by Jack Conner
After the device as expunged, Vistrot was made to lie in the coffin, which the performers carried, at some pains, into the back of the hearse. The coffin was large, but he was a big man, and claustrophobia set in.
Though it was difficult to judge time in the thing, Vistrot estimated it was close to an hour before the hearse pulled to a stop and the black box was carried a short distance, then set down. His captors levered its top open. With a little help, Vistrot climbed from the narrow tomb and stepped to the concrete floor of an immense, dingy, and largely empty warehouse, its windows spray-painted and boarded-over. He registered his surroundings in the flash before Kristen was on him, her arms about his middle.
“Auggie!”
“Baby!”
He embraced her, tight. They kissed passionately, and joy filled him. At last!
When she was done, she and turned to Jean-Pierre. "I want some time alone with him, J.P."
"You'll get it—afterwards."
"After what?" Vistrot said.
The hands of humans strengthened through decades of sipping immortal blood seized him from behind and dragged him to a section of floor that had been readied for him. Thick titanium chains trailed from large stakes driven through the concrete, and nearby gleamed an assortment of long sharp instruments perfect for driving through one's body.
"This isn't necessary," he said. "It was never my intention to keep anything from you, Jean-Pierre. You would've found out soon enough. After it was all over, you were to be my first officer. That's one reason you were sent to kill Danielle—if you could do that, then I could completely trust you. If you couldn't, that was fine, too, because just the threat of it was enough to put a certain business associate in her place. Please, Jean-Pierre, I won't stoop to begging, but this isn't necessary."
The albino lifted one of the instruments—it looked like some sort of demonic fireplace poker—and tested its sharpness. Still quite dull, Vistrot saw with mounting dread.
Jean-Pierre smiled. "Vistrot, you stole from me my single chance at redemption; not only have you killed the one person I loved—and who loved me in return—but you’ve damned my soul, if ever I had one and if there is a place for it to go. Without her, I’m lost in darkness. Of course, if you're not on the wrong end of it, darkness can be amusing."
He indicated the floor with his poker, and the sideshow performers began to chain Vistrot to the ground. Kristen protested, but they ignored her. Vistrot’s robe was torn away, which left him naked, and the coldness of the concrete made his balls contract. Next they threw the chains around his limbs and torso.
Jean-Pierre hovered dispassionately above. Dear Lord, boy, what have I done to you?
Shifting his glance from the Titan's face to the tip of the poker, the albino's face finally registered emotion. It twisted into a mask of utter hatred. Raising the poker high over his head, he stabbed it down with a howl.
* * *
After a few hours in Stomach Prison—as, among other less endearing terms, she’d come to call it—Sophia grew accustomed to its rhythms.
The Rastas, intolerant of any rebellious behavior, fed the rebels to the always-hungry Kalanda, who prowled the living cave intermittently to keep the prisoners in line. Sophia watched Kalanda and the Rastas closely, observing their patterns of movement and behavior. She frequently tried tapping into the Rastas' minds.
After doing this a few times successfully, but briefly, she decided to make a more thorough attempt, so with great concentration she focused on one man in particular and extended her mind into his. She began exploring, in the process learning much about the Balaklava and their personal histories as observed by this mortal, who had seen and heard a great deal (and despite his youthful appearance was over a hundred years old, due to frequent infusions of Balaklavian blood).
Unfortunately, Junger and Jagoda also kept a constant finger in the minds of their soldiers and discovered Sophia's presence. They stormed into Stomach Prison and beat her severely, and—though she taunted them with the concept of rape—they were quite aware of her ghensiv half and contented themselves with beating her again.
After that, she kept her mental wanderings brief.
* * *
Around noon, Jean-Pierre allowed himself a breather from torturing the Titan, for which Kristen was grateful. For the last few hours, his revenge had a musical accompaniment; there had been some instruments lying around the Funhouse’s penthouse, and it seemed that a baker's dozen of the semi-mortal mutants had formed a band. When a longer version of the show was performed, they would play several selections for the audience.
