Paint it Black, page 36
“The doctor said to kill her,” said another thug, a thick-set young man with a nose broken once too many times to remain handsome.
“Look at her,” said Bolton. “We might not have to. Looks like the process is taking care of it for us.”
The hurricane-force wind flattening her into the wall bucked and shifted, pulling away suddenly into a great, sucking vacuum that ripped her from the wall and hurled her across the room, knocking Bolton and three of the others down. The last her body wrapped around and carried with her, cushioning her from the impact against the wall. She felt his bones cracking on impact. The Influence crushed her into a heap on the ground, leaving him to slump to the floor, blood pouring from his mouth.
Don’t let him be dead, she thought, part of her appalled that the thought came not out of care for another human being, but out of fear that his death might taint her, forcing the Lords and Ladies to make her vanish without trace.
Whispers arose in her ears, voices filled with anger and bile, railing against the injustices the universe perpetrated against them, moaning and wailing at the agonies they suffered, whispers harsh and jarring like the sound of an electric drill, screeching as it bored into steel, that put her nerves on edge. At any other time, it might be an edge that frayed her and pulled her apart, but here it was the prick of a thousand needles, the slice of a scalpel anchoring her to where she was, a thread she could use to drag herself back from becoming lost in the turbulence of Influence. Steeling herself, she pulled herself up to her feet.
“Holmes,” said Bolton. “Get in there.”
The other woman, brown hair pulled back into a tight bun, eyebrows two dark slashes against pale skin, launched herself at Gosha, crossing the gap between them in three long strides before Gosha, wobbly on her feet, could ground herself or raise her arms in protection. The woman swept an arm out wide as she ran forward, striking Gosha with the force of a poker, and caught Gosha’s neck in the crook of her elbow, swinging around behind her to catch her in a choke hold, but Gosha had trained with Alfie enough times to know the escape deep in her bones. She twisted into the woman’s arm, turning to face her as she yanked herself down out of the grip and pushed her away, but the woman struck out with a punch that connected to Gosha’s temple and made her see stars. Holmes didn’t give Gosha a chance to recover, grabbing her by the throat and spinning her around into the choke hold again, this time threading one leg between Gosha’s, throwing her off her balance. They fell back, Gosha lying on the woman, their legs entangled as she held Gosha fast and applied pressure, cutting off the flow of blood to her brain.
The shock and outrage that fired through Gosha’s synapses caught the attention of the turbulent Influence. It listened, surging around her in a whirlwind. Gosha willed herself up off the floor, out of the woman’s grasp, but Holmes held tight as the Influence lifted them both up, all the way up until the vinyl tiles of the dropped ceiling pressed against her face. She pushed with every ounce of emotion and will she had, commanding the Influence to drive her back down. They went down hard, Holmes’ body taking the brunt of the impact herself. Gosha felt the woman’s ribs crack and her arms go limp.
The shock of the attack knocked Gosha back to her senses. Even though the cacophony of whispers in her head grew louder and the ambient Influence buffeted her relentlessly, making it hard to stand, she didn’t waste time getting to her feet.
“Lane, Garner,” said Bolton, sending the other two thugs at her. “Use the batons.”
The woman and man, she with the short blond hair and he with the mangled nose, pulled their batons from the holsters strapped to their legs and moved toward Gosha. As they approached, circling her warily, they both flipped switches on the batons, bringing them to life. The cacophony of voices in her head receded, replaced by a deep humming, as if all the whispers had decided at once to form a choir. The sound was rich and beautiful, drawing Gosha into it and calming the surge of Influence that battered her. The humming voices began to sing words in unison, at first too softly to make out. Even though the thugs grew closer, ready to attack, she felt compelled to listen to the beautiful monotonic sound.
“Run,” they sang. “Run. Flee, flee. Protect yourself, protect yourself. Save yourself, save yourself, save yourself.”
The chanting was so beautiful, she lost herself in it, becoming oblivious to her surroundings and missing the squash-nosed thug when he lunged at her and poked his baton into her abdomen.
