by Graeme Smith
“I guess we’ll just have to see about that.” I dug the blade in deeper. I twisted. The eyeball popped out. The face it had popped from screamed. Twice. “Well, well. I never knew Fallen Angels screamed.” I could hear Prowess being sick behind me. “I wonder what else makes them scream. What do you think, Jack?” I wrenched open Barbas’ mouth. I slid the blade inside, setting the tip against a tooth. I slammed the flat of my hand against back end of the handle. The tooth popped out just as neatly as the eye. The knife slid through Barbas’ cheek. The screams were louder. “You know, I rather think that proves it.”
“Proves what, mortal?” This time the hissing was clearly Barbas.
“Proves you can kill a Fallen Angel.” I put the knife point over Barbas’ heart. “At least—you can if they have a soul.” I pushed on the knife. The point sank into Barbas’ chest.
“That’s right! Kill me! Er—him!” Jack’s voice was excited. “Kill me! Then….”
I grinned. “Ah, yes. Then. Then what, Barbas?”
Barbas said nothing.
“Because you know what I think? I think, then you’ll die. Or rather, Jack here will. Ripper Jack, who killed so many. Who most certainly doesn’t have a ticket to the Pearly Gates. Right, Barbas?”
Barbas said nothing.
“And where Jack goes, you go, right B? Down, down—well. Maybe not down. Where is Hell these days?”
“Actually, Jack, that’s rather interesting. You see, the Divine and the Profane are really just—” I got up. I walked over to Haures. I smacked him, hard. His head bounced off the wall. Since I really shouldn’t have been able to do that, I figured he was rolling with my plan—whatever my plan was. I wondered if he knew, because I sure as hell didn’t. I hit him again. “Keep,” smack, “your mouth,” smack, “shut.” I raised an eyebrow. “Got it?”
“Yes, Jack. I got it.” I was getting used to my leather talking to me. I just hoped nobody else was.
I went back to where Barbas was lying, his mouth pouring blood. “See, the way I see it, you might be able to talk your way out of it.” I slid the blade into his mouth, and popped another tooth. The gaping slashes in his cheek crossed over, flesh flapping as he breathed. “But maybe you won’t. Because I figure there’s a whole load of….” I looked over to Haures. “Hmm. What do they call them? Hell-ions? Hell-izens?”
Haures shrugged. “Well, there are the Damned, of course. And those who Damn them, and those who Torment and….” He saw the look in my eyes. I wondered what it looked like. He, clearly, didn’t. Wonder. Or like it. “Whatever, Jack.”
I turned back to Barbas. “Like he says. Whatever. So. I bet there’s a whole load of folks who’d love to make your life—or your death—very interesting. For them, at least. Right, Barbas?” Barbas sounded like he was trying for the Olympic gold in saying nothing. Or rather, he didn’t. So I popped another tooth.
“You are clever, mortal.” The hissing wasn’t quite so fiery. But the ice was still there. “Too clever.” Barbas looked over at Haures. “Too clever for you I see, you sniveling worm.”
“I may be a sniveling worm, Barbas—” Haures drew himself up, “but I’m not the worm on the end of a knife.”
“You make a valid point, worm.” Barbas looked at me. “So. Since I am not yet dead—perhaps we may bargain.”
“Bargain?” This was better. “You ain’t got nothing I need, B.” I popped another tooth—on the other side, or Barbas wouldn’t have any cheek left.
“Really? I did not know you were a gambler, Shadow.”
“Gambler?” If in doubt—keep them talking.
“If you kill me, then as you say there will be many wishing me ill. But, Hell is not a good place to make wishes. My Master knows my value. Perhaps he will intervene.”
“So what? You’re suggesting I don’t kill you?”
“Indeed. And if ye do not, then by my power ye shall stay whole, and by my power—”
I shook my head. “I’d love to oblige, B.” Behind me, Prowess gasped. “But, see, I can’t. Because there’s Vlad-y-boy. And I remember what you told him. I was sort of there. How did it go? ‘There, mortal. It is as I promised. Your soul is in me, though I have not taken it. And there it shall stay, and I be thy phylactory. Of course, you will have to feed, but until I am broken, never shall ye die. And thy enemies will fail, and all ye seek shall be thine.’ Did I remember it right, B?” Barbas spat. The spittle sizzled where it hit the floor. “So either you can break your promise to Vlad, to protect me, or you can break your promise to me, to keep yours to Vlad. But either way, you’d have to be able to break your promises. And since you’re not in a Binding right now, I suppose you can lie through your back teeth as well, right? Oh. That reminds me.” I got busy with the knife. Soon more teeth lay on the ground. “Well. Metaphorical back teeth, at least.”
