Dead Mans Hand

7:00 A.M.

They waited at the airport all night for the first available flight to Atlanta. Jennifer fell asleep around midnight, but Brennan could not. He sat up all night meditating on a playing card, an ace of spades, left him in a will.

When it was time to board the flight, he slipped it into the breast pocket of his denim jacket where it would be close at hand.

When the door opened, Jay caught a brief glimpse of pale, thin sunlight filtering down from above. Blaise stepped into the cellar, stumbling on the last step, almost tripping over the end of his cloak. The boy looked dead on his feet, his face drawn and pale. He'd been ridden to exhaustion, and beyond.

Sascha stepped forward to remove the heavy felt cloak. "We were concerned for you, master," he said as he undid the ties. "We heard sirens… screams in the night…"

Ezili laughed from the doorway. "The night was magic, Sascha," she said, running a tongue across her lower lip. "Hartmann went mad. We watched it on the television. A circus of blood. Then the jokers went mad, too. We wandered in the park and played with them all night long. No one noticed." She shut the cellar door behind her, and darkness resumed its reign.

"This mount is tired," Ti Malice announced in Blaise's hoarse, weary tones. "It is time to try the other. Bring it." Everyone looked at Jay.

Sascha folded the cloak, set it aside, turned his face toward Jay. There might have been pity in his eyes, if he'd had eyes. He nodded at Charm, and the huge joker shambled forward.

"Can't we talk this over?" Jay asked.

Charm ignored him. Hands gasped his legs, shoulders, feet, and jerked him into the air. Charm flung him over a shoulder, carried him across the cellar. The place still smelled like a butcher shop. Flies swarmed around decaying pieces of human flesh. Charm tossed Jay down on the mattress. Ezili bent over him and kissed him lightly, her lips wet and hot. "Soon," she said., "Prepare it for me," Blaise's voice commanded.

Charm grabbed a handful of Jay's shirt and yanked sharply. The fabric tore with a loud ripping sound, until it got tangled in the jacket.

"Its bonds are in the way," Ti Malice noticed. "Untie it. Strip it."

"Master," Sascha cautioned, "he is dangerous when his hands are free."

"I can't even feel my fucking hands," Jay complained. He tried not to think about what he was thinking about. Sascha picked right up on the thought he was trying not to think. "He thinks he'll have a chance once he's untied."

"Is it afraid?" Ti Malice asked.

"Of you, very much. Of being a mount. And there is some other fear, an older fear…" The telepath frowned. "A dream he's had. You remind him of this nightmare, master."

"Free its hands," Ti Malice said. "This young mount has the power to hold it still."

Charm turned him over, slammed him down into the mattress, and pinned him with a boot while hands fumbled behind his back.

Jay's wrists had been bound for so long he couldn't feel any difference when they were free. Charm kicked roughly at one arm, and it fell heavily to the side. His shoulder shrieked with pain. Roll over and get the hand up, he thought, but Charm was pressing down on him. He couldn't move.

Then something else grabbed him, something stronger and harder and more powerful than Charm's twisted body would ever be.

Blaise's mind.

The foot went away. Jay stirred, but it was Ti Malice who moved his arms, through Blaise. When he rolled over, they were right there, kneeling beside him on the mattress.

The boy was still smiling. His master peered over one bare, bruised shoulder. Jay could hear the faint sucking sound, could see the boy's blood pulsing through pale translucent veins in the creature's glistening flesh.

The boy spoke. "Strip him."

Charm peeled the jacket off Jay's back. It was damp with sweat and spatters of blood. The joker ripped away his shirt. Now he was bare-chested, his throat and neck exposed to the demon's kiss.

"He's trembling," Ezili said. "Trembling for the kiss." Jay felt a faint tingling in his hands. He tried to move them, to make a gun, to point. He couldn't move. Blaise's power and his master's will held him perfectly still. Jay's eyes flicked down to his hands. They were pale, bloodless, his wrists bruised and purple. He looked like he was wearing fish-belly gloves, and there were dark red lines in his skin where the wires had cut deep. He tried to flex his fingers, make the feeling come back. Nothing.

