Mace moved forward through the gloom. At this time of the night everything was silent; the Nex attendants were in their nests and Mace was completely alone ... except for the hundreds on the stone slabs in this cold underground world.
He stopped in front of Jam ... the Avelach had long since retracted to its former shape and the black metallic disc, the
machine,
had been removed from Jam’s face and mouth and placed back in the sanctuary of the silver box that had been fashioned to protect and recharge it.
Mace moved forward. Jam’s head was tilted back, his eyes closed, his face a deathly white. His lips were tightly closed and, reaching out, Mace prised open Jam’s mouth and clenched teeth. Reaching inside, he pulled out the shell of the scorpion - which was so brittle that it crumbled to dust under his fingers. Carefully, Mace scooped out the remains of the cockroach carapaces and allowed them to fall to the stone floor, across which they drifted softly in response to the cool breeze. Then, slowly, he undid the straps that fastened Jam to the bench and ran his hand down Jam’s naked and treacherously cold flesh. It felt glassy, cold, hard - and slightly tainted with oil.
Mace smiled.
‘Good,’ he said, nodding to himself.
Jam could feel them inside him. He tried to force them away but they would not and could not leave him.
we are together
merged
as one
they have made us one
Pain blended them in fire and flowed like acid through his veins. A metallic copper stink like the stench of old bad blood pervaded his nostrils and tattooed his tongue and it was him, a part of him, injected into his flesh and blood and brain.
Jam fell into a dark pit of despair.
Then awoke.
He lay for a long time on the stone, not really thinking, just mentally searching his body for signs of injury. Everything was cold. Stone was beneath him. The air was crisp and biting against his lips and tongue. He was breathing, his chest rising and falling, and he could feel air entering his lungs and then smoothly leaving again.
Slowly, he opened his sticky eyes.
There was no pain.
That was the first real thought that struck him.
No pain.
He had spent the last few days suffering physical and mental torment so severe that he thought he would break - both mentally and physically. But now the pain had gone and all that remained was the cool and soothing embrace of frost.
He moved his hand, lifted it to his face. His flesh was white, chalk white and he examined his hand, its structure, the tapering of his fingers, the roundness of his nails. He turned his head to one side, realised he was in a cell ... but not the dry dusty cells of his initial beatings, rather somewhere cold and sterile. There was a single light source, tiny against the damp stone wall; nothing more than an insect glow.
Jam sat up, looking down at his chalk-white nakedness. A bad metal taste was in his mouth and he spat again and again. But it would not leave him.
‘Was it just a dream?’
His voice rattled hollowly in the stone cage of his skull.
On a low table there stood a clay pitcher of water and a cup. Slowly, testing himself, Jam stood, bare feet shuffling on stone, and moved to pour himself a cup of water.
Something did not feel right.
Within himself...
His body felt... somehow
wrong ...
He drank the water to quench his terrible raging thirst, and staring down at himself he was deeply confused. He remembered with a shudder the insects in his mouth, but then he also remembered long dreams of corridors and fires and Slater shooting ice bullets into his face.
He rinsed his mouth with water, but still the metal taste would not leave him.
And then a wave of nausea convulsed his body and he dropped to one knee, vomiting the recently imbibed water onto the stone floor. His athletic frame heaved, and heaved again ... his stomach disgorged bile until there was nothing left. But still the nausea swamped him and he continued to heave until his muscles screamed at him and he thought that his stomach would tear itself physically apart...
Then it was over.
On his knees, panting, drooling saliva, sweat beading on his forehead, soaking his hair, Jam stared down at his shrivelled penis and flat stomach bathed in a sheen of sweat. He was trembling violently, and cursed his lack of clothing ...
Is this just another form of fucking torture? raged his mind.
An insane anger filled him.
A true need to
kill...
He stumbled towards the door, raised his hand to knock and sensed rather than heard or saw figures outside - looking in on him, anonymous. He smashed his fist against the door, then recoiled in horror as he felt the bones of his fingers crack and splinter within the padded flesh of his fist. A gasp escaped his cold blue-tinged lips, more shock than the sudden pain that flared from the six broken bones and he whirled ... but felt his ankle snap and dislocate and compress. He stumbled, fell, felt his left leg shatter within his flesh and lifted his gaze to the ceiling, screaming as he collapsed onto the stone.
Outside, Durell said, ‘The pain has begun.’
Mace nodded, deep in thought. ‘It will not be long before the imago is complete.’
The room had thick plush carpets and a roaring fire in the hearth. Gol stood in front of the weaving flames, warming himself and staring at the painting above the immense stone fireplace -
The Education of the Virgin
by the Austrian artist Franz Anton Maulbertsch. Gol traced the fine strokes of oil on canvas, his gaze absorbing the flying angels and almost demonic use of blacks and reds above this seemingly pure act of instruction. The fire crackled, an aural background to Gol’s calm, and he turned to warm his back as he swirled the brandy in the glass thoughtfully.
He took a gentle sip of the 1794 Hennessy, and the spirit burned his mouth and warmed its way to his belly like liquid fire. Gol sucked in air and surveyed the room.
Small single-pane leaded windows looked out over a heavy rain-filled valley under deep veils of darkness. The walls were panelled ceiling to floor in oak, and lined with many bookshelves sporting dusty old tomes. Furniture was period, in keeping with the fine theme of the room -and of either Austrian or Swiss lineage.
Rain rattled against the windows and a savage night wind howled outside, driving down with animal fury from the mountains.
