Dead Man's Hand

by George R. R. Martin

  Hiram could not look at him. He shook his head.

  “Untie me,” Jay whispered. “That’s all you need to do. Simple. I’ll handle the rest, just get my hands free. You don’t even have to watch. I’ll pop you to the Jokertown Clinic, you can get treatment for … for whatever he’s done to you. Do it now, Hiram. We don’t know how much time we have left.”

  “You’d hurt him,” Hiram said. His voice broke. “You don’t understand … his kiss, it’s like … words can’t describe it, Jay. When you’re part of him, it’s as though you’re alive, for the first time in your life. You feel such intense pleasure. Food, drink, sex, even the simple act of breathing, it all becomes intoxicating … but when he leaves you, when he moves to another mount … that’s like dying, Jay. The world turns gray, and after a week or so, the physical withdrawal sets in. You can’t imagine the pain. You crave him. It’s a hunger, and if it’s not fed…” He looked up, his eyes imploring understanding. “Besides, he’s not evil, not the way you and I understand it. Without his mounts, he’d die. He needs us, just as we need him. It’s just that his morality is … different than ours.”

  “In New York,” Jay said, “after Sascha had run to Atlanta with your little pal, I found a torture chamber in his apartment. Not to mention a body in his bathroom.”

  “Yes,” Hiram said. He looked away again. “A mount. One of the jokers.” His voice was so low that Jay could barely hear it over Charm’s singing. “Sometimes … pain is different from pleasure, he says, but just as … as interesting. The sensations of death are … especially … especially…”

  “I got it. He tortures his more expendable mounts to death to get a few jollies, right? But he’s not bad, just misunderstood.” He snorted. “Hiram, that thing defines evil.”

  For a long time, Hiram Worchester said nothing. There was only Charm’s guttural singing from the next room. But finally Hiram’s lips moved, so weakly that Jay did not catch the words.

  “What?” he whispered.

  Hiram turned his head. “Foul … oh God, Jay, you don’t know what it’s been like … so many times, I just wished for it to be over … that he’d kill me the next time … but I’m too powerful, you see. I’m an ace. He wants aces … wants the powers … I’ll never be free. And you … it’ll be the same.…”

  “No way,” Jay said. “Hiram, don’t let him take me.”

  “I can’t hurt him! I told you.”

  “Then hurt me,” Jay said. “Kill me, if it comes to that. But don’t let him take me.” He never thought he’d hear himself beg for death, but his flesh was crawling at the very thought of Ti Malice. It would be like his nightmare, but this time he would never wake, this time it would go on and on forever.

  Hiram Worchester stared at him with sudden wonder on his broad face. “Kill you,” he murmured. His fingers flexed, closing slowly into a fist, then opening again. “He would be angry, Jay … so very angry, you can’t imagine. Perhaps … perhaps then he might … free me.”

  Jay knew what he meant by “free.”

  7:00 A.M.

  They waited at the airport all night for the first available flight to Atlanta. Jennifer fell asleep around midnight, but Brennan could not. He sat up all night meditating on a playing card, an ace of spades, left him in a will.

  When it was time to board the flight, he slipped it into the breast pocket of his denim jacket where it would be close at hand.

  9:00 A.M.

  When the door opened, Jay caught a brief glimpse of pale, thin sunlight filtering down from above. Blaise stepped into the cellar, stumbling on the last step, almost tripping over the end of his cloak. The boy looked dead on his feet, his face drawn and pale. He’d been ridden to exhaustion, and beyond.

  Sascha stepped forward to remove the heavy felt cloak. “We were concerned for you, master,” he said as he undid the ties. “We heard sirens … screams in the night.…”

  Ezili laughed from the doorway. “The night was magic, Sascha,” she said, running a tongue across her lower lip. “Hartmann went mad. We watched it on the television. A circus of blood. Then the jokers went mad, too. We wandered in the park and played with them all night long. No one noticed.” She shut the cellar door behind her, and darkness resumed its reign.

  “This mount is tired,” Ti Malice announced in Blaise’s hoarse, weary tones. “It is time to try the other. Bring it.”

  Everyone looked at Jay.

  Sascha folded the cloak, set it aside, turned his face toward Jay. There might have been pity in his eyes, if he’d had eyes. He nodded at Charm, and the huge joker shambled forward.

  “Can’t we talk this over?” Jay asked.

