Book of madness, p.30
Book of Madness, page 30
“Right behind you,” Bad Jack said.
He turned his head to look at Bad Jack, which proved to be a big mistake, as the motion sparked a fresh wave of pain and caused pinpoints of light to dance in his vision. He could still see well enough to make out the man’s features, though. Bad Jack had used his powers to restore his eye as well as to repel the Wraiths that had attacked him. He held the insect that had been tearing his brain to shreds, and raised it to his mouth, bit it in half, chewed, swallowed.
“I have to give every one of you credit,” Bad Jack said. “It was a good effort.”
He popped the remainder of the insect into his mouth and finished it off.
“But now that you’re weakened and your defenses are down, I’ll take what’s mine.”
Bad Jack plunged his hand inside Neal’s chest, and Neal screamed.
Gina had known better days.
She hurt from a dozen different wounds, she had a pounding headache, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get her eyes to quit seeing double. Something was wrong with her right ankle, too. It was twisted for sure, might even be broken. She knew the fight against Bad Jack wasn’t over, and she looked around for the Carapacer, but didn’t see it in her immediate vicinity. She remembered dropping her Nullifier earlier. It wouldn’t be much use against Bad Jack, but it would be better than nothing. If she could find it . . .
She forgot about the Nullifier when she heard Neal scream.
She turned her head toward the sound and saw Bad Jack standing over Neal, his right arm buried up to the elbow in Neal’s chest. Her first thought was that the bastard had killed her friend, but then she realized there was no blood at the point where Bad Jack’s arm had entered Neal’s body, and given how far in the arm was, it should’ve gone all the way through and be sticking out his back. But it wasn’t. Bad Jack’s trying to pull the Umbral out, she realized. Bad Jack couldn’t be allowed to claim the Dark Angel. With the Umbral under his control, Bad Jack would be able to complete his Rondure, and once he could access its incalculable power, he would be unstoppable.
She tried to stand, but a wave of dizziness hit her, and her right ankle refused to bear her weight. She slumped back to the floor in despair. She was in no condition to help Neal. All she could do was sit and watch as Bad Jack tore his soul apart. If only she had some kind of weapon, anything, she could—
Melanie began to stir. Groaning, she withdrew her bleeding tentacles from on top of Juliana—Gina prayed her sister was okay—and rose to her feet.
It’s worth a shot, she thought. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
When she opened them again, her vision was normal, and she was looking at herself sitting several feet away, eyes closed as if she were meditating. She’d done it! She was inside Melanie’s head!
And Melanie would like you to get the fuck out!
She felt Melanie’s consciousness trying to expel her, but she didn’t have time to fight the woman for control. She imagined making a fist and punching the bitch in the jaw as hard as she could. Melanie’s mind fell into unconsciousness, and Gina knew she wasn’t going to have to worry about the woman for a while. She was completely in control now.
Gina rushed toward Bad Jack with inhuman speed and whipped all four of her tentacle arms against the side of his head. The blow sent him flying, and his arm slid out of Neal’s body, leaving no sign that it had been inside him. Bad Jack slammed into a wall, hitting it so hard that the paneling broke, along with the drywall beneath. He fell to the floor and lay still. Neal looked at her for a moment, confusion in his eyes, but then smiled weakly and gave her a thumbs up. Gina smiled back, which make Neal recoil, and she realized she was smiling with Melanie’s face, which no doubt was a disturbing sight.
Gina knew that Bad Jack was too strong for one blow, no matter how hard, to put him down for the count. She raced toward him, intending to grab his head with two of her tentacles, his body with the other two, and then pull in separate directions.
Let’s see how powerful you are when you’ve been decapitated, she thought.
Bad Jack sat up abruptly, and the top half of his body swiveled to face her.
“Good idea—for you.”
Bad Jack gestured and the Umberstone flew through the air and into his hand. An instant later the stone transformed into a reddish-brown battle axe, and Bad Jack hurled it sideways at Melanie.
