Jeffers looked emotionlessly at Claire. She knew immediately what was coming. 'Don't—' she began, but there was no stopping him.
'This is the daughter of the owner. If she sends a distress signal, they will come ashore to rescue her. They would only do it for her, not for me or anyone else. As long as you have her, you have the ship.'
Claire glared at him. 'You . . . you bastard! How could you?'
'Be quiet, Claire. It's done.'
Slash stood from his throne and stepped down, rubbing his hands together. 'It has been a pleasure doing business with you. Now, my Butchers, take him away and—'
Jeffers shook his head and said, 'No.' Slash stopped. 'That wasn't the bargain. My condition was that you kill me.'
Slash laughed. 'And get blood on my hands? I don't think so. Guards, take . . .'
Jeffers suddenly took a step forward and ripped the jewelled dagger from the sheath on Slash's waist. Before Slash or the Butchers could react he plunged it into his own neck.
Claire screamed.
But instead of blood spraying out, instead of Jeffers collapsing down dead by his own hand, he stood where he was.
No blood.
Unharmed.
He turned swiftly to one side and chopped one of the Butchers across the neck; as he fell, Jeffers spun and punched the other. As he tumbled backwards and Slash stood, stunned, Jeffers calmly bent and lifted one of the samurai swords, stepped forward and thrust it deep into the king's chest.
Slash took a step back.
But he remained standing.
Claire stared — shocked, mesmerised.
He has a sword sticking out of his heart. Why isn't he dead? Why isn't Jeffers?
Her questions were answered almost immediately as Jeffers pulled the sword out of the king — again there was no blood and no gaping hole — and showed it to her. 'See? Retractable blade! It's not real, Claire, it's a theatrical prop!'
He threw it down. Behind him the Royal Butchers were groggily getting back to their feet, but he ignored them and instead took hold of Slash's lion mask.
'No . . . !' Slash cried, but it was too late. Jeffers ripped it off his head to reveal — well . . . someone very, very ordinary.
Claire was looking at a quite pleasant-looking man, perhaps in his mid-thirties; he had short, sandy hair, a wispy moustache and a pair of glasses. His face was pale, and now that Claire could properly see his eyes she realised that they were wide and fearful and blinking uncontrollably. Instantly all of her fears and concerns evaporated.
'Please — don't hurt me . . .' Slash took a step back. Now that the wooden lion mask wasn't acting as a buffer to his voice, making it deeper and causing it to echo, it sounded really ordinary.
Jeffers spun towards the Butchers. 'Yours too!' he snapped.
The Butchers hesitated for a moment, looked at each other and then rather sheepishly removed their cheetah heads. If anything, the two men inside were even less impressive to look at than Slash.
Claire was utterly astounded. 'I don't understand . . . what . . . ?'
'You know already, Claire,' said Jeffers. He shook his head at Slash and the Butchers. 'You're actors — you put on your masks and act scary and people fall for it. Isn't that right?'
Slash nodded warily.
'Please,' begged one of the Butchers, 'you can't tell anyone.'
Jeffers ignored him and pointed at Slash. 'You. What's your name?'
Slash cleared his throat. 'Billy. Billy Whitehouse. I, uhm, received a Tony Award for my role in The Jungle King. I—'
Claire had heard enough. 'Let's just get out of here — stop even talking to them, they're still cannibals . . .'
'No,' said one of the Butchers,'we're really not.'
'Honestly,' said the other.
Jeffers looked from one to the other. 'Tell me.'
But it was Slash — Billy who stepped forward. 'Please — this is all my fault. We haven't done anything wrong — we're just trying to, you know, get through this . . . You have to understand — we were rehearsing up here when the plague struck, there were twenty of us. . . and somehow it passed us by. We knew there were other survivors out there, but we stayed hidden in here, scared and hungry and . . . well, there were rats down in the basement, we killed some of them and I . . . well, when I wasn't working I used to have a job in a restaurant, so I know how to cook, so I made this stew out of them, managed to rescue some spices, dried vegetables . . . and it was really not bad. Soon we were making it every day and word got out that we had fresh food and other survivors started to arrive and they ended up laying siege to the theatre and so we had to come up with a plan . . .' He shrugged helplessly.
'We put on our costumes,' said one of the Butchers. 'We opened the doors and let them all in, we put on our show for them, and then we fed them — and halfway through Billy told them that we were cannibals, that they were eating human flesh, and that we would continue to feed them if they followed our commands — and that we would eat anyone who didn't. You have to understand, we are good actors, we play terrifying very well . . .'
'They so absolutely believed us,' said the other Butcher, 'and there's an inexhaustible supply of rats down there — they come up through the sewers.'
'So they only think they're cannibals?' Claire asked.
'Yes!' said Billy. 'We are not monsters. We only have the appearance of monsters.'
'But what about the people you capture? The bones down at the harbour?'
'It's just a charade! If we capture someone, we tell them that they're going to be eaten, we turn it into a big party, we make a huge rat stew, and then right before we're supposed to kill them we "accidentally" leave their cell unlocked. They escape and when they get outside the city they tell everyone they meet that cannibals control New York, which scares people from coming in, so we're left in peace . . .'
'You're left in charge, you mean,' said Jeffers.
'It's not like that. Please believe us. Even the bodies that we burn, it's all stage dummies and special effects and make-up. There are millions of bones lying about, we just carve a few up to make it look like they've been skinned and toss them on the fire. It's all basic stagecraft.' He sighed. 'Look, we've . . . gotten used to doing it. It's been a real kick, but we knew it couldn't last. We honestly haven't harmed anyone, we just came up with a scheme to keep people in line as a way of protecting ourselves. The problem is, it's gotten a bit out of hand. It started out with just a few believing us — but now there's thousands of them and they all think they're cannibals. But if they find out it's all been . . . a trick . . .'
'They'll eat you alive,' said Jeffers.
33
Tunnels
Jonas Jones' directions were precise. There was a train station a short distance from the 7-Eleven. They were to follow the underground tracks through half a dozen minor stops to Penn Station, and then continue on to Grand Central. They should wait at the rendezvous point there to see if anyone showed up, and then make their way to the harbour for the prearranged pick-up by the Titanic. He tried to make it sound as if it would really be as straightforward as that, and they nodded as if there was a remote possibility that it might be. But they all knew the truth. They were still walking into the heart of Cannibal City.
Jonas roared off on the newly refilled Kawasaki, bound for a mysterious factory and carrying on his broad shoulders the Titanic's only hope of escaping from New York.