Part 28 (1/2)

”What did you do to her, you f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d?” Jack demanded, tears streaking down his flushed face. In this nightmare, his face still held a plump gleam of childhood, but his eyes were Jack's eyes, ageless and merciless as primordial ice.

Kev dealt him a backhanded blow, a fistful of silver rings leaving a welt on Jack's cheek. ”You show some respect to the man what keeps a roof over your s.h.i.+ftless head!” Kev hissed. ”What do you do? You're too clumsy to steal and too ugly to be turned out. You're just a little lump of s.h.i.+t on my boot.”

”I swear, if you've hurt her again&” Jack trembled all over, as if he were in the middle of a blizzard. ”s.h.i.+ftless and ugly or not, I'll turn you in. I'll run out this door and go to the police box and when you're rotting in jail I'll take all that money you stole from Mum and I'll pay a f.u.c.king skinhead to be your boyfriend until you're a f.u.c.king cripple!”

Pete, examining Jack, decided he couldn't have been more than ten or eleven. She pressed a hand over her mouth to keep herself steady.

Kev grabbed Jack by the hair, producing a flick-knife and pressing it against Jack's throat. ”Sit down, boy,” he said. Soft and pleasant, like the warning hiss of a snake. ”You move a hair, and I'll slit her from ear to ear, like the pig she is.” He sat Jack on the couch, where the boy folded like stiff cardboard, and knelt with legs on either side of Jack's mother, pressing the knife to her throat.

”Now you keep your eyes open,” said Kev. ”Eyes open, and watching. I'm giving you a lesson, boy.” He loosed the b.u.t.ton fly on his shorts, the knife steady against Jack's mother's neck.

”Don't&” Jack's voice strangled.

Kev pushed the woman's dress up to her waist. ”Did I hear a please, Jackie? Good boys say please.” He grinned, sliding a hand over Jack's mother. She moaned feebly, but didn't try to fight him off. ”That's the lesson,” Kev said, still smiling. ”Teach you again and again, if I must.”

Jack's eyes went vacant, the whites crawling in to blot out the blue, and he began to shake.

”Stop.” Pete reached out and grabbed Kev's knife arm, but he batted her off as if she weighed a kilo. Pete stumbled into the credenza, sending a crack pipe and some gla.s.s figurines cras.h.i.+ng to the floor.

”Don't interfere,” Kev said, leveling his knife at her. ”This isn't your show.” interfere,” Kev said, leveling his knife at her. ”This isn't your show.”

Pete pushed herself up and came at him again, swinging for the hateful smile, and again he pushed her back, lifting her clean off her feet. He was so strong, the strength of a child's nightmare.

”You're not my demon,” Pete said, as Kev pushed the knife tighter against Jack's mother's throat. ”Jack wasn't afraid of you. Jack wouldn't be afraid of a p.i.s.s stain like you, not even then.”

”You're afraid of me, missy,” said Kev with certainty. He looked up and started as he saw Jack standing inches from him, eyes totally white. ”I told you stay put, you little freak!” afraid of me, missy,” said Kev with certainty. He looked up and started as he saw Jack standing inches from him, eyes totally white. ”I told you stay put, you little freak!”

He started to say more, but his throat twitched and closed, and he dropped the flick-knife to claw at his breast over his heart. Robotically, Jack picked up the flick-knife and put the business end into Kev's neck, the arterial blood was.h.i.+ng the wall, Jack, and his mother in a graceful arc. She let out a feeble cry and covered her eyes.

Jack crouched on his heels, watching with unblinking attention until Kev's last ounce of life ran out of him and stained the cheap carpet with wine. ”You're right,” he told Pete finally, his voice thin and not all present. He picked up the flick-knife, cleaned it on his sleeve, and tucked it away. ”I stopped being afraid of monsters. The shadows, the transparent voices I heard& they told me how to keep the monsters back. And I listened. I learned. When did you first feel it, Pete? This was my day.”

”You're not here,” Pete said. ”That much I know. Tell me. Please? I'm running out of time so fast, Jack&”

”I see you,” young Jack said solemnly. ”I see you doomed by your need to help me. You'd rush headlong in front of a train.”

”Into h.e.l.l,” Pete answered.

”What do I do to earn your loyalty?” Jack crossed his thin little arms. ”You s.h.i.+ne.”

