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Episodes 4, 5, and 6 of Red Jack. Read or don't, enjoy or don't.

RED JACK
EPISODE FOUR: “GIRL PROBLEMS”

Jack:

One of the beings I take orders from wants to question an individual by the name of Lon-warr. A rumor says that Lon-warr has been hiding out in the Trash Heap recently. Go there, get him, and drop him off at City Hall. Make sure he’s in talking condition.

-Silverberg

The absence of Silverberg’s usual insults left me somewhat uneasy, but after a full month of it I guess I sort of expected him to call me an asstard every other sentence. At least.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Valley, the area called the Trash Heap is where all of the refuse from the Valley’s Lost Souls and Demons eventually ends up. It’s an endless stretch of waste that reeks of sin (bet you didn’t know that sin has a stench) and houses some of the Valley’s strangest and most dangerous inhabitants. I’d been there once before to dispose of some delicate materials, mostly corpses, and it wasn’t any place that I particularly wanted to visit again, but that was where my target was.

Yes, Red Jack was getting used to his life in near-Hell. After a while, I just kind of shut down, did what I was told, and ate and slept when I felt like it. Yeah, as a Lost Soul I still need to eat and sleep occasionally. I could have gone without forever, but you get weird when you don’t rest and put food through your body, even down there. So I tried to act just like I did when I was alive, except that now I didn’t kill nearly as often. Not that I didn’t want to, but for some reason the urges just weren’t as strong anymore. Oh well.

Immediately after entering the Trash Heap by climbing over the shortest pile of filth within range, I descended into the labyrinthine canyons that the garbage formed, waiting for some sign of Lon-warr. I assumed that he was a Demon, because of his name, so if I just attacked every Demon that I saw I would eventually get him.

As it happened, however, Lon-warr decided to come to me. He appeared out of a trash-wall, tall and thin and serpentine, acid-blue scales and yellow eyes, with great long spines on his obscenely long tail. “I heard that they were ssssending ssssomeone after me,” he hissed. He was a little too stereotypical for my liking, but then again I was just there to knock him around and drag him back to town.

My knife was out and I leapt at him, flying forward low along the ground and slashing upwards at his jaw. Lon-warr snapped his head back in time to avoid being cut, but wasn’t quick enough to dodge my follow up attack and oozed indigo blood from a deep wound in his right shoulder. His tail whipped around, catching me in the side of the head, and I was slammed against a mound of rotting…what? Food? Something like that. It smelled terrible, whatever it was.

Dizzy from the fluid filling my brain, I reached up with great effort and pulled Lon-warr’s tail spine from my head. It made a quiet pop as it came loose, almost making me very sick just thinking about it. I was used to it by now, but it still wasn’t enjoyable. My vision was starting to darken. I had to work fast or he would get away and I would probably be sent Down Below.

Lon-warr was too fast for my now-clumsy movements to follow, and he fetched me three blows to the torso before I could react, burying me in a mass of old newspapers from the Living World soaked in what must have been urine and alcohol. Something probably drank that as a cocktail and threw it out with last year’s Willamette Weekly. I struggled to my feet, shaking off the loose sheets of paper, and saw Lon-warr standing proudly a few feet from me, visibly assured of his victory.

Then came the cleaver, slicing through his neck and sending his snaky head bouncing across the ground to land in a puddle of motor oil. The body slumped to the dirt, spraying dark indigo, almost black like deep blood from Humans, over the filth. And there stood a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, pallid skin and flaming red hair, bringing her enormous cleaver to rest on her shoulder. The fact that she was wearing tattered rags didn’t diminish her menacing appearance at all. If anything, it made it more blatant. “That is the last one for today,” she muttered, and turned to walk away.

My brain came back online about that time. “Hey,” I called after her, “I was supposed to bring that b*****d back alive!”

She turned around, and jumped back a bit, apparently surprised at my presence. “Did not see him there,” she murmured to herself. Then, louder, “My orders were to kill Lon-warr. If my success conflicts with your objectives, I offer my hopes that it does not bring you trouble with your superiors. Goodbye.” She began walking again, leaving a trail of indigo dripping from the cleaver behind her.

Naturally, that wasn’t good enough for Red Jack. “Hey!” I offered again. “You’re coming back to City Hall with me to explain why you killed my target!”