"Master," Hiram said.

He stepped out of the corner, looming over the mattress behind them, his shadow almost as huge as Charm's. Ti Malice looked at him with Blaise's eyes, but Jay couldn't even turn his head. He felt Hiram's presence more than he saw it. His hands were full of pins and needles as his circulation returned.

"Master," Hiram repeated. He sounded frightened. "Please. Let this one go."

"Why?" Ti Malice wanted to know.

The tingling in Jay's hands had begun to turn to pain. The pins and needles were replaced by knives and pincers. He gasped in sudden pain, and the noise made him realize he still had control of his voice. Of course, he thought. Like the centipede man. Ti Malice liked to hear them beg.

"He is… a friend," Hiram said. "I've never asked you for anything before. Please."

Ti Malice turned to Sascha. "What will it do if I take this new mount."

The telepath turned his head toward Hiram. "Nothing," he reported after a moment. "He could never hurt you." Ti Malice turned back to Jay as if Hiram Worchester no longer existed. "Down," he said.

Jay lay down on his side so his master would have easy access to his back and his neck. Blaise stretched out beside him on the mattress. He was so close Jay could smell Ezili on him, close enough for their bare chests to touch lightly, close enough for a kiss.

His hands were on fire, the blood rushing through his fingers like white-hot wires. It was an effort not to faint.

Ti Malice pulled its mouth away from the boy's neck with a soft wet sound. The creature began to wriggle up and over Blaise's shoulder, toward Jay. Its own limbs were stunted. It writhed forward like some huge worm, an inch at a time, tiny three-fingered hands grasping feebly at the boy's flesh for purchase. Blood trickled weakly from the ragged hole it had left behind. Jay forced his eyes away from the horror coming toward him and looked into the boy's eyes. Blaise seemed dazed, lost, and Jay remembered what Hiram had said. When he leaves you, it's like dying. "Blaise," he said urgently. "Let me go."

Those deep violet eyes blinked once, twice, tried to focus. "He…" Blaise said. It was his own voice, his own words, and for a split second Jay dared to hope. "He said… hold you."

He felt the cold wet touch of Ti Malice's flesh on his own as the thing's withered hand pulled at a shoulder. Don't look, Jay told himself. Like in the dream. Don't ever look up at the moon; if you do, you're lost. He had dreamed that dream a thousand times; he knew better than to look.

He looked.

The creature's mouth was round, like the mouth of a fish, and as it slid forward in jerks and starts, its tongue moved in and out. Its tongue was round, too, flushed with blood, red and glistening, like some obscene blind snake.

Its eyes were wise and cruel and terrible.

Blaise was fucking hopeless. "Hiram!" Jay screamed. Hiram's voice came from a long way away. "I can't hurt him."

Ti Malice's atrophied legs kicked feebly at Blaise's face as it moved off the boy and onto Jay. It must have kicked too hard. Blaise winced. For a moment, Jay felt his fingers flex.

The thing was crawling across him, his flesh crawling beneath it. But there was something important… "Shit!" Jay said.

"Master!" Sascha cried out in alarm.

Jay drowned out his warning with a shout. "Hiram!" he screamed. "Hurt Blaise, dammit. Hurt Blaise!"

Hiram kicked the boy in the head.

Charm was stumbling forward, Ezili, Sascha, but they were all late, too late. Jay had his body back. He rolled to one side and came down flat on his back, with Ti Malice clinging to his chest, thrashing as frantically as a worm impaled on a hook.

His hand came up, but his fingers were like wood.

Ti Malice slithered up his chest, looking straight down into his eyes.

Jay folded back three fingers, stuck one out, lifted his thumb, tried to point. His hand was shaking.

The blind snake came coiling out.

Jay stuck a shaking finger into Ti Malice's eye. There was a short, crisp pop.

Jay felt a sharp pain, and blood began to spurt from the hole in his neck, but he hardly noticed. The weight was off his chest.

Ezili screamed.

"Oh, God," Sascha said.

Blaise began to weep uncontrollably.

And behind him, he heard Hiram Worchester say, very softly, "It's over."