Night Terrors (34 page)

The Fata Morgana looked at me, sadness in her eerie yellow eyes.

“I truly regret that I wasn’t able to bring you into my fold, Audra. But I think in time, you’ll come to appreciate the new reality we’re going to create. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.”

Jinx had been so busy fighting Quietus that I thought he hadn’t been paying attention to anything else. But at that moment, he stopped pounding Quietus’ face onto the rooftop.

“Sorry, Q, but I can’t play anymore,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”

He still had hold of Quietus’ head, and he gritted his teeth, pulled, and twisted. Quietus’ head tore free from his body with a snapping sound. There was no blood, just a spray of black ichor that resembled thick ink. Quietus’ body spasmed once and then fell still. Holding onto the head, Jinx stood, turned to face the edge of the roof, and with one of his enormous red shoes, he punted Quietus’ head as if it were a football. The head flew through the air in a high arc until I lost sight of it in the swirls of Maelstrom energy.

Jinx’s hands were covered with black goo, and he rubbed them on his pants before bending down to pick up Cuthbert Junior. He moved easily, as if the battle with Quietus hadn’t taken anything out of him, but I could feel that it had. He’d been wounded – and healed – a hell of a lot tonight, and I knew that despite appearances, it had taken a toll on his system.

The sky was completely filled with Maelstrom energy now, and it blazed so brightly that it was difficult to see. How much longer until it was too late to prevent the dimensional barrier from collapsing? Was it already too late?

I didn’t have any weapons left, but I didn’t care. If I couldn’t stop the Maelstrom from flooding into Earth’s dimension and altering it forever, I was determined to make sure the kaleidoscope-faced cunt wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy the new world she created. I walked over to her, careful to avoid stepping on Russell and Bloodshedder, of course, and Jinx joined me.

“You might not believe this, Audra,” the Fata Morgana said. “But I’m glad you’re here. Out of all the Ideators-in-the-making that I’ve worked with over the years, you were the one who had the most potential. The fact that you’ve gotten as far as you have in stopping me is a testament to–”

My hand snatched out, and I grabbed hold of her throat.

“Hey!” Neil said. “You can’t do that!”

He tried to grab my arm in an attempt to stop me from choking the living shit out of the Fata Morgana, who – curiously enough – was making no attempt to do so herself.

Jinx’s fist pistoned out in a blur of motion, and Neil’s nose exploded in a burst of blood. There was also a sickening cracking sound as his jaw broke in several places. He flew backward, hit the rooftop, and didn’t get back up.

I maintained my grip on the Fata Morgana’s throat until my hand and arm shook from the effort. But even though I could feel my fingers digging into her soft flesh, she didn’t react.

Jinx’s shoulders slumped slightly, and his head drooped a bit. I knew he was nearing the last of his energy and wouldn’t be able to go on much longer.

“The collar around Sanderson produces some kind of force field,” I said. “See if you can break through it!”

Jinx ran over to Sanderson and began pounding on him with Cuthbert Junior, but with no more success than I’d had before. The collar’s force field stopped the hammer a few inches from Sanderson’s body, white bursts of light flaring from the point where Jinx’s hammer made contact with the field. Jinx kept at it, slamming the hammer into the force field again and again. But with each strike, his blows became weaker.

I continued choking the Fata Morgana, but her yellow eyes locked onto mine, and her lips stretched into a cold smile. Then light blasted forth from her amber gaze, and I felt like I was falling…

 

I was sitting in my bed, the covers pulled up to my chin. It was dark, and I was ten years old. At least, my body was ten. My mind was still that of the adult Audra.

“Jinx?” I whispered. “Are you here?”

A few seconds of silence, and then, “Yes. I’m crouched at the footboard.”

My eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and I could make out the silhouette of a head and shoulders at the end of my bed. Despite myself, I felt a thrill of fear at seeing that shape. It brought back too many memories, none of them good.

“Is it you?” I asked. “The
now
you, I mean. The one that’s my partner.”

“Yes.”

The shape stood and came around to the side of my bed. I was physically smaller than my adult self, and Jinx’s silhouette looked so much larger than what I was used to. Like a giant sculpted from darkness. As if sensing my discomfort, he knelt down so he wouldn’t be looming over me. Was he wearing his old hobo outfit? Probably.