Gina had time for one last thought before the weapon struck.
Uh-oh.
The axe edge bit into Melanie’s neck. Gina felt the force of the impact, along with the pain of her head being severed from her body. Black blood sprayed from both wounds, and her world spun dizzyingly. Then there was a thump, and rolling, and then stopping. She saw Melanie’s headless body—her body too, at the moment—stand for a moment longer, ebon blood still pumping from the neck, and then collapse to the floor.
Grinning, Bad Jack walked over to Melanie’s head. He bent down to retrieve the axe, and it returned to its original form as a small, polished stone.
“Nice, isn’t it? The stone becomes whatever you need at any given moment—and I so badly needed that axe.” He looked down into Melanie’s unblinking eyes. “I know you’re in there, Gina. You haven’t saved Neal. You’ve only delayed his death. But your death is right on time.”
He lifted one of his booted feet and brought it down fast.
Randal wished he had never touched that goddamned book. Look at all the trouble it had caused!
Of course, if he hadn’t picked up the Insanitarium, the mouth creature that Jess had become would’ve chewed him to death, and he was glad he’d avoided that fate. And the book had helped him free Mama. His mistake had been holding onto the book after that—along with returning to the house. The Maintenance agents had known exactly where to find them, and even traveling to Low Town hadn’t helped, since they’d followed. If he’d left the Insanitarium where the agents would find it and then driven Mama out of town, would the agents have pursued them? Maybe. After all, a number of their people had died when he’d rescued Mama, but the book had been their major concern. The agents would’ve immediately taken it to their headquarters, giving Mama and him time to get far away from Ash Creek.
Mama was right. He really was a fucking idiot.
But if he could get hold of the Insanitarium once more, he could turn things around. He could use its power to get rid of the agents—except Neal, since Daddy wanted the angel inside of him. Randal would show Daddy that he was worthy of being his son, and maybe one day Daddy would teach him how to wield power on his own, without needing a book, and then he could join the Multitude, too. Both Daddy and Mama would be proud of him then—and it would beat the hell out of his current life as a low-level drug dealer to the Shadowers in Ash Creek’s Overlap.
He looked around the room, visually sorting through all the debris. It wasn’t easy. Something was wrong with one of his eyes, and he couldn’t see out of it. He decided to worry about it later, and he continued looking . . . looking . . . There it was! Only six feet away—leathery human-skin binding, title tattooed on the cover in black ink, half covered by one of the sofa cushions that had somehow remained intact when Daddy released his energy blast. He hurried to the book, ignoring the pain from all the shrapnel embedded in his body as he moved.
He picked up the Insanitarium and was about to open it and search for a spell that would allow him to destroy the Maintenance agents when he saw Mama attack Daddy. She ran at him, swatted him away from Neal, started running at him again . . . and then Daddy used the Umberstone—which evidently could change shape, who knew?—turned it into an axe, threw it, and cut off Mama’s head.
He stared in stunned disbelief. He knew couples argued from time to time, but goddamn!
Then it hit him: Mama was dead and Daddy had killed her.
A tidal wave of grief slammed into him. Daddy had been away most of Randal’s life, and Mama had been the only real parent he and Della had ever known. Her tongue could cut like the sharpest knife, but she’d taken care of them as best she could, and that was more than Randal could say for Bad Jack. Fuck that bastard! There had to be a spell in the Insanitarium powerful enough to kill even a being like him. Tears streaming down one side of his face—for some reason his wonky eye didn’t want to cry, either—he opened the book.
Blood fountained from the pages, hung in the air, shaped itself into a crimson version of his sister only two feet tall. Della spoke, her voice thick and wet.
“Fuck you for killing me, you chode!”
She raised her leg, slammed her foot into the big glass shard embedded in his eye, and drove it into his brain. Then she flipped him the bird with both hands.
