by Jack Yeovil
That should get her unaltered insides jarring, and put a bit of a crimp into her pelvic girdle.
She was up, keeping her hurt to herself, and lashing out. He backed away. For all her strength and devastating power, she wasn’t an especially skilled martial artist. Streetfighting was about all she knew, with perhaps a touch of jeet kune do. Brawlers’ business.
He stepped through her blows, and tapped her collarbones, hooking his forefingers into the nerve points.
Jesse yelped, and floundered. He gave her an elbow in the side of the head, and repeated the procedure three times within the space of a single breath.
“Tired? I can keep this up all day.”
She still hadn’t really touched him.
“You’ll have had Threadneedle undermesh your stomach muscles, so we won’t bother hitting you there,” he said.
He saw his opportunity, and jabbed a knuckle-pointed punch at her solar plexus. It would be armoured, of course, but he didn’t want to break it, just to send a shock through her whole skeleton.
“You see, all that metal inside you can rattle around. It can hurt you as badly as I can.”
He pressed her ribs, his hands moving faster than perception.
“A few more of those, and all your boneshields will be loose. That’ll be like having breadknives floating around the inside of your chest. You won’t care for it. I can promise you that.”
She stepped back, away from him. She had worked up a sweat. The sun was up there now. It looked like the thirty-nine thousand six hundred and fifteenth sunny day in a row in Arizona.
“Are you enjoying this little game of ‘Sally Go Round the Roses’? I am.”
“Freak you.”
“Tut tut. Such language. You should gain a command of more elaborate invective.”
She made a reach for his throat, which he dodged. Her fingers closed just under his jaw, nails scraping his adam’s apple.
“Nice try. Your favourite move, isn’t it? Your father’s autopsy reports show an especially fine specimen of the throat-grab. And you did something similar to that Daughter of the American Revolution in Moroni.”
He pulled out a derringer, and shot at her heart. Her jacket exploded, and he saw blackened flesh below.
“You might be wondering why I did that?”
She was snarling now, not looking like a girl at all.
“I knew it wouldn’t kill you…”
She tightened her padded pyjamas, modestly shifting the hole from blueing ribs to smooth skin.
“… it didn’t even hurt you, really. You’ve had your nerves deadened to reduce your pain perception…”
He threw the useless gun away.
“But it did some damage, Jesse. Believe me, inside, you’re leaking a little. Nothing serious. It’ll clear up on its own thanks to Dr Threadneedle’s micro-organisms. But you’d be well advised not to exert yourself further.”
He brushed her cheek with his toecap.
“Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
His heel slammed into her jaw, knocking her head to one side.
“Of course, my PhD. is in economics, but I have an amateur’s informed interest in bio-engineering.”
She got a good hold on his ankle, but not good enough. He pulled free.
“Did that dislocate your thumbs? No, well I’m sure it hurt them a lot.”
She tucked her thumbs inside her fists, and tried to land a couple of punches on him. If they had connected, they would have broken bones and punctured organs, but he was out of the way and had made sure there would be a stone pillar where her fists landed.
“Did you know that Dr Threadneedle’s experimental subjects had a 76% mental breakdown rate when he was with GenTech? Still, I’m sure he made some startling advances before opening you up.”
Jesse fell back, her knuckles bloodied, steel glinting in the ruined flesh. There were distinct imprints in the stone where she had punched.
“And that must have been very unpleasant. You know, this is an interesting approach. I’m not really killing you, I’m just seducing you into a slow, painful suicide…”
Dr Proctor knew that everyone else who had faced up to her had been too scared of her ferocity, of her bio-amendments. Too bad Threadneedle hadn’t tried some of the new IQ-boost chromosomes on her greymass. If Jessamyn Bonney were intelligent, she could have been a real threat.
She went for one of his knees, and got lucky. No, he had to give her credit. She had seen an opportunity, and taken it well.
Pain flared up, and he slowed momentarily. She got a kick into his side, and he had to dart back, out of range.
