Jack-in-the-book (4)

Fourth installment. No nitpicks please!

Maybe it was hours later, our minutes, or a whole year, but finally, the sound of a book shutting snapped me out of my self-pitying stupor, and I looked up, straight into the ink-man’s blackblack eyes. A thin, papery smile stretched across his face, and he took my hand and pulled me to my feet for the second time that night. “The audience wants an encore, ‘hon,” he said, matter-of-factly, and led me through the long, musty corridors of books. My stabbed hand, held tight to my side, was throbbing like hell, and I was trying very hard not to think of how much blood I’d lost since he’d stuck it with the knife.

At last we came to the oak doors, and without a single moment to gather himself or even to take a breath, the ink-man threw them open, grinning broadly like this really was just a play put on at the local theatre. The foyer was bright with flashlights, and two policemen who had been standing against the doors, and shoved violently away when they were pushed open, started back toward us, still looking pathetically dazed.

I almost felt it before it lit upon my skin—the long, thin dagger, cold as ice, quite steady in his hand. “You move one inch, good sirs, and she’ll be very, very dead.”

“Please,” I said, my voice tight, strained, “please, don’t.”

“Call me Darren, girlie,” he chuckled, and my breath came in suddenly as the steel pressed against my skin. “Sorry we haven’t been introduced—I was kind of busy trying to keep your from running off to ruin everything. Shh, I’ll take care of this.” As if he was my dad, and this was all just some silly mistake. As if it’d be all right.

“Oh God!” cried a familiar voice, and my eyes flicked in the direction of the sound; Mom was standing there, frozen in place, clutching Jaden’s hand in hers, and staring right at me. The utter helplessness in her eyes made my heart squeeze painfully, and I struggled beneath Darren’s hands.

“Stop being difficult,” he hissed, and then, louder, to the entire room, “Officers! Miss Katherine’s mother! Assorted small people! I’m perfectly willing to be sensible about all this. I have no demands, nothing at all to ask of you. If you’ll just give me a moment, I will be quite happy to release Miss Kate and go about my business. Don’t move, and I won’t have to slit her throat, understand? Good.”

There was a sudden silence, as everyone stopped what they were doing and looked over, as if—as if they hadn’t noticed his bursting out of the oak doors. What was this guy, some sort of magician? I doubted I’d ever find out anything, because in a second that knife would slice through my skin, and I’d be bleeding even worse than I already was.

“Okay Kate, let’s keep this simple, yeah? I really don’t care at all what these people think, or what you think, or what any idiotic human thinks. All I want is one little…keepsake of my time here on earth. What can you give me, girlie?”

“If you slip me that dagger of yours I can give you a nice goodbye slice right through your little black heart,” I snapped, struggling not to pay attention to the throbbing in my hand, the nightmare of his papery long fingers, so tight around my arm I could feel the tips of my fingers tingling from lack of circulation. He laughed, that dark, breathy sound, and my heart skipped a beat when he finally released my forearm, hoping he would let me go, let me survive this awful night.

The dagger pressed against my neck, and then I felt something grab hold of my ponytail and yank backwards—suddenly I could see his eyes, inky-dark, cold as ice, hard as diamond. “Oh, but then I couldn’t do this.”

I’d never been kissed before; I’d never imagined that it would ever be like that, so sudden, so unexpected, with a dagger held to my throat, and a swirl of blackness cascading into my head. Memories that weren’t mine, a strange, ethereal world of bright and pitch-dark, voices, strange voices in unfamiliar languages…he was giving me something, I just didn’t know what it was. And I couldn’t think on my own, I could only feel his fingers weaving through my hair, his lips, not papery but not like skin at all.

There was a horrible noise like a bomb exploding all around, and something brushed across my throat, darkness overtook me. He was gone, and I hit the floor. A doll thrown away, a toy forgotten.

Ha-ha-ha, came his laugh, breathy, papery. Then silence.

“Honey? …Katie, are you all right?”

It was warm, wherever I was. I tried to pull the covers over my head, frowning—still tired. What was that on my hand?

“Katie!” Jaden called out in a sing-song voice. Suddenly, I was awake, and remembering, remembering everything.

“Where is he?” I said, pulling the covers up to my neck, trembling, look around at the hospital room like it might eat me at any moment. “Where did he—”

“He’s gone, honey. He just…disappeared. It’s crazy, isn’t it? This is one the scientists won’t be able to explain, or the media, come to that. I can just see the headline now”—here Mom did her comforting little giggle that always made me want to laugh, too—“Mass Hallucination Stabs Girl’s Hand, Threatens Murder, Vanishes. You’ll be on the headlines, just like you always wanted, Kit!”

“Ugh,” I sighed, staring dolefully down at my hand, wrapped up in that weird white cloth stuff. It was so cold, while the rest of me was so cozy warm. Bad circulation? I would hunt that bastard down and kill him if he screwed up my hand forever.

Okay fine, so I wouldn’t. But it was a nice thought.

“The doctor wants you stay overnight, make sure you keep healing up nicely. How d’you feel, sweetheart?” Mom said, suddenly looking a little worried. She tried so hard to be upbeat about everything, but even she couldn’t help looking anxious about my wrapped-up hand.

“I’m fine, Mom. You guys go home, and if you forget to come back, I can just hang out and chat it up with the infectious disease ward, right?” That made her smile, at least, and she opened her mouth, as if she was about to ask something—and then shut it, frowning just a little. “Jay, what’s with you being so quiet?” I asked, to break the strangely uncomfortable silence. He made a face at me but he didn’t speak. Wow, I’d finally found an answer to the big Will anything shut you up question. Just took a sociopathic storybook character that had a thing for appearing in libraries and scaring the crap out of people.

“Well! If you’re sure you’re all right here—”

“I am, Mom. I’m really sorry about all of this. Just go home and get some sleep, mmkay?”

She frowned again at this, and said, quite gravely, “Katie honey, this was not your fault, you understand? Just because…just because…” Her eyes strayed to Jaden, still quiet, like whatever she’d wanted to say clearly not for his ears. “Just—it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

I nodded wordlessly, lying without really lying. Sure it wasn’t my fault, I thought bitterly, but I smiled the whole time Mom gathered up her knitting bag and her purse, as she took Jaden’s hand, led him out of the room.

And then it was quiet. I pressed my un-ickied hand to my eyes and took deep breaths, trying so damn hard not to think of him, or anything he’d done to me, or the way he’d smiled, or the steel, so cold against my throat…

Ha-ha-ha.

No, no, no! I groaned, the beginnings of a headache beginning in my temples. Why couldn’t it have been simple? Why couldn’t he have just slit my throat and laughed as I bled to death?

And yet as I told myself that I would’ve preferred that, I knew I wouldn’t have. I knew that somehow, this made it so much more dramatic, so much more unpredictable. That somehow, now he wasn’t just the ink-man, or Darren the sociopath. He was something more complex, something more human, almost. And in some way, that scared me even more.

It was then, as my mind whirled even more out of control, that a sort of sleepiness came over me. I knew at once it wasn’t normal sleepiness, or drank-something-weird sleepiness, but older than that, much more powerful. It was suddenly very warm and cozy, and a smell like Mom’s best fresh-baked brownie-cookies filled the room, one of the most soporific scents I had ever come into contact with.

The last thing I remember as I drifted away into sleep was the underlying smell of musty old paper, and a quiet little noise.

Ha-ha-ha.

Still no italics, muaha. I'm not sure if I like this chapter or not--your thoughts, my good people?