Chapter Fourteen
It was with both halves of his staff clutched protectively to his chest that Jack awoke to the feeling of being watched. Pitch hadn't visited him in days and Jack doubted the man would wait for him to wake before beginning his usual mental torment.
Peeking open an eye, Jack found three of Pitch's possessed children watching him, two boys and a girl, blank faces pressed close to his cage. Sophie was nowhere to be seen and Jack felt a small amount of alarm. The little girl hadn't left his room for more than a few moments since Pitch had broken his staff.
As Jack came full awake and sat up as best he could in his prison, the three children cocked their heads to the side and peeled their lips back into contorted grimaces, as if their faces had forgotten how to smile. The result was somewhat disturbing and Jack let his eyes wander down to their hands. Bile rose in the back of his throat as he saw the dark blood spattered over their fingers, dried and flaking. As one, all the bloodied hands came up, and pressed in through the bars of his cage, fingers uncurling to let small pebbles, also bloody, clatter across the bottom of the cage.
For a long confused moment, Jack stared at the open hands and the odd, oblong little rocks, each one tapered to a thin point at one end. Glancing from the pebbles to the children's hands, Jack wondered if the points of the small rocks had cut their hands while they'd been holding them. But the blood was hours old and mostly flaking away. Jack couldn't see any wounds on the tiny hands.
Then, in a moment of clarity, Jack realized exactly what had been dumped in the bottom of his cage. His feet kicked out violently as he tried to move away even though there was nowhere to go. They caught on his toes and some clattered through the bars and onto the stone floor. Jack pressed his face to the bars and retched violently, nothing but black bile and saliva dripping past his lips. The episode passed, but Jack kept his face pressed to the cold metal, dry sobs choking in his chest and eyes screwed shut tight.
The claws – that's what they were, and Jack should have realized, the blood on the ends and little bits of fur and flesh still clinging – rattled as his cage swung. Jack clutched his staff tighter as small feet padded away from his cage. For the first time in his life, Jack felt cold creep under his skin and he shivered, limbs shaking uncontrollably.
Aster huddled in the darkest, furthest corner of his cell, ears pressed down so he couldn't hear if that monster came back to taunt him. So he couldn't hear his companions begging him to speak to them, let them know he was alright.
Because he wasn't. He was so far from alright.
His hands curled tightly into his chest. Fingers still raw and slowly oozing blood from the tips.
"A present for our little Jackie," Pitch crooned, fingers carding through fur as ropes of shadow kept the thrashing Pooka bound tightly to the wall. "He's missed you so."
Pain shot up his left arm from his fingers. Burning, ripping, tearing as part of his body was torn away from him. His fingers were wet and hot and he could feel his fur matting. Someone was screaming and his throat hurt, but not enough to drown out his fingers, and Pitch was laughing, hands painted bright red over pale grey and black.
"Aster!" a harsh whisper came from somewhere outside his cell. North's voice rough, echoing even as he tried to be quiet for once in his life. Aster ignored him. His voice wasn't important.
"Aster?" this voice was croaking, not its normal soft hum from the long centuries left silent. Sandy sounded worried, even as his throat wheezed from lack of use. Aster didn't want that voice either.
Toothiana remained blessedly silent, her cell directly across from him and her purple jewel eyes watched his huddled form. There was only one voice he wanted to hear right now.
Jack was somewhere in these Moonless caverns. Had been here for days. With Pitch.
Aster raised a bloodied hand to his mouth and chewed at the stiff fur. The other hand came up, fingers flexing and dragging over each other. No claws carded and groomed anymore. A hiccupped breath escaped his mouth and the voices were back again, calling his name. And Aster continued to ignore.
It was a new sensation. One Sandy didn't want to let his mind explore too deeply. The most he allowed himself to do was wonder how Pitch had managed it, if only so that he might find a way to undo it.
He had given up on Aster. The Pooka would not be stirred from the recesses of his prison. Sandy couldn't blame him for that. He wasn't sure what Pitch had done, but he had heard the screams, the laughter.
Hands stripped of the leather gloves that had hidden the shadow infection (black now solid to his elbows and spotting and streaking as his as his shoulders, so close to the heart) reached up to trace his newest addition. A black collar, the shadow sand curling over his skin, oozing across.
When he had first found it, Sandy had worried that Pitch had taken his voice from him again. A pointless fear, he had lived in silence for centuries. The true purpose was worse. There was an emptiness inside. Sandy couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been able to hear the comforting mutters of the moon, feel the Dreaming sliding across his skin like a comfort blanket both dangerous and familiar.
The collar bound him more surely than the bars across the mouth of his cell, blocking his magic. Across from him the bulk of North, all red and black leather and white hair, sat in much the same predicament; his magic bound and his swords nowhere to be found.
A soft shuffle near the entrance to their cell block drew his attention and his eyes widened as he spotted a familiar blonde head and bright green eyes.
"Sophie," he breathed and the girl waved lightly, a small but true smile tugging at her lips.
Golden light whirled around the edges of her irises, the green already starting to tint to amber permanently. Sandy felt a surge of hope and beckoned the child closer, all other noise in the room (even the soft, barely there shuddering breaths from the Pooka) ceased as she shuffled shyly across the floor to stand in front of him.
He reached a hand out, gently tracing a black finger under one of her eyes. She giggled at the sensation, smile even wider and hand coming up to clasp Sandy's tightly.
"Magic," he whispered and smiled at the child.
Jack's eyes were sore and his throat burned. He sat slumped, head pressed to his knees and eyes glued to his feet. There were flakes of blood stuck to his toes and two of the claws invaded his sight at the edges.
The nausea had passed and had been replaced by a burning, roiling anger. Leaning both halves of his staff in the crook of one elbow, Jack raised his head and began picking up the claws and tucking them into the ragged pockets of his pants.
Each breath shook as it passed through his lips and teas burned at the corners of his eyes, but Jack diligently picked up the claws that hadn't fallen in his earlier fit. Six in total. Rocking forward, Jack spotted four more scattered on the floor.
It felt wrong to leave them there when the others were safely tucked away and in a moment of desperation, Jack took the hooked half of his staff in hand and reached out with it. It was too short, tip skimming the air but unable to brush the ground.
Jack howled in rage and threw himself forward, chest and legs and face pressed into the bars, knees bent up to their fullest extent, pain searing in his hips and knees as bones, muscles, and tendons were pressed past the point of comfort, skin creasing and stretching. Both hands reached out now, both halves of his staff flailing through the air, each still too short to even bump the thin claws.
The temperature in the room plummeted, snow swirling in vortexes across the floor. Ice crept up the cage, thick and glistening. The metal creaked and screamed under the sudden onslaught of cold.
It wasn't enough and another screech of blind anger tore out of Jack's raw throat. He jammed his staff back together, power surging through his veins. A flash of ice-white light blazed through the room, spotting his vision.
There was the sound of shattering ice and metal and Jack's body plummeted, his body tipped out as the bottom of the cage fell away and bounced noisily across the snow covered ground. He hit the snow and stone with a soft crunch and a huffed breath.
Dropping the newly remade staff, Jack's hands dug into the snow with a rabid fervor, digging for bloody claws.
Only four left. He needed them.
A/N: I'm so very sorry for the short and late chapter. I visited my parents a couple weeks ago and accidentally left my computer behind. I had to leave in a hurry in order to get home before a snow storm hit (not really an excuse, I live fa enough north that there's snow three quarters of the year). But that's what happened.