Her nerves lit up and overloaded, her body contracting as if a gun had gone off next to her head, her adrenals pumping so much adrenaline so fast into her bloodstream, her heart palpitated as if she might faint. The baton touched her for less than a second. When it withdrew, the surge abated, but her body still shook. She understood the voices now. They were responding to the batons somehow, singing out the effect they would create when they touched her, probably reacting to the cards that charged them.
The blonde lunged forward to have a go at her from the other side, but Gosha was ready. Another strike might give her heart failure, but the after-effects of the first hit had shaken her awake better than any cup of Elsie’s most potent tea. Untamed Influence still raged around her, but now her mind was sharp and her wits were gathered.
Gosha pulled back just far enough, no farther than the width of a cotton tea towel, that the bulbous head of the baton missed her, but leaving the blonde’s arm within Gosha’s reach. Gosha twisted and grabbed her wrist, pulling her between Gosha and squash-nose. Gosha brought her elbow down hard on the blonde’s straightened elbow. The joint cracked, and she dropped the baton, though it was still attached to her by a spring-wire cable.
“This one has killed seventeen,” chanted the voices in Gosha’s head. “She drinks herself to sleep for fear of the souls of her victims that torment her dreams.”
As Gosha jabbed her elbow into the blonde’s temple, her vision blurred as if the woman became transparent, and Gosha could see into her head. A shining bubble about the size of one of Timothy’s beloved gobstoppers radiated purple light at the center of her skull.
“Twist her,” said the chorus, “and she will crumble in despair. Twist her and the dead will take her. Release the despair within her. Release the anguish she seeks to escape.”
The raging waves of Influence picked up Gosha’s curiosity and coiled themselves around her. A tendril lashed out at the purple bubble and squeezed it until it burst. Purple light seeped out from it through the blonde’s body in esoteric veins and arteries that darkened to black.
All of this happened in a fraction of an instant. A strangled groan gurgled out of the blonde’s mouth and she fell to the floor, one arm limp from Gosha’s strike, the other clutching herself as she curled up into a fetal ball, her eyes blank in an expression of inner torment.
With no time to be appalled at what she’d done, Gosha pulled back as the squashed-nose thug came at her again, slashing his baton before him like a saber, forcing her to flinch and duck out of his way and leaving no gap for her to launch her own attack.
“This one,” chanted the chorus, “thinks himself a sexual hunter that exults in the stalking of his prey, but he is nothing but a rapist who thrives on holding power over women.”
Her vision blurred again, and she saw the shining bubble within his skull.
“Twist him,” chanted the chorus, “and the contempt and scorn of his fellow soldiers who bullied him relentlessly during the term of his National Service will crush him. Release the despair within him. Release the anguish he seeks to escape.”
Though the idea repulsed her, Influence coiled itself around her and lashed out before she could stop it, crushing the shining bubble. As it burst and the purple light seeped through him and darkened, he stopped dead in his tracks and dropped the baton, his arms falling limp at his sides. Shock spread across his face as he crumbled to his knees and clutched his head as if to protect himself from the blows of an unseen attacker.
Gosha’s struggles with Bolton’s thugs had led her to the other side of the room, Bolton watching her through the partitions. Bolton curled her lip in a half smile and reached a hand to a brass cuff around her wrist, sliding a lever on it and spinning a dial.
“Treachery,” sang the chorus, “treachery. Betrayal, betrayal. The body fails, the blood congeals, the cells revolt and divide.”
As Bolton rounded the partitions to get closer to Gosha, she spread out the hand that wore the cuff and clicked open Gosha’s switchblade, ready to use it against her.
“This one is cold,” sang the chorus. “This one kills without mercy and feels no remorse. This one has no inner life, no love has ever warmed her heart—”
Gosha didn’t even wait for the chorus to finish its litany. When her vision blurred and Bolton’s shining bubble revealed itself to her—this one less a bubble, more a pinprick of light—she hurled every ounce of Influence she could at her. It didn’t so much crush the bubble as obliterate it entirely. Bolton’s brow furrowed with confusion. Her eyes flickered as if hearing voices, then rolled into the back of her head as she crumpled to the floor.