“Play for me,” Jean-Pierre bid them, and they had gathered their instruments and obeyed.
Their sound, which was somewhere between Romanian folk, rock, and jazz, made Kristen shudder, but Jean-Pierre seemed to delight in savaging Vistrot to the jouncing beat. The Titan writhed, looking less like Kristen’s beloved Auggie and more like a pincushion of flesh with every passing moment. It broke Kristen’s heart to see, and she tried not to watch.
During his breather, Jean-Pierre lit a Pall-Mall and went out the warehouse's backdoor, which opened onto an alley. Kristen followed, striking up a Virginia Slim.
"It's gone on long enough," she said. "Don't you think you should release him?"
"No.”
The sounds of the band drifted out, seeming to mix with the swirl of smoke and the slight drizzle.
"I think you were right when you said no amount of pain you could give him would do you any good,” she said. Looking at him, though, she was uncertain. In some bizarre way, he actually seemed to be enjoying this—This is him, she thought. I think I'm seeing him for the first time. Please, baby, prove me wrong. When he didn't answer, she said, "You going to kill him?"
"That would take the fun out of it, wouldn't it?."
She could feel her shoulders collapsing a little, her breath tightening. If she didn't watch it, she might start to cry. He had said it was fun. A minute passed in silence and he seemed to sense her misery. Suddenly coming to her aid, he wrapped his arms about her. She started to pull away but stopped herself.
"I'm sorry, honey," he said. "For everything."
"Please … end this. I know you hurt, but this isn’t the answer.”
"Justice is messy."
“This isn’t justice.”
"I'm exacting vengeance on the murderer of my wife and child. There can be nothing more just."
She examined him sadly. "Then would you do me a favor?"
"Tell me."
"Give him some hope, at least. You're not even asking him questions like you said you would, just torturing him senselessly. Please, if you love me, if you love yourself—if even a part of you is still human—ask him what you want to know. He'll tell you, Jean-Pierre, not because you're hurting him, but because—once—you were friends. Please don't torture him pointlessly; if nothing else, interrogate him. Otherwise you're just an animal." She fumbled with a cigarette, averting her eyes. "Tell me you will, Jean-Pierre."
He tilted up her chin with one hand, flipped his silver Zippo with the other, and said, his green eyes sincere, "I will."
He moved back inside. As the door opened, the music swelled. Funhouse music.
Kristen stared at the sky for a long time, let the cigarette burn down to her fingers, then opened the door to hear the sound of the Titan screaming. Cringing, she stepped in out of the rain.
* * *
At nine o'clock that evening, when Vistrot was supposed to have phoned Junger and Jagoda to call off the attack on Jean-Pierre and the search-and-retrieval of the Titan himself, the two Balaklava were driving around Manhattan searching for their next series of victims and/or muses. When he didn't call, they examined their electronic homing device to pinpoint his location, but he was nowhere to be found. Both of his emitters must have been destroyed.
"Bummer," said Junger.
"He was a prick anyway."
"Without him, we may never find out what all the exciteme
nt was about. Of course, he probably wouldn't have told us willingly. But we could've been persuasive."
Jagoda smiled. “Perhaps the odd flock will turn up something. Unlikely, but it's all we've got now."
“No, brother. We know all we need to.”
They did. Within a month, they prophesied, the world oyster would be theirs. For now, though, they must continue to curry favor with the Titan, even if it meant saving his sorry bloated hide.
The first logical place for acquiring Vistrot was at Jean-Pierre's apartment. After entering the eight-story hovel, they found something strange: none of the albino's mortal minions were present, though their recent presence was undeniable; their smell had baked into the walls. In any case, their absence signaled that something was amiss, but what?
Junger and Jagoda made their way to the top floor, where they quickly found the albino's room. Pausing before twisting the knob, the bald one turned to Jagoda and, seeing the bearded one shrug, flung open the door.
The explosion actually destroyed the top three floors of the building. Flames caught hold and slowly consumed the whole structure.