Barbas screamed. “Ye shall die, mortal! And I shall feast on thy heart!”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But not maybe both. And that’s the real problem, right? To keep your deal with Barbas, sealed by your power, Vlad has to live forever. And I’ve been there. If he lives, I die. Or maybe I never exist. But if I live, and believe me I’m going to, Vlad has to die.”
Barbas spat. “There cannot be two futures. And so it is simple. It is as it must be. You must never exist, mortal.”
I kicked him where I’d put the last bullet. He screamed. “Barbas, you may be a Great President of Hell. You may be a Fallen Angel. But I’m Jack. I’m Jack Shadow, and I’ve got a job to do. I’m here, and I ain’t never not being here. And you’re going to help.” I got up and walked over to Haures. “And you will, too.” My left smacked into his head. “So how did it go? When this happened before?” My left smacked him again. A wound opened. Fire began to drip from it. “When you sent her to the Up-Ahead? When you sent her to my past? You told her to lie, right? To tell us somehow she survived?” My left smacked into him again.
“Er—Jack? I’m bleeding.” My leather sounded worried. “You can’t do that.”
When someone says something’s impossible, and it’s already happening, someone’s in trouble. And this time it wasn’t me. My left smashed into Haures again. “Was that it?”
“Stop it, Jack. It’s alright. I’ll go. I have to go. Otherwise … well, otherwise we’re already dead. Because that’s what happened. Right, you son of a…?” Prowess spat. For once, it wasn’t at me. “You son of a whatever you’re a son of?”
“Yes.” Haures voice was soft as he lied. “Yes. That’s how it happened. You see, I sent you Up-Ahead. Because you were there already, you could find yourself.” He looked at me. “She chose it, Shadow. It’s how it has to be.”
I grinned. The little vein was pulsing in Haures forehead. I asked the question I knew I was supposed to ask. “Does it hurt, Fallen One? There being two futures?”
The Fallen Angel who wasn’t really Fallen winced. “You know it does, Jack. But it’ll be over soon.”
I grabbed him, and threw him over to where Barbas lay. “Do Angels have mothers, Haures? Fathers? I don’t think so. Or if they do, nobody married them. Because you’re a bastard. A lying bastard.” And Haures screamed.
It’s that moment. When everything stops, and you know you can do it. But if you miss—it’s game over. So you do it. You smack the side of the table, and rock the universe.
You cheat. My way.
hapter Twenty Two
Blood Music
Haures screamed. My left hit him again. I felt the surge in my fist. One more. For luck. His head hit the wall. I spun round. “P?”
“Yes, Jack?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Heck no, Jack.”
I grinned. P wasn’t stupid. Well, not too often. “See, we’re not dead, P.”
“Not yet.”
“And Haures here wants to save me. By sending you to the Up-Ahead. By sending you to die.”
“That’s now how it happened, Jack. We were there.”
“No we weren�
��t, P. Because there isn’t any Up-Ahead. Not yet. That’s really it, isn’t it Haures?” I clenched my left tighter, to check. I felt the hard pulsing. It was enough. So I kicked him instead. “Or rather, there’s lots of them. Just like there’s lots of pasts. But there’s only ever one Now, right Haures?” I kicked him again. Because it was better than kicking myself. “So what do you do if you don’t like what you see? All the what-you-sees?”
“Jack. Don’t say any more. Barbas will—” Now Haures looked scared. Really scared. Which was fine by me. I had a job to do, and at last I knew what it was.
I grinned. “So what you did was, you hired me. You just didn’t bother telling me I was hired.” I turned to Prowess. “Oh, P?
“Yes, Jack?”
“You really are a stupid bitch.” A rope of Shifter tentacle whipped out from Prowess, teeth hungry for my throat. It was a good job she was predictable. I twisted, and it flew past me. My knife slashed—and the tentacle dropped to the floor.
