by Ryland Thorn
Her tone is playful and one eyebrow is raised in a way that gives her a teasing look. Jack is immediately flustered. He has no idea how to respond. Instead of replying, ‘Not yet,’ and asking her out, he looks away and notices for the first time that she isn’t alone.
Madame Brigette is standing beside her. A short woman well into her fifties, she is of Caribbean descent and wears dreadlocks as if to prove her ancestry. Like Lennox, the older woman still wears the same red and yellow dress she’d been in the day before. Her Arcane Emporium was also her home, and it had been destroyed in the confrontation with the tar man the previous night.
Madame Brigette is watching Lennox and Jack with an amused expression. She also is looking much better than when last Jack had seen her, but that doesn’t stop him using her presence as an opportunity to duck Lennox’s flirtation.
“Are you – both of you – are you ok?” he stammers.
Surprisingly, Madame Brigette laughs at this, and Lennox smirks even more broadly. Despite not being gifted at banter, Jack has lived long enough to understand that they are laughing at his awkwardness. He glowers at them, not truly angry, but no longer in as good a mood as he’d been.
“Both of us are fine,” Lennox says, answering for Madame Brigette as well. “No thanks to our repulsive friend from last night.” Then she answers Jack’s unspoken question before he can ask it. “And yes, I’ve taken my suppressant. My demon blood is completely under control, and I’m more than happy for it to stay that way. It won’t gain the ascendancy so easily again,” she says fiercely.
The determination in her response mollifies Jack’s concern. He is happy to see her resolve. He nods, but before he can say anything more, Deedee Vale bustles over.
“About time you showed up,” she says to Jack, then peers at him closely. “Hmmph,” she says. “So that’s what the fool at Samuel’s desk was talking about. You’re actually clean! But what are you doing hiding down here by the door? Come along! This show is about to get interesting.”
Deedee is as short as Madame Brigette and a good deal older. She is dressed in the same robes as the rest of the Brothers, wears thick glasses and is supporting herself with the aid of a cane. Jack had always thought of her as indefatigable, an untiring ball of relentless energy, as committed to whatever task she had set for herself as a bulldog is to a bone. This morning, however, she lacks some of her normal energy.
Even so, she doesn’t give him a chance to respond, but instead turns away with a totter more than her usual vigor and starts making her way through to the clear plastic wall.
“Come along I said!” she says over her shoulder. “Or do you want to stand there and grow roots?”
Jack has lived for more than two centuries and spends his days hunting down the vilest, most horrific creatures ever to crawl out of the pit and cast their foul shadows over the streets of New Sanctum. Lennox is a sorceress able to cast energies about with relative ease, and has fought at Jack’s side as they faced living nightmares that would terrify most others. And Madame Brigette is a powerful glyph-maker, able to infuse occult symbols with the power of her blood.
The three of them, together or separately, are not to be trifled with.
Yet they follow Deedee through the room as if they are naughty school children and she is their head-mistress.
Chapter Three: Tar Man
As soon as he glimpses the tar man, Jack’s face twists into a grimace of hate. If the demon inside him had granted him the power to do so, he would have burned holes in the clear plastic barrier with his gaze alone.
The tar man is seated beyond the barrier with his arms, legs, head, and chest clamped to the chair with steel bands. He looks like a prisoner ready to be executed. But he is not wearing a prison jumpsuit. He is wearing ordinary clothing that is dirty and torn. His shirt is little more than rags and his jeans are a mess. Where the tar man’s overcoat has gone, Jack doesn’t know or care.
The tar man’s eyes are closed. He is sleeping, sitting up in the chair, and looks peaceful despite his head being held upright by the steel band around his forehead. As before, the lower half of his face is covered by a loathsome oily blackness that glistens in the light of the room and hints at his power.
Just the sight of him sitting there, apparently unhurt by the battles he’d fought, is enough to awaken Jack’s fury. This is the man who had caused so much turmoil. This is the man who had beaten Jack one-on-one.
This is the monster who had caused Lennox to lose control of her demon self.
Jack’s fists are clenched tight and a vein in his neck begins to pulse. He wants nothing more than to jam his thumbs through the tar man’s eye sockets and into his brain. He wants to grip the man’s head and pound it onto a sharpened spike until his limbs stop twitching. If the plastic barrier hadn’t been between them, Jack would have been more than happy to take one of his knives and plunge it to the hilt between the tar man’s ribs.
The sight of the tar man sitting so peacefully in front of him is almost enough to make Jack regret not murdering him in cold blood when he had the chance.
Jack can’t help himself. He needs an outlet for his rage and turns to Deedee standing beside him.
“Why has he yet to be questioned?” he growls at her, his anger clear in his gaze.
Jack isn’t especially tall. He is lean and wiry more than overtly muscular. Yet the threat in him is obvious enough that most normal folk steer clear of him as a matter of course. When he is enraged, that threat is compounded. There are few who can stand up to him when his face is twisted in fury.
Deedee looks at him as if he is a badly behaved little boy. She raises no more than an eyebrow, and yet it is enough for him to drop his gaze and clamp down on his anger as much as he can.