  Charm ignored him. Hands grasped his legs, shoulders, feet, and jerked him into the air. Charm flung him over a shoulder, carried him across the cellar. The place still smelled like a butcher shop. Flies swarmed around decaying pieces of human flesh. Charm tossed Jay down on the mattress. Ezili bent over him and kissed him lightly, her lips wet and hot. “Soon,” she said.

  “Prepare it for me,” Blaise’s voice commanded.

  Charm grabbed a handful of Jay’s shirt and yanked sharply. The fabric tore with a loud ripping sound, until it got tangled in the jacket.

  “Its bonds are in the way,” Ti Malice noticed. “Untie it. Strip it.”

  “Master,” Sascha cautioned, “he is dangerous when his hands are free.”

  “I can’t even feel my fucking hands,” Jay complained. He tried not to think about what he was thinking about.

  Sascha picked right up on the thought he was trying not to think. “He thinks he’ll have a chance once he’s untied.”

  “Is it afraid?” Ti Malice asked.

  “Of you, very much. Of being a mount. And there is some other fear, an older fear.…” The telepath frowned. “A dream he’s had. You remind him of this nightmare, master.”

  “Free its hands,” Ti Malice said. “This young mount has the power to hold it still.”

  Charm turned him over, slammed him down into the mattress, and pinned him with a boot while hands fumbled behind his back.

  Jay’s wrists had been bound for so long he couldn’t feel any difference when they were free. Charm kicked roughly at one arm, and it fell heavily to the side. His shoulder shrieked with pain. Roll over and get the hand up, he thought, but Charm was pressing down on him. He couldn’t move.

  Then something else grabbed him, something stronger and harder and more powerful than Charm’s twisted body would ever be.

  Blaise’s mind.

  The foot went away. Jay stirred, but it was Ti Malice who moved his arms, through Blaise. When he rolled over, they were right there, kneeling beside him on the mattress.

  The boy was still smiling. His master peered over one bare, bruised shoulder. Jay could hear the faint sucking sound, could see the boy’s blood pulsing through pale translucent veins in the creature’s glistening flesh.

  The boy spoke. “Strip him.”

  Charm peeled the jacket off Jay’s back. It was damp with sweat and spatters of blood. The joker ripped away his shirt. Now he was bare-chested, his throat and neck exposed to the demon’s kiss.

  “He’s trembling,” Ezili said. “Trembling for the kiss.”

  Jay felt a faint tingling in his hands. He tried to move them, to make a gun, to point. He couldn’t move. Blaise’s power and his master’s will held him perfectly still. Jay’s eyes flicked down to his hands. They were pale, bloodless, his wrists bruised and purple. He looked like he was wearing fish-belly gloves, and there were dark red lines in his skin where the wires had cut deep. He tried to flex his fingers, make the feeling come back. Nothing.

  “Master,” Hiram said.

  He stepped out of the corner, looming over the mattress behind them, his shadow almost as huge as Charm’s. Ti Malice looked at him with Blaise’s eyes, but Jay couldn’t even turn his head. He felt Hiram’s presence more than he saw it. His hands were full of pins and needles as his circulation returned.

  �
��Master,” Hiram repeated. He sounded frightened. “Please. Let this one go.”

  “Why?” Ti Malice wanted to know.

  The tingling in Jay’s hands had begun to turn to pain. The pins and needles were replaced by knives and pincers. He gasped in sudden pain, and the noise made him realize he still had control of his voice. Of course, he thought. Like the centipede man. Ti Malice liked to hear them beg.

  “He is … a friend,” Hiram said. “I’ve never asked you for anything before. Please.”

  Ti Malice turned to Sascha. “What will it do if I take this new mount.”

  The telepath turned his head toward Hiram. “Nothing,” he reported after a moment. “He could never hurt you.”

  Ti Malice turned back to Jay as if Hiram Worchester no longer existed. “Down,” he said.

  Jay lay down on his side so his master would have easy access to his back and his neck. Blaise stretched out beside him on the mattress. He was so close Jay could smell Ezili on him, close enough for their bare chests to touch lightly, close enough for a kiss.

  His hands were on fire, the blood rushing through his fingers like white-hot wires. It was an effort not to faint.

