41
The Jackal
He jerks back his hand. He is fast.
I am faster.
I bury my dagger through his hand, pinning it to the table.
His mouth gasps open at the pain. Some weird sort of feral exhalation hisses from his mouth as he jerks at the dagger. But I am bigger than him and I drove the dagger four inches into the table. I hammer it down with a flagon. He can’t pull it out. I lean back and watch him try. There’s something primal to his initial frenzied panic. Then something decidedly human in his recovery, which seems more brutally cold than my act of violence. He calms himself faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. It takes a breath, maybe three, and he leans back in his chair as though we were at drinks.
“Well, shit,” he says tightly.
“I thought we should become better acquainted,” I say. I point to myself. “Jackal, I am Reaper.”
“You’ve the better name,” he replies. He takes a breath. Another. “How long have you known?”
“That you were the Jackal? A hopeful guess. That you were up to no good? Before I entered the castle. No one surrenders without a fight. One of your rings didn’t fit. And hide your hands next time. Insecure sobs always hide or fiddle with their hands. But really you had no chance. The Proctors knew I was coming here. They thought to make it a trap to ruin me by telling you I was coming. So you would sneak in here, try to catch me with my pants down. Their mistake. Your mistake.”
He watches me, wincing as he turns to look at my sober-as-day soldiers rising from the ground. Nearly fifty of them. I wanted them to see the ruse.
“Ah.” The Jackal sighs as he realizes how futile his trap has become. “My soldiers?”
“Which ones? The ones that were with you or the ones you hid in the castle? Maybe in the cellars? Maybe beneath the floor in a tunnel? I don’t wager they’re smiles and giggles right now, man. Pax is a beast and Mustang will be helping him just in case.”
“So that’s why you sent her away.”
And so she wouldn’t accidentally ask why we were pretending to be drunk on grape juice.
Pax will have found their hiding place. Thunder still rolls. I hope the Jackal sank a large size of his force into this ambush. If he didn’t, it’ll be a hassle, because if he has Jupiter’s castle, he probably has Jupiter’s army, which has Juno and much of Vulcan, and soon Mars’s. His army will be twice the size of mine and we will be the only two left. But I have him here.
The Jackal is pinned, bleeding, and surrounded by my army. His ambush undone. He has lost, but he is not helpless. He is no longer Lucian. It’s almost like his hand isn’t impaled. His voice doesn’t waver. He is not angry, just pissinyourboots scary. He reminds me of me before I go into a rage. Quiet. Unhurried. I wanted my soldiers to see him squirm. He doesn’t, so I tell them to leave. Only the ten Howlers, old and new, stay.
“If we’re to have a conversation, please take this dagger out of my hand,” the Jackal says to me. “Believe it or not, it hurts.” He is not as playful as his words suggest. Despite his resolve, his face is pale and his body has begun to tremble from shock.
I smile. “Where is the rest of your army? Where is that girl, Lilath? She owes my friend an eye.”
“Let me go and I will give you her head on a platter, if you want. If you lend me an apple, I’ll even put that in her mouth so she looks like a pig at feast. Your choice.”
“There! Now, that’s how you got your name, isn’t it?” I say with mocking applause.
The Jackal clicks his tongue regrettably. “Lilath liked the sound of it. It stuck. That’s why I’ll put the apple in her mouth. Wish I could have been something more … regal than Jackal, but reputations tend to make themselves.” He nods to Sevro. “Like the Little Goblin there and his Toadstools.”
“What do you mean, ‘Toadstools’?” Thistle asks.
“That’s what we call you. Toadstools for Reaper and Goblin to squat on. But if you would like a better name beyond this little game, you need simply kill big nasty Reaper here. Don’t stun him. Kill him. Drive a sword into his spine, and you can become Imperators, Governors, whatever. Father will be happy to oblige. Very simple stuff. Quid pro quo.”
Sevro pulls out his knives and glares at his Howlers. “Not so simple.”
Thistle doesn’t move.
“Worth a try,” the Jackal sighs. “I confess, I am a politico, not a fighter. So if we’re to converse, you must say something, Reaper. You look like a statue. I don’t speak statue.” His charisma is cold. Calculating.
“Did you really eat your own Housemembers?”
“After months in darkness, you eat whatever your mouth finds. Even if it’s still moving. It isn’t very impressive, really. Less human than I would have liked, very much like animals. And anyone would have done it. But dredging up my foul memories is no way to negotiate.”
“We aren’t negotiating.”
