by Ryland Thorn
Deedee Vale doesn’t bat an eye. “Yes. I’m in charge. Answer the question.”
“Ooh, feisty!” the tar man says. “I like that. So maybe I will answer your question. But maybe I won’t. Tell me, what do I get if I do?”
Somehow, the tar man gives the impression that his laughter is continuous even as he speaks. It is like he has a laugh track set to play, and combined with his words it sounds like an insult that Jack wants to ram down his throat.
Deedee stares at the tar man without expression. “You know the score. We are the Brotherhood of Perdition. Our mission is to keep foul beings like yourself from spreading your atrocities throughout the land. You have reached the end of your line. There are no further stops. The only question is how comfortable you wish your final hours to be.”
The tar man laughs as if Deedee has told him a joke. Rather than taking them seriously, he seems genuinely amused by her threats.
“Beings like myself?” the tar man says through his mirth. “There are no beings like myself. Unless you count our friend in here with me, of course. He is as much like me as any. Has he reached the end of his line as well?”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the tar man’s tone would be playful if it weren’t for his obvious malicious intent.
Jack watches Deedee’s expression darken in anger, but he is quite capable of defending himself.
“The difference is that I do not let my demon blood rule me,” Jack says.
If the tar man could have turned his head, he probably would have. As it is, he looks at Jack through the corner of his eye. “Really?” he says, his laughter turning into fits of giggles. “Are you sure? Because I have to tell you, you seem to have a lot of rage in you for a normal man.”
Jack curls his lip into a snarl. The tar man’s ongoing chuckling is getting on his nerves. Jack is curious to know how long the chuckling will continue once he engages his knives and fists.
Before he can step toward his target, Deedee speaks again.
“Enough!” she orders. “Tell me your name!”
The tar man ignores her. He laughs even harder.
“What do you know of the theft of the Daemonicon?” Deedee demands.
More laughter.
“Who do you work for? Reveal your master and purpose of your attack. There must be a broader plan. Tell us what we wish to know or suffer the consequences!”
Deedee’s questions are those Jack has asked before, and she gets the same response. The tar man just laughs ever louder.
“Was it you who murdered Samuel?” Deedee asks. “Tell me your name!”
“Is that the best you can do?” the tar man asks through his laughter. “You people, you have no idea who you’re dealing with! Why should I answer your questions? You plan to kill me either way. Not that you have much hope of that.” The tar man offers a snort filled with scorn. “You think this chair will hold me? Well, guess again!”
With that, the tar man once more strains against the steel as if he has some hope of breaking free, this time with his laughter echoing in time with his efforts.
If he were a normal man, he might have simply continued to test himself against his bindings and laugh like a comic book character brought to life. But the tar man has demon blood in his veins, the same as Jack, Lennox, and Madame Brigette. That demon blood is expressed in the tar man’s durability and strength, and if that were the limit of it, still the tar man would be formidable.
But his blood has also granted him another gift. He can produce demon spawn from his fingertips and release them into the world.
The tar man’s hands suddenly become covered in a thick, gelatinous blackness, like that on the lower half of his face. But unlike that on his face, this foul, oily substance is mobile. It flows over his hands until it forms a series of bulbous masses the size of golf balls at the tips of his fingers, which then drips down to the floor.
Jack and Lennox battled an army of repulsive black spawn grown by the tar man before. All the globs of putrescence needed to do is touch the ground and they would immediately start to grow.
But these do not touch the ground. Instead, each one plops into the holy water set there for the purpose. Instead of evolving into full demon spawn, they erupt into a noisome, cloying steam accompanied by high-pitched whines. It sounds like air being forced from a balloon, and it gives Jack a small thrill of pleasure. He hates demon spawn with a passion and is delighted to see the holy water do its magic.
Despite the stench and vapor and the failure of his spawn to do him any good, the tar man doesn’t stop. More and more vile glops of living muck drop from his fingers, only to dissolve in the holy water to the tune of his increasing mirth echoing like madness from the walls.
