“Shut up, Maria. I said we delivered when we could. Do not make me angry. You have seen what I can do if I am angry.”
Maria calmed down, but continued to stare menacingly at the Dark Man.
“Now, then,” the mysterious one continued, “what makes you think I would ever kill you? These tiny little cartridges pack a mean wallop. If I fire one exactly so, into a particular area at the base of your spine, you will be permanently and totally paralyzed below the waist.”
Angelique stiffened as if shot. “No! You can’t!”
“That will be where the first shot goes, but it will not, I assure you, be fatal. We will see to that. Then we will ask Angelique again, and if she still refuses, the second shot will be here, in a particular area of the upper spinal column. Then you will be as Angelique was, with no hope of ever regaining any movement or even feeling.”
Angelique was sobbing now. “No, no, no!”
“You can’t do that! You promised me!” Maria screamed at him.
The Dark Man turned and made a gesture in Maria’s direction, and she was rudely slammed up against the wall by some invisible force and held there. “I promised nothing of the sort,” he told her. “I promised that you could have him after we were finished our business with Angelique. I said nothing about what condition he would be in. You’re used to handling such cases. You’d have him all to yourself and he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. I also promised I wouldn’t kill him, and I won’t. But, after the second shot, I will ask again. If the answer is still no, then there will be a third and final shot here, at an exact angle into the brain. He will be alive, and conscious, and all of his autonomic functions will remain, but he will be unable, ever, to move or take any other voluntary action. Ever. You know what that means for him, don’t you, Angelique?”
“You monster!” she screamed at him, and struggled to move against him, but, like MacDonald, she found that she could not. The fury and hatred building up in her was enormous.
“Then, of course, we will go, and achieve our goals by other, longer, and more difficult means,” the Dark Man concluded. “You must believe that I will do what I have said I will do, Angelique.”
“You bastard!” Maria screamed at him, struggling to free herself. “May you rot in Hell forever!”
“Why, this is Hell,” responded the Dark Man calmly, “nor am I out of it. I weary of you. I was willing to give you what we could, but I think now that you will always have unreasonable demands. I promised you your youth until you die, and I will not take the craven out and kill you now to keep that vow the easy way. The rewards can be great if you understand your place, but if you do not then Satan will look to the fine print. In your ego you thought that he would fall into your arms if she were removed. You may have your crack at him, should he be worth having when we finish this business, but we can not trust you and have no more need of you. We leave you here—eternally young!”
Maria suddenly cried out, and changed before their eyes. The Dark Man had kept the letter his word, but only exactly. Maria now shrank and shimmered, and when it was done she was the cutest pre-pubescent ten or eleven year old girl anyone had ever seen.
“Now remain that way until death,” the Dark Man said coldly. “Sleep now—I am finished with you forever until your soul comes to me.”
She sank to the floor, out cold.
The demonstration of sheer offhanded power both impressed and scared Mac Donald, who was frightened enough already.
The Dark Man checked his pistol, then went and stood in back of the helpless Greg. “Now, Angelique, the first stage. I ask you if you will come with me voluntarily, with your vow that you will not resist the future. Leave attempts to stop us to others. They are impressively organized. They might yet pull it off. Tell me now, or I fire the first shot. After that, it is irrevocable to that point. You know you’re going back anyway. What’s the point?”
Angelique felt shocked, confused, and upset. The Dark Man knew her own weak spots better than she. At this moment, she might even take that terrible fate, lying unmoving in that horrible hospital, but it was not she who was faced with this. Not she, but Greg.
She had just accused Maria of condemning millions for the sake of two or three, and she’d meant it, but this was not the same. Maria had betrayed them, when they had beaten even the Dark Man and were free and clear and about to foul up his terrible plans for good. She had elected to bring the Dark Man here. But now he was here, and what he said was true. She was going back, whether she wished or not, and she knew that one way or another he could break her. He already had, to an extent.
“What will you do to him if I go now?” she asked, unaware that she was once again speaking nothing but a French-accented English.
MacDonald was startled, but found that he couldn’t say a word. He had to be perfectly honest with himself. He still loved her, and he still hated the Dark Man and everything he stood for, but right now he voted for her to accept the offer. The Dark Man, however, didn’t know that and wasn’t taking any chances on him being noble to the end.
“If you go now, following all that I say, nothing. He will live, and I will place no curse upon him. I will leave him here, for us to perhaps meet, and contest, another day. He, too, is no longer relevant to us. He is relevant only to you.”
“You won’t kill him, then? Or do what you say anyway?”
“I will not. You have my word on that, and the devil is a gentleman in such bargains. He will remain, frozen, on this bed until we exit. Then he will be restored, free, with no restraints and no compulsions. I swear it. Only if he comes after me again will all bets be off. The next time, it will be on his head, not yours or mine.”
“How do I know this is true? After what I have seen you do, how can I believe you on anything.”
Believe him, believe him! MacDonald thought, growing more and more nervous. He could feel the cold barrel of the pistol in his back occasionally as the Dark Man made his points. Take the deal, Angelique. I’ll try and rescue you later!
“A fair question,” the Dark Man admitted. “There is no real way to prove it. You can call on your spirits, but they won’t come now. You can call on God and the angels, but they won’t come, either. I can’t really help you decide, but I can’t think of a good clinching argument, either. You will have to make up your own mind, but I grow increasingly impatient. I believe that in one minute I will demonstrate my power.’’
“No! Wait!” She needed time to think, and she wasn’t being given any. This was all happening too quickly, too horribly. And then, all at once, she remembered the great, ancient angel who had communed with her. You will be forced to make many choices, it had said, but the outcome, the final choice, is not in your hands but in another’s. Might that other be Greg? She wondered about it. If the final choice, if whether or not they succeeded or failed, was out of her hands and in the hands of others, then she had no right to cripple him just to prove a point.
“Time is up. Choose,” said the Dark Man.
“I—I will go with you, you monster of evil,” she told him. “I will play your games and, as you say, leave the fight now to others. I give up. I have no right to cost him his life or limb for my pride.”
Greg MacDonald almost passed out with relief. I owe you one, honey, he thought, still worried and fearful but feeling a little better. More than one. And I’ll repay it.
“A good decision. And I will in fact keep my part of the bargain. Now, rise and come with me, Angelique.”