She wasn’t really unintelligent, just uninformed. She hadn’t even heard of him. Probably didn’t follow the newsies, stuck out here in the sand. Like most of the sheep, she was going to die because she was ignorant, not because she was undeserving…
He’d been fought before. He didn’t always favour helpless prey. He’d stalked and struggled with the best of them. Others had resisted more than this.
His side throbbed, and he realized she’d done better than he’d thought at first. With a cold anger, he stepped up to her, and used his elbows on her neck, face, shoulders and chest.
Again, he was out of her range before she really knew what he had done to her.
Her face was beginning to blacken.
“Some of those are ordinary bruises, but some of those are nice little pockets filling up with blood from the ruptured vessels.”
She wiped her face off with the back of her hand.
“I can mash your face against your durium skull, Jesse. That’s what I’m doing. Then I’ll get to your greymass through your eyesockets.”
She pulled her eyepatch off. He had wondered when she’d try that.
The red lens of the burner winked as it warmed up. He slipped his hand into his side-pocket and palmed the circular mirror.
The beam came, and he had his hand up to deflect it. The angle was off, so it didn’t bounce back straight and burn the implant out, but it did pass through her hair, raising some smoke.
“Do you want to try that again? I thought not.”
He made a fist, and crushed the mirror to shards, which he rubbed into her jaw.
“Let’s get some air into the wounds, Jesse. You’ve a pretty face. I think we can make it interesting, give it some character, a few lines here, a few holes there…”
She tried for his throat again.
“Persistent little minx, eh? I was impressed with the Dead Rat roster, by the way. Especially Rodriguez. Fingers through the eyes. I always like that one myself. Of course, I don’t have bolts in my knuckles to make it easy.”
He bent under her fingerthrust.
“Takes the sport out of it, somehow.”
A stone sang against the stones beside his head. He hadn’t forgotten the Indian. He wasn’t relevant to this situation, but he could be a minor danger.
“Why don’t you just give up, Jesse? You can’t live through this day. I’ll tell you what, I’ll make it painless. You can’t say fairer than that.”
She didn’t answer him, just made a few passes in the air.
Dr Proctor felt stings on his face. And trickling blood.
“Neat. You got the glass out, and used it. You have resources.”
It was time to finish it.
XIII
Hawk-That-Settles watched Jesse fight with Dr Proctor. His contribution had been meagre, and unappreciated by either of the participants.
Overhead, the sun had stopped moving. That was the signal. Now, it was his part in the ritual.
He drew a circle in the sand…
Dr Proctor got a hold on Jesse, forcing her down.
… he sang the song of the moon and the crocodile once more.
A cloud appeared in the sky, a black dot above the horizon, burping upwards.
Jesse’s face was in the sand, which blew away from the flagstones beneath. She was coughing. Dr Proctor had one hand at the back of her neck, the oth
er free. She was pinned beneath his body. He was scientifically killing her.
The cloud came through the sky like a bird of prey. It seemed to grow bigger as it got nearer. It didn’t look like a cloud any more. It was a dart of ink shafting through a clear liquid, bubbling behind, pointed in front.
Hawk sang of the triumph of the crocodile.
Jesse’s hands pushed at the sandy stones.
Dr Proctor exerted more pressure. He was only touching the nape of her neck, but blood was leaking from around her optic implant.
The cloud was overhead, blotting out the sun.
A shadow fell on Santa de Nogueira.
Jesse had sand up her nose. She didn’t believe she had lost so easily. Dr Proctor was fast, and he knew things about pain she would never even begin to comprehend.
Her visions had been wrong. She would die today, and never know who the other faces were, the man with the guitar, the dark-faced foreigner and the nun with the clear-handled pistol. Perhaps they were just the figments of a dream.
Her brain was turning in on itself. Dr Proctor was using her body as an instrument, and playing upon it a concerto of agony. His fingers found nerves, and sent signals through them.
