NIGHT 13
I’m sorry, Light, they were meant to walk you down a different way; you shouldn’t have seen…
The bonfire? All that wood stacked up below in the courtyard, with the stake to tie me to, ready to burn the heretic?
Pull the other one; you wanted to put the fear of hell in me (or the Witchfinder Captain did), before the trial tomorrow. You’ve arranged an Easter to remember, with me blubbering out my guts today.
Did it work?
Here’s your answer…except the two-finger salute works better when you have two fingers.
Good god, what happened?
Captain promised you wouldn’t be hurt anymore; this is my opportunity to employ my methods. Torture is never effective at burrowing underneath the skin because ultimately we’ll all say anything – the lies mixed in with the truth – to make the pain stop.
Yet we all crave to tell our story. To be heard and seen. There’s power in words. I weave them, without the crudity of pain.
I don’t even have to touch my--
Victims?
And they don’t touch you, right? That’s a cold way to live.
Still, they die the same, don’t they? Once you’ve wormed under their skins, flaying them bare. They’re punished, the same as if you lit the match.
What happens after is not within--
Don’t say your bleeding remit. We’re responsible for every moment we live. If you tear a bloke apart - his secrets, weaknesses and guilt - then you don’t stand back, wash your hands Pontius-like and call what comes after justice.
Right now? You’re a cog in a machine, which is grinding down the rest of the Blood Lifer world. What’s worse? When pure death is developed, it’ll be the First Lifers caught in its gears.
But I’m just a cog. How do I..?
We both know you’re not just anything. It only takes one cog to stop turning for the whole machine to stop working: that’s how revolutions start.
I’m not one of your Renegades, Mr Blickle.
You’re not Captain’s puppet either…or his cog.
So tell me, how were your fingers burnt?
A reward.
Because here’s the thing: when we chinwagged about your sister? You never told me you had a brother.
Black.
Banshee panic echoed through my mind so loudly I didn’t know if I was hollering or only on the inside. My chest was sticky with blood from my torn fingernails; I’d scrabbled at the wood every day. A terror-stricken let me out, let me out, let me out…
A waking nightmare flashback to my slave days.
Swaggering bravado? It lasted just as long as it took for the lid to be nailed down.
I bet Captain had a right laugh. Or gloat: he was the sort to gloat listening to another bloke reduced like that because he’d never been broken. A beta like him?
I’d have given Captain a day tops in Master’s hands.
Then I heard the sound, which was like angelic choirs: nails being ripped out.
The coffin lid slid across. I blinked against the heavenly blue, shivering at the sudden rush of frozen air.
‘Diddums, he’s cold. Maybe you can warm him up?’
Two mugs appraising me, as if I was the latest toy.
Captain’s hand resting on the shoulder of…
Buggering hell – Emo.
I banged my nut against the bottom of the coffin; maybe I could knock myself out.
Captain chortled. ‘Look how pleased he is to see you.’
When Emo leant over the coffin, his stripy scarf tickled my nose. ‘He’s mine?’
‘You were such a good boy watching him and reporting back. I knew you could be motivated. You simply needed the right reward system.’
‘Gold stars didn’t work then?’ I tried to clamber out of the coffin, but Captain slammed me back.
‘Donovan could be substituted if..? No? Well, I have grownup’s work now; you know how it is…’
‘You’re not leaving me alone with that psycho?’
Captain’s hand clamped over my mouth and nose.
I flailed, as my peepers flew wide open, and my lungs speared sharply dissonant in agonizing bursts.
‘That psycho?’ Captain whispered; his mush was inches from mine. ‘Is my elected, a karate champion and your owner for the next hour. You really do have authority issues, don’t you?’ At last, he lifted his hand.
I took a deep lungful of air and then another; I’d never reckoned breathing a privilege before.
‘Just remember,’ Captain straightened, before tapping Emo on the shoulder, ‘no killing.’ Emo’s black rimmed peepers were so puppy-dog, you’d have reckoned his daddy had just forbidden him from texting his mates. ‘But torture? Well,’ Captain spread his hands expansively, ‘it is your reward…’
When Captain met my gaze, his look was considering. Then he turned on his heel and he was gone.
Reluctantly, I had a gander at Emo, who was assessing me like he was deciding which limb to hack off first.
‘Captain’s your Author then? You work for him?’
Emo flicked his green fringe. ‘Work for myself. Do what I like.’
‘Didn’t sound like it.’
Emo scowled. ‘What does he know? He’s old and stuff. After all, didn’t tell anyone, did I? Didn’t tell them about the kid.’
I hardly dared breathe – Captain might as well have still had his hand over my gob. ‘Why’s that then?’
‘Told you: I work for myself. Keep my own secrets.’ Emo ducked down.
