Jack Yeovil - Krokodil Tears

His grip on Jesse's neck relaxed.

The Ancient Adversary slipped through the meat-thing, and into the Vessel. Enfleshed, it was overwhelmed by the sensations of the world.

Hawk's song ended, and he stood, watching in awe as the transformation took place.

Jesse felt fire burst inside her heart, spreading through her body. The weight was gone from her back, and she could move again. She wiped the remaining glass out of her face. She felt her wounds closing over.

In her mind, she was a long-jawed reptile, fastening rows of teeth into a struggling hog, refusing to let him go.

Jessamyn Bonney faded to nothing inside her own brain, and the new tenant took over.

Lashing as if she had a tail, she turned over, and held fast to the hog.

Dr Proctor gulped as Jesse grabbed his throat. His aria was stopped. He saw something new in her eye as she stood up, taking him with her.

He struck her, but his well-aimed blows were feeble. She ignored whatever pain she felt.

She was changing.

For the first time, Dr Ottokar Proctor considered the possibility of his own death. It was not a pleasant thought.

What if the sheep lived on somehow? What if they were waiting for him on the other side? Once he was dead, what could they not do to him?

Jesse opened her mouth, and roared. Dr Proctor thought he saw endless rows of needle-sharp teeth.

The shadow was gone, and they were struggling in the sun.

Hawk-That-Settles crossed his legs, and watched the end. The sounds coming from Jesse's mouth were barely human. Dr Proctor was quiet now, nearly unconscious. It was a good day to end it.

The Ancient Adversary and the Vessel were inside one another like a snake swallowing its tail. Both changed as they flowed together. It adjusted fast to the comforts and discomforts of physical form. Her spirit swelled as the being from the Outer Darkness combined with every particle of her body.

Jazzbeaux, Bonney, Jessamyn, Jesse, Frankenstein's Daughter. She flipped through her names, her faces, her identities. They were all faint now, indistinct.

And yet the Ancient Adversary was fading too, diluted by the strength of the Vessel.

It had never been a crocodile. That came from somewhere else, giving it the rudiments of a form.

She had never really been any of the people others had thought her, never felt comfortable with her own picture of herself.

Now she was something harder, as sharp and bright as a diamond. Jessamyn Bonney was dead.

She was something else…

Dr Proctor gave up the struggle, and hung limp in her embrace. She had spared his spine, but snapped his mind.

Psychiatrists had debated his sanity at length. He had joined in their arguments as a way of amusing himself back in Sunnydales. He had had no opinion either way.

Now, he drooled a thin line of spittle. Inside his head, the last bars of Lucia di Lammermoor faded away. The iris closed over Porky Pig.

They would have no question to solve now. If he hadn't been mad when he left the asylum, he certainly would be if they took him back.

She dropped him, not even bothering to administer a killing blow. Whatever she had become, she couldn't be bothered with crushing insects under her feet.

In Salt Lake City, Elder Nguyen Seth screamed, as if icicles had been jabbed into his brain. Within him, talons curved, digging deeper into his heart. The Ancient Adversary was upon the Earth, and the Dark Ones were angry. He staggered from the font of blood, pain coursing through his entire body, and made his agonized way to the isolation chamber. The tank was always ready.

He felt the pull of the Outer Darkness, the call of his masters. Their wrath was terrible.

The tank opened, and Seth, his robes dropped to the floor, hauled himself in. The lid descended like the slab of a tomb, and the fluid seeped in, lapping around his tormented body. He fumbled with the life-support monitor electrodes, pinning them to his flesh with little fishhooks. The warm waters rose.

Seth sank into himself, and his pain was eased.

Hawk-That-Settles got up and walked over. He was not sure what Jesse was now, but she had defeated the Devil. She stood over him, bearing the fallen creature no malice.

For a moment, he thought her face green and long, with eyes on the sides and dripping teeth. Then she was herself again, bleeding a little, her one eye clear.

"Jesse…"

She turned to look at him. She didn't recognize him for a moment. Then, she smiled.

"No, you're…you're not Jesse."

She shrugged and turned away.

It was becoming clearer.

"What have you done to her?"

She turned. She spoke in her own voice. "Nothing, Hawk. I'm different, but I'm still me."

"And who's me?"

Dr Proctor rolled away, and lay face up, staring at the sun.

"Me? I'm your Jesse, Hawk."

"No, you have enacted the prophecy of the Moon and the Crocodile. You can be named Jesse no more."

"So, I'll take a new name, like one of those ghetto kids trying to be a Russian musickie."

Hawk was afraid of this new Jesse, but he fought his fear.

"I shall call myself…"

There was no cloud in the sky now.

"…Krokodil."

Joaquin Salazar took off his straw hat and rubbed his sweaty forehead with an oily rag, squinting in the noonday sun. Hawk-That-Settles checked the cartons Joaquin had brought out to Santa de Nogueira in his battered pick-up. Canned goods, mostly, and twenty five-litre plastic containers of guaranteed pure-ish water.

"Will she sit up there all day?" Joaquin asked, peering up at the figure squatting on the roof of the chapel.

"Maybe," Hawk shrugged. "Help me get the water inside before it boils in this heat."

"Sure thing, Senor."

Hawk picked up two containers, and humped them into the main hall of the monastery.

The hollow man was inside, just sitting at the table, carving intricate statuettes of cartoon characters with a pocketshiv.

"Ottokar," Hawk said. "Give us a hand."

Dr Proctor looked up, smiled and went out to help Joaquin without saying a word.

Sometimes, Hawk felt he was sharing Santa de Nogueira with a pair of voiceless robots. Krokodil sat on the roof all day and all night, looking to the horizon. Dr Proctor made his carvings. And Hawk-That-Settles looked after the pair of them.

When the water was safely stowed in the perpetually shaded depths of the building, and Joaquin was loaded up with last month's empties, the Mexican deliveryman drove off. He was obviously uncomfortable around the monsters, and wouldn't even consider Hawk's offer of tequila.

Hawk was drinking more now. It was the boredom. That was what had nudged Two-Dogs-Dying towards the bottle on the Reservation. Hawk couldn't get enough tequila brought out to Santa de Nogueira to keep him as drunk as his father had usually been, but he rationed his supply carefully and usually managed to keep the fug in his brain and the fire on his tongue.

Hawk watched Joaquin go. He couldn't remember whether Krokodil or Dr Proctor had spoken at all this month. Joaquin was probably the only person he ever had a conversation with these days. And Indians were supposed to be iron-willed men of few words and many deeds.

The pick-up zig-zagged across the desert, keeping to the rocky patches and away from the treacherous sands. On his first trip out, Joaquin had brought his sons and taken away Dr Proctor's sandcat and all its contents. That had been enough to cover six months provisions. The Salazar family were probably the highest-charging grocery service in the world, Hawk suspected. Last month, Joaquin had announced that the funds generated by the sandcat were at an end, and Hawk had had to hand over the DeLorean Agency tank Krokodil had been driving when they first met. He had negotiated nine months worth of food and water in return for a machine that, with all its inbuilt weapons systems, should pick up twenty or thirty million dollars when smuggled down into Mexico and sold to some would-be generalissimo. When the nine months were up, Hawk didn't know what he would do. By then, he hoped Krokodil would have decided the time had come to return to the world and they could rob a few yakuza filling stations for a grubstake. If not, he would have to fashion a bow and arrows and go out for desert game. He had eaten a catrat or two in his time, but had no wish to revert to the diet. Also, he was a terrible shot.