Dead Man s Hand Page 0,141

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