Broadlake’s expression crumpled. ‘You’re awake.’ His voice broke on the second word. ‘You’re trapped. You’re … watching yourself ruin your life and there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes he talked to me inside my own head, just to remind me he could.’ He swallowed hard. ‘He liked that. He liked knowing I was there to witness my own destruction.’
That made my skin crawl.
‘Can the host feel pain?’ I asked. ‘If Jingo breaks a hand, if he takes a beating, does it hurt the person underneath?’
Broadlake nodded, eyes bright with tears. ‘Yes. Gods, yes. You feel it all. But you can’t react, can’t stop it happening. You can’t protect yourself. You just … endure.’ He sucked in a shaky breath. I could relate to that. I, too, had to simply endure.
I pushed the memories away with effort. ‘Did Jingo feel it? The pain?’
He shook his head. ‘Not directly. That’s one of his strengths. He doesn’t feel a damn thing, only the echoes from us, if that. That’s why he doesn’t eat in front of people. He despises it. He doesn’t get the pleasure of eating, the pleasure of touching, but nor does he get the pain. The host feels it all.’ He wiped his nose. ‘Jingo’s connection is with the host’s soul, not with the body.’
My head was beginning to pound after a long-ass day. ‘Explain it simply,’ I snapped and forced my voice steady. ‘Give me the three most important rules. Tell it to me straight.’
Broadlake nodded fast, grateful for the instruction. ‘Right. Rule one: if he’s inside you, you’re awake. You can see. You can hear. You can feel. You just can’t move.’
He swallowed. ‘Rule two: he can’t leap whenever he wants. He has to do it at the last breath. Too soon and he gets yanked back in. Too late and he dies with the body.’
His eyes flicked up to mine. ‘Rule three: when he leaps, he drags the host’s soul out with him. That’s why the body dies empty. That’s why the host never survives.’
Bloody hell.
Broadlake continued, disregarding the keep-it-simple rule. ‘He goads someone into killing the body he’s in, and just before the moment of death, he leaps from his current body, and he drags the current host’s soul out too, but when he bonds with a new soul, the other one returns to its body, but it’s too late. The body is already dead.’
‘How did you find out all of this?’
‘From him, from his thoughts. They’re loud in your head, shouting over yours.’
‘So say the body dies, what happens to the untethered soul that Jingo rips out when he leaps?’
‘I don’t know. Jingo assumes they die, just like the body does. But I didn’t die, because I severed my soul from hisbeforehe made the leap and returned to my own body. Then, by a miracle, someone saved my life. They used CPR to the tune of “Nelly the Elephant”. I still love that song.’ He absentmindedly started to hum it, rocking in his chair, chains clattering on the table in an awful accompaniment.
‘Focus,’ I snapped.
‘Right.’ He stopped humming. ‘All I’m saying is, it’s a miracle I lived.’ He paused. ‘Or a curse.’
I chewed on everything he had told me, mind whirring at a hundred kilometres an hour. With effort, I forced it to stop andthink.What other information did I need to glean from him?
Weaknesses. Jingo’s weaknesses.
‘If Jingo doesn’t feel pain,’ I started, ‘what gives him pause? What is he afraid of?’
‘Being trapped, being contained or controlled. He hates cages.’ His lips trembled. ‘And fire. He hates fire.’
I questioned him for half an hour, pushing and rehashing old ground, hoping he’d rephrase something and give me more, but it was clear he’d pushed a lot of things down and wasn’t willing to lift them up and look at them. I really couldn’t blame him. I had repressed a lot from that period of my life too.
‘All right,’ I said, even though a dreadful suspicion was creeping through me. ‘You’ve given me enough to start pulling threads.’ I stared at him until he met my eyes. ‘But if you’re lying to me, Vance … if you’re using Jingo’s name to buy sympathy or freedom … I will make Wraithmore feel like a spa break.’
Broadlake flinched. ‘I’m not lying,’ he whispered. ‘I swear it.’
Robbie stopped humming and confirmed, ‘He’s not. He told you the truth. I made sure of it.’
‘You’re a piper!’ Broadlake gaped.
I looked at the poor prisoner who had already suffered a great deal, and with regret, I slid into his mind and inflicted more. I removed Vance’s memory of Robbie humming, of his revelation.
Robbie had risked himself on my behalf by piping Broadlake, and it was only right that I return the favour. No one could discover that the king of the ogres could pipe, or he’d be a dead man walking.
So, for the man I loved, I used my sub-powers, breaking my own rules. Again.