Gosha slumped against the wall to catch her breath and tried to shut out the chorus as it chanted on in the back of her mind, singing the effects of the still-active batons and Bolton’s cuff. She pulled herself together, holding her thoughts close for fear that the raging Influence might pick up the slightest wish or intention and try to fulfill it for her, and walked over to Bolton to retrieve the switchblade.
Ironic, she thought as she clicked it shut and slipped it into the pocket of her leather jacket. If they’d just left me alone, the monster’s Influence would probably have killed me. Giving me something to fight saved my life.
44
She stepped out into the rabbit warren of corridors and offices. She could hear activity echoing in the distance, but Dropnick and his people had cleared out of the immediate vicinity, leaving Bolton and her thugs to take care of Gosha.
The pressure of what to do next overwhelmed her, riveting her feet to the floor and paralyzing her with too many alternatives, none of them good, that clamored for her attention. She’d stopped Dropnick from becoming a saint, but he was already preparing another attempt that would mean her death if he succeeded; Alfie was somewhere in this chamber of horrors being brainwashed into becoming a living bomb; and she had somehow become a saint, of Anguish and Despair, no less. The magnitude of her recklessness battered into her with all the strength of the Influence that still blustered around her. How could she have been so foolish? Now she was bound to this atrocity of a sphere Dropnick had created. Her only hope was to find a way to use the Influence of a different Sphere to confound her oath and complete another Betrayal. And it had to happen quickly. Once the oath settled and the turmoil of the transition calmed itself, she didn’t know if a Betrayal would be possible.
Okay, she thought, and cracked her knuckles. First Dropnick, then Alfie, then find a way to get this monster off my back.
Something heavy clunked to the ground to her right in the distance. She headed off in that direction, but only made it a few feet before footsteps approached. She ducked into an empty office to hide.
The chorus of voices chanted in the back of her head, singing the effects of devices carried by whoever approached, but, from the litany, their function was merely technical, offering the user some form of protection from adverse side effects and the ability to manipulate their infernal technology.
“TAKE THEM!”
The moth-lord’s voice boomed in her head, obliterating all thought.
“ADD THEM TO MY HOST. FILL ME WITH THEIR DESPAIR, I COMMAND YOU! SERVE ME! READY ME FOR THE GREAT FIGHT, THE GREAT STRUGGLE AGAINST THOSE WHO OPPOSE ME. YOU ARE MY SQUIRE AND STEWARD. PERFORM YOUR DUTIES AS YOU HAVE SWORN.”
Her vision blurred and through the wood and pebbled glass she could see three shining, purple bubbles passing by.
“TAKE THEM!”
Influence rose up around her, readying itself to attack, but she resisted. The three people on the other side of the wall might not be innocents, but she wasn’t about to crush their souls just because a crazed avatar of misery demanded it.
“TAKE THEM!”
She lost control.
Without warning, she was no longer the master of her own body. She felt the presence of the moth-lord, a vast, unimaginable weight of personality larger than any human could generate or sustain. It forced itself into her, displacing her from her body to look down upon herself from above. Influence lashed out in tendrils from her new, psychospiritually engorged self and ripped the door from its hinges.
The moth-lord stepped her body out into the corridor as the three technicians, pale young men in lab coats, turned back to see the commotion. They each wore an eyepiece, a delicate brass frame around a lens attached to a mount secured behind one ear. The eyepieces must have enhanced their perception. Their faces twisted with horror at the sight of her. They turned to run, but thick tentacles of Influence reached into their heads and crushed the shining bubbles, the contents spreading out through their bodies in dark, noxious veins. They froze in place, eyes wide, crazed by whatever psychological wound the moth-lord unleashed in them.
“MORE! I WILL HAVE MORE!”
The moth-lord forced her body through the rabbit warren, following a twisting path that led to more people, each of whom it effortlessly crushed, ranting and raving all the while. It didn’t matter if they were technicians or armed guards. It didn’t matter that they wore devices designed to protect them from errant use of Influence, as the chanting chorus diligently announced. They all fell before her. Word spread quickly about what was happening, shouts going up all around as squads of armed guards flooded at her, all falling to the moth-lord, who pushed her ever forward until they reached a room identical to the chamber of coffin-pods Gosha had been trapped in.