“What happened?” he asked. His voice was odd. It didn’t belong to either of his Aspects, but seemed rather to be a mixture of the two, as if both sides of his personality were speaking to me.

“I’m not sure.” I lowered the covers and sat up straighter. “I think the Fata Morgana did something to our minds.”

“
Fata Morgana
has two meanings,” Jinx said. “A sorceress in Arthurian legend, and also a type of mirage.”

Now I knew for certain that Day Jinx was present alongside Night Jinx. No way would the latter have known that tidbit of information.

“So she’s trapped us in some kind of mental illusion?”

“I believe so.”

“So are you really here or are you just part of one of my memories?” I asked.

“Funny. I was wondering the same thing.”

That took me aback. “You have memories of… scaring me?”

“Of course. They’re my earliest memories. I was only partly real then, but I was real enough. It was so confusing. I only existed when you dreamed about me, so for me, life consisted of perpetual darkness in a small enclosed space – your bedroom – with a little girl whose attention I was supposed to try and get. But for some reason, I was supposed to catch her attention in a certain way. I couldn’t just walk up to her and say, ‘Hi! My name is Jinx and you created me.’ I was supposed to be
scary
. It was almost like being an actor performing for an audience of one – the playwright herself.”

“So you didn’t enjoy scaring me?”

His voice took on the lighter, goofier tone of his Night Aspect. “I wouldn’t go that far! After all, I was damn good at it, wasn’t I?” He then let out one of his lunatic giggles.

In the darkness, I smiled. I reached up and touched his cheek. “Yes, you were. The best.”

We were quiet for a few moments after that. Jinx broke the silence first.

“So, what do we do? Stay in this memory until the Fata Morgana’s glorious new world is born?”

“Or we could force ourselves back to awareness. If we’re both here together, maybe we can combine our psychic strength and bust out of this joint.”

“But even if we manage to return to full consciousness, what can we do to stop the Fata Morgana?”

I reached out and touched Jinx’s wrist. Here in the memory, it was bare. But in the real world, he wore a bracelet around it.

“You can ask yourself a very important question,” I began.

“‘What Would Joker Do?’” he finished.

He started laughing then, softly at first, and then louder and louder, and I realized that I was laughing, too.

 

My eyes opened and I was on the roof again, only now I was lying on my side, looking up at the Fata Morgana, who once again was gazing at the blazing multicolored sky. I realized that when she mind-zapped me, I must have literally lost consciousness and fallen. But I was awake now, and Jinx was lying next to me. His eyes were open, too, but he put a finger to his lips in a signal for me to be quiet. He then slowly and silently moved into a crouching position, and I did the same.

Sanderson remained standing in the same position, his glowing eyes flickering rapidly. His body had lost much of its mass, and he was so very thin. He’d be dead soon, if he wasn’t already. Russell was still unconscious, as was Neil. Bloodshedder was still snoring. Quietus remained headless.

Jinx straightened to a standing position, and I followed. I had no idea what he had planned, but whatever it was, I wanted to be ready. He reached into the inner jacket pocket of his suit, digging deep, his arm disappearing all the way up to the elbow. His face scrunched up in concentration, but then his expression brightened. He leaned close to me and whispered, “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion.”

He withdrew his hand from his pocket and showed me what he held. It was a black sphere about the size of a grapefruit. A fuse extended from the top and sparks flew off as it burned. Did I mention it was a very short fuse?

Jinx turned to face the Fata Morgana.

“Hey, Doc! Catch!”

Startled, the Fata Morgana looked at Jinx as he lobbed the bomb toward her. She caught the cartoonish explosive and stared at it, as if she had no idea what the thing was.

Jinx then spun around, grabbed me, and – carrying me as if I weighed nothing – he ran toward the edge of the roof, his gigantic shoes
slap-slap-slapping
. Just as we reached the roof’s edge, Jinx’s shoe-springs activated and launched us into the air.

The world disappeared in an explosion of noise, light, and fire, but all I could hear was the sound of Jinx’s mad laughter.

