Dancing Jax

by Robin Jarvis

  “Yikker want lamb chops,” he drawled. “Cutlets and mint sauce – juicy tasty.”

  “You will not touch them!” Maggie warned, holding her crook before them protectively.

  “Touch, slice, skewer, rip, chew – Yikker do all this – yes.”

  The other shepherds joined her, shielding the girls, and the Punchinello laughed at their reckless bravery.

  “Nicey,” he said with a snicker. “You give Yikker plenty fun.”

  Maggie’s knuckles blanched as she gripped the crook tighter than ever. She stared into the guard’s ugly face and read the deaths of each one of them there. They wouldn’t be able to stop him. His appetite for killing had been roused and they would all die brutally. Their hapless resistance was just sport to him. But what else could they do?

  “Wait,” she said abruptly. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, Yikker do.”

  “Listen to me. You let them go and I’ll give you something you want.”

  “What you give?”

  “Me.”

  The Punchinello’s bristly eyebrows twitched with interest and he leered at her keenly.

  “You?”

  Maggie nodded, trying to stop the revulsion showing on her face.

  “Yes. You let them go and you can have me. You want me, I know you do.”

  Yikker licked his chapped lips. “Give self to Yikker?”

  “Willingly,” she promised. “You and me, on the grass, surrounded by flowers…”

  Behind her, the girls uttered cries of protest and the other shepherds were horrified at what she was saying.

  “We can take him down!” Ryan said confidently. “He’s just one. There’s seven of us.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Maggie told him. “You know how strong they are. He’d cut through us like butter. This way you’d have a chance. Take it and shut up.”

  “Yikker not agree yet!” the Punchinello interrupted.

  “Oh, but you will,” Maggie said, laying her crook on the ground, then removing the headdress and shaking her hair loose. “We both know it, sunshine. Don’t start playing hard to get. That’s a waste of everyone’s time.”

  “You can’t do this!” another boy cried.

  “Take the girls and go,” she hissed. “Now!”

  “Maggie!” Charm’s group wept. “Don’t!”

  “Get out of here,” she told them. “Go – and don’t you look back!”

  The lads eyed the guard and he grinned, showing all his dirty teeth. With a jerk of his head, he gave them permission to leave. Quickly they hurried the girls past him and out of the Gentle Garden.

  “Nicey,” Yikker purred when they were alone. “Me likey.”

  Maggie began unbuttoning her robe. “Take your hat off, Tiger,” she invited. “And get over here.”

  Yikker threw his hat into the bushes and came waddling over, dropping his spear and sword.

  “Oh, you frisky devil!” Maggie exclaimed through clenched teeth. “What a handful you’re going to be.”

  Overwhelmed with bestial passion, Yikker reached up to pull the robe from her shoulders and Maggie caressed his great bony skull. Forcing a laugh from her lips, she pulled his face into her chest so he didn’t see the glint of steel in her fingers as she drew her arm back. Then, with all her strength, she drove her scissors deep into his ear canal, piercing the drum and beyond.

  There wasn’t a chance for him to struggle and fight. Clutching him close, she felt his body convulse and she slammed her palm against the handles – again and again, hammering them well and truly home. Then she wound them round like a key, unlocking the life from his body.

  “That’s for Stinkboy!” she snarled, letting his body sink to the grass. “And for the rest of us who didn’t make it – you piece of filth.”

  Stooping, she snorted to summon enough saliva to spit in his dead face. Then, with a sickening jolt, she realised what she was doing and stumbled away – ashamed. Wiping her eyes, she snatched up his sword and spear and ran after the others.

  Cawing and buzzing, the crowflies swooped down and feasted.

  Jumping over the stone bench, Maggie raced across the lawns and through courtyards, calling for Charm’s girls.

  She found them by the brewhouse, anxiously wondering where to turn next. Everyone was overjoyed and they embraced her desperately. They didn’t dare ask what had happened or how she had escaped. They saw she was carrying Yikker’s weapons and that was enough. But their elation was short-lived.