The chamber was full of people, technicians working hurriedly to put acolytes, their auras muted by the same devices used against their saints strapped to their chests, into the pods. Gosha recognized Bonita Fascinante and Bowie Blades out of drag, disheveled and listless, and other acolytes from Bar de Bauche and the meeting hall of the Convocation of Saints.
“Now!” shouted a voice as the moth-lord stepped her body into the chamber.
Everyone stopped what they were doing at the sight of her and backed away as the crackle and hum of electrical generators powering up filled the room. Her body froze rigid. In a tumble of disorientation, she found herself back in it looking out through her own eyes. She was completely unable to move. Not even her eyeballs obeyed her as static electricity prickled across her skin. In the periphery of her vision she could make out telescoping tripods placed around her with brass globes atop them.
“Stay, stay,” chanted the chorus, announcing the effect of the globes. “Be held, be held. This place shall be your prison. You shall not move, you shall not move.”
A dozen armed guards and cheap-suited thugs with batons and brass disks strapped to their palms emerged from behind equipment containers and trained their weapons on her.
“TREACHERY! PERFIDY! DECEIT!”
The moth-lord still raged, but the booming power of its voice lost its edge.
“FREE ME, SLAVE, THAT I MAY CONSUME THESE UNBELIEVERS!”
Ironic that the people who had destroyed so many lives to create the moth-lord were now so afraid of it. Served them right.
With her body held fast by the globe devices, she couldn’t tell if the moth-lord still had control over her. It hardly made a difference now, but once they turned the prison off, she had to make sure she had control over her own body. The moth-lord had responded to strength before. Perhaps she could bluster her way through to getting it to release her.
Listen, buster!
Formulating thoughts to speak to someone in her head came more easily than she expected, not entirely unlike having a conversation over the Devil’s Star.
I pledged fealty to you, but I am no one’s slave!
“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME THIS WAY! I AM YOUR LORD. I AM YOUR MASTER. I AM YOUR BEGINNING AND YOUR END!”
Yes, you absolutely are my end. You’re the reason we’re stuck here. You’re the one who blundered into this trap.
A moment passed before the moth-lord’s voice boomed again, still strong enough to blot out all other thought.
“INSOLENCE! YOU ARE MINE TO DO WITH AS I WILL.”
Yes, and what you’re doing is getting us both annihilated. You chose me to be your champion. Back off and let me get on with it!
“I AM THE SOURCE OF ALL ANGUISH, THE FONT OF ALL DESPAIR—”
To cut the moth-lord off took the kind of mental strength required to corral a room full of ten-year-old boys into the kitchen to eat their tea. Luckily, she had a lot of experience.
O great and mighty lord, your street cred is not in question, but human beings are cunning and devious. They are creatures of the basest and vile instincts. How else would they have been able to lure you into their snare? Use me by allowing me to match them treacherous act for treacherous act. Allow me the freedom of my body and I will liberate you and smite the unbelievers.
She still felt the enormity of the moth-lord’s presence, but it was definitely weaker. Had it released its control over her, or were the globe devices affecting it?
The chanting chorus shifted, a second strain coming in to accompany the litany of imprisonment. It took concentration to parse out the competing threads to understand the second strain.
“This one is a half-thing, a lost thing. This one craves completion, craves release from its torment, craves obliteration and return to the nothingness whence it came.”
The first strain of voices chanted the intended effect of the globes, but the second strain was talking about the devices as it had Bolton and her thugs. She could see two of the globe devices out of the corners of her eyes. She focused on the one to her left. Her vision blurred, and she saw, deep within the brass globe, a tiny pinprick of light, not as large as the ones inside all the people she and the moth-lord had shattered, but it glowed the same rich purple. Pauline Sutton said Dropnick’s devices drew their power from deep in the subconscious. Perhaps they, too, were susceptible to a little anguish and despair.
