George Martin - Dead Mans Hand

"The fire?" Brennan asked.

"No. The Crystal Palace was destroyed, but there were actually very few injuries from the fire. It seems that half the staff was up all night partying with the rest of Jokertown, and the other half is being run ragged trying to treat the results of that partying."

"Partying?" Brennan asked. "Why?"

"Oh, I guess you couldn't have heard. Senator Hartmann was nominated for the presidency last night. All of Jokertown's gone Hartmann crazy."

Somewhere in the darkness, the voices were arguing. "It's not fair," the first voice said. "We need the kiss, too. He spends so much time with him. How long is he going to keep us waiting?"

"As long as he desires," the second voice said. "It is not our right to question the master's comings and goings. Ti Malice does things in his own time, for his own reasons."

"We ought to kill them both," the first voice said. "They're dangerous."

"No," said a third voice, a woman's voice, "not these sweet ones. The master will want to taste them, to ride them, to feel them beneath him. The master will want to hear them scream."

That was enough to open Jay's eyes.

"What about us?" He saw the centipede man pacing, his voice high and nervous. "What if he likes them better than us? We'll never get the kiss. I can't stand it when he goes off."

Jay lay facedown on a decaying, foul-smelling couch, his head turned to one side, arms tied behind his back. At least he hoped they were tied behind his back; he couldn't feel them anymore, and when he tried to move his fingers, there was only numbness. The upholstery smelled of piss. His head was pounding, and his ribs screamed at the slightest motion. He was still in the same dank cellar. He could see an old hot-water heater a few feet away, its pipes eaten by rust. Beyond it was a second room, larger than the one he was in, where shadowy figures waited in the faint light that poured through grime-encrusted windows. Jay tried to count them, but there were too many, some of them moving around. When he tried to concentrate, his skull felt like it was about to split open.

He must have groaned, or whimpered, or somehow given away the game. The argument stopped suddenly, and he heard footsteps. Rough hands turned him over toward the ceiling. Sascha stood above him. The telepath looked a little worse for wear. His hands were trembling, and strands of dark hair were plastered to his pale forehead with sweat.

"What," Jay said. It was all he could manage. His lips and throat were dry and raw. "What," he repeated.

"Get him some water," Sascha said.

A moment later, Ezili knelt beside him, holding a glass to his lips. Her hands were hot, but the water was cool and Jay gulped it down greedily and let it run over his lips and chin. "Suck," Ezili whispered in his ear, laughing, and Jay could smell her, and feel the heat that came off her skin in waves.

"You should never have followed us to Atlanta," Sascha said.

Jay sputtered through the last of the water. "My arms," he managed. "The ropes… cutting off my circulation. Let me loose."

"I'm blind, not stupid," Sascha said. "You can't use your power with your hands tied. You need to point your finger, to make believe your hand is a gun."

"He's trying to trick us." The human centipede stepped up behind Sascha. He was tall and stooped, hunched over like a question mark, his face a pinched afterthought on a narrow hairless head. All his arms were grotesquely long and thin, skin pulled taut over bone and muscle. But there were so many of them. "I told you he was dangerous," the joker said. "Kill him." He had a long serrated knife in one of his myriad hands.

"No," Sascha said. "He's too valuable."

"A treasure," Ezili whispered.

"You know how the master feels about aces," Sascha said. "Ask the others!" the centipede man insisted.

"Do I get a vote?" Jay wanted to know.

Ezili laughed, and Sascha turned his eyeless face toward Jay. "You'd vote for life," he said solemnly. "Stupid." His fingers rubbed idly at a large scab on the side of his neck.

"You've been a bad boy," Ezili said teasingly. "What did you do to them, eh? All our lovely friends…"

"I told you," Sascha said. "He teleported them away. To New York City."

"The master will be angry," Ezili said. She ran a finger lightly down Jay's cheek, delicately circled his ear. "So many mounts, gone. You'll have to be punished."

"The master," Jay repeated. "Who's that? Hartmann?" Ezili looked at him blankly.

"The Puppetman," Jay said, remembering the name Tachyon had used. The centipede glanced at Sascha in confusion. "Is that what this is all about?" Sascha said. "You poor sad fool. You have no idea what you've blundered into." He gave a short, sharp laugh that had no humor in it. "But then again, few of us did," he added bitterly.

"I want to play with him," Ezili said. Her hand worked at his belt and slid into his pants.

"Not tonight, honey," Jay said weakly. "I've got a headache." Ezili smiled and took her hand off his cock. "When he kisses you," she whispered, "then you will be mine again. He likes to have the new mounts fuck me. He will ride you and you will ride me."

"Some fun," Jay said.

Ezili ran her tongue across her lower lip. There was a scab on her neck, too.

Jay had seen it before, the night they'd balled on her carpet, but he'd forgotten about it. Now it was right there in front of him, an old sore, crusted over with a scab, just like Sascha's.

He looked up at the centipede. The hole in his neck was open and raw, the skin around it red and inflamed.

All of them, Jay thought wildly Not joker terrorists or militant Hartmann fanatics but… something else. Something terrible.

His stomach clenched inside him, and again he had a sick feeling of vertigo and a sense of unspeakable dread, as if he had just dropped into his nightmare.

"You won't get away with this," Jay said with all the bravado he had left. "Blaise will tell them what happened. They'll come after you

… Tachyon, Hiram…" He tried to think of who else might come looking for him, and couldn't come up with any names. "I'm a popular guy, Sascha," he finished weakly. "They're not going to let you fuck around with me."

Ezili thought that was hilarious. Her laughter was almost hysterical. The centipede joined in.

"The boy won't be telling anybody anything," Sascha said almost sorrowfully. He reached down and grabbed the front of Jay's shirt and jerked him upright to a sitting position. "There."

Behind the sofa, a monstrous shape filled the gray shadows along the wall. In the dimness, Jay saw arms, tendrils, claws, flesh twisting into flesh. And eyes… It wasn't until the creature moved that Jay recognized the Siamese quint.

Blaise was slumped unconscious on a mattress at its feet, wrist and ankle shackled to nearby pipes. His face was battered and bruised, and dried blood had caked over one eye, sealing it shut.

All Jay could think was that Dr. Tachyon was going to be really pissed.

Noon

Brennan headed immediately to Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. As he crossed Jokertown he could observe the tail end of the mass party that Finn had told him about. Drunks were still staggering about the street wearing HartmannJackson campaign buttons. Hartmann banners festooned practically every building, having appeared magically overnight like mushrooms sprouting after a rain. Hartmann posters were stapled to every flat surface. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing his smiling face. His omnipresence was almost eerie, and for the first time Brennan felt some misgivings about such an uncritical, overwhelming passion.

Father Squid was still conducting Mass, so Brennan slipped in the back of the church and waited, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The joker sitting in the pew next to him glanced over once, saw the state of Brennan's clothing, then decided that it was far more important to pay attention to what was happening with the Mass than stare at the bloodstained nat who'd sat down beside him.