disdainfully and starts carving at the concrete, but it does not budge. He is far more successful with the skin on Delinquency’s neck.
“It is bad luck that we must shed your blood, but that is the only way you can be free, little girl. And then you are coming with me, to see Wesley!”
“Turn around, Bitzer! Face me!”
Bitzer stops his work in surprise. Who was that? Wesley said he would see to it that no one disturbed him. He turns quickly. Someone is standing in the shadows. He cannot see who it is.
“Who are you?” he bellows, before quickly turning and ripping his knife from the wall. “Come out and fight!”
The other person does not answer. For a moment his silhouette is clear against the sky, as a fleece of cloud gives way before the moon. Bitzer aims and throws his knife, but the person is quick. He sidesteps the attack. The knife whizzes past him and disappears in the darkness.
“Who is this nincompoop?” Bitzer snickers. “Wanting to take ME on! Let him come!”
But when Jack steps out of the shadows, sword in hand, Bitzer stumbles backwards.
“Don’t come near me! I’ll kill you!” Bitzer’s voice reveals his fear.
Jack advances with a steady gait, and without a word.
“It was Wesley; he put me up to it! I did not do anything to her, I promise.”
Still Jack does not say a word. For a moment he stands in front of Bitzer, slowly measuring him from head to toe. When he steps forward, Bitzer turns tail and runs.
How could the GPS “know” what was going on? How could it be pre-programmed to warn Jack? His father built this? His father said he fixed phones!
Delinquency turns her eyes up to Jack as far as she can.
“You must get out of here, Jack. Flee from this school. It’s you that she’s after – that madwoman. If you don’t, you’ll end up here, next to me.”
Jack sits down next to her. He has brought a clean hand towel from the kitchen and is now easing it into the space between her neck and the concrete.
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry too much about that. Green mambas are not that easily caught by a squirt of wet concrete.” He is laughing. “I am more interested to know what has changed since our previous conversation. Why are you so worried about me all of a sudden?” He helps her to drink something from a mug with a straw, but she abandons it abruptly.
“What has CHANGED? I got my neck into a block of concrete – that’s what’s changed in case you have not noticed. You think this is a joke? I hate that woman. I hate everybody who just doesn’t care about what is happening to me.”
Jack bends down to her, so that she has no choice but to look into his eyes.
“Delinquency, I care. I really do. That’s why I am trying to find a way to get you out of here. How can I just leave you here?”
“Jack G, stop being so stubborn. There is nothing you can do.”
Gifts
Salmonella cries all the way home, or nearly all the way. However, when she passes a liquor store, she dries her tears and promptly enters.
“Two packets of Ignition and two bottles of Johnny Warlord, please.”
When the attendant hands her the shopping bag, she has a request: “Could you please wrap these properly please?”
She quickly makes a phone call while waiting.
“…For the two security guards, thanks Molluscum!...Oh, they have been kind enough to escort me to the parlour…in ten minutes? Super!”
A concrete problem
Jack stabs at the concrete block with his sword. It hardly makes a dent.
“It’s not enough to break free from the guilt of Pestis,” the GPS suddenly sounds a warning. “She must be free from the POWER of the guilt; from the power of Pestis. There is none but the Word that can free her from its power!”
“If only I could understand the meaning of these words.” Jack, in frustration, jabs at the wall again, but it does not budge. Dawn is breaking.
Delinquency is startled by the GPS voice. Jack must explain everything to her, but he does not get much opportunity before he is commanded to go to another Important Event. Delinquency becomes the second witness, sharing with him one of the most atrocious; most needed and most world-changing events in all history.
It all starts with an unruly mob, following a horribly beaten captive, shouting and jeering. They force him up a hill. His kidneys are visible through his rib cage. Jack volunteers some help, or encouragement.
“I am also a captive, but I found this sword. I hope it will help me. Jack calls out to the stumbling, desperately injured man. At first the man does not speak to Jack, but he seems to be aware of him. Then he turns to Jack and he speaks to him in the same calm, commanding voice that spoke the time when he got the GPS to work for the first time:
“Hold on to it, Jack. It is extremely valuable. You are handling it well. It is a joy to watch you.”
