You will die now, nigger-man.
“So?” Wyungare shrugged. His hands moved slowly through the air, as though performing the most delicate motions of an elaborate dance. “Dying is not the point of all this. Life is. Healing is.” The light-form seemed to convulse in the suddenly thick air, pulsed as though struggling to move, then slowly accelerated toward Wyungare and the immense being behind him.
Burn, you asshole.
Wyungare took away his hands, baring his breast, exposing his heart. “Need a target, my bodysnatching friend?”
The light-form somehow picked up velocity in this energy half-world.
The fury: I'll barbecue you, you miserable jigaboo!
Wyungare laughed. “Is it so important to you that my color’s not to your liking? That I’m what, in a better mood, you’d call black?
“Then try this!”
Absolute crimson preceded the light-form. Blue trailed out behind.
And Wyungare became black. Literally. Physically. Spectrally.
Black as space without stars. Black as the ace of spades. Black as.…nothing.
And the light-form entered his heart.
The fury of energy ravened for food, sought fuel to burn, fed on itself, began… with horror… to be absorbed.
I cannot hold multitudes, thought Wyungare, and I cannot contain all of this.
There are limits.
He absorbed what he could.
And the rest he let flare out harmlessly in every direction except toward the child. The young man. The being he recognized was newly mature. That being he protected.
There was a need.
Wyungare wished he could see himself.
And was glad he could not.
His last image in this world, in this time, in this body, was Cordelia.
His final feeling was love.
And then the energy simultaneously was absorbed, and consumed him.
The Fist ace said his name was Herne. He proved to be a reliable, if sullen, guide. “It’s right through there,” Herne said sulkily after leading what was left of the team through a number of Bloat’s underground chambers. “Not that it’s likely to do you much good. The governor knows you’re here.”
“He hasn’t stopped us so far,” Battle muttered. He took off his backpack and pulled a package from it. He tore away the wrapping paper, revealing a folded black leather jacket.
Son of a bitch, Ray thought, he really did have Black Eagle’s jacket.
“Our ace in the hole,” Battle said triumphantly. “Put this on after we enter the throne room,” he told Cameo. “Bloat will never suspect the presence of another ace. This will give us the edge we need.”
Cameo looked at it doubtfully. “What are we going to do when we find Bloat?”
Battle stared at her. “What we have to do.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” she said. “I don’t kill. Period.”
Battle smiled. Ray didn’t like the look of it. “We’ll see. In the meantime just think of all the extra protection this jacket will give you. It might make the difference of coming out of this dead or alive.”
Cameo nodded doubtfully.
Battle looked at Ray. “You’re a good soldier,” he said meaningfully. “You know what we have to do.”
“Let’s stop talking and just do it,” Ray said. He pushed through the doorway and into Bloat’s audience chamber.
They were on a little balcony that overlooked the chamber from a height of about ten feet. The first thing that struck Ray was the god-awful smell emanating from the monstrous white slug that was Bloat. It was one of the most hideous sights that Ray had ever seen. But there was something more, a sense in the room, an air that something had just gone terribly wrong.
The bombardment had not been in vain. A direct hit had shattered the throne room’s crystalline dome. Pieces of the dome lay over the floor and Bloat both. There were gaping holes in what was left of the dome through which the stars looked down on a scene of carnage and confusion.
Bloat’s joker guards lay dead on the floor like abandoned dolls. Bloat himself was dripping smelly, viscous ichor from a dozen small wounds. He seemed to be in shock as he stared at the loincloth-clad body of a black man who lay dead on the floor in front of him.
“Something big just went down.” Battle said. “They’re all in a muddle.” He shoved the jacket at Cameo. “Now’s the time to strike.”
She took the jacket after a moment’s hesitation and put it on. Battle smiled gleefully, Ray frowned, and Herne watched dumbfounded as Cameo’s face suddenly went slack. It remained unfocused for a long moment, then she screamed as if terrified out of her wits as her face twisted into an expression of pure, sadistic hate. Before, when she was Blockhead, you could still see Cameo underneath. Now all traces of Cameo were submerged, as if she’d fled to the deepest corner of her psyche to escape whoever it was who’d taken charge of her body.
“Cut it up!” Battle screamed, pointing at Bloat. “Kill it and I’ll let you keep the body you’re wearing!”
“Christ!” Ray whispered.
Cameo’s shoulder drooped, as if her back were bearing an unendurable burden.
“Listen to me,” Battle said slowly and distinctly. “Kill that mountain of fat over there and you can keep the body you’re in. You can live again.”
Confusion was replaced by a look of animal cunning as the rider of Cameo’s body stared at Battle. She nodded, drool spilling from her twisted mouth. She approached Herne, who stood between her and the stairway that led to the throne room’s floor, and she began to whistle a familiar tune as her hands started to vibrate.
“Get back!” Ray screamed at Herne. “It’s not Black Eagle. It’s Mackie Messer!”
Herne stumbled backward, trying to get away from the reincarnation of the psychopathic ace with the buzz-saw hands.
“You bastard!” Ray screamed, unsure himself whether he was addressing the lying shit Battle or the twisted ace advancing on Herne. He hesitated only a moment, then he moved. He leapt, lashed out with his foot, and caught Cameo’s body on the hip. He pulled the blow at the last moment, realizing that he was facing a double dilemma. Mackie Messer, who had once un-zipped him from crotch to sternum, was in Cameo’s body. Normally, as he understood it, Cameo could control the psyches she channeled. But Messer was a twisted psychopath filled with such murderous rage that he must have momentarily overpowered her and gotten complete control. Maybe she’d be able to force her way back into the driver’s seat, maybe not. But in the meantime Mackie had her body and Ray had to stop him without injuring it. Last time they’d met he’d hammered the shit out of the little Nazi, and still lost. This time he had to take him out without damaging him.
Ray knew he had to stop Messer. Ray wasn’t a deep thinker. He was a fighter, a living weapon who gloried in combat. But Battle had crossed the line by calling the evil little psychopath back to life. It was up to Ray to stop them both.
Messer tumbled with Ray’s kick, falling down the short flight of stairs that led to the chamber’s floor. For a moment Ray thought that the fall might have stunned Messer, that Cameo could regain control, but they had no such luck.
Messer looked at him with Cameo’s beautiful eyes. “I know you,” he told Ray. “You hurt me once.” And he was back on his feet, his hands a buzzing blur.
Ray leapt down the stairs, landing on the chamber floor facing Messer. Messer stared at him as drool ran down Cameo’s fine-boned jawline. “But I hurt you even more,” he said, turned, and ran straight at Bloat.
Bloat finally seemed to rouse himself from his deep stupor. He screamed wordlessly, but that only served to incite Messer the more. He called for his bodyguards, but they were all dead or fled. He was alone.