  “Where we headed?” Ryan asked. “There’s no way outta this place. There’s, like, waaay more guards than him – and then there’s everything else out there. We’re stuck. Just going round in circles in a stone cage, till we run into something we ain’t never gonna get away from.”

  At that moment they heard the baying of the jackals. The sound was nearby and it bounced and echoed eerily around the high walls, making it impossible to know which direction it came from. One thing was sure though – it was getting closer.

  “We keep on running,” Maggie said resolutely, as she gave Ryan the spear, because he was the eldest, and kept the sword for herself.

  Leaving the brewhouse behind, they hurried over the cobbles and were soon confronted by washing lines strung between the walls, hung with prop laundry.

  “We’re near the back door of the castle,” Lemon Cheesecake said. “The wash-house isn’t far from the postern gate. It says so on the maps in the book.”

  Maggie could have kissed her. Could they really escape? Was it possible to actually get out of here? The idea was so incredible she almost felt giddy. They hadn’t seen the size of the terrifying crowd beyond the walls and had no concept of what exactly was going on. Their minds burned with the prospect of escape and they dared to hope.

  Suddenly the laundry yard was filled with savage barking and the jackals came tearing round the corner. At first Maggie and the others couldn’t see them. Multiple lines of washing were in the way. They just heard the ferocious din and Maggie yelled for everyone to turn back.

  “Get the girls out of here!” she bawled. “NOW!”

  Gripping the heavy sword uncertainly, she stared at the squares of linen and damp garments hanging across the yard. She couldn’t see any movement in the shadowy gaps beneath. Then, to her horror, the largest sheet punched outwards and, for a ghastly instant, took on the form of the beast leaping towards her. The fabric swept across its powerful limbs, then over the large, vicious head. Maggie wailed and the jackal dived straight for her.

  She only just managed to dodge aside in time and she brought the sword swinging down, striking sparks from the cobbles. Before she could even lift it again, the demonic creature spun about and sprang for a second attack. It lunged right for her throat. Then it yowled as the spear plunged deep into its side and it crashed to the floor yelping and writhing. Maggie raised the sword and finished it.

  Breathing hard, she turned to the boy who had saved her, to thank him. The words hadn’t left her lips when a second jackal came bounding through the washing. As it sailed through the air, its wide jaws snapped shut round Ryan’s head and felled him.

  Maggie shrieked and rushed at it. The jackal growled at her menacingly. Then its ears caught the sound of the others running away and its eyes blazed with malice. It didn’t want to fight, it wanted to kill. With a scrape of its claws, it wheeled about and pursued them.

  Maggie glanced quickly at the boy. She couldn’t do anything for him and there wasn’t time to grieve. But that nightmare wasn’t going to get her girls, not while there was an ounce of strength in her body.

  Yanking the spear from the dead jackal’s ribs, she charged after the other, yelling at the top of her voice. This was why she’d lost so much weight and exercised daily on the terrace of that mountain. She’d known a moment like this would eventually come.

  The girls and five remaining shepherds had run back to the brewhouse when they heard the beast chasing after them and Maggie’s fearless cries clo
se behind. Running was no use here; they couldn’t escape that monster. Frantic, they tried the doors of the brewhouse, but they were locked. Then they saw a narrow stairway leading to the battlements.

  “Up there – fast!” the shepherds urged their sheep.

  The girls rushed to the steps, but halted when they saw a figure charging down towards them, bearing a long blade.

  “Jaxer!” Dandelion and Burdock cried.

  The lads glanced up fearfully. They were caught between the jackal that was almost upon them and now this new enemy. Staring upwards, they saw it was a boy not much older than themselves. With a start, they recognised his famous face instantly. It was the Jack of Clubs.

  “It’s all right!” Conor Westlake shouted as he rushed down to meet them. “I’m not part of it any more. Get up here, all of you!”

  “Is real!” Lukas’s voice called down from above. “He’s a good guy. Quick!”

