INTERLUDE
Bent Penny
The Dark Man had taken her again.
She knew better than to struggle when he came for her. All the kids did, of course, though that didn’t stop some of them from struggling anyway. The Good Ghost couldn’t do anything about it, either, although the Dark Man always acted a little oddly when the Good Ghost was around, glancing over his shoulder uneasily, as if he could feel the Good Ghost’s glare.
It was always the same when the Dark Man took her. He would take her to a strange, bare room, not like the room the Devil used at all. It was a bare, concrete box. There were symbols and diagrams meticulously drawn in white paint all over the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. There was a chair in the middle of the room, like a dentist chair, but with straps. He would strap her into it, then make it lie down.
Then he’d mumble over her, and wave things over her, and do other things that just didn’t make any sense at all. Sometimes he’d burn smelly things. Sometimes he’d make her drink nasty stuff that put her to sleep. He had never actually hurt her yet, that she knew of, but somehow, what he was doing made her more scared than if he had. It just felt wrong, what he was doing; wrong in a way that made her feel sick.
He’d just strapped her into the chair and tilted it back, when the Devil came in.
Today the Devil had no face at all, just slits for eyes, a slit for the nose, and a slit for the mouth. Somehow that was the most horrible of his faces. Penny turned her head and closed her eyes, but the Devil and the Dark Man were paying no attention to her.
“What is your fascination with this one?” the Devil asked, in his odd, high voice. She shivered. Someone that terrible should not have a nice voice. That was just wrong.
“There is something about her that I have not yet been able to identify,” the Dark Man replied, his horrible tobacco breath making her want to gag. “It’s close enough to magic that I can certainly…use her…but if I can truly understand what it is, she might be more useful to me in another way.” There was a pause. “And speaking of that, when will you be done with these children? I’ve already missed two opportunities to complete my project; it would be exceedingly irritating to miss another.”
“I think…I am very close to a conclusion, one way or another,” the Devil said, sounding…odd. His voice trembled ever so little. “Either way, you’ll get your wish. This entire facility and everything it contains will be yours. And so will that woman you want. Just as I promised.” The voice caressed, like a beautiful hand that left trails of slime behind it. “When have I ever disappointed you, darling?”
The Dark Man snorted. “With your damned stubbornness, every hour in the beginning.”
“And that was decades ago. You and I have shared too much now, we have too much history between us. We owe each other too much. You made me what I am, after all.” The Devil laughed and Penny convulsed in shudders. The sound was…whatever the opposite of joy was, that was what was in that laugh.
The Dark Man’s voice took on tones of gloating. “Excellent. I was hoping you would not renege on our bargain, after I have given you everything you asked for.” Then his tone turned darker. “That…would not be wise. And you are right, we owe each other too much to muddy our history with a betrayal over something as trivial as a few children and a woman. Regardless, you should heed my words and not dally in your tasks. Things are changing, I can smell it in the air. There may come a time, and soon, when your Masters will tighten their grip and you will no longer be permitted your own…amusements.”
The Devil just snorted. A moment later, the door opened and closed. When Penny turned her head to peek, he was gone. But the Dark Man was still there.
He bent over her and smiled with horrible, stained teeth. “Now, my little mystery,” he said. “Let me see if I can unravel you this time…”