He was indeed getting past her bones, pushing tendrils of death into her brain.
She struggled, but he had her as surely as if she were in a strait-jacket. The weight of his body held her down.
As he killed her, he crooned in her ear. They were tunes she didn’t recognize. Opera, she thought.
A blackness fell over her vision, and she assumed this was the moment of parting from her flesh…
“Qual terrible momenta,” Dr Proctor sang, “pin formar non so parole; densa nube di spavento per che copra i rai del sole! Come rosa inaridita ella sta tra morte e vita; chi per lei non e commosso ha di tigre in petto il cor!”
This terrible moment, he translated mentally, my words cannot describe; a dense cloud of terror seems to obscure the sun’s rays…
There was a shadow.
… like a fading rose, she lies twixt life and death!
A cold dark fell upon him.
… he who does not pity her has a tiger’s heart in his breast!
He pressed Jessamyn Bonney to the stones, squeezing her life out drop by drop.
When he was done, he would go to work on her, mutilating the corpse. The Indian would appreciate that. Of course, the Navaho spirit world would hardly welcome one who had, in life, replaced so much of her original body.
The shadow fell on his shoulders like a heavy weight, freezing him where it touched. He felt as if something were passing through him. The darkness sank through his body, leaving ice behind.
His grip on Jesse’s neck relaxed.
The Ancient Adversary slipped through the meat-thing, and into the Vessel. Enfleshed, it was overwhelmed by the sensations of the world…
Hawk’s song ended, and he stood, watching in awe as the transformation took place.
Jesse felt fire burst inside her heart, spreading through her body. The weight was gone from her back, and she could move again. She wiped the remaining glass out of her face. She felt her wounds closing over.
In her mind, she was a long-jawed reptile, fastening rows of teeth into a struggling hog, refusing to let him go.
Jessamyn Bonney faded to nothing inside her own brain, and the new tenant took over.
Lashing as if she had a tail, she turned over, and held fast to the hog.
Dr Proctor gulped as Jesse grabbed his throat. His aria was stopped. He saw something new in her eye as she stood up, taking him with her.
He struck her, but his well-aimed blows were feeble. She ignored whatever pain she felt.
She was changing.
For the first time, Dr Ottokar Proctor considered the possibility of his own death. It was not a pleasant thought.
What if the sheep lived on somehow? What if they were waiting for him on the other side? Once he was dead, what could they not do to him?
Jesse opened her mouth, and roared. Dr Proctor thought he saw endless rows of needle-sharp teeth.
The shadow was gone, and they were struggling in the sun.
Hawk-That-Settles crossed his legs, and watched the end. The sounds coming from Jesse’s mouth were barely human. Dr Proctor was quiet now, nearly unconscious. It was a good day to end it.
The Ancient Adversary and the Vessel were inside one another like a snake swallowing its tail. Both changed as they flowed together. It adjusted fast to the comforts and discomforts of physical form. Her spirit swelled as the being from the Outer Darkness combined with every particle of her body.
Jazzbeaux, Bonney, Jessamyn, Jesse, Frankenstein’s Daughter. She flipped through her names, her faces, her identities. They were all faint now, indistinct.
And yet the Ancient Adversary was fading too, diluted by the strength of the Vessel.
It had never been a crocodile. That came from somewhere else, giving it the rudiments of a form.
She had never really been any of the people others had thought her, never felt comfortable with her own picture of herself.
Now she was something harder, as sharp and bright as a diamond. Jessamyn Bonney was dead.
She was something else…
Dr Proctor gave up the struggle, and hung limp in her embrace. She had spared his spine, but snapped his mind.
Psychiatrists had debated his sanity at length. He had joined in their arguments as a way of amusing himself back in Sunnydales. He had had no opinion either way.
Now, he drooled a thin line of spittle. Inside his head, the last bars of Lucia di Lammermoor faded away. The iris closed over Porky Pig.
They would have no question to solve now. If he hadn’t been mad when he left the asylum, he certainly would be if they took him back.
