Kirsty, Lude, and Leroy were crossing the threshold into Chaos less than half an hour later. The same sense of disorientation washed over her as she stepped out from the dark corridor and into the psychedelic nightclub lights. Lude made a beeline for the arcade area, with Leroy in tow. Kirsty followed them, more to be around people with whom she felt halfway comfortable than anything else. After about five minutes of watching Lude work his way through Danzig's Mother, she turned her attention out to the dance floor.
The music was all over the genre map this time; the DJ spun a Sisters of Mercy song that Kirsty was familiar with, before mixing it with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, and beatmatching it into a Kylie Minogue tune. Kirsty recalled what Peloquin had said about the place being like an "acid trip." She could feel the lights, and the pulse of the music as they began to work on her; could feel her shoulders relaxing almost against her will, the tension in her chest unknotting. It would have easy just to let her mind sink into their sequence, and stare off into space. It would've been easier to lose herself in the bodies thronging on the dance floor below the arcade. She willed herself to do neither.
Kirsty had never been one for expanding her mental state. It was the same trouble that she'd always had falling asleep when she was a child. Something about the idea of surrendering her awareness, her cognizance, to some other force had always seemed repellent to her. She'd never had any problem with liquor, and there had only been a few times in her life when she'd allowed herself to become truly falling-down insensibly drunk (the housewarming party on Lodovico Street being one.) She'd always steered clear of the harder chemicals.
However, her experiences had taught her that there were those in the world for whom the infliction and the reception of pain was the equivalent of popping peyote buttons, or smoking a joint; a gateway from one mental state to another. What was it about the human race, she wondered, that led its constituents to seek such experiences? What was it about the Cenobites that had led them to their willfully mutilated state? She remembered the picture of him, as a human; the stalwart soldier of some bygone era. What had happened to influence him to seek the Box, if in fact he had sought it out? Had he opened it in ignorance, like she had?
She could imagine how her Uncle Frank had found it; she hadn't known much about the family drama during her sheltered youth, but she'd been able to piece much of it together after the fact. There was no altered state that Frank would have turned down; no experience that he'd shied away from in his mis-spent life as an addict and drifter. None, perhaps, except for the pleasures offered by the Cenobites; he'd made his escape from them at the first opportunity, hadn't he?
She remembered though, oh, how she remembered...Frank in her father's skin, hanging from a hundred hooks. The look he'd thrown her, right before they took him apart.
("Jesus wept...")
She shuddered. Was there something within herself that craved the same extremes? Was that why he kept finding her?
She spotted Jagged as she continued to ponder these issues. He was dancing off by himself on one of the raised walkways off from the main dancefloor. There was something ecstatic, even triumphant about the way that he moved; not like a swagger, exactly. He put her more in mind of a preacher in the act of delivering a particularly transcendent and uplifting sermon. But that wasn't all; as she watched, her mind began to perceive certain patterns in the flow of his dance. There was something familiar about it, something that raised the hairs on the back of her neck; almost as if there were a code that she could just barely make out expressed in the wake of his passage on the catwalk.
She blinked, and reminded herself that this could all probably be chalked up to the fact that she hadn't slept in nearly two days. She looked around, and realized that she'd moved from where Lude and Leroy were standing; that in fact, she'd been subconsciously pacing beneath him as her eyes followed him on the catwalk above. She ground her teeth at the lapse. Had she no self-control left at all?
She really, really needed to sleep.
Crossing her arms, she leaned back against the mirrored wall. So easy, just to shut her eyes against the noise and lights...
("Kirsty...")
He was there.
He was there behind the mirror, just as he was back at her apartment. Waiting.
Waiting to take her soul.
"Kirsty?" A voice sounded in front of her. She opened her eyes, startled to sudden wakefulness. Mary Red stood in front of her, a concerned look on her face. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," she said, a little sharply. She was more annoyed with herself than anything. If dozing off in a loud nightclub wasn't the capper on everything, she didn't know what was.
"Do you need a place to stay for the night? Our place is somewhat crowded, but it's not far from here."
"I wouldn't want to impose," Kirsty answered, a little more politely, though her tone was still guarded. I still have no idea who these people are. Some kind of cult? Didn't Peloquin say something about Mary "proselytizing?"
"Oh, it's no imposition. We have people coming and going all the time. Many of us have seen you around in the past few weeks. It would be a chance to get to know some of your fellow travelers of the night," Mary said with a warm smile.
"Fellow Travelers? As in Communists?" Kirsty asked, though she was sure that wasn't what Mary was getting at. Of course, her name was "Mary Red..."
