“You bought it?” Jenna asked. Jack drew in a sharp breath, but he also had to hold back a smile. This man's posturing, his arrogance, his disdain for those he saw as beneath him, all reminded him of a bully they'd once had in school. His name had been Kelly, and he'd delighted in throwing around his superior weight and pet-level intellect to hurt those smaller than him. Trouble was, everyone had been smaller than Kelly. At one time or another, virtually everyone in school had a run-in with him, boy or girl, first-year or sixth-year. He'd punched Jack once as he came down a staircase and Jack was walking up, giving him a swollen black eye and a dented pride. Jack, of course, had not struck back.
But every bully meets his match. Six boys caught Kelly after school one day, held him down, and beat him so hard they say he pissed blood. The violence shocked Jack, but Kelly seemed to shrink after that, though his rapid weight increase led to his nickname being changed to Bloater. Even Jack had called him that, and to his face as well. Small revenge, but sticks and stones…
Puppeteer looked at Jenna for some time, weighing up how, or even whether, to respond. “I'm a new man,” he said at last. “I have no name other than Puppeteer. You can all hold onto the past, if you must. Old names, old values. So no, I did not buy this suit, little girl. I took it from a fine tailor's just off Oxford Street, and the owner was not there to object. If he or she had been, I would have moved them out of the way.”
“Asshole,” Sparky muttered.
Puppeteer lifted his hands then, fingers hanging like the readied legs of two large spiders. “Stop filming me,” he said quietly, and his fingers flexed.
Emily was jerked up from her seat, the camera bouncing from a cushion and hitting the carpeted floor. Jack reached for her instinctively, but just as his hands closed around her ankles he felt a crippling pain in his upper arms, shards of agony thrust in from outside to slice through muscle and grate against bone. He fell back, and then Emily was above him, above all of them, held in mid-air and turning slowly, screaming, waving her arms and legs as she tried to swim back down.
“Jack!” she cried. “I can't…breathe! Can't…”
“Let her go!” Jack shouted, standing and spinning to face Puppeteer.
Rosemary had backed away, Scryer had stood from the big sofa—still smiling, still awfully beautiful—and the others were on their feet now as well, Sparky already trying to circle around past the bed so that he could get behind the tall Superior.
The little finger on Puppeteer's right hand twitched and Sparky cried out, his left leg cramping and folding beneath him. He grabbed his ankle and stared at the man, hate in his eyes.
Jack took one step forward and then Scryer was before him, a few steps away but close enough for him to see her excitement.
“Really want to get hurt?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes!” Jack spat. “For my sister, yes, and I don't need some shitty truth-witch to make me say that!” Scryer actually looked taken aback, and Jack felt a brief stab of delight.
Emily rose higher. Her head was almost touching the ceiling now, and her hands clawed at her throat. Her eyes were half-shut, and as she looked down at Jack a tear ran down her cheek.
“Please!” he said, trying to see past what Puppeteer had become to the humanity that must lie beneath.
But the man was enjoying this. He looked around the room, revelling in being the centre of things, not even needing to look at Emily to keep her suspended.
“Puppeteer, that's Reaper's daughter,” Rosemary said quietly.
For the first time, doubt clouded Puppeteer's eyes. He tried to hide it—turned away, looked at Emily, glanced across at the wide view of the Toxic City—but Jack saw something touch Puppeteer then, and it looked very much like fear.
“Reaper,” the man said.
Scryer's smile slipped for the first time.
“Who's Reaper?” Jack asked, confused.
Puppeteer dropped his hands and turned away, and Emily crashed to the floor. She gasped, a terrible, hoarse sound as she sucked in breath across her dry throat, and then she started crying.
“Bastard!” Jack shouted. Right then, if he'd had a gun he'd have fired it, if he'd had a knife he'd have thrown it. But he had neither, so he went to his sister and gathered her in his arms, nurturing the hate and letting it settle somewhere deep inside.
“Reaper,” the man said again. He looked at them, shaking his head slowly. “Does he know?”
“Of course not,” Rosemary said.
“We have to take them to him,” Scryer said. “A gift. An honour!”
The tall man nodded.