I forced myself to remain motionless, when I heard rummaging, followed by the clinical snap of gloves being pulled on.
Nothing good has ever come of that snap sound.
And I should know.
When Emo loomed over me in thick black rubber gloves, clutching a metal tube with a look of intense concentration, I shrank back.
‘When they burn you, how will we know what it feels like?’ Emo traced one rubbery finger down my chest, all the way to my stomach and then up again, before crossing from nipple to nipple. I fought to keep my breath steady. ‘Captain promises I can watch Easter night, when you go up like a candle. I told them: burn him slowly or wet the wood. Then we can make him tell us: how it feels as first his feet, then his legs, dick, guts, chest and arms burn.’ I shuddered, when Emo slid his gloved fingers through my hair. ‘Even as your head flamed – before your tongue melted – you could’ve screamed. Something.’ Emo pulled back sulkily. ‘They said no. The Council. Tradition and that.’
‘Bloody shame,’ I forced out through dry lips.
‘But Captain said I could burn you now. That will still hurt, won’t it?’
Emo scooped gooey paste out of a metal tube, before painting it down the path he’d traced on me – a cross down the center.
It was sodding cold.
Christ in heaven – white phosphorous.
If that ignited..? I was about to become sodding hot.
I watched, as Emo slipped his hand into his hoodie pocket. He smirked, pulling out long matches slow inch by slow inch, like a striptease.
I never reckoned I’d be frightened to look into the fire. Yet I’d never been seared by white phosphorous before.
This brat could learn about my pain, but he wouldn’t learn about my fear. Instead, he’d get a lesson in how a bloke faced the flames.
‘I don’t smoke anymore but thanks for offering.’
Emo’s smirk faltered. Immediately, he struck the match: a beautiful white flare. We were united by its fragile power. The heartbeat moment.
Then Emo held the match to the phosphorous…and I screamed.
White fire. A flaming cross. Searing agony, larger than me or the world. Bubbling, blistering and bathing me in blinding agony.
The fire burned out, sizzling down into a pattern of red scars. But the pain? It had burrowed so deeply under the skin that I didn’t know how to free myself.
Emo had marked me.
Through my blurred peepers, all I could see was Emo’s winged cartoon vampire, mocking me, as he asked, ‘How does that feel?’
I shakily raised my hand in the two-finger salute, only to have the sadist in training clutch the fingers in his phosphorous smeared hand.
No way was I losing my swearing hand…
I tried to wrench back, but Emo had already flared the match to life and…
White fire.
And this time? Emo made me sing sounds I didn’t even know I could make.
Emo scrutinized me, as I cradled my burnt hand. ‘How does that feel? We have a whole hour to play. If you don’t want to talk…’
‘Maybe,’ I forced out, as I shook from the shock of the sudden burns, and my whole body shut down, ‘you should try out these fun games on yourself? Then you’d really know how it sodding felt.’
Emo tilted his nut, as if actually considering it. ‘Did. Used to. Daddy said no more.’
‘Daddy?’ I hissed, as my skin split raw. ‘We talking First or Blood Life?’
‘We’re talking dead. He wouldn’t let me join the Black Parade, but Captain would.’
‘And that’s what this is?’
Deluded kid.
‘Dunno. I can’t feel. Anything. I think I’m dead. I’m everything I ever wanted to be. Powerful. Free. Only,’ a crushing sadness swept across Emo’s mush in one single lightning flash, ‘you can’t see the scars anymore. They always heal now, but I can see them on others when I make them pretty.’
My insides curled black.
That was why you didn’t author kids.
In the ‘60s my best – and only – mate had been a kid. Alessandro. Trapped in a twilight world between First and Blood Life, he’d been controlled. Never allowed to grow up, no matter how many decades he lived. Never allowed to witness the glories of the world. Election amplifies emotions and hormonal teenagers aren’t exactly known for handling those well. It botched the process.
No wonder this bastard was off his trolley.
I’d been blinkered to consider authoring Will. Deluded myself to reckon it’d be different.
I was making a piss poor attempt at redemption.
Yet love – in all its forms – will put out your peepers, until you’re stumbling in the black.
Even though cringing agony was still washing over me in waves, I had a shufti at the kid, who’d never known anything of Blood Life but Captain, in his fanged vampire t-shirt and black-and-green fringe, which he hid behind.
I was shot through with hot shame that I didn’t even know his name. ‘So what do they call you?’
Emo shrugged. ‘Who cares?’
‘Power to a name.’
Emo considered this; his phosphorous gloved hand hovered dangerously close to my goolies. ‘Blink. Does it help to know what to scream?’
‘Helps if we’re having a chinwag to know what to call a bloke.’