“I had other priorities,” Deedee says. “There were demonic disturbances throughout the night. We faced wights, ghouls, and several other half-breeds with different abilities. Our teams were run ragged and spread thin. Some were injured, and one was bitten by a half-breed that looked and acted like a werewolf. Whether the bite will have the same catastrophic effect as it does in the legends, we won’t know until the next full moon.” She shrugs. “It will or it won’t. Time will tell either way.”
Jack looks at the old woman in dismay. “You have been up all night? Why didn’t you say something?” he demands. “I could have helped.” He now understands why she seems so weary, so comparatively lacking in energy.
Deedee just snorts in reply. “What would that have done? You could barely stand upright! And we have other hunters. They got the job done.”
Jack isn’t satisfied with her answer, but knows she is right. Neither he nor Lennox were in any condition to do more than they did. He offers a grunt of acceptance.
“Anyway, I’m not so near to the grave that I can’t pull the odd all-nighter when the need arises,” Deedee adds. “And the need did arise. What say we find out if this one knows why? Shall we wake him?”
Before anyone can answer, Deedee addresses the room as a whole. “Is everything set?” she asks, and is rewarded with a chorus of positive responses.
“What about his spawn?” Lennox asks, a note of worry in her voice.
“We’ve thought of that,” Deedee replies. “See those trays on the floor on either side of the chair? They’re filled with holy water. Five inches deep. He may try to conjure his demon spawn, but if he does, they will be short lived.”
Jack can’t help but nod his approval. “Let’s see what he has to say,” he says, his voice filled with venomous anticipation.
Chapter Four: Awakening
It is by Madame Brigette’s power that the tar man is asleep. She had drawn a glyph on his back that might keep him that way forever, if she so chose. She takes Jack’s words as her cue, closes her eyes and mutters arcane words under her breath.
To Jack, the words are loathsome to hear. They feel like giant slugs sliding across his skin, and it is all he can do not to shiver in revulsion.
But then Madame Brigette stops chanting and her eyes flick open in shock. “I cannot deactivate the glyph,” she says, her voice filled with confusion. “Something is stopping me.”
Jack barely has time to wonder what is happening before Deedee starts to swear. “Sorry,” the old woman says. “My fault. I should have realized. There is a silver mesh embedded in the walls throughout the cell. Filaments run through the plastic and concrete. You can see them if you look hard enough. It acts like a Faraday cage, and magic cannot get through. You’ll have to go in.”
Madame Brigette’s eyes narrow and the skin around her lips tightens noticeably. She is not happy about the idea of approaching the tar man so closely. Nevertheless, she gives a quick nod.
“I’ll go with you,” Jack says, and Lennox draws in a sharp breath. For Jack, the offer is instinctive, but he understands Lennox’s concern. Even bound as he is, the tar man is dangerous. Jack cannot stand idly by as someone else accepts that danger. He has to divert some of it toward himself.
Nor does Lennox try to stop him. She bites her lip and glares through the plastic at the sleeping fiend.
Madame Brigette doesn’t say anything, but her expression is one of gratitude. Together, she and Jack approach the door that leads into the cell.
<<<>>>
Inside the cell, everything seems white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Even the tar man himself is no more than a scruffy smudge against the sterility of the room.
The air feels somehow thicker than normal. Jack can hear the Brothers talking to each other in the main part of the interrogation room, but their voices sound strangely muffled. It is as if he is listening to them underwater, as if their voices are being caught on a stiff breeze that takes their words away from Jack’s ears.
There is an uncomfortable feeling of electricity in the air. It makes the small hairs on the back of Jack’s neck and on his forearms stand on end. It is unsettling, and Jack knows he wouldn’t be happy spending a lot of time in the cell.
He wonders what is causing the feeling of thickness, of electricity. He thinks it might have something to do with the silver mesh, or maybe the holy water.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Madame Brigette is already starting to chant in that demonic tongue that sets Jack’s teeth on edge. She stands back from the tar man as far as she can, but she is already deactivating the glyph that keeps him unconscious.
Jack draws both of his blades and stands ready. He has picked a spot to the side where he can see what the tar man is doing, but unless the man’s peripheral vision is better than most, Jack would be invisible to him.
Jack knows he is there only as a precaution, to defend Madame Brigette and the Brotherhood against the tar man at need. But such is his lingering anger at what the tar man has done that he is struggling to hold himself back.
He is eager for any excuse to use his knives.
His eagerness does not go unnoticed. “We need him alive,” Deedee says in warning through the clear plastic wall.
Jack can see the Brotherhood’s leader clearly, just as he can see Lennox standing next to her. Deedee’s attention is focused his way, and while her words are as muffled as the rest, they contain no ambiguity and brook no argument.
Lennox’s focus is different. She is watching the tar man with an expression akin to disgust. She is like a predator eyeing a dangerous foe, and such is the intensity of her gaze that Jack is convinced he could let off fireworks behind her and she would never know.
Jack grips his knives even more tightly and curls his lip into a snarl. As much as he might wish to whip his blades across the tar man’s throat, he will acquiesce to Deedee’s desire. They need the tar man alive. They need to understand the cause behind his attack and, more importantly, if it is connected to anything else.