“Ow! Damn, Jack! That hurt!” The tentacle twitched. Prowess leaned over to grab it.
“Sorry, P.” I wasn’t. But that’s what you say to women. Or so I’m told. But I had what I wanted. I looked at Haures. The vein was swelling, fit to burst. “Did you do it to all of them, H? In case I ever talked? Or just to me?” I remembered the night. Or, I guess, my jacket remembered it for me. The sudden waking. The dark figure. The smell of Unicorn Horn—and the Up-Ahead. The Up-Ahead that never really was. Haures would have been a wow in Hollywood—I could have used him on the Apollo 11 job. The first one, anyway.
“Don’t be stupid, Jack. All of them. Otherwise something would have gone wrong. Like it has now.” Haures was past scared, into losing and shaking hands with beaten. Which was just how I wanted it. “I hope it’s worth it, Jack. Winning. Winning, so the whole damn world can—well. Can be damned.”
“Well indeed.” Barbas spat. He was losing blood, but apparently a chance to laugh was worth a bit more. “I wondered how young Wladislaus seemed so sure of what he wanted—so sure of what would happen.”
Haures shot Barbas a look that would have made lemons taste sweet. Then he gave me its twin, for good measure.
I grinned. “He knew what would happen, Lord Barbas, because someone told him. Someone who knew everything.” I raised an eyebrow at Haures. Then I raised the other one, to keep it company. I shrugged at Barbas. “And that’s why you wanted the necklace. I’ve read the Ars Boetia. You can already change men’s shapes, so it wasn’t anything to keep them looking young, was it? So I figured it must be because it was dragon.” I looked at Blondie. “Isn’t that right?” This time it was Blondie’s turn to spit. “Because there aren’t any dragons, are there Blondie? Or rather—they’re not really dragons. They’re souls. Souls who decided never to be born. Untouched souls. Raw power.”
“The UnBorn, Jack. That’s who we are. UnBorn, and in-bloody-visible. Not on Heaven’s books, and not Hell’s either. And we like to keep it that way. So we’re not supposed to do anything to get noticed. Never mind steal let people steal bits of us! I need that damn necklace, Jack. If The Council find out—” The sparkling cloud that used to be a dragon shimmered as it spoke. “It’s not bloody fair, Jack! I just wondered what all the fuss was about. Then I found out. Damn, you humans are lucky!”
“Sure, you wondered, Blondie. What was it? You woke up one night, and you weren’t alone? And you had all sorts of interesting extra bits to….” I grinned again. “To play with? Or be played?”
“What are you saying, Jack?” Blondie didn’t gasp. But I could see the light beginning to dawn.
“I’m saying Barbas screwed you too, Blondie. Just like Haures screwed me.”
If anybody can wink furiously, it’s a beautiful woman who isn't a woman, because she’s a dragon. Who isn’t a dragon because she’s an unborn soul. The sparkling cloud shifted back into Blondie. She winked. Furiously. “Well. Not quite like he did you, Jack.”
“They screwed all of us, Blondie. I’ll get your necklace for you. But first, I have to be alive. Which means—”
“Which means I have to die. To save you.” A rope of Prowess slammed into Haures. “So why do I have to die, er….” Prowess looked at me. “What’s a really Bad Word, Jack?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, P. He was only doing his job. And you had to die, so you didn’t come back. So you’d believe in it now—the Up-Ahead. So I’d believe in it. Why do you think mister Past, Present and Future over there has such a headache? We’re screwing him now.” I nodded at Haures. “Him—and every future he knows.” I crouched in front of Barbas. “No. It was the crystals, wasn’t it. In their heads. Did you show him how to absorb the emerald? Make it part of him, like Liz was trying to?”
Haures groaned. But he couldn’t resist. Some people are like that. “It’s the lattice structure. It’s like … like memory. So it can store—”
I smacked him one more time. Then I took Prowess’ tentacle to Blondie. “So what do you think?” I dropped the tentacle. And I opened my left fist. Liz’s emerald was burning, soaked in the fire of Haures’ blood. But the fire was singing. Singing Dragonstar.
“Jack! Is that my … my soul?” Prowess reached for the crystal.
I pulled it away. “Remember when I smacked you?”
“Damn right, you bast—” Prowess stopped. And it wasn’t because she was going to say a Bad Word. “You hit me. And you made me bleed. And—”
“And the soul is in the blood. So I primed it. Figured it might come in useful.”