‘Rebel?’ That sneer again. ‘I’m the true rebel ‘cos you’re all wrong: the Council, Government and Renegades. There’s no such thing as rules. Family. Home. Only what you want. What you can take. I don’t need anyone: there’s just me. You shouldn’t fear each other.’ Emo bent closer, as fanatical as Plantagenet. ‘You should fear me.’
Blink seized my blistered hand, bending the two scorched fingers – snap.
I howled.
‘Now - how does that feel?’
You need blood to heal. I’ll call Pet.
Is that the guilt talking?
The trial’s tomorrow; you must look your most presentable.
That’s like a soldier donning his best uniform for the firing squad, isn’t it? Or fattening the calf for slaughter?
Wouldn’t you be whole when you face the flames?
I haven’t been whole for donkey’s years, either on the outside or the in.
Reckon I’m one to go quietly with bastard death? When you tie me to that stake tomorrow I won’t stop fighting, until the flames have ghosted me to ashes.
If I doubted that, do you think I’d have listened to you? Believed you? Conspired with you?
Conspired?
There’s a flaw in all leaders.
All men.
They believe only they can change the world. So they overlook the women who work, live and love at their shoulders.
Ruby, Kathy, Grayse, Sun…even Mother. You don’t reckon I can see their talents, power and danger?
You forgot one. My name is Liberty. And there’s power in a name.
I’ll ask again. Who the bloody hell are you?
Drink first. Slice a main artery on Pet, we can stich up after; you need the blood.
I bloody well won’t. Scars don’t heal on First Lifers: he’s not Blink.
Who is he that you care?
A human. Haven’t you been following? Sometimes they’re prey, sometimes predator. But never my dinner.
Not unless they want to be.
Delusion. It’s most self-serving.
Do you honestly believe the homeless living under London Bridge wanted to be consumed? Money. You despise, belittle and bewail it but yet you steal? You use it to acquire your needs or influence.
Never said I was consistent.
Even with Will. Coffee – wasn’t it? Your very first gift. Do you think he’d have noticed you, if you’d possessed as little as he..?
Pet, if you raise your gaze one more time, I’ll have you sent to Blink again for the night. He told me he’d felt the most after his time with you, since he’d been authored. I was overjoyed.
That’s dead heartwarming. I’ve had my fill; Pet, you can go now.
How about you tell me Blink’s secrets? The ones he was holding back from our Author.
I don’t have the foggiest, sweetheart.
They were about the kid. Come on, if you move your pawn, I shall move mine.
How about you play with your brother instead? I was never one for chess.
We’ve been playing chess since the first night. We have your file: every strength and weakness. I’ve analyzed you: you’re mine.
Another wanker wanting to own me? Now there’s a turn-up for the books.
Listen, Mr Blickle--
How about you listen – Jade Spider – because let’s cut the bollocks.
You were never here to help or save me. It’s not been about truth or witness.
All this time you’ve been waiting, listening and spinning your web. Knowing I was condemning myself to death with my own words. And what’s worse? Condemning my family too.
And what have you been doing, Light, if not spinning webs?
Me and you? We’re the same. You play with words, just the same as I do.
The difference is, you bint, there’s no fire with your name writ large on it at the center of my web.
So what is there? At the center?
That’d be telling.
Secrets – you’re seeped in them.
And you’re seeped in betrayal. I told you all great stories start with it.
Then death and hope. Do they come tomorrow?
You tell me. Except don’t waste your breath because how would I trust you?
I’m the best at what I do. Trust? Isn’t high on my agenda.
I’ve always had such green eyes; my mum said they were like jade. When I became a barrister… Everyone’s frightened of spiders, but it’s only the fly which needs fear.
The Blood Life Council understand that.
Bigger bleeding picture here than the Blood Life Council versus us Renegades. If the power of our venom’s abused..?
Yet every tosser’s shifting his feet like it’s somebody else’s responsibility. That’s how wars tear worlds apart.
We could hide. I’ve tried it. But then our safety wouldn’t be real.
Some bugger or other would use us as slaves, weapons or products. We’re not safe in the shadows.
We have to step into the light.
What have you done?
What your Council should’ve, if it’d had the balls.
This Red Room? The guns? Captains bluster? It’s all a screen for dramatic effect. The scenery in a play.
The real, raw power beneath? Quiet. Unassuming. Deadly.
Is me.
When – precisely – are you planning to scuttle onto the stage?
When I’ve spun a nest large enough to cage it – and no one can escape.
This inquiry is my chance; I warned you at the beginning.
Wait… Why am I getting..? This is outrageous…
Problem, sweetheart?
You don’t play chess?
I stick to saving the world.
Why is Captain repeatedly messaging me about a disturbance on London Bridge? A…march?
What in god’s name is this?
That’s the bloody cavalry.