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It hurt. Dying again and again.
It never got easier over time, and there was always a moment of pure fear each instance that he wouldn't come back. A feeling replaced by acceptance, cold and calm.
For a split second, he would have peace. The End would be there with him. It was always strange, looking at another entity. He hated every moment.
A quiet he doesn't like, stretching out for far too long. Waiting. The tug of his own always interrupted them, pulling him back. And then he would back again. Ready to grow with the body he chose, and devote the time again to the Dark.
A ritual in itself. And when his larger ritual fails, he takes comfort in the idea of another. Even if they have to scramble for a new body.
This time, of course, was different. Someone tipped the police off. He could hear the gunshots from upstairs as they come in, and he sped up his movements. It wasn't fast enough. The burning hot fire of bullets tearing into his chest pooled blood into his lungs and he toppled over, darkness pouring out of him as he gasped. Gasp. Reach for the child. The replacement.
Gasp. Any replacement now. After what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than a split second, it connected with something else. Relief, and as he lay on the floor, the cathedral faded away. The light replaced it, and he heard screaming before the final pain and calm of death overtook him.
He was on the ground, staring at the end. There was no change. No indication that he would be here any longer than normal.
And there wouldn't have been, if one of his own hadn't lurched forwards. The host had to be killed, and as Leo Altman was stabbed through the throat, Rayner felt the tug away, the small patch of darkness branching under the skin and mixing with the blood.
It was a long process, much longer as he realized no one was coming to help him. He spent a lot of the time acclimating to the body cursing his acolytes for being so stupid. So disposable. But most of all for leaving him. They were gone.
He may be a hard man, but he'd never been inclined to loneliness.
He sat through a funeral before he acclimated enough to escape. He broke out in the middle of the night. Before he was nailed in for good. A shiver was suppressed, realizing how close he became to being claimed by the Buried. How close he came to attempting to claw himself out of the ground.
He picked the glass off of Leo Altman's best suit and stepped through the window to get out of the funeral home.
And Maxwell Rayner was reborn.