He retreated in shock, forcing the door shut, and his heart almost stopped when he realised there was someone towering over him in the corridor. A hulking mass of a man, it was another of Tze’s masked guardians.
“Participants only,” rasped the figure. The Mask was white and black, hanging there like an apparition. The stylised face belonged to Judge Bao, a character from the Peking Opera stories of the Song Dynasty.
“In there-” Frankie gasped.
“What are you looking for?” said the guardian.
“Juh-Juno-” he managed.
Judge Bao pressed a hand into the small of his back and guided him away. “Over here, sir. I’ll take you to her.”
Frankie stumbled on, his mind reeling, the healing scratches on his hand stinging.
Nikita’s face was waxy with shock underneath her make-up. She was aware that her lip was trembling, and in the back of her skull she could feel the first cool tendrils of the Z3N hit unfolding. It seemed unreal, some horrific vidshow instead of a real performance happening in front of her. Tze’s women were opening up the skin of the blonde in turned petals of pale flesh. When the stink of copper touched her nostrils she gagged and stumbled back a step.
Tze’s broad hand shot out like a striking cobra and enveloped hers where she held the glass. “No, no. You’re not going to leave.”
She tried to deny him, but he closed his hand tighter, crushing the skin and bones. The glass made a cracking sound.
“Don’t lie to me.” He squeezed and the glass shattered. She cried out as the fragments bit into her palm.
Nikita looked to the others with a pleading stare, but they were busy drawing intricate shapes on each other in spilt blood, a confusion of lines and symbols.
Tze took a handful of her blouse and ripped it off her. He drew his finger through her cut hand and used her vitae to draw a design on her trembling breast, just above her heart. Two discs, one larger than the other, connected by a line that was in turn bisected with an arc. Tze unbuttoned his shirt to show her the same shape rendered as a tattoo on his chest. The lines were made of dragons, eating each other’s tails.
“Please don’t kill me.” She forced out the words.
He smirked and showed her the glass rods. They were long and thin, rough-hewn. Nikita was reminded of icicles. Inside each of them was a reservoir of actinic blue liquid, glittering like stars. In spite of everything, her mouth immediately flooded with saliva.
“Pure,” said Tze, seeing the reaction in her eyes. “A thousand times more potent than the weak tea you’re used to.” He jerked his head at the girls, who were scooping handfuls of capsules into their mouths, crunching them down like candy.
Then he moved, quick as lightning, and buried the first of the needles through the middle of the pattern he had drawn on her. Nikita crashed to the floor, a white-hot shock rushing though her. She glanced up, hovering on the edge of awareness, in time to see Tze stab himself with the other rod.
Nikita s world broke open, drowning her in floods of chilling blue. Tze loomed over her, a towering god wreathed in noxious smoke and shimmering darts of painful colour. From behind him, tendrils of liquid night emerged and snaked over and around his body. They stabbed out and penetrated her, rushing through her flesh and savaging her mind. She could not speak.
Tze displayed a terrible aspect. “Greedy child. You wanted to taste my air, dared to know the glory of my world, yes? It will be my pleasure to give it you. Shall we see if your pitiful cattle-mind can grasp such beauty?”
He dominated her senses, blotting out everything. Tze opened the Stygian halls of his psyche, and let the horrors within rush to fill her.
Nikita looked at the truth of him in the eye, and she shattered.
Juno blinked and realised that she hadn’t heard a word of the twittering platitudes of Phoebe Hi. She found herself staring into the depths of the champagne glass in her hand, locked on the shifting shapes of the rising bubbles. They shaded black as she watched them ascend, turning into tiny ebon pearls. “Juno?” said Phoebe. “Did you hear what I said?”
She nodded, tearing herself away. The conversation area, raised up above the main level of the atrium, was secluded and quiet; but the singer suddenly felt enclosed in there, the long shadows around the delicate lightstands growing even as she watched them. Her stomach turned over and she shivered. Juno’s hand wandered to the back of her neck, where her skin felt cold and clammy to the touch. There at the corners of her vision, dark motes swarmed, just as they had when she tried to touch her memories of the disastrous concert. She shifted uncomfortably, the wide sofa too big around her. Juno felt lost in it, tiny and small.
“I… I’m sorry.” She forced a smile. “Perhaps it’s just travel fatigue. ”The words seemed like a lie. Colour was bleeding out of her vision in little increments, and there was a pressure in her ears. There were only a handful of people in the room, but she felt like there were thousands crowded around her.
“Can I get you something?” Hi was watching her carefully.
“Juno!” She turned at the sound of Frankie’s voice-and for a moment, the gloom around her retreated. He saw the look on her face as he approached, and his kind eyes clouded. “Are… Are you okay?”
“Better now,” she said, with genuine feeling. On an impulse, the singer put the half-full glass down on a table and stood up. “I think I’m going to retire for the night. ”
“I’ll arrange transport to your hotel-” said Hi, but Juno shook her head.
“No. Frankie’s taking me home.” She took his arm and guided him away.
“I am?” he said, nonplussed.
She almost ran as she led him by the hand up towards the helipad levels. The shroud of unease dogging her retreated, and she gave Frankie a brittle smile. “I want to go,” she said. “Please?”
“Of course,” he replied, sensing her disquiet. “But I don’t have, uh, clearance for a spidercopter. ”
“I’m Juno Qwan,”she said. “I get anything I want.”
Hi frowned as Rope sat in Juno’s vacated seat. He toyed with her glass. “You’re not going to intervene?”
She sneered. “Why would I? It was my idea in the first place. It’s an ideal way to expedite two problems at once. ”
He shook his head. “You haven’t lived with the talent as closely as I have, Phoebe. You don’t see the variables, the off-pattern behaviour.”
“This is a necessity,” she said, an edge in her tone. “The talent will do what it is told to do.”
Rope covered his derision with a sip of champagne.
When it was over, when the women began to clean themselves down, Deer Child entered and dutifully handed Mr Tze a fresh robe.
“I have ascertained the origin of the stolen smartcard,” said the Mask. “It belonged to a grade three accounts executive in Section F. What manner of severance package would you prefer me to implement?”
Tze gestured at the bloody walls. “Bring him up here. Keep him for our next recreation.”
“As you wish.” Deer Child gave a slight incline of his impassive porcelain face toward Nikita’s pale, trembling form. “Disposal for this one?”
Tze considered the question for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “Throw her back. An object lesson to be seen and considered by any other pickpockets or grade three executives with poor judgement.”
“Your will.” Deer Child picked up the catatonic girl and carried her away.
Tze watched them go, fingering the spot where the wound in his chest had already healed.
See these mighty buildings, all shall be torn down, shattered, splintered, split.
[static]
The Earth herself will tremble and the masses will go hungry.
Their bellies bloated, skins hanging in folds.
The sky will open upon itself unto darkness.
These are the birth pains. No flesh will be spared.
No flesh will be [static]