“Humans are always negotiating. That’s what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something.” His smile is pleasant, but his eyes … There is something wrong with him. A different soul seems to have filled his body since the time he was Lucian. I have seen actors … but this is different. It is as though he is reasonable to the point of being inhuman.
“Reaper, I will have my father give you whatever you like. A fleet. An army of Pinks to screw, Crows to conquer with, whatever. You’ll have prime placement if I win this little year of schooling. If you win, there’s still more schooling. Still more tests. More hardship. I hear your family is in debt and Shamed—it will be difficult for you to rise on your own.”
Almost forgot I had a fake family.
“I will make my own laurels.”
“Reaper. Reaper. Reaper. You think this is the end of the line?” He makes a clicking sound of disgust with his tongue. “Negative. Negative, goodman. But if you let me go, then hardship …” He makes a brushing motion with his free hand. “Gone. My father will become your patron. Hello, command. Hello, fame. Hello, power. Just say goodbye to this”—he gestures to the knife—“and let your future begin. We were enemies as children. Now let us be allies as men. You’re the sword, I’m the pen.”
Dancer would want me to accept the offer. It would guarantee my survival. Guarantee my meteoric rise. I would be inside the halls of the ArchGovernor’s mansion. I would be near the man who killed Eo. Oh, I want to accept. But then I would have to let the Proctors beat me. I’d have to let this little whorefart win and let his father smile and feel pride. I’d have to watch that smug smile spread across his bloodydamn face. Slag that. They’ll feel pain.
The door opens and Pax ducks into the room. A smile splits his face.
“Goryfine night, Reaper!” he laughs. “Caught the little turds in the well. Fifty. Seems they had long tunnels down there. Must be how they took the castle.” He slams the door and sits on the edge of the table to gnaw on a piece of leftover meat. “It was wet work! Ha! Ha! We let them come up and it was dandy fine carnage, I tell you. Dandy fine. Helga would have loved it. They are all slaves now. Mustang is making them as we speak. But ohhh, she’s in an odd mood.” He spits out a bone. “Ha! This him then? The Jackal? He looks pale as a Red’s ass.” He peers closer. “Shit. You nailed him down!”
“I think you’ve taken bigger shits than him, Pax,” Sevro adds.
“Prime have. More colorful ones too. He’s drab as a Brown.”
“Guard your tongue, fool,” the Jackal tells Pax. “It may not always be there.”
“Neither will your prick if you keep sassin’! Ha! Is it as small as you?” Pax booms.
The Jackal does not like being mocked. He stares silently at Pax before flicking his eyes back to me as a serpent might flick its tongue.
“Did you know the Proctors are helping you?” I ask. “That they’ve tried to kill me?”
“Of course,” he says with a shrug. “My bounties are … above average.”
“And you don’t mind cheating?” I ask.
“Cheat or be cheated, no?”
Familiar.
“Well, they’re not helping you anymore. It’s too late for that. Now it’s time you help yourself.” I stab another knife down into the table. He knows what it’s for.
“I once heard that if a Jackal becomes trapped, it will chew off its own leg to free itself. That knife might be easier than using teeth.”
His laugh is quick and short, like a bark. “So if I cut my hand off, I can leave? Is that really it?”
“There’s the door. Pax, hold the knife down so that he doesn’t cheat.”
Even if he ate others, he won’t do it. He can sacrifice friends and allies, but not himself. He will fail this test. He is an Aureate. He is no one to fear. He is small. He is weak. He is just like his father. I find his Pluto ring in his boot and put it around his finger so his Drafters and father can watch their pride and joy give up. They will know I am better.
“The Proctors may be nudging me, but I still have to earn it, Darrow.”
“We’re waiting.”
He sighs. “I told you. I am a something different than you. A hand is a peasant’s tool. A Gold’s tool is his mind. Were you of better breeding, you may have realized this sacrifice means so very little to me.”
Then he starts to cut. Tears stream down his face as the blood first wells. He’s sawing and Pax can’t even watch. The Jackal is halfway done when he looks up at me with a sane smile that convinces me of his complete insanity. His teeth chatter. He is laughing, at me, at this, at the pain. I’ve not met anyone like him. Now I know how Mickey felt when he met me. This is a monster in the flesh of a man.
The Jackal is about to break his own wrist to make the job easier when Pax curses and gives him an ionBlade. It will go through in a single stroke.
“Thank you, Pax,” the Jackal says.
I don’t know what to do. Everything inside me is screaming sense. I should kill him now. Put a blade through his throat. This is someone you do not let go. This is someone you do not piss on and then send back into the wild. He is so far beyond Cassius it makes me want to laugh. Yet I told him he could leave if he cut, and he’s cutting. Dear God.