* * *
From his vantage point atop an opposite building, Jean-Pierre turned to Kristen.
"Good work, baby," she said.
"Thank you." To Maximillian, he said, "Let's go make sure they're dead."
"Think there'll be anything left?"
"For their sake, let's hope not."
Max rounded up the score of performers and, at the albino's lead, marshaled them across the street, where a large crowd was already gathering. Fire trucks wailed close by. To prevent recognition, Jean-Pierre had had to select the performers that looked the most externally normal. Even so, all wore masks and costumes to conceal their identities; at Max's demand, the troupe must not be implicated in any of this. Even Max himself wore a disguise, leaving Jean-Pierre the sole member exposed. He didn’t want to be hampered in case he needed to defend himself.
They poked through the ruins, quickly and efficiently, ignoring the policemen and firemen that urged them to leave. The performers found no trace of the Balaklava.
Jean-Pierre felt a surge of disappointment; the bastards had been vaporized. They deserved a much slower death. If they hadn’t been so powerful, he would've had them put through the same treatment as Vistrot, but, alas, it was not to be.
More police vehicles arrived.
The troupe had brought along firearms, but the guns proved unnecessary. Jean-Pierre was able to lead the troupe out the back way and, without violent incident, down a few blocks to where vans waited for them in an alley. They sped off, their destination the cemetery in which the Balaklava had lived during their final days in New York long ago. Under the questioning that Kristen had recommended, Vistrot had given up the location.
"You really think she'll be alive?" Max asked as he peeled off his disguise.
Not looking at the snake-oil salesman, Jean-Pierre checked a pistol to make sure it was loaded.
“She’d better,” he said.
Chapter 27
Sophia scanned the minds of the Rastas on an almost hourly basis. When they were informed of the departure of their lords, they gave no outward sign, but she was easily able to access the information. After learning of Junger's and Jagoda's withdrawal, she whispered softly to one of the prisoners, who spread the word.
The Rastas often made a habit of sending a couple of their number to wander through the scattered ranks of captives just to instill a little fear in the condemned ones, and Sophia waited for such an occasion before launching the attack: divide and conquer.
As the two Jamaicans drew near, she summoned her powers of psychic dominance, which were greater than her mother's but far inferior to her father's. Controlling the semi-mortals was not easy, but she grimaced and pushed harder—broke through.
Throw down your weapons and disrobe, she instructed them, and they obeyed.
The other Rastas, sensing she was the culprit, turned their guns on her, but too late. At her signal, the prisoners had slowly crept to either end of the Stomach and at the disrobing of the first two Jamaicans launched themselves on the others.
Like crabs beneath a wave, the Rastas fell under the hands of their prisoners. Several died on both sides. The Rastas lay bleeding on the ground, along with several wounded and dying prisoners, while the majority of the freed men made their way to the Labyrinth beyond the Stomach.
Kalanda woke.
The large tigress opened her eyes, surveyed the scene and leapt from her bloody throne with a roar.
“Shit,” said Sophia.
Kalanda set her sights on Sophia, who stood alone in the center of the living cave—and charged.
Sophia scooped up one of the Rastas’ submachine guns and fired. The bullets tore into the tigress, shredding her beautiful coat into bloody streaks and drilling into her face. They didn't even seem to slow her down.
She’ll kill me, Sophia realized. If, that was, Sophia was human-shaped.
She was, after all, the daughter of a werewolf.
Throwing down the rifle, she let the gifts of her father storm her bloodstream for the first time in years, and before she could consciously comprehend what was happening she’d transformed into a hairy demon and was flying through the air at Kalanda.
They collided in the air with a thunderclap and meshed into a web of tangled limbs, talons and teeth before they even hit the floor. Hair and blood flew in every direction. Bone cracked.
Sophia would have been killed in seconds save for the damage that the gun had done to Kalanda's mouth. Splintered teeth and bone protruded from the wreckage, making it difficult for the great beast to use her most awesome weapon. Kalanda raked her claws down Sophia’s side, and Sophia screamed. Growling, she locked her jaws around the tigress’s shoulder and bore down with all her strength.