  Ti Malice pulled its mouth away from the boy’s neck with a soft wet sound. The creature began to wriggle up and over Blaise’s shoulder, toward Jay. Its own limbs were stunted. It writhed forward like some huge worm, an inch at a time, tiny three-fingered hands grasping feebly at the boy’s flesh for purchase. Blood trickled weakly from the ragged hole it had left behind. Jay forced his eyes away from the horror coming toward him and looked into the boy’s eyes. Blaise seemed dazed, lost, and Jay remembered what Hiram had said. When he leaves you, it’s like dying. “Blaise,” he said urgently. “Let me go.”

  Those deep violet eyes blinked once, twice, tried to focus. “He…” Blaise said. It was his own voice, his own words, and for a split second Jay dared to hope. “He said … hold you.”

  He felt the cold wet touch of Ti Malice’s flesh on his own as the thing’s withered hand pulled at a shoulder. Don’t look, Jay told himself. Like in the dream. Don’t ever look up at the moon; if you do, you’re lost. He had dreamed that dream a thousand times; he knew better than to look.

  He looked.

  The creature’s mouth was round, like the mouth of a fish, and as it slid forward in jerks and starts, its tongue moved in and out. Its tongue was round, too, flushed with blood, red and glistening, like some obscene blind snake.

  Its eyes were wise and cruel and terrible.

  Blaise was fucking hopeless. “Hiram!” Jay screamed.

  Hiram’s voice came from a long way away. “I can’t hurt him.”

  Ti Malice’s atrophied legs kicked feebly at Blaise’s face as it moved off the boy and onto Jay. It must have kicked too hard. Blaise winced. For a moment, Jay felt his fingers flex.

  The thing was crawling across him, his flesh crawling beneath it. But there was something important.… “Shit!” Jay said.

  “Master!” Sascha cried out in alarm.

  Jay drowned out his warning with a shout. “Hiram!” he screamed. “Hurt Blaise, dammit. Hurt Blaise!”

  Hiram kicked the boy in the head.

  Charm was stumbling forward, Ezili, Sascha, but they were all late, too late. Jay had his body back. He rolled to one side and came down flat on his back, with Ti Malice clinging to his chest, thrashing as frantically as a worm impaled on a hook.

  His hand came up, but his fingers were like wood.

  Ti Malice slithered up his chest, looking straight down into his eyes.

  Jay folded back three fingers, stuck one out, lifted his thumb, tried to point. His hand was shaking.

  The blind snake came coiling out.

  Jay stuck a shaking finger into Ti Malice’s eye.

  There was a short, crisp pop.

  Jay felt a sharp pain, and blood began to spurt from the hole in his neck, but he hardly noticed. The weight was off his chest.

  Ezili screamed.

  “Oh, God,” Sascha said.

  Blaise began to weep uncontrollably.

  And behind him, he heard Hiram Worchester say, very softly, “It’s over.”

  10:00 A.M.

  The Atlanta airport was crowded with weary delegates heading for home, still buzzing about a convention that no one was ever likely to forget. Brennan pushed through them, uncaring and unseeing, with Jennifer in his wake. They didn’t even stop to join the crowd watching a midget being cut out of a cat carrying case. He staggered out, rumpled and red-eyed, croaking, “Water, water!”

  They were nearing the end of the line, but Brennan was feeling no elation. His anesthesia-provoked dream of the night before was still vivid in his mind. Intellectually he didn’t blame himself for Chrysalis’s death, but he realized that emotionally he did. He remembered the line from Tachyon’s eulogy about the harsh expectations Chrysalis’s ghost would have, but he knew that Chrysalis’s ghost wasn’t driving him. It was his own savage ghost, fueled by his unrelenting memories of her. He wondered if he’d ever be able to lay her to rest.

  They caught a cab downtown and stopped at a pawnshop to buy two guns, a Walther PPK automatic for Brennan and a Smith and Wesson .38 Chief Special for Jennifer. He paid cash; the proprietor didn’t ask any questions.

  NOON

  The hospital wanted to admit all three of them, but Jay was having none of it. He hung around just long enough to answer a few questions, cadge a fresh supply of painkillers, and make sure they were going to take good care of Blaise. Then he grabbed Hiram and had the nurse phone for a cab.

  The cellar of the burned-out ruin where Ti Malice had set up housekeeping was almost an hour’s ride from the center of Atlanta. Hiram stared vacantly out the window as they drove. Every now and then he had a fit of uncontrollable trembling, and a look of panic came into his eyes. “I’m all alone now,” he said once. Jay didn’t reply. Conversation would have required more energy than he had right now. He stretched out and closed his eyes.