FOURTEEN

“You haven’t touched your omelet.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Jinx – Day Jinx, that is – and I sat at a corner table in small greasy spoon downtown. We looked as if we’d fought our way here through a war zone, which was pretty much the truth, I suppose. Our clothes were dirty, torn, and stained with blood, asphalt, and who knew what else. The manager on duty at the diner hadn’t wanted to let us in, but Jinx had slipped him a couple twenties, and the man had been only too happy to change his mind. I think it helped that there were hardly any other customers in the place.

Jinx had ordered a fruit plate and a yogurt, and since I hadn’t been in the mood for anything, he’d taken the liberty of ordering me a ham-and-cheese omelet, OJ, and coffee. So far, the coffee was all I’d had, and I’d only taken a few sips. Despite Jinx nagging me about not eating, he hadn’t done much more than move pieces of fruit around on his plate.

“I’m sorry, Audra.”

“I know.”

Night Jinx had succeeded. The explosion had destroyed the entire building, along with the Incursion Engine it had housed. For several moments afterward, the sky continued to be filled with Maelstrom energy, but then it slowly faded, and the night returned to normal, stars and all. I’d had wanted to search the rubble for Russell, Bloodshedder, and Sanderson, but we heard sirens approaching, and we departed. Mostly because I didn’t want Jinx to get in a fight with the cops and firefighters. I’d had enough violence to last me for a while.

We’d found Connie and the Deathmobile waiting for us on the street. The hearse had used its headlight beams to age the ground it was trapped in until it collapsed into dust, but it had taken a while. Connie had waited on the street, just in case we made it out alive. She didn’t know what had happened to Cancer Jack and Lizzie Longlegs, but I figured they’d turn up sooner or later. Incubi like them always do.

“You did what you had to do,” I told Jinx. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him or myself. “You saved the world. Two worlds, actually.”

“Perhaps.” He speared a pineapple chunk with his fork and lifted it up to examine it. “But we’re supposed to be the good guys. A good guy would’ve found a way to save our friends, too.” He looked at the pineapple chunk a moment longer, then dropped it and the fork to his plate with an expression of disgust.

I heard the door to the diner open and close, but I barely noticed. I was too focused on Jinx.

“They would’ve understood,” I said.

He looked at me, and I saw a mixture of doubt and hopefulness in his gaze.

“Do you really think so?” he asked.

“I do.”

“And you’d be right.”

These last words were spoken by someone who’d approached our table, and as we looked up, neither of us could believe what we saw: Sanderson, alive, collarless, restored to full health, and dressed in an undamaged and spotless blue suit, complete with his ever-swirling Maelstrom tie.

“Uh… not to state the obvious,” I said, “but you blew up.”

He smiled. “I got better.”

There were only two seats at our table, so he pulled up a third and joined us. A server started our way, but Sanderson waved her off.

“Sorry it took me so long to get here. Reconstitution isn’t an easy feat, even for me. Especially not when a good portion of my power was siphoned off to fuel the Lords’ Incursion Engine.”

I was so happy to see him that I couldn’t help myself. I leaned over and gave him a hug. He hesitated. Then to my surprise, he hugged me back. Only a little, but it was enough.

“I’m going to be very busy for the foreseeable future, working to control the media fallout from the ‘weather phenomenon’ that took place last night, as well as redoubling our efforts to track down the Lords’ agents. It’s obvious they remain far more of a threat than I believed.” He sighed. “And, unfortunately, I have to arrange a memorial service for Damon and Eklips.”

None of us spoke for several moments before Sanderson continued.

“And I’ll need to review the Rookery’s security procedures and strengthen them so something like this can never happen again. If Neil had decided to do something to the Unwakened, the results could’ve been catastrophic for Nod.”

“You couldn’t have known Neil was a traitor,” Jinx said.

“I could have and should have,” Sanderson said. “But forget that for now. The reason I came here was to thank you and tell you that you both did an excellent job – even if you weren’t officially on the case.” He smiled to show that this wasn’t a rebuke. “I want you both to take a couple days off and get some rest.” He gave me a pointed look. “I mean it, Audra.”