Madame Brigette’s chanting comes to a quick crescendo. There is a muted concussion, a shock wave that hits Jack in the face and makes him want to throw up.
“It is done,” Madame Brigette says with her faint Caribbean accent.
Almost at once, the tar man groans. No doubt he would have turned his head or tried to stretch as he starts to wake, but the restraints prevent him from moving.
Madame Brigette quickly backs away. She is at the door before the tar man is truly conscious. She pauses there and says to Jack, “Are you coming?”
Jack hasn’t moved. He is glaring at the side of the tar man’s head as if the force of his gaze is enough to burn the demon from his blood. “I think I’ll stay a while,” Jack grates.
Madame Brigette doesn’t argue. “Suit yourself,” she says. In moments, she has rejoined Deedee and Lennox on the safe side of the plastic.
The tar man is waking swiftly. Jack can see him realize his predicament. Although the tar man cannot move his head, there is nothing preventing him from moving his eyes. Even from where Jack is standing, it is clear that the tar man is looking about as best as he can and assessing every part of the room.
Nor is this the limit of what he can do. He tests his strength against the metal bands on his wrists and legs and around his chest. Gently at first, and then with more vigor. His expression turns into a snarl as he throws himself this way and that.
Jack doesn’t do or say anything to advertise his presence. He just watches from his place to the tar man’s side. The metal bands would be enough to hold Jack in place at the height of his rage and fury. The tar man has proven stronger than Jack, but the bands offer no give even when the tar man curses and growls under his breath. He does all he can to break free, but it is fruitless. Jack is confident that they will hold even as he wishes them to fail so he will have an excuse to use his blades.
Jack watches as the tar man’s efforts escalate. He is using his weight as well his strength, trying to break free of the bands or tip the chair onto its side.
But the chair legs are bolted into the concrete floor. There is no give in them or in anything else.
Still the tar man doesn’t cease. He flings himself against the restraints again and again, punctuating each effort with curses that become cries of rage to match anything Jack could have expressed. If the restraints had any weaknesses, the tar man would have found them. If they had any give, likely the tar man would have damaged himself. But their very snugness prevents the tar man from doing more than bruising his flesh.
As much as he enjoys watching the tar man struggle, after some minutes, Jack has had enough.
“You can’t get out,” he says. “If you break these restraints, you’ll find my blades buried in your ribs. If you manage to get past me, you still won’t escape. The Brothers will either knock you back out or put you down for good. So do yourself a favor and give it a rest.”
Surprisingly, Jack’s words have the desired effect. The tar man stops flinging himself against the restraints. He doesn’t exactly calm himself down, but he does pause in his cursing as he strains to see who has spoken.
Jack takes a single step sideways so that the tar man can see him more easily.
“You!” the tar man says, his voice dripping with bile and loathing.
“Yeah. Me,” Jack replies.
The tar man relaxes against his restraints and lets out a low chuckle that has little to do with amusement. It is the sound of a comic book villain and it echoes from the walls of the cell in a way that conjures images of tunnels and darkness.
“I could have killed you,” the tar man says between chuckles. His voice sounds vile and slimy, as if he is speaking through a throat filled with mucous. It is dripping with hate and contempt.
Jack snorts. “And I should have killed you,” he says.
The tar man laughs in a way that is both derisive and dismissive. Yet when he speaks, his words are strangely agreeable. “Maybe you could have managed it,” he says. “And maybe not.” Then, after a pause, “I take it that is holy water on the floor. Makes sense. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to greet my children in this little room, either. But it does beg the question. Why am I
still alive? Tell me why I’m here.”
Jack can’t help but be irritated by the tar man’s control. It should have been an awkward conversation, with the tar man unable to turn his head to look at Jack squarely. And there should have been fear in his voice. The tar man is caught, unable to escape, and his every breath is at the mercy of his captors.
Anyone else would have been terrified.
But other than a simmering anger coupled with ongoing mirth, the tar man displays nothing. It is as if he has weighed up his surroundings, complete with the Brotherhood out in front and Jack in the cell with him, and is completely unafraid.
Jack promises himself that this will change before their conversation comes to its end. “Yesterday, between pounding your foul head into the concrete, I asked you questions that you didn’t answer. Today, you will answer them.”
The tar man continues to laugh. “Will I now?” he asks. “I guess there’s always the chance. Feel free to give it a try. Ask away.”
Despite his captivity, the tar man is smiling, his loathsome, begrimed face split to show a mouthful of startlingly white teeth that match the walls of the cell. Jack wants nothing more than to smash the smile from the man’s face with his fists. It is all he can do to contain himself as he turns to look at Deedee through the clear plastic.
Chapter Five: Questions
Deedee takes her cue. She, Lennox, and Madame Brigette are all standing close to the wall, each with their own thoughts and expressions. Lennox and Madame Brigette are looking at the tar man as they might stare at a disease made into flesh. But Deedee is more pragmatic.
“Let’s start with something simple, shall we?” she says. “What is your name?”
The tar man lets out another laugh. “And now I see who is really in charge,” he says through his sneer.