Deedee, Lennox, and Madame Brigette can do nothing but watch. The tar man conjures his spawn until the cell is thick with billowing clouds of acrid vapor. Jack stares at the tar man in dismay. It is becoming difficult to breathe, and the tar man seems not to care what the outcome might be. It is as if he is mad, as if he is more than willing to do anything in his power to be disruptive.
“Stop it!” Jack snarls through the mist. But the tar man just continues to laugh.
The vapor in the air is tickling the back of Jack’s throat in a way that makes him want to cough. It is vile, beyond loathsome, the dying exhalation of odious creatures that should never exist outside the borders of Hell, and Jack has no wish to breathe any more of it than he already has.
He knows he could simply leave the tar man to drown in his own fetid exudates, but there is a real possibility that the tar man might asphyxiate. And that will not serve the Brotherhood’s need to find answers.
“I said stop it!” Jack rages.
He stalks through the vapor and dips one of his blades in the holy water. Without pausing, he lays the flat of his blade on the tar man’s forearm, where the shirt has been torn.
The tar man’s flesh blisters as if he has been scalded by boiling water and his laughter turns into a scream of agony. At the same time, perhaps because the pain has broken his concentration, the glob of black foulness forming at the tips of his fingers disappears and his hands return to their natural color.
Holy water burns the flesh of all those with demon blood in their veins.
Jack keeps his blade pressed into the tar man’s flesh for a few moments longer out of pure spite. Then he takes it away.
His knives have been inscribed with occult symbols of power and would burn the tar man’s flesh all on their own. Perhaps adding the holy water is overkill, but Jack wants to make his point quickly.
“That’s better,” Jack growls, not even trying to hide his enjoyment of the tar man’s pain. “Try that again and I’ll cut your hands off.”
The tar man doesn’t answer. His teeth are still bared in a grimace of pain and he is panting as if he has been out for a run.
His hands stay as they are, with no hint of the blackness returning.
Jack is satisfied for the moment. “Good answer,” he says. He dips his blade into the holy water again and lets some of the eagerness he feels show in the snarl on his lips. “Now, Deedee asked you some questions. Time to put that tongue of yours to better use.”
Chapter Six: Torture
It takes several minutes for the noxious vapor produced by the demon spawn boiling in holy water to fade away. In that time, Deedee and Jack take turns asking the tar man questions.
But if Jack ever thought getting answers from the tar man would be easy, then that illusion is shattered when the tar man’s expression changes back from a grimace to a nasty grin and he starts laughing once more.
“I’m not telling you anything,” he grates through teeth that are clenched. His laughter is no longer the expression of mirth it had once been, but is instead a contemptuous snigger. To Jack, it sounds like a dare, an invitation to burn him with holy water again and again.
He is happy to oblige, laying the flat of his blade on the tar man’s flesh next to where he’d p
laced it before.
The tar man flinches against his bonds but can’t get away. Again, his skin blisters on contact with the holy water on Jack’s blade. But this time the tar man doesn’t cry out. Instead, he keeps his teeth clenched together and expresses his pain by growling like a maddened beast. His muscles are tense. It is like he is physically straining against the pain, like he is being shocked.
It is like he is being electrocuted in the Brotherhood’s chair.
Jack savors the vision of a prisoner’s days coming to an electrical end. He presses the flat of his blade into the tar man’s flesh hard enough that the man’s skin breaks. Jack is gripping the handle so tightly that his knuckles turn white, his hand shakes, and he is in danger of bruising his palms. Like the tar man, Jack also snarls, giving voice to his rage. When he finally takes the blade away, he rasps, “What is your name?”
The tar man relaxes. Only the steel bindings keep him sitting upright. Once again, he breathes deeply, and his skin is covered in a sheen of sweat. It is apparent that the pain of the holy water against his skin is nearly more than the tar man can stand.