  The girls charged up the steps and Conor jumped down, just as the jackal tore into their midst. For several awful minutes there was chaos and screaming. The jackal lashed out with claws and teeth, snapping and swiping. But the boys defended their flock valiantly. With renewed vigour, they surrounded the beast, smiting the ridged spine with their staffs and ramming them into its jaws. The jackal crunched through the wood and ripped the crooks from their hands. Then, as it rounded on them, Conor struck with his sword. It sliced deep into the muscular shoulder. When the jackal twisted round, he drove the steel down the gaping throat – right to the hilt.

  The beast quivered and the sinewy legs collapsed under it. Moments later, Maggie came running up, in time to see Conor wiping his sword on its carcass.

  “Great job,” she panted gratefully, despite being annoyed with herself for not getting here sooner. “Well done.”

  Conor regarded her in surprise. Armed with spear and sword, she looked like some ancient warrior. She was staring at him equally curiously.

  “Hang on!” she exclaimed in alarm when she realised who he was. “You’re him! The proper Jack of Clubs. What…?”

  “I’m not him any more,” he assured her. “We got kicked out, or something – I dunno what. I’m just me now. Call me Conor.”

  “You don’t look as daft as you used to on telly.”

  “Oh – cheers.”

  “Hey,” one of the Americans asked. “Where’s Ryan?”

  “He didn’t make it,” Maggie answered. “He took out one of those things first though. Saved my life.”

  The shepherds hung their heads.

  Maggie raised hers to watch the girls running up the steps and being met by Lukas, Emma and Sandra.

  “We were headed for the back gate,” she said to Conor. “Any chance of us getting out that way?”

  “You crazy?”

  “Probably, but try answering the question.”

  “Have you seen what’s outside these walls? You don’t have a hope.”

  “There’s always hope.”

  “Forget it. We’re trapped in this castle and there’s four more of those devil dogs on the loose somewhere. That’s the entertainment, watching us get killed.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t give up so easy,” she told him. “Come on then, handsome, show me what’s so scary beyond them walls.”

  Conor followed her up the steps. “Brace yourself,” he warned.

  On top of the main gatehouse, the Ismus gave an amused chuckle as the camera zoomed in on Maggie’s awestruck face when she stared out over the battlements.

  “Such resourceful shepherds,” he declared. “They’ve survived far longer than I anticipated. Again, if you’d have voted for Mauger… ah, well. I think our Growly Guardian is beginning to feel unloved. Now aren’t you a little curious to see what happened to Magpie Jack…?”

  24

  THE SCREEN CHANGED to green-tinged night vision as it showed a recording of when the Jack of Diamonds was pushed into the pitch-blackness by Bezuel.

  “Paul?” the voice had said. “Paul, is that you?”

  The cameras inside the tower made the boy’s eyes shine strangely. Covering his nose and mouth, he answered haughtily, “Who is there? What foul corruption abides within these walls?”

  “It’s me, Paul,” the voice answered gently. “It’s Martin.”

  “Do turds now speak and take names unto themselves? For no other thing in Mooncaster could stink so mightily. This is witch’s work and I’ll not fall prey to so noisome a spell.”

  Heavy chains clanked as the man reached out in the direction of that young, arrogant voice.

  “Think, Paul!” Martin begged. “Remember me! Remember Carol, your mother.”

  “My mother is the Queen of Diamonds and my name is Jack, not Paul. That was a pauper’s life I dreamed once when I was a child.”

  “No, that’s your real life. What you think you are now, this is the dream – the mad illusion. You’re Paul Thornbury. You, me and your mother lived in Felixstowe. You must remember!”

  “Must is not a word for princes. Speak no more unto me, stench ogre. I must needs find a way out of this putrid pit ere my nose rots.”

  The boy resumed hammering on the door with his fists and yelling oaths.

  The remote camera panned away and focused instead on the chained, ragged man in the centre of that fetid darkness.

  Martin Baxter was shaking his head and clenching his fists. Pulling on his shackles, his anger mounted and his temper exploded.