  The next thing he knew, Hiram was prodding him gently in the ribs. “We’re here,” he said.

  Jay sat up groggily, fumbled for his wallet. It was empty. “I’ve paid the fare already,” Hiram said. He helped Jay out of the taxi and into the hotel.

  An alarm was screeching in the Marriott lobby; one of the elevators was stuck between floors. Jay winced; his headache was already a blinding band of pain behind his eyes, the noise was the last thing he needed. He jabbed at the call button savagely, and they took a different elevator up to Tachyon’s floor.

  Jay unlocked the suite with Blaise’s key, turned on the lights, and went to the bar to mix himself a stiff one. Hiram poked his head into the bedroom. “Tachyon?” he called out. There was no answer. “He’s not here,” Hiram said, returning to the living room.

  “Yeah,” Jay said. “I figured.” He sat down to wait.

  Hiram moved to the bar and looked at the bottles, but made no move to mix himself a drink. He just stood there, staring, like a big lost child. Then he started to tidy up. He rinsed out a couple of dirty glasses, picked up an ashtray full of cigarette butts, looked around for a place to dump it. There was a jar full of ashes sitting on the bar, next to the liquor. Hiram peered into it curiously for a moment, shrugged, and dumped the butts in there.

  They both turned at the sound of the door opening.

  Dr. Tachyon sat in a wheelchair, his bandaged stump cradled in his lap. Behind him, pushing the chair, was Jack Braun.

  “You,” Braun said, glaring at Jay. “We’ve been turning over half the city looking for you. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Jay, Hiram,” Tachyon said. He started to rise from the wheelchair. “What’s happened? Where’s Blaise?”

  “The hospital,” Jay admitted.

  Tachyon made a choking sound. “Is he all right?”

  “He has a small fracture of the skull, and he’s lost a few teeth, plus some bruises and abrasions, and a bad case of shock. But the doctors figure he’s going
to be okay. The hospital wanted to keep him under observation for a few days, that’s all.”

  Dr. Tachyon staggered as if Jay’s words were a physical blow. Jack Braun clouded up like a thunderhead and came storming forward. “You goddamned jerk. He’s only a kid, what the hell did you think you were doing, dragging him into some sleazy—”

  Jay pointed, Jack popped. Maybe Braun finished his thought center stage at Freakers. Then again, maybe not.

  “Sorry,” Jay mumbled to Tachyon. “My head’s about to split open and hatch, I just can’t take any more right now. Should you be out of that wheelchair?”

  “It was Jack’s idea,” Tachyon said. Jay could see how weak the little man still was. When he stumbled, he put out a hand to steady himself, but there was no hand there. His bandaged stump fetched up hard against the back of the sofa, and Tachyon gasped.

  “Sit down,” Jay said.

  Tachyon sat back down in the wheelchair, cradling his stump in his lap. Jay turned back to the bar. “What are you doing?” Tach asked.

  “Pouring you a drink,” Jay said. “You’re going to need one.”

  He filled the second tumbler up with bourbon and ice cubes, brought it to Tachyon, and put it into his unresisting left hand. “I don’t … I don’t drink bourbon,” Tach said.

  “Drink it,” Jay said.

  Tachyon drank it, his pale lilac eyes full of dread. “Tell me,” he said when the glass was half-empty.

  Jay told him all of it.

  To his credit, the alien listened without interrupting. Tears began to roll down his cheeks when Jay reached the part about the centipede man, but still he held his tongue.

  “Once Ti Malice was gone, the fight went out of the mounts. Ezili pitched a screaming fit, and the other woman, the girl with the baby, made a break for it. The rest just gaped at us. It was like they couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening. I was going to call the cops, but Hiram stopped me.”

  “Hiram?” Tach said, looking over at the big ace.

  Hiram nodded ponderously, as if his head were almost too heavy to move. “We had all done … vile things. Myself included. What purpose would be served by imprisoning the mounts? We were only his instruments, his hands, his mouth, his eyes. It was Ti Malice who murdered, not your grandson. I told Jay there was no sense in bringing Blaise to trial. The real murderer was already gone. And the rest of them … were they any different? You knew Sascha long before Ti Malice took him, doctor. He was never an evil man. Ezili was the worst, but even there … how much was Ezili and how much was the master? She had been his prize mount her entire life.”