Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Forty Seven: The Sword of Damocles

Another shower of intense images he didn't understand. He saw Ellini's white and gold sari, laying bare the line at the centre of her ribcage. He saw stars so bright he could discern them through the canvas roof of the tent. He saw the Indian spice markets – each stall with its mounds of powder in shades of ochre, russet and turmeric-yellow.

And he remembered everything. He remembered feeling like his torso was full of broken glass whenever he was away from her. He remembered rapturously kissing her hand after love-making, as though she had just saved his life – as though she saved his life every night at about this time, and it was no less appreciated for its regular recurrence.

Just as remembering the misery had made him angry, remembering the happiness incensed him further still. He was annoyed that he didn't understand it. He was almost ready to cry out with frustration that he couldn't feel anything that intense anymore.

It outweighed the misery a thousandfold. Robin's hateful, feline face paled into insignificance compared with this. Robin was an ant compared with this.

And it was here – not at the point when the gargoyle had thrown him against the wall, or pinned him down with two sickles – it was here that the first misgivings began to enter his mind.

She had been all this to him, and she was dying. The feelings were locked away from him at the moment, but if they ever came back, this was going to hurt.

Jack only re-joined the present when a cool shadow fell across his face. The gargoyle was standing over him with one of its grey claws outstretched.

"This is probably a bad idea," the old man was saying. "It's a trick that takes a lot of concentration, and my associate here seems rather distracted tonight. But I would like you to know the truth about the woman you've just stabbed, and they say that pain is a wonderful aide de memoire."

"What are you-?" Jack started, but he was cut off by another harsh, guttural command from the old man. 

The gargoyle – still trembling, still with madness in the cavities where its eyes should have been – put its clawed finger-tips against Jack's chest, and kept on going.

It felt as though it had clawed its way in – no, it felt worse than that. Even a punctured chest couldn't replicate that feeling of wrongness – that sweaty, sickly, heart-pounding sense that something alien had wormed its way into you.

There was no blood. It was as though the gargoyle's hand had suddenly become insubstantial, except that he could feel it in there. He could feel those dirty, long-nailed fingers curled around his heart.

The pressure of the gargoyle's grip was dragging him forward, heart-first. He tried to resist it, because he could feel his wrists pressing against the sickle-blades, but he didn't dare resist it too hard, in case his heart was wrenched out of his chest completely.

"I assure you, it's just as shocking to see as it is to experience," said the old man conversationally. "This was the sight that met Miss Syal's eyes when we got into your woefully-unguarded chamber on the night your army took Lucknow. I daresay you remember the night, if not the hand in your chest. The battle outside the city gates? When you tumbled off your horse and landed, all alone, in the thick of the enemy infantry? You should have died. Everyone said so. Even you appeared to know it on some level, because you relaxed the obsessive security measures around your bed-chamber that night, as though you were expecting the Grim Reaper to come calling. It was rather amusing. You left the doors unlocked for He who can turn all locks aside. And, instead of Him, I got in, with a similar end in mind, but a different focus."