Sparks of light sputtered along his synapses, and his body began convulsing. The Insanitarium fell from his hands, and when it hit the floor, Della’s blood body collapsed into liquid again, splashing on the pages, running over the sides, spreading onto the floor.
Randal really hated that fucking book.
It was his last thought, and he took it down into eternal night with him.
Neal watched with horror as Melanie’s head—with Gina’s consciousness inside it—was severed from its body. He saw blood spray, saw the head fall, hit, bounce, come to a stop, saw the body slump over.
“No,” he whispered.
He turned quickly to look at Gina’s body. It was still sitting in a meditative position, eyes closed, and looking very much alive. Was it now an empty vessel or had Melanie’s death broken the link between them, sending Gina hurtling back into her own body? He hoped for the latter.
Neal started to go to her, but then his body locked up and refused to obey him. He couldn’t so much as move his eyes, but Bad Jack obligingly stepped into Neal’s line of sight. He still held the Umberstone in his right hand.
“As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve put your body in a timelock. Don’t worry, you can still think, obviously, as well as breathe and blink your eyes. I’m not a complete monster. And the truth is that I can only extract the Umbral from you while you’re alive. If you die, it dies. So, I can’t allow you to suffocate until after I take it. That means you get a few more moments of life. I hope you appreciate them.”
Bad Jack gazed down at the bodies of Melanie and Randal.
“It’s too bad they’re both dead. Then again, I’ve never really been suited for domestic life. And this fucker—” he kicked Randal’s corpse—“killed his own sister to power the Insanitarium. He hid that nasty little fact from his mother. Good thing, because she would’ve ripped his throat out with her teeth if she’d found out. Me, I don’t mind so much. Betrayal’s an art form to the Multitude, as is revenge. So, in a way, I’m very proud of my two dead kiddos. Excuse me a second. I’ve got some cleaning up to do.”
Bad Jack tossed the Umberstone into the air and it remained there, hovering. He then raised his arms and the objects of power he’d gathered—the Deepsoul, the Never-Ever, the Bloodflame, and the Insanitarium—rose from the floor to join the Umberstone. White spheres appeared above them, and each object rose upward and disappeared inside one.
“That’s better,” Bad Jack said. He held out his palm and a sixth sphere appeared in his hand. “Only one left to gather. Did you know that the Multitude are descended from the Umbral?” His brow furrowed. “Or is it the other way around? I can never keep that straight. Oh, well. Brother Nothing tried to fuck up my plans, but he failed. I can’t wait to rub his face in it just before I kill him. All right, let’s get this over with. Prepare to say goodbye to your freeloading hitchhiker, Neal.”
You’re the voice I hear sometimes, Neal thought to the entity inside him. He didn’t expect a reply, but he got one anyway.
Yes.
A chill rippled down his back.
Can you help me stop Bad Jack?
A pause, and then, I don’t have to.
Was the voice referring to Donnie? Neal could just see the man in his peripheral vision, and he still sat with one arm around his legs, his surviving Wraiths hovering close by, waiting for an order. It didn’t look like salvation was coming from that corner. That left only one person.
Peluda had done nothing but watch during the entire battle, but now she walked toward Bad Jack.
“You can’t pull them apart,” she said. “It’s not time yet.”
Bad Jack looked at her as if she were some especially loathsome species of insect.
“I say when it’s time, not some disgusting hybrid like you.”
“Rude,” Peluda said.
Her long brown hair stretched toward Bad Jack, becoming longer and thicker as it went. Strands encircled his wrists and ankles, lifted him several inches off the floor, and pulled his arms and legs outward until he hung in an X position, just like the wound on his face.
“You can’t hold me, child. I am power itself!”
Bad Jack’s eyes flashed with crimson light. When nothing happened, he frowned, and his eyes flashed again, the light brighter and longer this time. Again, nothing happened.
“You can’t hurt me,” Peluda said. “My daddy was a god. A god of small things, but still a god. I’ve brought a present for you.”