“I am not,” she called over her shoulder.

I’m not entirely sure which of us won. I jumped skyward and came down at her back, thrusting as hard as I could, and she must have heard me coming or something, because she whirled around and swung her cleaver at my torso. We both went down, her with blood pouring down her front and me with my intestines spilling out. After a time we both got to our feet and stood facing each other.

“Red Jack,” I said, crouching in preparation for another charge.

“Mina,” she threw back, taking a two-handed stance to receive me.

We came together another dozen times or so, slashing and retreating, hacking and coming apart. Finally I ducked under one of her blows and put my knife in her solar plexus, driving her to the ground. “Fine,” she said from the ground in exasperation as I stood with my foot on her forehead, “I will go wherever it is you want me to go. Just get off of me.” It bothered me slightly that she seemed to be more annoyed than pained.

I nodded in approval and stepped away, leading Mina back along the route I’d taken to get there. And no, it didn’t really surprise me, in retrospect, when she buried her cleaver in the back of my skull.

When I came to again, I noticed that I was back at my apartment, sprawled just inside the door, which was closed on my right ankle. A note written on the wall (in what was probably my blood) read:

Had one of the boys go out looking for you. You owe me now. And nice job failing your mission, asstard.

-Silverberg

****************************************************************************

RED JACK
EPISODE FIVE: “NO MAN’S FOOL”

I had her cornered at the end of a blind alley. The scene couldn’t have been more perfect: rain, thunder, a trail of blood leading from the alley’s mouth, and me bearing down on her. I had to remind myself not to walk too quickly. Slow and determined is the way to do it. Just fast enough that she knows you’re going to reach her before help can come, but slow enough that she has time to really be afraid before you do your thing. Let your hand hang limp at your side. Make sure that you have the blade turned so that it reflects what light there is.

She screamed—I punched her in the jaw and put a foot on her chest, crushing her against the wall. I was loving every moment of it. This was what I lived for, watching them realize that there is nothing they can do to survive and then sending them on in that most theatrical way that only I could pull off.

Again she tried to call for help, and I bashed her in the temple with the knife’s hilt. She toppled sideways, so I moved my foot to between her shoulders and pushed her down into the wet gravel. Her blood mixing with the rain made me want to get it over with, but that wouldn’t be proper. She had to know fear first. She had to know Red Jack.

*****

Somebody pounding on my door made me snap awake. My knife was already in my hand—I’d started sleeping with it after the third Demon broke in while I was asleep.

I rolled out of bed onto the floor, hove myself to standing, threw on whatever clothing was closest at hand, and opened the door. A green trench coat with white stripes on the sleeves, hideously red boots, and a blue crown-thing set on stark white hair greeted me. “Good morning, Jack!” my visitor shouted at me from two feet away. “Hey, you’re already dressed! Fantastic! Come on, we’re going drinking.” Before I could object, he hauled me out into the hallway and slammed the door shut.

“What are you doing here?” I muttered, still fairly groggy.

“I told you: we’re going drinking,” he said with more cheer than was necessary. I went along with it because a free drink is a free drink, especially for a Lost Soul like Red Jack.

We didn’t go to the biker bar, fortunately. The place we ended up at was some middle-class joint decorated like a school cafeteria run by a freakishly tall, rail-thin man in a tuxedo. We sat across from each other at a small table along one wall, and after we ordered, my new companion raised a toast to something or other. It was in a language I didn’t know, so I didn’t really get it, but I toasted to whatever it was right along with him.

“Morning, Jester!” somebody called from across the room, and my friend responded with as much gusto as he had awoken me with.

It took me a minute to catch it. “Your name’s Jester?” I asked through my sleepy stupor.

He gave a single melodramatic nod. “That’s what they call me down here,” he said. “I’ve been in this place so long I don’t remember what the people back home used to call me, so Jester’s as good as anything.” He laughed raucously. “You don’t think it’s the clothes, do you?”

“Speaking of which, what’s that thing on your head?”

Jester, as his name was, slammed his drink down on the table and leaned over the table. “Jack, I have something to tell you. You should really hear this, so pay attention.” I listened intently, the alcohol having somehow made me wide awake. It was probably laced with something. “The people down below are really pushing to get you, Jack,” Jester whispered.