* * *
Jean-Pierre and the vans arrived on the scene to find a group of mortals emerging from the crypt. “Where’s Sophia?” he demanded. “Tall, with long dark hair and violet eyes.”
“She died,” one man said, panting. “Brought down by the tigress Kalanda. Sacrificed herself for us all.”
Jean-Pierre pushed toward the ruined tomb and took the stairs down to the crypt. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw hands gripping a broken tile, and a mortal pulled himself out from the abyss.
Jean-Pierre swallowed a gulp of air and threw himself into the pit. His landing was cushioned by four feet of thick mud. Struggling out of the muck, he marched past the boulders and waited. Vistrot had told him that the Balaklava guarded the entrance to their prison with a labyrinth, making it difficult for any prisoners that managed to escape to actually get free. Jean-Pierre didn’t have the luxury of time to navigate the damned thing, so he decided to let the humans do it for him.
A man emerged from one of the tunnels. Just what the albino had been looking for. Jean-Pierre stalked into the tunnel and followed it till it branched off. Yet another mortal appeared in one of the forks. Using these stragglers as his breadcrumbs, Jean-Pierre navigated the Labyrinth until he emerged into a great open chamber that looked like nothing so much as a massive abdominal cavity. Even the walls were fashioned from pink tissue.
In the middle of the room sprawled Sophia, nestled in the embrace of a tiger. Cautiously, he advanced. Neither of the combatants stirred. Were they unconscious? If Sophia were dead …
Sophia’s chest heaved.
Pulse quickening, Jean-Pierre ran to her and carefully extracted her from the embrace of the beast. The tiger shifted, but did not wake.
“Sophia, darling, I’m here.”
Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. With a sinking feeling, he realized that she was dying. Not wasting a moment, he carried her in his arms back through the winding corridors of the Labyrinth, his heart beating faster, faster. He had to get her out of here.
Suddenly, rounding the corner ahead of him—Dear God!
Jagoda stepped forward, burn
ed and bloody. He cradled his brother, Junger, in his arms. The tusked one was little more than a blackened skeleton, his motionless mouth open in an expression of agony. Apparently, Junger had sheltered his comrade from the blast—and now, without a doubt, Junger was dead.
Tear-stricken, Jagoda glanced up at the albino. He studied the butchered Sophia in the albino’s arms.
For a long moment, neither the werewolf nor the Balaklava said a word.
Then, in a raw voice, Jagoda said, “It looks as though we’re even, albino. One for one.”
Jean-Pierre nodded, hoping that that wasn’t the case.
Warily, the albino and the Balaklava approached each other, one leaving the Labyrinth and one seeking sanctuary in it. As they passed, their eyes locked. Then tears erupted from the Bone Crusher’s face. Silently, he spun about and retreated back into the darkness of his home.
* * *
I’m going to get to see my sugar, Kristen thought as the warehouse hove into view.
She’d gone with the albino to watch the destruction of his old building and hopefully the deaths of the Balaklava, but before Jean-Pierre and the troupe entered the flaming ruin to assure themselves of their victory, he’d sent her back to the warehouse, claiming that if Junger and Jagoda were still alive, things could get dangerous. Plus, of course, there was always the chance of a confrontation with the police, and he didn't want her hit by a stray bullet.
The albino's dismissal had stung at first, until he'd pointed out that now she could have some time alone with Vistrot.
She noticed a delivery vehicle outside of the warehouse: Chinese food. It pulled away as the taxi dropped her off. Entering the decrepit building, she found what was left of the troupe playing, of all things, a game of Bingo. Claude was the leader. Off to the side lay Vistrot, massive and naked and bleeding; unconscious, chained to the floor and run through with all manner of blades and stabbing instruments, he looked perfectly pitiful, reduced from the most powerful crime lord in the world to a soon-to-be cadaver.