Nevertheless, his perversity is up to the challenge. “That was a good one,” he gasps as soon as he gets his breath back. He closes his eyes and shudders in his bonds. “Almost a turn on,” the tar man says. “Do it again, but this time whisper sweet nothings in my ear at the same time.” As he finishes his taunt, the tar man laughs again.
Jack has reached his limit. He is frustrated and enraged to the point where his need for answers is secondary. He wants to hurt the tar man, to break him apart with his bare hands. Burning him with holy water is no longer sufficient.
Jack is tired of coming at the tar man from the side. If the chair hadn’t been bolted to the floor, Jack would have swung the tar man toward him. As it is, he steps in front of the tar man and, with a cry of outrage, swings his fist like a club.
Jack puts every ounce of his soul’s hate and fury into the blow. The handle of the blade gives his fist extra weight. It makes a wet, sickening sound as it hits, like a slab of meat slapping on a hard table, combined with a crunch of bones turning into nothing but shards. Even with the restraint around the tar man’s forehead, the force of it is enough to turn his head to the side. Flecks of spit and the oily substance on the tar man’s face go flying, as does part of a tooth.
It stops the tar man’s laughter. His cheek and nose have been wrecked.
Nor has Jack finished. He is still holding his knives in both fists, and he raises the one in his right with savage intent.
“Jackson Kade!” Deedee cries from beyond the clear plastic barrier. “We need him alive!”
With no hesitation whatsoever, Jack brings the knife down in a hard, fast motion, embedding it into the tar man’s flesh.
Despite the mess Jack has made of his face, the tar man manages a shriek that combines agony with outrage. His face is a bloody pulp and Jack’s knife is sticking out of his thigh. There is a vapor rising from the wound, not quite as noxious as that produced by the demon spawn, but it is more than satisfying to Jack. He knows how much misery and suffering the wound is causing. He has a similar wound of his own, complete with a piece of thrice-blessed shrapnel embedded within it.
With a vengeful grimace, Jack gives his knife a twist that makes the tar man shriek again. “Tell me your name!” Jack snarls.
But the tar man is beyond obstinate. His will is as unyielding as a mountain made of stone. Despite Jack’s efforts, despite the shattered and bloody cheek, despite the sizzling blade embedded into his thigh, the tar man still laughs.
It is a weaker sound than before, filled more with acceptance than bile, but the message is clear. His chuckling might make him appear to be no more than a jester, but it is part of who he is. In a way, it defines him. It is his signature.
And the acceptance in it has nothing to do with being willing to yield.
“You will have to kill me,” the tar man manages, his voice little more than a burble, as if he is talking through a throat filled with mud.
Jack wants to rage in frustration. He is at the point of tearing his hair out. If he could have done so, he would have picked the tar man up out of the chair and flung him bodily against the wall.
As it is, all he can do is wrench his blade free from the tar man’s thigh. He does so, not gently, and the tar man utters a sound that is halfway between a shriek and a hiss.
Then Jack hesitates for a moment. He stands there with his blade at the ready, but doesn’t move. He has accepted that there is nothing he can do to make the tar man talk. Jack can pound him with his fists, carve strips out of his flesh with his knife, or boil his skin with holy water, and still the man will refuse to speak.
With this knowledge clear in his mind, Jack has only one option. He doesn’t agree with Deedee’s assertion that they need the tar man alive. Although the Brotherhood would like to gain the information the tar man possesses, Jack knows no way to get it.
The tar man will give them nothing whether he is alive or dead. Therefore, he is of no use to them.
Jackson Kade is a dangerous man. He has spent his life dispatching as many loathsome creatures back to Hell as he can, and fully intends to continue to do so until his last breath leaves his body. He has split wights in two, has blown Hell-beasts apart, and has shot many a half-breed with silver bullets packed with garlic salts.
He has lost count of how many people he has killed. Human beings with demon blood in their veins. Like himself, Lennox, and Madame Brigette, but who have let their blood take control.
