His speed for dizzying for someone that big. The warden didn’t notice the self-made shiv until he jammed it in Old Flea’s neck. The ancient goblin gasped while falling back and Maximo tried to crush his skull with the baby… and the warden realized that if Old Flea died, there was nothing standing between him and Maximo.
But Old Flea did not die.
The goblin drew something in the air with his paws and chains made from shadows pinned Maximo down. Old Flea pulled the shiv out of his neck and applied pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. He could still stand but all the fight had gone out of him, and he began limping back to his carriage, only slowing down to throw one more glance at the trapped Maximo. Once Old Flea was gone, the gas lamps came back to life and his guards regained their senses. From that night on, the warden knew that him and Maximo were stuck with each other. Locked together by hatred.
This went on for four years.
A four-year rivalry between him and Maximo.
And on occasion the warden found himself by Maximo’s cell. One built specifically for him. At that point he was too dangerous to be sleeping with his boys.
“Have you found Jesus?” The warden asked.
Maximo was sitting at the center of his cell, reading a Bible. Even through the prison uniform the warden could make out the muscles in the back of this monster he had helped create. When Maximo turned to look at him, the green eyes were filled with hate that no words could do justice. The eyes of someone who would strangle the world if he could.
“Four years… don’t you think I have at least earned an answer? We all know you can talk. So… Have you found Jesus?”
Maximo did not answer and just kept looking at him like he was some curious insect. The warden sighed and had a sip from his flask.
“I would threaten you with the Paint Shop but we both know that would only make you stronger. All I want is a yes or no. Have you found Jesus?”
Maximo stood up and ran his hand over his shaved head. Despite being only sixteen, he was already taller than the warden and would only keep getting taller and stronger. After rubbing his bare scalp, Maximo scratched the scar on his forehead. A memento from the Hound. Then Maximo closed the Bible… thick as a brick with heavy leather covers… and ripped the holy book in half like it was just a sheet of paper. Then without pause, Maximo opened his fly, pulled out his cock and pissed on the torn pages.
He never took his eyes off the warden.
The warden could only stare at him before slipping away. This time he did not order the guards to beat up Maximo until he couldn’t stand. Maximo was a man even the hangman would not dare to approach. Sending men to challenge a monster would have been… vile.
The next day Maximo escaped.
The captain came running to his office, looking like he was on death’s door. His hands were trembling so badly he could not even spark his lighter. The warden’s hand paused mid-writing while he waited for the captain to catch his breath and shatter his world.
“Maximo has escaped!”
The warden stared at the captain of the guard for a moment and slumped over when he had a heart attack.
While recovering in a Leoden hospital, the captain came to visit him to give his report. On how Maximo had escaped. He lit them both cigarettes with his golden lighter and the warden listened. No one knew how but somehow Maximo had gotten his hands on a lockpick. And he had learned to use it too in secrecy. While his boys had been resting on the way to work, Maximo had unlocked the chains of the fastest runner in the chain gang. An alarm had been sounded and while majority of the guards had been chasing the runaway, Maximo had made his move. He had chosen that moment to pick his own lock and then… kill the two guards left behind with the baby that he had been settled with. Both men had had their skulls crushed… and pissed on.
By the time anyone knew he was gone, it was too late.
After that the warden retired. Respected and well-rewarded for his work with his boys but even with all his accolades he could only think of Maximo. His greatest failure. His only solace was that as the years passed, he thought less of him… and his nightmares were not haunted by him as often.
But they never left him completely.
And just like Maximo had grown stronger at Saint Nicholas, being away from Saint Nicholas made the warden waste away. He had survived a heart attack, but he knew he would not survive retirement.
Maximo had broken him.
Then one day he returned home after his walk in Leoden… with a feel of impending doom. The warden glanced at his door and the lock but saw no signs of a break in. The windows were also all intact. Everything was as it was supposed to be.
But he could not shake the feeling he was not alone.
The warden poured himself a drink to calm his nerves and then had a bath. While getting out of the bath, he looked at himself in the mirror and saw a sad, broken old man with sagging skin. A far cry from the man he had been. With a towel wrapped around his loins, he headed to his bedroom and opened his wardrobe.
And saw a wall of muscle clad in a grey suit and dark, fur-trimmed greatcoat.
The warden looked up and saw a face he had so often dreamt of looking down on him. The years had made Maximo reach his full power. One body holding the strength of three men. A face carved from granite. A scar shaped like a star on his forehead. A scalp shaved smooth. But the eyes… the eyes… those eyes… eyes green as venom. Filled with hate for all living things.
“Hello, sir.” Maximo said.
The warden felt a bang of pain in his chest when he heard Maximo speak for the first time. His voice… it was just like he had imagined. Booming as thunder, powerful as an earthquake but also… so measured. Almost tender. Flowing smoothly as oil on silk.
But the real surprise was the accent.
Maximo had an Osetarian accent.
The warden had never even considered Maximo might have been a tart.
Maximo stepped out of the closet where he had been hiding God only knew how long and pushed the warden gently down on his bed.
“Do you remember me, sir?”
“… Maximo…”
“Yes. I am glad you do. I am very glad you do because I remember you too.” Maximo said.
The warden looked Maximo up and down. His expensive suit and the fur-trimmed greatcoat that was popular in Osetaria.
“… you… have done well for yourself.”
Maximo nodded.
“A million years could pass, and the world would still need my skills.” Maximo said and reached for his pocket: “I have a gift for you.”
“… for me?”
“Yes. I am sure it will mean a lot to you.”
Maximo pulled his hand out of his pocket… with a golden lighter. A lighter the captain of the guards had been gifted by a wealthy patron for making an embarrassing bastard child disappear. It had blood on it.
“He suffered. They all suffered. I saved you for last. Second to last.” Maximo said and cupped the warden’s face with his hands large as spades: “Tell me, warden. Have you found Jesus?”