Gol sipped the brandy again, its mellowness soothing him. He looked up as a huge heavy oak door swung silently inwards and Durell moved forward at a slow pace. He stared at the fire for a while, then turned towards Gol.
‘Is everything all right?’ Gol asked.
‘Yes,’ said Durell softly. ‘It is too warm in here.’
Gol nodded. ‘Thought I’d light a fire ... is that OK?’
‘I do not like the warmth; it makes me itch.’
‘I can have it put out...’
‘No, no.’ Durell held up a hand. The cloth fell away to reveal something black, crusted and glistening. Gol swallowed hard, staring into the depths of the hood that hid the slitted and almost feline copper eyes.
‘Is it working? With Jam?’
‘We think so. But due to such high previous failure rates we are keeping a very close eye on him. He just has the nominal pain and metamorphosis to complete and then Durell smiled ‘- then he will be one of us. No other specimen has reached this far.’
Durell moved to a large table and it seemed to ignite, to glow, as the surface became digitally alive. Durell and Gol stared down at the glowing map and Durell pointed.
Gol nodded. ‘Have the Foundation Stones for Core3 been initiated?’
‘Shortly,’ said Durell.
‘Then we are close?’ asked Gol, sipping once more at his brandy.
‘Yes. We are close.’
Jam dreamed a hard bad dream. He was falling, through a long dark tunnel that seemed to lead downwards for ever. Wind ruffled his hair and the world was filled with a complete silence. Jam shifted in the slipstream, fear a distant echo, pain a distant dream ... The walls around him were fashioned from glistening black rock, speckled with frost, glimmering with ice, and suddenly a ledge loomed out of nowhere - a jagged, rocky extrusion with which Jam collided, grunting in pain, spinning off with stars fluttering in his mind to career from the opposite wall of this vertical tunnel—
Down.
He could taste blood - and something else.
And then he saw it. Just as he thought that the fall would be eternal and he could drift lazily in the cold air currents for a blissful eternity, he saw the water spread wide and the tunnel disappeared above him, sucked away into blackness. Jam could make out distant glittering waves. The sea was an oil, a dark obsidian mercury, and he sped down towards its cooling enveloping embrace ...
He saw it
shift.
Move.
Squirm ...
And he realised that it was alive. Crawling and alive.
He flowed towards the sea of insects and fear suddenly struck him with a cold left hook. He could feel it, panic bubbling in his throat, and then he realised that the feeling was the skittering of tiny legs on his body and tongue and teeth. His mouth was filled with cockroaches frantically squirming to break free of this teeth-barred organic cell.
He could feel their panic.
Their will to survive.
He bit down, crushing some of their bodies, and felt their blood run down his throat, a flood filled with torn legs and tiny pieces of carapace. And then the scorpion moved up his throat and Jam felt vomit heaving within him. The sea rushed towards him, and engulfed him and darkness flooded his world. He smashed through the crust of crawling insects and into an oil which burned his flesh and stung him. He realised with horror that it was a toxin, a thick and swirling poison and he was finally able to scream out a verbal ejaculation of spewing wriggling insects—
Jam sat up, sweat pouring from his brow. He screamed, fingers scrabbling at his mouth, and he looked down in the gloom. He could see something that had crawled up from his ankles and shins, covering his lower legs with a sheen of glistening black, and had then halted around his knees, merging with his pink flesh, twisting between strands of shredded skin and muscle ...
This cannot be happening to me, he thought.
This cannot be real.
Nicky ... Nicky ...
He pictured her sweet face, hair tied back, eyes twinkling—
He pictured her moving towards him, mouth parting slightly, sweet breath tickling his lips, his eyes closing as her kiss taunted him and lust surged through his body like a drug—
He pictured her dying, screaming with insects in her hair like tiny black blossoms, squirming.
‘No ...’
He sat up, hands moving down to the hard skin of his lower legs. What is it? Just what the fuck is it?
Pain welled inside him, and he suddenly noticed a swelling in his groin, to either side of his testicles. The skin there was inflamed, puckered with tiny spikes of black. Jam arched his back as he felt the spikes prick his skin under his questing fingers and he screamed, screamed and screamed and screamed until there was no more breath and no more light. And no more hope.
Jam awoke on his side, curled into a ball. He felt strange. There was no pain.
He rolled onto his hands and knees, and looked down curiously at the backs of his forearms. Merged with his brown skin was a series of thick black marks with tiny spikes poking free. He rocked back onto his heels with a clack of chitinous armour and flexed his forearms. Spikes sprang free, rippling up his arms and glinting eerily in the gloom.
Jam breathed deeply.
His mind settled.
He blinked lazily.
There came a sound at the door and his head jerked left, spikes erecting along his forearms, eyes compressing to narrow copper slits. The door opened, flooding the chamber with light, and Jam recoiled with a hiss, armoured feet clacking across the stone—
Durell stepped in.
‘Welcome,’ he crooned, throwing back his hood.
Jam rose to his full height, spine crackling softly, and he could feel saliva pool from his twisted jaws. His head swung left, then right, and he could smell the scent of fear.
‘Follow me.’
Durell left the cell and Jam stooped, armour scraping the stonework as he followed Durell down a series of long stone corridors. They came to some steps and Jam leapt lithely down them, landing heavily and cracking a stone flag. They travelled on down stone ramps under the dim glow of electric bulbs into the depths of the castle.
Not once during the journey did Durell turn round.
And Jam found himself surveying the dark expanse of Durell’s back. His head swayed from one side to the other, eyes fixed on that broad back and strange metallic thoughts flickering through his brain
Kill
Kill
Rip flesh burn and turn and flee
Master
Control...