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Jack Shandy, once John Chandagnac, the puppeteer whose land and titles had been stolen by a
murderous uncle in league with Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, stands by the helm where Captain Jack
Sparrow holds court with his legs wide for balance and his eyes dancing with that playful inner light
Shandy knows so well. Off the port bow a dolphin leaps. The skin is freckled and the dolphin spins
gaily through the air, corkscrewing gracefully.
"Merde!" Shandy exclaims softly, under his breath. "Capitain!"
Captain Sparrow raises an eyebrow.
"I must make a veve."
"Now why would that be?"
"Because she thinks she is going to face just one man, an old acquaintance, just one baka. This is not
the case. She is alone!"
"You leave that flour be, old friend," Captain Jack tells him, winking slyly. "I don't think she'd want or
appreciate your interference, whatever she's up to."
Shandy stares out across the briny blue where the spinner dolphins, scores of them now, are playing.
"You may be right," he says. "I hope you are."
"I'm not often wrong," says his Captain.
* * *
Ravenbait freewheels gently across the packed clay trail and comes to a stop at the edge of a clearing.
Within the clearing waits the Hollow Man. He is tall, a good deal more than six feet. His features are
gaunt, almost cadaver-like, with razor-sharp cheekbones and a scythe of a nose that has large but
refined nostrils. He is pale, so pale he is almost blue, and his dark, grey-brown hair hangs in lank,
greasy skeins to his shoulders. He is wearing a fedora, the shadow cast by the brim dropping his eyes
into two deep pools of impenetrable shade separated by the bright white ridge of his nose. Thin lips are
wet by a pointed pink tongue that regularly runs back and forth in a sensuous manner.
His grey raincoat is crumpled and dirty. He is barefoot, and his toenails are encrusted with black filth,
the soles of his feet long since blackened and roughened. The cuffs of his grey trousers, which are too
big for him and look like they were obtained from a charity shop, are frayed and worn. His hands,
although dirty, with broken nails and the blue tint of a corpse, are surprisingly elegant. They look like
an artist's hands. It would be easy to imagine them dancing along the neck of a violin.
There is a scent on the air. It rings faint alarm bells in the Priestess' head but she has too much on
which to concentrate at this precise time. She dismounts from Fingal and the ravens take up their
positions, one on either shoulder; Thought on the right, Memory on the left. She wheels the bike over
to where the man waits.
"Hello old friend," she says softly. She takes off her Met Stradivarius and the Rudy Project Freons
crafted for her by Wayland the Smith. The ground is littered with crow feathers. "It has been a while."
"It has been ten years, my lady," he replies. His voice contains sibilants and aspirants even when there
are none in the words, as if there are a thousand voices whispering along with him. He raises his head
slightly, just a fraction, so that a little light catches his eyes and a tiny star appears in each of the pools
of shadow below his brow. As he moves the raincoat falls open slightly, revealing a thin, white, naked
torso with clearly visible ribs and a hollow stomach. He has no navel above the waistband of his
trousers, for he was not born of woman. He has the look of a man starved by fever, and his smile is
cruel.
"I can't say I have missed your company," she tells him. The smell is slightly stronger. It is acrid, weak
but pungent. It registers as being out of place here.
"The feeling is mutual, be assured," he replies.
"And our agreement was mutually beneficial. Your master has never complained nor raised issue with
my Grandfather." Her tones are even. "So why now? What brings you to interfere with me and mine?"
The scent is most definitely getting stronger. The ravens fidget uneasily. Ravenbait does her best to
stay focused but the smell is putting her on edge. It is as if she knows what it is, and under any other
circumstance she would identify it immediately, but here, here where that scent should never be, she
cannot determine it.
"I was approached by someone who made my Master a better offer," he smiles, with a scarecrow shrug.
The twin points of light, still all that can be seen of his eyes, dance.
"And who would that be?" the Priestess asks him. "Who would make a good enough offer to interfere
with two decades of peaceful co-existence?"
"It hasn't always been peaceful, my lady," he reminds her, chuckling softly.
"Who?" she asks him again, demanding, voice a whiplash.
The Hollow Man merely smiles, unflustered by an exhibition of the Voice that would have most grown
men crying for their mothers.
"Come now," he says paternally. "You know who. You can smell him in the air."
He turns round and simultaneously takes a step backward, to stand at Ravenbait's side. The smell is
almost choking now, and the Priestess knows what it is. She turns to stare at him, looking up into those
gimlet eyes, jet black orbs meeting a pair the colour of dried blood on a brutalised corpse.
"But he's dead. We killed him," she whispers, shocked, struggling to maintain her composure.
"Did you see the body?" The pink tongue snakes out again to wet lips pulled upwards in a predatory
smile. "I do not believe you did."
There is a roar, a sudden bellow of valves and exhaust. Bushes and trees creak, splinter and collapse as
the enormous SUV crashes through into the clearing.
The Hollow Man steps towards the edge of the grass; steps away from Ravenbait. He bows, making a
sweeping gesture with his arm as if presenting the next act in a performance. Ravenbait looks up, looks
up and up and fights to quell the sudden nausea wrapping bilious claws around her insides.
"Dear Gods no," she whispers.
"The gods have very little to do with it," her erstwhile companion tells her.
Facing her across the clearing is a modified Humvee: a 12 litre, 12 cylinder monstrosity. Pinned to the
bonnet is the corpse of a dead pterodactyl, still the bright orange it had been when Ravenbait last saw it
flying away into the distant depths of A-Time.
The engine guns, the challenge more than clear.
The Humungous is back and he wants revenge.
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