"Why not? In this mad, illusionary world, the night belongs to everyone who choses to partake of it."
Ordinarily, Kirsty wouldn't have thought twice about rejecting Mary Red's offer. But there was something about this night, something that had come of her inability to maintain a hold on herself and her mental state, that prompted something within her to say, 'fuck it.'
I've killed five people. How much danger can I possibly be in right now?
(..Don't think for a moment that you're not in danger -)
"What the hell?" Kirsty responded.
"That's the spirit," Mary agreed.
….
"Kirsty left the club with Mary? Are you sure?" Jagged asked, the worry clear on his bespectacled face.
"Lude was knee-deep in Bark at the Moon, but we both saw her go," Leroy answered.
"Shit," Jagged exclaimed, running a fitful hand through his hair, almost pulling it from nervousness.
"Is this going to be a problem?" asked one of the room's two other occupants. They currently stood in Jagged's upstairs loft; four men, only one of them technically still human, still living. The speaker was rather ordinary-looking, if handsome - but Jagged himself had never put much stock in appearances.
"It might be, Boone," Jagged answered. "Mary believes that Kirsty may still have the Box."
"Theoretically, what Mary wants to do isn't impossible. I should know," said the other man; a tall, muscular biker-type with zigzags shaved into his hairstyle that were nearly twenty years out of date. "Thing is, we had the help of a goddess. And even if she is still around in one form or another, she isn't really in a position to bail us out anymore. And the Labyrinth is tricky. It plays games with your mind; that's its whole point. I can tell you about all the souls I've helped save. I can tell you what we were up against, every single time. But for the life of me, I can't remember exactly how we got to any of them. That's what it's like."
"Quite a few of Hell's tricks are known to me as well, Ron," Jagged answered. "Only a fool would think themselves adept at recognizing all of them, even after centuries of study. Winter didn't even have the patience to learn the rest of my meager teachings before he went charging off to Romania – and now his cousin and her flock will share the same fate if something isn't done to stop them."
"Look, Jagged -" Boone said, "I know it sucks, and I know it may not be what you want to hear. But have you ever thought about just letting them go at this point? They're not going to stop."
"I can't," Jagged said. "This is just something that I have to do."
….
Fifteen years in New York, and Jagged was still mostly a mystery to many who had befriended him. All he'd ever told anyone was that he'd escaped from the Labyrinth. That, and the fact that his sister was lost to him, and had been initiated into the Order of the Gash.
This wasn't exactly the whole truth, but it was close enough; it had served him well enough so far.
Winter had first come to him, ironically enough, on a hot July night in 1998. Jagged's master had been gone from the Helter Incendio for nearly two decades, and he'd been between lovers at the time. He'd ascertained Winter's true nature quickly enough. They fell to discussing esoterica over Pernod, and Jagged suggested they re-enact the bridge scene from the film The Lost Boys. That was all it took.
Even then, Winter had possessed a cryptic charm, a flair for the dramatic, and a defiant streak that Jagged had found irresistible. His heart had been ensnared from the word "go."
And for a while, everything had been perfect.
The newcomers trickled in slowly after he and Winter set up housekeeping in the loft space above the abandoned warehouse where Chaos and the White Wolf Pub now stood. Marla, Joey and the others had all seemed summoned to the spot from whatever respective corners of the globe they hailed from by some external call. It was the first time since old Warwick had left through the Neirica (in search of word of the vanished Shoal - a one-man rescue-mission that was already doomed to failure before he even got started) that Jagged had known anything like family.
He still came across detritus of theirs from time to time. That photograph of himself and Winter that Marla had taken with one of her many cameras had been lying in wait under the cushions of the sofa for who knew how long; finding it months after the fact had left him inconsolable for the rest of the day.
There'd been the time when he and Joey had gone out to a rave dressed in body paint, Polynesian wrap skirts, neon glow necklaces and armbands, and little else. The police had chosen to crash that particular party that night, spurred on by the inevitable drug bust that was sure to follow. Jagged had faced the boys in blue and pumped his fist in the air, shouting, "Fuck the Gash," as loudly as he could. Joey had followed suit, ignorant of the true meaning of Jagged's words. ("Hell yeah, man. Fuck the Gash!") Behind them, all the ravers were quick in joining in.
It had been their finest moment. In some circles, Jagged was still known as, "Fuck The Gash Man."
Almost three years to the day. Jagged found himself crying for an hour over Joey's abandoned copy of The KLF's The White Room that he'd discovered behind his CD shelf during a bout of cleaning.
