Dead Mans Hand

4:00 A.M.

The nightmare came again. The woods, the steps, the cone-faced thing turning, turning…

Jay woke in darkness, screaming.

"Jay?" a deep voice asked. "Are you all right?"

Dimly, through the dark of the cellar, he could see Hiram looming above him, a vast shadow. Jay struggled against his bonds, gave it up, slumped back with a groan.

"No," he said in a hoarse whisper. Ti Malice had been gone for hours. "I'm not all right. I'm tied up in this stinking cellar, I had to watch some poor bastard rip himself apart with his bare hands, Blaise is out doing God knows what, and in a little while a giant maggot is going to fasten itself to my neck and suck my blood, so I'm not all right."

Somewhere in the middle of that Jay's whisper had turned into a scream. He heard Charm stir, woken from sleep. Then the joker began to sing "The House of the Rising Sun." It was just what Jay needed.

Hiram sat on a corner of the old sofa, shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry," he said weakly. "If there's anything I can do…"

"You can untie me," Jay said quickly.

"Sascha would know the moment I began," Hiram said helplessly.

"So?" Jay said. "What's Sascha going to do? Charm's strong, but you're an ace, dammit. You can handle him. This is the best chance we're going to get. Once my hands are free-"

"I can't, Jay," Hiram said, cutting him off in a voice thick with despair. " I would if I could, but… Jay, I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen, you have to believe that."

"I believe it," Jay said gently. Hiram sounded weary, and heartsick, and full of pain. There was a long silence. "How long?" Jay finally asked.

"A year and a half," Hiram replied. "It happened on the tour. In Haiti. Ezili was his lure. I deluded myself into thinking I was seducing her, but of course it was the other way around. Afterward, when I'd dozed o$; she opened the door, and the master took me in my sleep. Once I was his, he used me to smuggle him into the United States. I had money, influence. It wasn't difficult at all."

"This is your chance to break free," Jay urged. "Use it." "It's been the ruin of many a poor boy,'Charm sang softly. "And me, by God, I'm one."'

Hiram could not look at him. He shook his head. "Untie me," Jay whispered. "That's all you need to do. Simple. I'll handle the rest, just get my hands free. You don't even have to watch. I'll pop you to the Jokertown Clinic, you can get treatment for… for whatever he's done to you. Do it now, Hiram. We don't know how much time we have left."

"You'd hurt him," Hiram said. His voice broke. "You don't understand… his kiss, it's like… words can't describe it, Jay. When you're part of him, it's as though you're alive, for the first time in your life. You feel such intense pleasure. Food, drink, sex, even the simple act of breathing, it all becomes intoxicating… but when he leaves you, when he moves to another mount… that's like dying, Jay. The world turns gray, and after a week or so, the physical withdrawal sets in. You can't imagine the pain. You crave him. It's a hunger, and if it's not fed…" He looked up, his eyes imploring understanding. "Besides, he's not evil, not the way you and I understand it. Without his mounts, he'd die. He needs us, just as we need him. It's just that his morality is… different than ours."

"In New York," Jay said, "after Sascha had run to Atlanta with your little pal, I found a torture chamber in his apartment. Not to mention a body in his bathroom."

"Yes," Hiram said. He looked away again. "A mount. One of the jokers." His voice was so low that Jay could barely hear it over Charm's singing. "Sometimes… pain is different from pleasure, he says, but just as… as interesting. The sensations of death are… especially… especially…"

"I got it. He tortures his more expendable mounts to death to get a few jollies, right? But he's not bad, just misunderstood." He snorted. "Hiram, that thing defines evil."

For a long time, Hiram Worchester said nothing. There was only Charm's guttural singing from the next room. But finally Hiram's lips moved, so weakly that Jay did not catch the words.

"What?" he whispered.

Hiram turned his head. "Foul… oh God, Jay, you don't know what it's been like… so many times, I just wished for it to be over… that he'd kill me the next time… but I'm too powerful, you see. I'm an ace. He wants aces… wants the powers… I'll never be free. And you… it'll be the same…"

"No way," Jay said. "Hiram, don't let him take me."

"I can't hurt him! I told you."

"Then hurt me," Jay said. "Kill me, if it comes to that. But don't let him take me." He never thought he'd hear himself beg for death, but his flesh was crawling at the very thought of Ti Malice. It would be like his nightmare, but this time he would never wake, this time it would go on and on forever.

Hiram Worchester stared at him with sudden wonder on his broad face. "Kill you," he murmured. His fingers flexed, closing slowly into a fist, then opening again. "He would be angry, Jay… so very angry, you can't imagine. Perhaps… perhaps then he might… free me."

Jay knew what he meant by "free."