down his gullet.
'It simply means that unless there's a verra strong post-hypnotic block on yere mind, yell gi' me all the assistance Ah require. Ye willnae hold anythin' back.'
'And if there is a post-hypnotic block? Will that mean I've been hypnotized before?'
'Well, if no hypnotized, ye'll have been got at, certainly/
'And you'll be able to clear it?'
'Man, Ah cannae make ye that kind o' promise/ McGilchrist was honest about it. 'As Ben here will tell ye, there's hypnotists… and then there's hypnotists. And if what he fears has been here first..
'I understand/ said Jake, though in fact he didn't.
'Now, that's a fast-actin' drug that's in ye/ McGilchrist continued, 'so Ah'd best be tellin' ye one or two things. Ye're tae sit verra still and upright in yere chair; oh, dinnae fret, Ah wouldnae let ye topple over. And ye're tae look at me, at mah eyes. Verra big and black, mah eyes, are they no?'
They were very big and black, and Jake's head was beginning to spin oh so slowly, languidly at first, but gradually getting faster; as if he were drunk, flat on his back on a bed, and the room spinning around him but without the sick feeling.
'And here's me bringin' mah eyes closer, lookin' at ye, and lookin intae ye/ McGilchrist's voice was so very low now, like the growl of a great wolf. So low, so dark, and so close. 'Ah'm lookin' intae ye, and ye're lookin' intae mah eyes, or is it mah eye? For see, there's only one o' they now! The two have merged intae one, like a wee swirly black hole in mah face. Or maybe a big black hole? And it's suckin' at ye, Jake, suckin' at ye..
It was indeed. That blackest of black holes, spinning faster and faster. And Jake felt its lure, its attraction. God, if he could back out of this now he would! But he couldn't. And:
'Dinnae fight it, laddie/ said a voice that burned in his head. Just let it go, and come to me. Open up to Grahame/ And then:
The black hole had him! He was sucked in and whirled like a bug down a plughole. It was as quick as thought; it had happened before he could even cry out, if he had been able to…!
Paolo has slid a length of rubber tubing over the links of the chain to deaden its clanking. Now he looks at me, gives me the nod, and I cup my bands far him.
He steps into my hands, and I can smell his groin… he smells of fear, and I imagine I do, too. Thank Cod there's no moon!
He's up on my shoulders now, swinging the chain. I hear it swish through the dark night air… hear it clatter, too, just the once but enough to make me grit my teeth. And now there's a scraping sound as Paolo hauls on the chain, fattening the roll of barbed wire to the top of the wall. But he's done it! Paolo is on his way up the chain!
I look up; his head and shoulders are silhouetted against the black horizon of the wall. He clings to the chain with his right hand, takes the blanket from around his neck and lobs it up and over. The wire is covered. Damn.' The man's a genius!
Now he's balanced up there with one leg over the wall, and he's reaching down for me. My heart is thudding, hammering away in my chest, but at last I'm on the chain. Up I go, and I reach for Paolo's hand. But what? What? He withdraws it!
I don't believe it! (But I do, I do! I just knew it was too bloody easy!) And I cling to the chain and look up at him, look into his eyes that are looking down into mine. Except now they look beyond me, into the night.
And dangling there, I glance over my shoulder and see them: prison guards, armed and taking aim across the exercise yard. I look up at Paolo, and his sweat falls on me like rain. He gives a shrug, says: 'I sorry, Jake, but they promise me…' And then he jerks and I hear the shot. And now Paolo's blood splashes me as his right eye turns black.
He's falling, taking me with him… we hit the ground like a ton of bricks! Paolo's body is on top of me, which is just as well, because I can feel it jerking, shuddering to the sound of more gunshots. I struggle under his dead weight, somehow manage to throw him off and rise into a crouch. But God, I'm a dead man — I have to be! Fat white sparks light the night like angry fireflies where bullets ricochet off the wall and spit concrete splinters at me. But now—
— Now there's a spark that… that isn't a spark! 1 don't understand it, haven't the time to understand it. But it hovers there like a golden dart, level with my eyes, only twelve inches away, seeming to follow my movements as I dodge bullets. And now it moves, too. And I know that it has to be a bullft after all, because it smacks me right between the eyes!
And I fall face first, but I can't feel it when I hit the ground. Of course I can't feel it, because you don't feel anything when you're dead.
Dead and weightless and rushing somewhere, rushing out of my body, I suppose. Rushing to heaven or hell, if I believed. I wish I had believed now… and I'll bet I'm not the first man who thought that! But Jesus, I'm not going out without a fight… not Jake Cutter! I struggle and twist and tumble. But this can't be right, because I can feel myself. I'm not dead yet!
And now I see a light in the darkness. I rush towards it, fall into it… No, I fall out of the darkness!
My head! God, I'm sick, dizzy, and my head…!
But I'm not dead yet.
I'm not dead yet.
Not dead yet.
Not dead.
Not.
No. i
'It's been an hour/ said McGilchrist's voice. 'Ye ought tae be comin' out o' it now, Jake mah lad.'
Jake remembered where he was and would have jerked erect, but since he was already erect — sitting upright in his chair, just as the 'doctor' had ordered — instead he became aware of incredible cramps in all his limbs, whose pain was physical and of course far worse than the imagined thump on the head that he had 'experienced' for the second time around just a few moments ago.
He opened his eyes, tried to reach up and touch his head, maybe cradle it in his trembling hands, but even the slightest movement caused violent shooting pains in his arms and shoulders, freezing him in position. And:
'35
'G-God Almighty!' he groaned, his throat dry as kindling.
McGilchrist dropped two white pills into a glass of water, swirled them and watched them dissolve. 'These'll do ye a power o' good/ he said.
'And I… I should believe you?' said Jake, blinking rapidly as his eyes grew accustomed to the full dawn light.
'Eh? But they're only wee aspirins, man.'' McGilchrist told him. 'For yere headache, ye ken? Which is a side effect o' that draught o' mine. What, d'ye really think Ah'd poison ye?'
Slowly, Jake allowed himself to slump in his chair. And as his blood began to circulate and pins and needles took over from the true pain, so he took the glass and drank. And then he remembered not only what had gone before, but also something of his regression.
Again he straightened up, but much more carefully now, and said, 'That dart. A golden dart or splinter. I seem to remember it… it entered my head?'
'Just like you told me,' Liz Merrick sighed from where she sat close to him. 'Except you didn't call it a dart.'
Jake carefully turned to squint at her through the tent's luminous air. And Ben Trask said, 'I think that's all we needed to know. It makes any further questions I might have academic, conjectural, meaningless. For the time being, anyway.' He, too, was seated — looked like he needed to be — and his voice was trembling to match Jake's limbs.
'Great,' said Jake, unsteadily. 'Fine. So now that all of your questions are answered, how about mine?'
'Yours?' said Trask, stopped dead in his tracks. And: 'Ah, well! We'll deal with those shortly, yes. And Jake, I'm really, really very sorry about that — I mean, that I had to be so secretive. I'm sure you'll understand when you