Jack’s eyes become bright with joy.
The man then turns to Delinquency.
“Listen to my voice, Delinquency! I know all about your dream; the one about going down Table Mountain! Remember?”
Delinquency pulls in her breath sharply when she remembers. She has forgotten all about that wish, and about the boy that she saw on his skateboard.
Jack and Delinquency are all too soon shocked again when they become the witness of a most horrific murder. This captive who has spoken in such an encouraging way to them, is killed in a horribly inhumane, torturous manner.
Bleeding profusely from a scourging, and wearing a crown that was woven from a viciously thorny bush, this unfortunate man is nailed, by the wrists, to a rough piece of timber. He is then hoisted up, far above the ground onto a long, vertical pole.
“It is complete!” calls out the man. Jack does not understand what He means. This man then calls his own Father, but shortly after this, he dies.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…the Word of Truth…” whispers the GPS.
The entire earth turns pitch dark. The clip plays out in a tumult of nightmarish, incomprehensible montages. A soldier drives a spear into the side of the dead man’s body. Jack sees how blood and water pours from the wound. Graves open up and people who have been dead for many years start walking in the streets. A huge, thickly woven curtain seems to rip apart violently, from top to bottom, all by itself.
Delinquency yells out in fear. Shaken, Jack turns to her. It takes some effort to calm her down. Who was this man? All he knows is: His voice. When he talked to Jack, and when he called out before he died, his voice was audible, and it is the same male voice that speaks from the GPS with such calm, quiet authority.
“When you hear my voice, do not hesitate….” says the GPS.
“Delinquency, I simply MUST get you out of here! I know the answer is somewhere in this GPS, but I cannot work fast enough to find it!” He pokes at the wall again in frustration.
“How did that man know about my wish? I have forgotten about it myself!”
“Going down a mountain road? On a skateboard? Do you really want to do that?”
Delinquency becomes tearful again.
“Wanted to…but I can forget about it now.”
Jack looks at her incredulously.
“Don’t be afraid, Delinquency. It was just a video clip.”
“It was NOT. How does a video clip know about my secret wish, one about which I haven’t told a soul - ever! But I am more afraid of this wall.”
Jack has no answer to that, but tries to cheer her nonetheless.
“I MUST get you out of here! Do you know, I went down the Table Mountain Road a few years ago? It was great! I did not know you liked skateboarding. ” Jack looks at her slyly. “Bad luck for me, my father saw me. He spanked me in a way I shall never forget. Funny to think about him now – I think he is the only person in the world who ever cared about me…can’t understand what this mess is that he’s got himself into.”
“When was that – just before you came here?” she asks, but she is still in too much shock to pay much attention. “Tell me about it, mamba boy,” she says, but the tone of her voice has become resigned and disinterested. “It was him,” she thinks, but she does not say anything.
An invitation
Yersinia is checking her e-mails. The one with the Pestis family coat of arms is opened first. The subject is: Lady Macbeth Look-alike.
She completely ignores the spam about straightening noses the natural way – even the newest discovery: horse dung cream. [The nose is straightened by getting kicked in the face].
She skims the page, as if in a dream.
You are cordially invited to a dinner in the Dark Castle…finalists will be chosen…profiles on Facebook…
“Whoopeee!” The woman rushes outside, clears a few cacti that were planted next to the promenade to her office.
“Molluscuuuuuum! Go get me some air time! And my evening dress from the dry cleaners. And my jewels from the motor mechanics [They are cheaper than jewelers, and they add some nuts and bolts for free.]..they had to repair them…and some more Wild Dog Breath from Pop stores….oh...look at my nails…I need some blood!”
A dangerous toy
Pestis has returned to his …unlit – palace, in quite a hurry after the episode with the concrete mixer. That sword that was shown at that place had made him feel very uneasy. Then there was that little wimp who said that word… And now, even after this time back in the Dark Palace, he cannot stop worrying.
It is pitch dark in his place. He is still too afraid to take his position on the dark throne and
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