Monday July 25, 1988
4:00 A.M.
The nightmare came again. The woods, the steps, the cone-faced thing turning, turning…
Jay woke in darkness, screaming.
"Jay?" a deep voice asked. "Are you all right?"
Dimly, through the dark of the cellar, he could see Hiram looming above him, a vast shadow. Jay struggled against his bonds, gave it up, slumped back with a groan.
"No," he said in a hoarse whisper. Ti Malice had been gone for hours. "I'm not all right. I'm tied up in this stinking cellar, I had to watch some poor bastard rip himself apart with his bare hands, Blaise is out doing God knows what, and in a little while a giant maggot is going to fasten itself to my neck and suck my blood, so I'm not all right."
Somewhere in the middle of that Jay's whisper had turned into a scream. He heard Charm stir, woken from sleep. Then the joker began to sing "The House of the Rising Sun." It was just what Jay needed.
Hiram sat on a corner of the old sofa, shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry," he said weakly. "If there's anything I can do…"
"You can untie me," Jay said quickly.
"Sascha would know the moment I began," Hiram said helplessly.
"So?" Jay said. "What's Sascha going to do? Charm's strong, but you're an ace, dammit. You can handle him. This is the best chance we're going to get. Once my hands are free-"
"I can't, Jay," Hiram said, cutting him off in a voice thick with despair. " I would if I could, but… Jay, I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen, you have to believe that."
"I believe it," Jay said gently. Hiram sounded weary, and heartsick, and full of pain. There was a long silence. "How long?" Jay finally asked.
"A year and a half," Hiram replied. "It happened on the tour. In Haiti. Ezili was his lure. I deluded myself into thinking I was seducing her, but of course it was the other way around. Afterward, when I'd dozed o$; she opened the door, and the master took me in my sleep. Once I was his, he used me to smuggle him into the United States. I had money, influence. It wasn't difficult at all."
"This is your chance to break free," Jay urged. "Use it." "It's been the ruin of many a poor boy,'Charm sang softly. "And me, by God, I'm one."'
Hiram could not look at him. He shook his head. "Untie me," Jay whispered. "That's all you need to do. Simple. I'll handle the rest, just get my hands free. You don't even have to watch. I'll pop you to the Jokertown Clinic, you can get treatment for… for whatever he's done to you. Do it now, Hiram. We don't know how much time we have left."
"You'd hurt him," Hiram said. His voice broke. "You don't understand… his kiss, it's like… words can't describe it, Jay. When you're part of him, it's as though you're alive, for the first time in your life. You feel such intense pleasure. Food, drink, sex, even the simple act of breathing, it all becomes intoxicating… but when he leaves you, when he moves to another mount… that's like dying, Jay. The world turns gray, and after a week or so, the physical withdrawal sets in. You can't imagine the pain. You crave him. It's a hunger, and if it's not fed…" He looked up, his eyes imploring understanding. "Besides, he's not evil, not the way you and I understand it. Without his mounts, he'd die. He needs us, just as we need him. It's just that his morality is… different than ours."
"In New York," Jay said, "after Sascha had run to Atlanta with your little pal, I found a torture chamber in his apartment. Not to mention a body in his bathroom."
"Yes," Hiram said. He looked away again. "A mount. One of the jokers." His voice was so low that Jay could barely hear it over Charm's singing. "Sometimes… pain is different from pleasure, he says, but just as… as interesting. The sensations of death are… especially… especially…"
"I got it. He tortures his more expendable mounts to death to get a few jollies, right? But he's not bad, just misunderstood." He snorted. "Hiram, that thing defines evil."
For a long time, Hiram Worchester said nothing. There was only Charm's guttural singing from the next room. But finally Hiram's lips moved, so weakly that Jay did not catch the words.
"What?" he whispered.
Hiram turned his head. "Foul… oh God, Jay, you don't know what it's been like… so many times, I just wished for it to be over… that he'd kill me the next time… but I'm too powerful, you see. I'm an ace. He wants aces… wants the powers… I'll never be free. And you… it'll be the same…"
"No way," Jay said. "Hiram, don't let him take me."
"I can't hurt him! I told you."
"Then hurt me," Jay said. "Kill me, if it comes to that. But don't let him take me." He never thought he'd hear himself beg for death, but his flesh was crawling at the very thought of Ti Malice. It would be like his nightmare, but this time he would never wake, this time it would go on and on forever.
Hiram Worchester stared at him with sudden wonder on his broad face. "Kill you," he murmured. His fingers flexed, closing slowly into a fist, then opening again. "He would be angry, Jay… so very angry, you can't imagine. Perhaps… perhaps then he might… free me."
Jay knew what he meant by "free."
7:00 A.M.
They waited at the airport all night for the first available flight to Atlanta. Jennifer fell asleep around midnight, but Brennan could not. He sat up all night meditating on a playing card, an ace of spades, left him in a will.
When it was time to board the flight, he slipped it into the breast pocket of his denim jacket where it would be close at hand.
When the door opened, Jay caught a brief glimpse of pale, thin sunlight filtering down from above. Blaise stepped into the cellar, stumbling on the last step, almost tripping over the end of his cloak. The boy looked dead on his feet, his face drawn and pale. He'd been ridden to exhaustion, and beyond.
Sascha stepped forward to remove the heavy felt cloak. "We were concerned for you, master," he said as he undid the ties. "We heard sirens… screams in the night…"
Ezili laughed from the doorway. "The night was magic, Sascha," she said, running a tongue across her lower lip. "Hartmann went mad. We watched it on the television. A circus of blood. Then the jokers went mad, too. We wandered in the park and played with them all night long. No one noticed." She shut the cellar door behind her, and darkness resumed its reign.
"This mount is tired," Ti Malice announced in Blaise's hoarse, weary tones. "It is time to try the other. Bring it." Everyone looked at Jay.
Sascha folded the cloak, set it aside, turned his face toward Jay. There might have been pity in his eyes, if he'd had eyes. He nodded at Charm, and the huge joker shambled forward.
"Can't we talk this over?" Jay asked.
Charm ignored him. Hands gasped his legs, shoulders, feet, and jerked him into the air. Charm flung him over a shoulder, carried him across the cellar. The place still smelled like a butcher shop. Flies swarmed around decaying pieces of human flesh. Charm tossed Jay down on the mattress. Ezili bent over him and kissed him lightly, her lips wet and hot. "Soon," she said., "Prepare it for me," Blaise's voice commanded.
Charm grabbed a handful of Jay's shirt and yanked sharply. The fabric tore with a loud ripping sound, until it got tangled in the jacket.
"Its bonds are in the way," Ti Malice noticed. "Untie it. Strip it."
"Master," Sascha cautioned, "he is dangerous when his hands are free."
"I can't even feel my fucking hands," Jay complained. He tried not to think about what he was thinking about. Sascha picked right up on the thought he was trying not to think. "He thinks he'll have a chance once he's untied."
"Is it afraid?" Ti Malice asked.
"Of you, very much. Of being a mount. And there is some other fear, an older fear…" The telepath frowned. "A dream he's had. You remind him of this nightmare, master."
"Free its hands," Ti Malice said. "This young mount has the power to hold it still."