The Jack Hansard Series: Season One

Episode 20: She Who Holds A Thousand Souls

I certainly felt like a joke. But I sure as hell wasn't laughing about it.

"This is your fault," said Mercer, flatly. "I told you she'd have followed you."

I couldn't argue. It was depressingly predictable.

Quiet Eyes sauntered forward, pistol dangling casually from her hand. She saw me glance at it.

"Oh, Jack," she said, sweetly. "You don't think I'd use this do you? There's no reason to be uncivilised. Unless you give me a reason." Vincent and the other henchman cracked their knuckles behind her; I wondered if she really needed them. Quiet Eyes gestured vaguely with her gun-hand. "You know what I want."

Mercer, to my surprise, gave up his egg first. I knew the slick-fingered weasel would have snatched at least one. He rolled it from his prone position across the floor. Quiet Eyes stopped it with the toe of her boot and motioned for Vincent to retrieve it.

"Now yours, Hansard," she said to me.

Peggy was shifting anxiously by my side, looking in all directions. Her gaze locked on Vincent as he bent at Quiet Eyes' feet. "You've done it again, haven't you?" she said. "Taken all the people away. It's so quiet. You wouldn't dare do this otherwise."

Vincent gave a violent burst of laughter. Quiet Eyes was classier, and merely smiled.

"The museum is closed, darling. All the people left hours ago." She fingered the barrel of the gun. "We really are so terribly alone."

I felt in my pocket and my fingers closed around the myrrh egg. I felt the weight of it in my hand.

"Hey Quiet Eyes," I said. "Think fast."

The egg arced through the air. All eyes fixed on it. Vincent made a dive. I grabbed Peggy and Ang and ran.

Behind us there was a loud crunch, the kind of sound I imagined a rock would make when cracked open. Then there was a shock-wave, a tremor that shook the whole building, and a blinding light that burned glowing after-images onto my retinas.

I fell against the wall, smacked my head on a lit-up display of carved scarabs. I half-turned and painfully opened my eyes. Through the spots I could see Quiet Eyes and her boys on the floor, rubbing their heads and groping for their scattered weapons. Mercer too, on the other side of the room.

But in the centre. Just in front of the benben stone and hovering a few inches above the shattered remnants of a myrrh shell, the form of a naked woman hung, sublimely suspended in the air.

But I use the word 'woman' loosely. Her skin, or the surface where you would expect skin to be, was a fold of midnight blue, a blue so deep it was almost black. And within that blue - and within really is the best word, because there was a definite sense of depth and distance - tiny stars glittered, from the very tips of her outstretched fingers to the host of suns in her hair. Nebulae dusted the smooth curve of her thigh.

I found I couldn't move. I was transfixed.

The apparition opened its mouth and issued a booming series of alien sounds that rattled my eardrums.

It fell silent and surveyed us expectantly. Its eyes were twin voids.

I brought a hand to my throbbing ear and groaned. "Did anyone catch that?"

The eyes narrowed.

The mouth opened once more.

"HEAR ME, MORTALS."