Peluda opened her mouth and a torrent of water gushed forth. It shot toward Bad Jack and blasted into his mouth and down his throat. Instantly, he began convulsing in a way that Neal recognized. It had happened to him as well as to Nikole. Peluda’s belly was filled with Lachrimae, and she was now giving it all to Bad Jack. How the child wasn’t affected by the sky tears, Neal didn’t know—maybe because she was a hybrid—but Bad Jack possessed no such immunity. His convulsions became more violent and his eyes rolled white in his head, and Neal tried to imagine what must be going on in the man’s mind as Peluda continued pumping Lachrimae into him.
Each drop was a lost moment in time, captured in all its fullness and intricacy. Experiencing one such moment had almost been too much for Neal to bear. What must it be like for someone—even someone as powerful as one of the Multitude—to experience thousands upon thousands of such moments all at once? Neal almost felt sorry for the bastard. Almost.
Peluda held an impossible amount of Lachrimae within her, and it seemed like she’d ejected an entire ocean by the time she was finished. But as her belly flattened and the last few drops dribbled past her lips, she looked back over her shoulder and shouted, “Now, Uncle Donnie!”
Neal watched as Donnie lifted his head and looked at Peluda, eyes narrowing. His Wraiths drifted closer to him, and Neal thought he could almost hear them whispering. Donnie smiled and life returned to him.
“Yes! Of course!”
He jumped to his feet and ran toward Bad Jack, limp arm flopping at his side, Mortuum Blade held high in his left hand, Wraiths flanking him, as if they were providing an escort. Bad Jack was held captive by Peluda’s hair, convulsing, eyes white. Helpless.
Neal remembered something Bad Jack had said about the crisscross cuts on his face.
This was caused by the Mortuum Blade. The wounds it creates can never be healed, not even by gods.
One good thrust to the heart was all it would take, and then the motherfucker that had killed his parents and sister would finally pay for what he had done. Neal’s only regret was that he couldn’t wield the Blade himself.
Donnie didn’t slow as he drew near Bad Jack, and Peluda moved her hair to make a path for him without letting go of her prisoner. Only a few more inches . . .
Bad Jack’s convulsions stopped, his eyes snapped back into place, and they shone with crimson fire. Donnie froze as a timestop hit him, the tip of the Mortuum Blade halted a fraction of an inch from Bad Jack’s chest. Donnie’s Wraiths were frozen as well, hanging in the air around their master like human-shaped smoke.
Bad Jack laughed in relief.
“Fuck, that was a close—”
He never finished the sentence. Gina hurled herself at his back, driving him onto the Blade. It passed through skin, muscle, and bone with ease and found its mark. Bad Jack’s eyes went wide, he coughed black blood, and then slid off the blade and fell to the floor, dead. Peluda’s hair released him and withdrew toward her, reassuming its normal length.
The instant life left him, the timestops on Neal and Donnie ended, and they could both move again. Donnie had been in motion when the timestop hit him, and he stumbled forward, Mortuum Blade still in hand—right toward Gina. Unable to stop himself in time, he tripped over Bad Jack’s body and fell forward, Blade outstretched. But his Wraiths were unfrozen as well, and they swooped forward, took hold of Donnie’s arms, and steered him to the side. He missed Gina, and—with the Wraiths’ help—came to a stop.
Neal expected the spheres that made up the Rondure to fall to the floor once Bad Jack was dead, but they remained floating in the air as if they saw no reason to start paying attention to gravity now.
“Bad Jack was right,” Gina said. “That was a close one.”
“Aren’t they always?” Neal said.
The Mortuum Blade was black now, as if it had literally absorbed Bad Jack’s Corrupted blood. Neal looked down at the man’s corpse. He was a member of the Multitude, one of the most powerful beings in the Omniverse, and he looked like any other guy who’d been stabbed in the chest. There was nothing special about him at all and, really, there never had been.