I didn’t get it. “What do you mean?” I asked, going the obvious route.

“They want you, Jack. They’re arguing that the kind of repentance you had shouldn’t count. It’s the whole ‘deathbed repentance’ thing all over again. If they can, they’ll convince the Powers That Be to give you to them.” He straightened up and took another pull from his drink. “Just thought you should know.”

I got it now. “They’re trying to get me sent to Hell?” I hissed.

Jester pointed at the floor. “You’re standing on the table, Jack,” he calmly informed me. “And stop yelling at me. People are staring.” He leaned a little to his left. “Oh, and look out behind you.”

Something heavy collided with my legs and I went face-first into the table. A second blow connected midway up my spine and put me through the table to the floor. My back was wet, hopefully from the booze that had been on the table. I rolled over just in time to see a bile-skinned youth in a letterman’s jacket swinging a baseball bat down at me, and closed my eyes to wait for the pain.

It never came. I heard a sharp crack above me and opened my eyes. The youth was gone. I jumped up and scrambled away from the wreckage of the table.

Jester and the kid with the bat were standing about twenty feet apart, the latter wide-eyed and shaking with what I now know to be fear. My comrade raised one arm and pointed the palm of his hand at the boy. There was a crack and a bright flash of light, and the kid flew backwards, cracking his head on a wall and leaving a trail of blood and brain chunks down to the floor.

I stood there, stunned, until Jester yelled, “Jack! Get his head, quick, before he gets back up!” It was almost reflexive for me to dash over to the fallen enemy and saw through his neck with my knife. Then it occurred to me what I was doing. “Uh, Jester,” I said as quietly as I could, “why am I decapitating this kid?”

“Because he’ll stay dead if you do that. You can cut out his heart and destroy it, too, but this is easier for right now.” He looked around at the assorted Demons and Lost Souls who just had their drinking interrupted. “Ooooh, we should run.” Again I was hauled somewhere, this time down the block and around the corner. When we finally stopped running, Jester turned to me and grinned broadly. “Well, that was fun! Can you believe the first one came after you that quickly?” I almost hit him.

“Do you mind explaining what’s going on?” I asked as calmly as I could manage.

Jester leaned against the nearest building and scratched the top of his head. “Well, now, I suppose I don’t mind, Jack, but you won’t like it.” I glared at him for a while, which only made him smile even bigger. “All right, then! You, Jack, have apparently become the target of forces in Hell. Nothing new, right? Well, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill Demons and whatnot. These are things more evil than we can imagine, and they want you down in Hell immediately if not sooner.”

Okay, I understood so far. I was a hot item down in Hell. “Any idea as to why?”

“Ah, and there’s the rub,” Jester said, poking me in the shoulder for emphasis. “There are quite a few varying opinions of you, Jack. Hell isn’t all eternal torture and fire and brimstone, although those are its main selling points. Some of it is just like up here, only infinitely more crowded and more vile.” He shuddered, and the grin disappeared for a moment. “Given the population density of Hell proper, you have to expect that there would be at least a few distinct factions. It’s those factions that are arguing over you right now. Not just you, of course, but I’m assuming you only care about yourself. Am I right?” I nodded just to keep him talking. “Exactly. So! The first opinion of import is that you should be damned as soon as possible, like I told you back in the bar. You already know about that. The second opinion, and one that you should definitely watch out for, is that you should be brought to Hell but not damned. Do you get it? That way you can be made to work for one of the bosses down there. And of course there are those who want to see what happens with your sentence here in the Valley, but—”

I put up a hand to stop him from going on. “What do you mean, ‘work for one of the bosses down there?’”

Jester quirked an eyebrow at me. “Are you kidding? You’re Red Jack. The original doesn’t even come close to comparing to you.”

“So what are you saying?”

He took me by both shoulders and brought his face within an inch or two of mine. “The single most dangerous mortal in over a century isn’t something to overlook. The bosses want you because you’re the most effective killing machine that’s been sent to the Valley in more than a hundred years!” He took a step back. “The ones that want you damned? It’s not because they think you deserve it. They just don’t want the other bosses to get their hands on you.”

So that’s what fear feels like. Good to know. “And what does that have to do with a guy chasing me down with a baseball bat?”