“So you hit Haures to—”
“Soul’s in the blood, P. And he doesn’t have one. So I figured the only one I’d get would be yours.” I grabbed the tentacle. “So what do you think, Blondie? Can you put enough of P’s soul in this? So it can….”
“So it can what, Shadow? Be Prowess, and save you?” It wasn’t Barbas. This time it was Jack. And he was laughing. “And how will it get there?”
I’d been wondering about that. Wondering—and hoping I’d work it out before now. Which I hadn’t. “Well, maybe Haures—”
“I wish I could, Jack.” Haures sighed. “But it would only be a part of Ms Rayna. It can’t be her.”
Prowess laughed. “But I don’t have to die! You can send me—well, wherever you sent me.” Prowess stopped. I could see her lips moving as she tried to apply good grammar to time travel that wasn’t time travel. She gave up. “You can send me anyway!”
“Only if he kills you, P.”
“Kills me? Why?”
“Did you believe her, P? When you were there? When she saved us?”
“Of course I believed her! I read her, Jack. She was telling….” Prowess’ face turned to stone. “Oh. Right. She was telling the truth, Jack. She knew she was going to die.”
“And now?”
Prowess looked at me. “Was it good, Jack? While it lasted? You and me?” Prowess never could read me. I shrugged. “Damn you, Jack. Couldn’t you just lie? Oh, the heck with it. No. The bloody, damned, why-me hell with it. So I guess I go. And he kills me anyway.”
P pissed at me, and a job going to hell. Just another day at the office. I looked at Barbas. “Well, maybe….”
Barbas grinned. Or I thought he did. The blood made it hard to tell. “Oh, of course I can, mortal. Give me the gem and I will—”
“He’ll vanish into yesterday and make damn sure you never get the Ripper’s soul inside him, is what he’ll do.” I kicked Haures. He got the message. My leather shut up.
“Jack?” Blondie grinned. “Do you promise, Jack? To get my necklace?”
I shrugged. “I sure as hell won’t be letting Vlad keep it, Blondie.”
“And give it back to me, when you have it?”
Damn. You never know when something like that will come in useful. “Yes, Blondie. And give it back to you.”
“You know, you’re such a sweetie, Jack.” Blondie grinned at Prowess. “Don’t you think he’s a sweetie, piano lady?” The emerald in my
hand swirled, and a cloud of sparkling glitter floated over to Prowess. It settled—and sank into her. Blondie grinned even wider. “You taste pretty good, Prowess.” She winked. “And I don’t think jazz is your thing.” Blondie swirled back to a cloud, then swirled again. Prowess hung in mid-air. She looked over at—well, at Prowess. “Damn, girl. You’re fine. And now I’ve tasted you, you’ll never know the difference.”
Prowess looked at me, looking at her. Or, not-her. “Sweet. Right.” She flushed. “Close your eyes, Jack. And, um, dragon lady?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Could you put some clothes on?”
Not-Prowess sighed. “You people. You take all the fun out of things.” She winked at me. “Be seeing you, Jack.” And a clothed Prowess vanished.
See, everybody lies. And everybody tells the truth. So I’ll tell you a truth. Sometimes, just sometimes—someone actually does get out of here.
Alive.
Chapter Twenty Three
Tilt
“You can’t do that!”
I wasn’t sure who sounded less happy—Haures or Barbas. I was quite sure I really didn’t give a damn. “Do what?”
“What you just did!” Haures was clutching his head. Barbas-Jack was … what Barbas-Jack was doing was looking worried. Concerned. Or, to put it another way, terrified.
When someone tells you something can’t be done, and it’s something you just did, things are probably in a bad place. The looks on the faces of two Fallen Angels were saying we were there. Which just meant I had to work out who it was going to be bad for, and how it wasn’t going to be me. “What can’t I do?”
“Oh, god.” Haures looked up. “Oh. Right. Sorry—oh, God. My bloody head.”
“God, Haures? I begin to think there are things my Lord should know about you.” Apparently Barbas-Jack wasn’t too weak to raise an eyebrow. So he raised one. At me. “And I think that should relieve me of any … concern … regarding my Infernal reception when you kill me, mortal. So. If you wouldn’t mind getting on with it?”