Flagg's Temper
Many hours after leaving Sweet's bar (but unfortunately for Will, not too many hours), Will was finally alone again. He had begged at first, apologizing and gibbering for mercy. Then he had just screamed and screamed.
* * *
Flagg's dominion is in a frightening, earthy place that some refer to as The Territories. The air itself crackles with energy and sweet, untainted purity. There has been no industrial revolution here, no gradual replacing of the old, magic ways with the modern combustion engine. There is no pollution in the air anywhere, and though there are bad smells in some places, they are organic smells. Animal shit, sickness, and rot. All of those smells are only transient though, hidden under the smells of clean fires and good, pure food cooking. Even the water smells pure. However, under the simple exterior, something older and fouler than anything man created permeates everything. True magic has been killed out in our world by science, culled as simply as medicine kills bacteria, but not in Flagg's world. Wild magic runs through all, and just like its cold cousin science and its passionate cousin nature, magic is just as cruel as it is wonderful. Will was aware of Flagg's world as Jack dragged him along, and even though he was distracted by his useless struggle with Jack, Will sensed the simplistic cruelty of Flagg's world. It was like a picture of a meadow that would be beautiful if it wasn't so shadowy. As they neared Flagg's keep, the shadows deepened.
Any other day, Flagg would have watched invisibly at Jack's house. He also wouldn't have interfered in Jack's choice of torture. But Flagg didn't have the patience for such niceties today. He flicked a finger, and Will tumbled to the ground at the feet of Flagg's throne. Flagg walked over him and sat down on the throne, casually throwing his leg over on of the arms of the great seat. He spoke to Jack.
"Pick your instrument."
Jack himself wasn't particularly in the mood to hurt Will. He was more scared for his own life, an effect Flagg often had on him when they were around each other. Despite Will's innocence, Jack still valued his own life first, though. He walked to the rack of torture instruments Flagg kept on the wall (the same place most people might have hung a family portrait, in fact). He chose with no regard for Will at all, thinking only of something vile enough to impress Flagg and light enough that he wouldn't get tired of weilding it before Flagg was satisfied. Jack selected a cat o' nine tails.
At first, Flagg just waved his hand in acceptance, then he paused. "No. Not quite. Close, but no Savior. Let him bear a true saint's punishment. Old Enoch would have seen this in action before, slapping against his employer's mongrel son." Flagg waved his hand again, and barbed hooks burst onto the end of each lash.
Even Jack was clearly appalled. He didn't hate Will, after all. He had a little trouble speaking as he responded to Flagg. "How many?"
Flagg answered immediately. "The standard is 39, is it not? That was rumored to be the sentence of Jesus, although speaking as one who was there, let me assure you that that is false. Still, the traditions sometimes hold true." He surveyed Will's terrified form on the ground, then pronounced the sentence. "Jesus was only half human, so your lover is twice as sinful. Give him 78."
Jack looked down at Will with something resembling sadness. 39 lashes could kill even strong men, which Will absolutely was not. 78 was a certain death sentence. Even so, he strengthened his grip on the handle and began the flogging without a word to his friend.
Mercifully, Will passed out after Jack pulled back from the first blow. This time, his weakness worked in his favor, and he was unconscious for everything but the first meaty rip. Each blow did more and more damage, and Jack finally stopped somewhere in the fifties. There was no soft tissue left anywhere on Will's back, and the last blow had hooked in his ribs and pulled two of them out of his ribcage. Jack dropped the scourge and backed off.
"There's nothing left of him."
"He's breathing."
"Yes." Jack tried to spit Will's blood out of his mouth and started coughing, bringing up blood of his own from his own diseased lungs. He spat it indifferently onto the floor at Flagg's feet. Flagg looked at it dreamily.
"Blood of the Sinner, blood of the Lamb." Then Flagg's eyes regained a bit of focus. "Tack him up on Nexus land. Someplace he won't die, and where the Metatron is sure to find him."
* * *
Jack had brought him back to the nexus, shuddering when the magic of the place (different than the magic in the Territories, but no less dark) revived Will. Will, of course, started screaming immediately. Jack ignored him while he readied the cross, then did the only merciful thing Jack did the whole evening: he choked Will unconscious.
Then he crucified him.
He left before Will came to, which is why Will woke up alone twenty minutes later with his stinging, bleeding bones rubbing against a splintery cross as he struggled. Jack had been in a hurry to get it over with, and the nails weren't supporting Will's meager weight equally. Slowly but surely, the flesh around his left wrist started stretching and tearing in his struggles. This new, clear pain jogged him out of his inarticulate screaming and into the only thing that would have broken the cloaking spell Flagg put on him for temporary privacy: he started shrieking prayers.