Another quirked eyebrow. “How much don’t you know, Jack? If somebody dies in the Valley, they go on to Hell, whatever that may mean for them. That includes Demons. That’s why I had you take that kid’s head off.” I indicated my continuing ignorance. “All right, all right, all right. I’ll give you the tutorial. The first way to make a Lost Soul stay dead is to decapitate them. As long as the head doesn’t come in contact with the body again, they’ll eventually die for good. No more than a few hours at most, depending on the Lost Soul. The other way, and this works for Demons as well, is to cut out and destroy their heart. You absolutely need to destroy it, and do a thorough job of it, because otherwise the whole system will just regenerate and then you’re back where you started.” He indicated a scar on his throat. “Everything else heals over time. Get it now?” I grunted in the affirmative. “Great,” Jester said. “In that case, let’s go find somewhere else to drink.”

It is, I will tell you now, nearly impossible to get drunk in Hell.

****************************************************************************

RED JACK
EPISODE SIX: “RED AND WHITE”

Silverberg still looked like me, still sounded like me, and still called me “asstard.” He didn’t dress like me, though. I was still wearing my long, thick, dark-green jacket with bloodstains and holes torn in it by flailing victims, with whatever grey shirt and pants I happened to pick up off the floor that day, finished with my nondescript street shoes from when I was alive. Silverberg, on the other hand, affected the sartorial dress of the American Southeast—a white tuxedo with tails, white leather shoes, and something like a white fedora. Typical for a Demon, I guess, given the stereotypes. I expected that Satan dressed similarly.

“Well, asstard,” he said as I sat across the table from him in a side room at City Hall, “I’ve thought it over long and hard, and I’ve decided not to send your a** to the Boss. Sure, you screwed up, but who doesn’t?” He leaned his chair back against the wall and put his feet up on the table; I noticed that he had an ebony cane propped against the table.

Something was nagging at me. “What’s the catch?” I asked flatly.

My doppelganger gave me a huge, evil grin and shrugged. “There’s no catch, Red. I just think that it would be more fun to let the guys working for the folks down below to do my job for me.”

I banged my head against the table a couple of times to clear my thoughts before I made Silverberg repeat what he’d said. “Why are you such a b*****d?” I inquired.

He shrugged again. “I guess it runs in the family. I am a fallen Angel, you know. Take the good guy and invert him, and what do you get? Me!”

I got up and left without another word.

*****

Jester came along with me on my next job, with the reason that he needed somebody to go drinking with later. We cleared out a nest of errant hellhounds that had taken up residence in a warehouse belonging to a supplier of narcotics to Lost Souls and then hit the first bar we found. It was weird, but being around Jester made me a little less angry about my situation. After all, who cares how many Demons are trying to run you down when you’re getting roaring drunk—trying to, anyway—with the only friend you have?

There hadn’t been another attack after that one in the cafeteria-bar. It was like they were only making a cursory effort to get at me, and I told Jester so. He laughed it off, like he laughed everything off, and told me not to worry. “They’ll come for you when they’re good and ready and not a moment sooner,” he asserted.

It was as we left the bar and started back to our respective homes that I saw her. Mina was walking towards us down the middle of the street, flanked by a half-dozen Lost Souls armed with generic sharp implements. “I guess they’re good and ready!” Jester shouted to them with yet another laugh. If Mina or her comrades had any idea what he was talking about, they gave no indication.

The group stopped several yards from us. Mina produced her cleaver from somewhere and hoisted it onto her shoulder. “Red Jack,” she emotionlessly intoned, “you will surrender and come with us immediately, or you will be executed.”

And Red Jack was annoyed again. “Executed?” I hissed. “You’re going to execute me? I had my face shot off by some drunk! Just how do you think I got here?” The knife was out. I noticed Jester making sure that his gloves were firmly on and his crown-thing was straight.

Mina’s group shifted into obviously aggressive stances, but Mina herself remained impassive. “If you will not come with us, then there is only one recourse.” The same dead tone, just like Hammer. It was unsettling.