Looking back, they'd all seemed so happy together. Years had passed, and he often found himself asking "why." Why hadn't it been enough for them? Why hadn't he been enough for Winter? In all of the centuries of his existence, he'd never remembered feeling so content. He'd assumed they were all as happy with the arrangement as he was.
It was only when he'd steeled himself enough to look back over more of the remaining photographs in his possession that he'd noticed a wasted, desperate look on the faces of the members of his makeshift family that he'd never detected when they'd all been together with him in his house. Of course back then, it had belonged to all of them.
It was the Box, Jagged reasoned. Winter could say whatever he wanted about 'laying low the ramparts' and throwing down the old Order. In the end it was all just the fucking Box, drawing them all in.
Even then, he'd been able to see that Winter was digging deep into his resources - but Jagged had given of himself freely. He hadn't used much of the inheritance left to him by his former master. Even though half of it had gone to Warwick's two great-grandsons (one who was said to be a successful businessman and family man, the other a complete and total reprobate – neither of whom Jagged had ever met) there had still been more than enough of it to go around. And it wasn't like the Deaders ate very much, anyway....
The thought that Winter had sought him out for that reason - that he had in fact intended to use him the whole time - was an unbearably recurrent theory in Jagged's mind.
Dammit, why must so many of the undead and artificially-immortal people in the world constantly seek for more energy, more power? Jagged wondered. Where are the ones who are content to simply be?
The answer, of course, had been dwelling beneath Central Park the whole time. But Jagged had no dealings with the Tribes of the Moon until after Winter and the others were gone. Still smarting from the pain of Winter's abandonment, he'd been more cautious with them at first. Friendly, but guarded. The spectacled geek in the loft over the empty warehouse who could offer a bit of helpful advice every now and then, but who generally kept to himself. It wasn't until later, when Boone – Cabal – had suggested a use for all of that open space beneath him, that he'd really come into his own. Chaos, which had started as a bi-monthly rave, had ended up becoming so much more.
He remembered the night before they all left, when Winter had approached him.
"I know what you are," he said. "I know what you're hiding from."
"Oh...really?" Jagged had answered. He wondered how much Winter actually knew. Awkward!
"Look, Winter, -"
"You won't need to hide anymore, when I take what's rightfully mine. Help me do this, and you shall have all of your power returned to you, and your sister besides."
Jagged had opened his mouth to respond – and for a moment, he'd seen outside himself. He'd had an inkling of what would happen if Winter actually succeeded. There had been a time when he'd wanted nothing more than to do exactly as his lover was suggesting. (Hell yeah, fuck the Gash!) But now – all he felt was the Box's pull, and Winter's lust to possess it.
"I've lived this way for too long, Winter," Jagged told him finally, after a long pause. "I don't want anything more than what we have here, right now."
The next night, Winter and his flock were gone. The day he learned of the explosion in Bucharest was still counted as the worst day of his life.
Mary had turned up a few years later. The first cousin of John Merchant, who'd mysteriously come down with a bad case of decapitation in the very building he'd designed. Jagged could feel the same cycle beginning to assert itself, as Mary and her ever-increasing crowd of supplicants were drawn in. This time, he'd been ready. He flat refused to have anything to do with Winter's original purpose, even as he offered sanctuary to Mary and her flock. He figured he owed them that much, at least.
The difference was, Mary soon turned out to be useful. In the beginning, she'd begged Winter for his gift, and had been found wanting. He'd called her "unworthy." No matter - the Box's call had turned out to be stronger than Winter's denial. She'd learned things. By the time she'd arrived in New York, she'd had more Suits up her nonexistent sleeves than most of the would-be sorcerers of her age that Jagged had seen. It seemed that she was something of a magickal prodigy.
Winter had been good. Mary was better, and she was more inclined to give her aid to those who needed it, and to face down the members of New York's supernatural community that were inclined to make nuisances of themselves. Jagged had found himself wondering if perhaps Winter had refused her out of jealousy, if he'd feared being upstaged by his young cousin.
The problem was, she didn't see this. Winter was still her end-all and be-all, the focus of her obsession. In her mind, the Deaders would never be successful without him at the helm; she was merely an acolyte, a gifted amateur. Winter's charisma had infected her as thoroughly as it had Jagged, and she believed his rejection had really been a call for her to go out and prove herself - which she would finally manage to do by bringing him back. Or so she thought.
Which brought them back to Kirsty.
After Boone, Ron Ringwood, Lude and Leroy left, Jagged gave a great deal of thought to The Matter Of Kirsty. A plan was being formulated, but it soon occurred to him that he'd need assistance.
He picked up the phone, and hit speed-dial.
"Harry? It's Jagged. I'm afraid I have a favor to ask of you -"