She dropped him, not even bothering to administer a killing blow. Whatever she had become, she couldn’t be bothered with crushing insects under her feet.
In Salt Lake City, Elder Nguyen Seth screamed, as if icicles had been jabbed into his brain. Within him, talons curved, digging deeper into his heart. The Ancient Adversary was upon the Earth, and the Dark Ones were angry. He staggered from the font of blood, pain coursing through his entire body, and made his agonized way to the isolation chamber. The tank was always ready.
He felt the pull of the Outer Darkness, the call of his masters. Their wrath was terrible.
The tank opened, and Seth, his robes dropped to the floor, hauled himself in. The lid descended like the slab of a tomb, and the fluid seeped in, lapping around his tormented body. He fumbled with the life-support monitor electrodes, pinning them to his flesh with little fishhooks. The warm waters rose.
Seth sank into himself, and his pain was eased.
Hawk-That-Settles got up and walked over. He was not sure what Jesse was now, but she had defeated the Devil. She stood over him, bearing the fallen creature no malice.
For a moment, he thought her face green and long, with eyes on the sides and dripping teeth. Then she was herself again, bleeding a little, her one eye clear.
“Jesse…”
She turned to look at him. She didn’t recognize him for a moment. Then, she smiled.
“No, you’re… you’re not Jesse.”
She shrugged and turned away.
It was becoming clearer.
“What have you done to her?”
She turned. She spoke in her own voice. “Nothing, Hawk. I’m different, but I’m still me.”
“And who’s me?”
Dr Proctor rolled away, and lay face up, staring at the sun.
“Me? I’m your Jesse, Hawk.”
“No, you have enacted the prophecy of the Moon and the Crocodile. You can be named Jesse no more.”
“So, I’ll take a new name, like one of those ghetto kids trying to be a Russian musickie.”
Hawk was afraid of this new Jesse, but he fought his fear.
“I shall call myself…”
There was no cloud i
n the sky now.
“… Krokodil.”
Part Five: Krokodil
I
Joaquin Salazar took off his straw hat and rubbed his sweaty forehead with an oily rag, squinting in the noonday sun. Hawk-That-Settles checked the cartons Joaquin had brought out to Santa de Nogueira in his battered pick-up. Canned goods, mostly, and twenty five-litre plastic containers of guaranteed pure-ish water.
“Will she sit up there all day?” Joaquin asked, peering up at the figure squatting on the roof of the chapel.
“Maybe,” Hawk shrugged. “Help me get the water inside before it boils in this heat.”
“Sure thing, Senor.”
Hawk picked up two containers, and humped them into the main hall of the monastery.
The hollow man was inside, just sitting at the table, carving intricate statuettes of cartoon characters with a pocketshiv.
“Ottokar,” Hawk said. “Give us a hand.”
Dr Proctor looked up, smiled and went out to help Joaquin without saying a word.
Sometimes, Hawk felt he was sharing Santa de Nogueira with a pair of voiceless robots. Krokodil sat on the roof all day and all night, looking to the horizon. Dr Proctor made his carvings. And Hawk-That-Settles looked after the pair of them.
When the water was safely stowed in the perpetually shaded depths of the building, and Joaquin was loaded up with last month’s empties, the Mexican deliveryman drove off. He was obviously uncomfortable around the monsters, and wouldn’t even consider Hawk’s offer of tequila.
Hawk was drinking more now. It was the boredom. That was what had nudged Two-Dogs-Dying towards the bottle on the Reservation. Hawk couldn’t get enough tequila brought out to Santa de Nogueira to keep him as drunk as his father had usually been, but he rationed his supply carefully and usually managed to keep the fug in his brain and the fire on his tongue.
Hawk watched Joaquin go. He couldn’t remember whether Krokodil or Dr Proctor had spoken at all this month. Joaquin was probably the only person he ever had a conversation with these days. And Indians were supposed to be iron-willed men of few words and many deeds.