  “This isn’t what you promised!” he raged, turning wildly. “You said he’d remember! And where’s Carol? I should’ve known not to trust you!”

  His voice thundered around the empty tower. When the echoes faded, the Jack of Diamonds gave an agonised cry and fell to his knees. Outside, the Ismus had ‘unfriended’ the four Dancing Jacks.

  “Paul?” Martin called in alarm. “Paul? What’s happened? Are you all right? Answer me!”

  The boy was shrieking and clutching his head. It felt as though it was splitting open. His legs thrashed uncontrollably and he rolled around on the floor. Then, abruptly, he fell silent and his limbs pulled in as he curled into a ball.

  “Paul?” Martin cried, leaning as far as the chains permitted. “What is it?” He wondered if there was something else in there with them, something that had attacked the boy in the blackness. “Paul – Jack, are you OK?”

  For some time the only sounds he could hear were anguished sobs – and then…

  “Martin…?” a small, frightened voice uttered. “Martin, is that you?”

  Martin spluttered and almost wept with joy. He could tell at once that the madness had lifted. All traces of royal pride had left that voice. It was just a boy, timid and afraid.

  “Yes, yes, it’s me!”

  “W–where are you? I can’t see a thing.”

  “Over here. Be careful; the floor is raised and there’s lots of chains.”

  “And a shocking pong. What is that?”

  Martin laughed out loud. “That’s me!”

  “Blimey, let yourself go a bit, haven’t you? I’ll have to get you some more Tardis bubble bath for Christmas. Use it this time, don’t just keep it in the…”

  Paul faltered. He recalled what he’d done to Martin’s prized collection of sci-fi memorabilia. In a violent rampage as the Jack of Diamonds, he had smashed the lot.

  Martin knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “Hey, none of that matters,” he said. “That was just stuff.”

  “It was fantastic stuff. You loved it.”

  “I love you and your mum more.”

  The boy shuffled cautiously across the tower to find him. There was some sort of metal stage in the centre. He clambered on to it then almost tripped over the iron hoops the chains were attached to.

  “Steady,” Martin said. “And don’t touch me – I’m covered in pig… erm, poo. That’s what the stink is. They plastered me with it.”

  Hearing him so close, Paul hurried towards his voice and threw himself blindly into Martin�
�s arms.

  “I don’t care!” he cried joyously. “I can’t believe it! I missed you – I missed you!”

  Martin held him fiercely and tears ran down both their faces. The camera lingered on their emotional reunion, capturing every detail in voyeuristic close-up.

  “I’m sorry!” the boy said desperately. “So sorry for what I put you and Mum through.”

  “Wait! It wasn’t your fault! I should’ve listened when you tried to tell me what was going on. Right back at the start, you saw it and I took no notice. I’ve been such an idiot about everything. You did absolutely nothing wrong. You’ve got no reason to blame yourself – none whatsoever. The book was too powerful. Nothing could have stopped it.”

  “But it didn’t affect you! Why?”

  “No one knows. It just didn’t work on me and a few others.”

  “So… why me now?” the boy asked. “How come I snapped out of it? I don’t understand.”

  Martin held him a little closer.

  “Because I made a deal,” he said. “I get you and Carol back.”

  The boy pulled away. “What sort of deal? Who with?”

  “The Ismus.”

  “What?”

  “I know, I know, believe me. It was the only way.”

  “So what does he get out of this deal? What did you have to do for him?”

  “I don’t know that yet. I’m still waiting to find out. Dressing me up as the dungy guy from the book won’t be enough. There’s more to this than putting me in rags covered in pig muck.”

  “You shouldn’t have agreed.”

  “I’d do anything for you two. Nothing else matters.”

  “Where is Mum?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. Maybe they’ll bring her in here too?”

  At that moment the door was unlocked and, after the total blackness in there, the light that flooded in from outside was painful to look on. As their eyes adjusted, they saw a shape silhouetted in the arched opening. For an instant, they both expected it to be Carol.