Chapter 99

BLOODSPORT

“I wish I could kill you myself,” Jack said. “Rip it out of you with my own hands. But I can’t. I can’t because that’s how it was spoken. I have to call out to a ripper. I have to find a really dark heart. I thought I’d found one in Hallam, but he is more sick than evil. He is wrong in so many ways. And Spencer, I knew would never do. Too weak. Convenient for me to be freed from my prison, of course. Easily tempted to kill his friend. But not a ripper. Not the prince of monsters I need. He’s betrayed me, the little fucker, and he’ll pay for that. He will die very badly.”

Tash ached. Her head throbbed. She knew she was bleeding from her scalp. When Hallam attacked her with the hammer, she thought he was killing her. He’d come to get Jasmine, she’d thought, so she had to fight to protect her daughter. That’s why she’d told Jasmine to run. But Hallam had come for her, not for Jasmine.

She sat up quickly, gasping for breath. She looked around, not knowing where she was. It was dark and cold.

“You’re thinking, Where am I? ain’t you,” Jack said. “Well, you’re nowhere. But I’m going to take you somewhere. And on the way, I’m going to show you things—I’m going to show you how everything happened. You and your sort have caused me great torment. But now it will end. Your death will mean my life. The world will fear me. It will see me in all my glory.”

Tash was still looking around. Unable to see anything, she focused on her sense of touch. The ground where she lay was rocky. Was she on a mountain or down a mine? It could be anywhere. Not knowing scared her.

Jack went on.

“There’s a little piece of me in every human. Evil lurks in them all. It was put in there when you were made. It is sin. Initially, it was dormant. But then it became alive, because one man disobeyed God. And men after that made good use of it. But it will be nothing compared to what I do when I am free of this ordeal. This is a bloodsport. It’s been a long war. But with you dead, and my Ripper returning with his treasures, it’ll soon be done.”

“Would it do any good if I begged you to let me go?”

“Do you think I have compassion? It’s not part of my design. Now, we’ve got to go. We’ve got to get to the place where you’ll be killed and I’ll be born. On the way, I’ll show you things—that’ll be my one and only gift. I’ll show you how things became what they are.”

He grabbed her hand. She gasped as a surge of energy shot up her arm into her body, slamming into her heart.

Tash jerked. Her chest locked up. She struggled to breathe. Her vision swam. In the dark, she saw a tiny, white dot. It grew, expanding till it became a ball of fire—still small in the vast blackness, but the sole object in this endless space.

And then the ball of fire exploded. Red heat fanned out. It spread across the darkness, filling it with light. Debris sailed off from the center of the eruption, whirling in the flaming landscape.

Tash found her breath and let out a gasp.

“I’m taking you back to the beginning,” Jack told her. “All the way back.”

And as Tash watched, worlds formed.