”You don't make it easy, that's for b.l.o.o.d.y sure,” Pete said. ”But n.o.body deserves what Treadwell plans, Jack. Not even you.” She touched the little boy on the shoulder, and he winced. ”You don't have such a dark heart as you think, Jack. Hope someday you see that.”

Jack pointed to the locked door, now grown iron and arched, a portal bound up in magic.

”Through there,” he said. ”I'm there. Be careful, Pete.”

”Of what?” she said, standing slowly from the ruin of gla.s.s where she'd landed.

Jack blinked his white eyes. ”You look into Treadwell, not as Jack sees him, but as magic does. And when you do it, he can see you, too, Pete. All of you.”

Pete put both her hands flat on the door. It was cold, a cold of old things with no s.p.a.ce in the real. ”b.l.o.o.d.y wonderful,” she muttered before she put her hands on the ma.s.sive twin latches and pushed the door free.

Chapter Forty-five

Stepping back into a graveyard caused her to stumble, because it was a calm spring night and not the boiling, fiery center of Jack's terrors she'd envisioned.

A gaslight flickered blue, casting the whole scene in black-and-white film, all shades of bright and shadow that danced in time with the flame.

Pete walked across the gra.s.s to a single headstone; crooked and tilted to one side, planted in the earth long enough to get comfortable. Jack stood, his head bowed, hair white in the light of the lamp. He stared down at the gravestone without breathing, without even a wind to move his coat. If not for the cigarette curling smoke slowly upward, he might have been a ghost himself.

Next to him, Pete stopped. ”It's really you, then.”

Jack nodded once, chin tucking down against his chest. Blue slivers of magic sluiced off him, burning away like sparks in the cool air. ”Really here. Just like you.”

The magic glowed all over him, the spirit raven a corona that Pete watched fill up with black as if something had spilled ink across Jack's ghost-form, pulsing and retreating and growing again. The taint caused a physical ache in Pete, a feeling of loss.

”We'd better hurry and get out of here,” Pete said. ”Wake up, or go away from the light, or whatever it is you do& here.”

Jack made a bitter noise in his throat. ”I never asked you to come after me, Pete. You die just like the rest of us.”

Pete felt her mouth open, forced it shut quickly. ”Jack, I didn't endure pain and kidnapping and ma.s.sive internal bleeding so that I could come here and be snarled at. Now come come, before Treadwell finds you.”

”He wants to take my body as a vessel,” Jack said. He raised his head and confronted Pete with a face of hollows behind his cigarette. ”Could you do it, Pete? If Treadwell wore my face? Could you kill him?”

Pete answered without thinking, too quickly. ”No. I could never make my nightmare real, Jack. Not again.”

He sneered. ”Then what good are you?” The cigarette sailed away into the gra.s.s, trailing embers. ”My nightmare is real, Pete. How's your grand plan to save me working so far?” nightmare is real, Pete. How's your grand plan to save me working so far?”

Pete looked at the headstone, realized with a start that the broad letters carved into it were familiar.

Jack Winter Born 15 June Died

But the date was scratched out. Pete faced Jack, reaching for his wrist. ”You're not dead.”

”Might as well be,” he muttered. ”What a life I've led. Every breath, every kick and scream against the p.r.i.c.ks, all down to nothing, just a funeral no one will ever see for a man n.o.body cares about.”

”Oh, b.u.g.g.e.ring f.u.c.k f.u.c.k,” Pete shouted. ”You cannot cannot expect me to believe that you're actually feeling expect me to believe that you're actually feeling sorry sorry for yourself, you stupid sod! Look at me! I've f.u.c.king killed myself over you, and all that time I thought you'd already gone I carried that wound close, never let you fade all the way to memory because you were all I had to convince myself that for yourself, you stupid sod! Look at me! I've f.u.c.king killed myself over you, and all that time I thought you'd already gone I carried that wound close, never let you fade all the way to memory because you were all I had to convince myself that maybe maybe there was something out there beyond living and dying with just gray in between!” She grabbed Jack, shook him, fighting against fingers numb from encroaching pa.s.sage to the land of the dead. there was something out there beyond living and dying with just gray in between!” She grabbed Jack, shook him, fighting against fingers numb from encroaching pa.s.sage to the land of the dead.

”I cared for you so much it nearly drove me mad,” Pete whispered. ”So, you see, you can't leave. You simply can't.”