I’m not really sure what happened next. One moment our two factions were standing in the street, staring at each other, and then I lost myself in the carnage. I think I blacked out and kept fighting without realizing it. The screams—those I heard. Not from me or Jester, and certainly not from Mina, but from the thugs that stupid girl had brought with her. I must have been doing some pretty horrible things with that knife, the way they shrieked. Bright flashes of light from Jester punctuated the action, sending bits of asphalt and trash flying in every direction along with the unfortunates caught in the blast.

As you might expect, it came down to me and Jester facing Mina amongst the wreckage of our section of street. Cleaver-girl cocked her head at me and asked, “You are doomed to enter Hell eventually. Why are you resisting?” with the slightest hint of annoyance.

I didn’t answer. The talking part of the encounter was over and done with, and now I wanted as much blood as I could get. Jester raised a gloved hand and flashed his light again, forcing Mina to slam her cleaver into the ground to keep from being blown back, giving me the opportunity to leap through the air and come at her from above. The cleaver swung up and knocked my knife aside, and I lashed out with a foot, catching Mina in the nose and forcing her down onto her knees. As my feet hit the ground she swung again. I jumped and slashed wildly at her face, sending crimson spraying across the air. She stumbled backwards—I don’t know when she got to her feet—and came at me again. I saw Jester lounging against a building nearby out of the corner of my eye. Good, I thought, then I can do my thing without worrying.

We came together again and again, throwing our weight against each other and taking every cheap shot that made itself available. Mina would open me up along the front, and I’d put a hole in her side. She took one of the fingers on my knife hand, so I switched hands and took one of her eyes. It went on like that for a long time, until finally we both collapsed from exhaustion.

Jester stirred from where he was and walked calmly to each of the Lost Souls lying in the street, making their heads explode as though it was something he did every day. Given our situation, it probably was. After he had finished with each of the thugs, he knelt beside Mina and placed a hand on her forehead. Then, looking at me, he said, “It’s your call, Jack.” I grunted to indicate a lack of understanding. “I guess what I’m asking is if you want to finish her yourself or if it’s okay for me to do it.”

I thought about it for a minute, and finally waved Jester away. “I’ll do it myself.” My finger still hadn’t reattached itself, so I was going at it left-handed. It wouldn’t be a clean kill, but then they hardly ever were. Mina was trying to struggle to her feet, but her wounds were worse than mine and she was having a hard time of it. Finally she gave up and closed her eyes, keeping the same dead expression she’d had on since we met the first time. I stood over her, trying to decide which way to do it. “What do you think?” I asked Jester. “Head or heart?” He shrugged and sat on the ground. I took another look at Mina, who was almost healed to where she could put up a fight again, and returned the knife to my sleeve. “Let’s go, Jester,” I muttered. He didn’t ask questions, standing up and following me away from the scene.

*****

“I’m impressed,” Jester admitted that evening, as we drank ourselves as close to oblivion as we dared in what had to have been the most dingy bar in the Valley.

“Why’s that?”

My drinking buddy cast a sidelong look at me and widened his grin even further than usual. “Ah, that’s right! You wouldn’t know!” He was being manic again, which was a relief given how calm he was during and after the fight with Mina. “Our Mina, whom you have called ‘Cleaver-girl’ on several occasions today, is a professional hunter of Lost Souls.”

“You mean she makes a living doing it?”

“Only in a manner of speaking, Jack. Whatever Demon she takes orders from—that’s something I wouldn’t know—shortens her sentence a bit for every Demon or Lost Soul she banishes to Hell under orders. Like…a bounty hunter, see?” He called for another round.

“Wait, Mina’s a Lost Soul?” It hadn’t occurred to me before. I just naturally assumed that somebody like that had to be a Demon.

“Correct! She kills people like you instead of serving straight time. That’s understandable, considering that straight time is nearly an eternity for former mortals like ourselves, but you have to admit that it’s still pretty gruesome.” The bartender slammed our drinks down on the bar. “In fact,” Jester continued, “She’s known as Hell’s White Maiden. ‘Hell’ because we’re just that close to it, ‘white’ because she purifies the Valley, in a way, and ‘maiden’ because…I don’t know, because she’s a girl, I guess.” We drank in silence for a long time. Jester finally broke the silence by giving me an intense glare, complete with his madman’s grin, and asking, “Do you mind if I ask why you left her alive?”

I almost didn’t answer.

“Because she’s the first girl who almost butchered me.”