Yet Jack is not soulless. He is no robotic killer able to murder anyone he judges too loathsome to live. While he is powered by hate and fury, his own demon blood is buried deep.
He is unable to kill the tar man so casually. Especially while the man in question is bound and helpless.
But that doesn’t mean he won’t do it.
Jack grits his teeth and draws a deep breath. He is aware of Deedee shouting at him through the wall and banging on the plastic shield, but he ignores her. As the tar man continues to chuckle, Jack sets himself and raises his blades.
He means to cut the tar man’s throat. He means to sever his arteries and windpipe, and even to cut the man’s entire head off if he can. He does not know the extent of the tar man’s durability and will not take the chance of his survival, no matter how slim.
Because Jack has moved to stand in front of him, the tar man is able to look him dead in the eye. Even as Jack starts his swing, the tar man continues to laugh.
Chapter Seven: Glyphs and Hellfire
Just before Jack’s blade is set to taste the tar man’s blood, the inner door to the cell bursts open. It is enough of a surprise that Jack pulls up short with his swing.
“Jack, stop!”
It is Lennox. She and Madame Brigette have barged into the cell. Both are focused on Jack as if they are unsure what he might do.
And Jack is not happy with the intrusion. “Why are you in here?” he demands, his expression thunderous. He doesn’t wait for any reply. “You do not want to be here right now. It is about to get very messy!”
Surprisingly, Lennox responds with a broad smile. Or perhaps it isn’t that much of a surprise. Where nearly everyone Jack meets finds him intimidating, Lennox never has. She is more likely to tease him for his anger than to run from it.
In any event, she steps farther into the room with Madame Brigette looking determined behind her.
“We’re here because there is another way,” Lennox says. “Thought you’d like to know before you decorated the walls with his entrails.” She casts a quick glance at the tar man and her expression fills with immediate disgust. “Believe me, I would be more than happy to see this vile piece of scum butchered. In fact, I’d be just as happy to wield the knife. But we might have a way to make him tell us what he knows.”
Jack hesitates. He has worked himself up to end the tar man’s life. He is prepared to do it, and every nerve ending in his arm
s and back is vibrating with the need. It is like he is made of guitar strings that someone has plucked.
Lennox beams at him. “You can always gut him later if it doesn’t work,” she says.
It is enough. Jack utters a grunt and forces himself to relax. Slowly, the muscles in his arms begin to un-knot, and his grip on his blades eases.
“What other way?” he mutters.
Lennox turns to the older woman. “Madame Brigette?” she says.
Madame Brigette is staring at the tar man with a look that mixes hate with disgust. She looks like she wants to spit. The tar man had held her kidnapped in her own home, glued to the ceiling by an army of demon spawn. He is the reason her home and business now resemble a bomb site with no structures still standing.
Of the three of them, she is the one who should want the tar man dead most.
Her hatred is such that her eyes glitter. The tar man sees it and chuckles as if he is pleased with himself. It is like their enmity and loathing is his own personal triumph.
“I know a glyph,” Madame Brigette begins, “that will take the tar man’s power away. It will cripple him. In the end, he will be no more than a normal man.”
Jack knows that Madame Brigette’s words are true. He and Lennox have several glyphs tattooed onto their own skin. They serve not to dampen their powers, but to protect them against certain types of occult attack.
Jack watches the tar man closely as Madame Brigette speaks. For just a moment, there is a catch in the tar man’s laughter. For the first time since entering the cell, Jack thinks he sees a sliver of fear in the tar man’s eyes.
“You can’t do that,” the tar man manages to say despite his broken face.
Madame Brigette gives him a nasty grin. “Yes, I can. In fact, there are several ways I can do it. Normally, to make it permanent, it would be tattooed onto your skin. I’m sure we could find a tattoo artist willing to help, but we don’t need to. We have something better.” Madame Brigette nods in Lennox’s direction. “Lennox can burn the glyph into your flesh with her magic.”