The Talisman

Rudolph said. ‘I’d like to help you but I can’t. There ain’t enough money in Fort Knox for me to cross the Sunlight Man. Now you get out of here. Maybe they ain’t noticed you’re missin.’
    But they had, of course. As he came out through the swinging doors, Warwick stepped up behind him and clubbed Jack in the middle of the back with hands interlaced to form one gigantic fist. As he went stumbling forward through the deserted cafeteria, Casey appeared from nowhere like an evil jack-in-the-box and stuck out a foot. Jack couldn’t stop. He tripped over Casey’s foot, his own feet went out from under him, and he sprawled in a tangle of chairs. He got up, fighting back tears of rage and shame.
    ‘You don’t want to be so slow taking in your dishes, snotface,’ Casey said. ‘You could get hurt.’
    Warwick grinned. ‘Yeah. Now get on upstairs. The trucks are waiting to leave.’
    4
    At four the next morning he was awakened and taken down to Sunlight Gardener’s office again.
    Gardener looked up from his Bible as if surprised to see him.
    ‘Ready to confess, Jack Parker?’
    ‘I have nothing—’
    The lighter again. The flame, dancing a bare inch from the tip of his nose.
    ‘Confess. Where have we met?’ The flame danced a little closer yet. ‘I mean to have it out of you, Jack. Where? Where? ’
    ‘ Saturn! ’ Jack screamed. It was all he could think of. ‘ Uranus! Mercury! Somewhere in the asteroid belt! Io! Ganymede! Dei —’
    Pain, thick and leaden and excruciating, exploded in his lower belly as Hector Bast reached between his legs with his good hand and squeezed Jack’s testes.
    ‘There,’ Heck Bast said, smiling cheerfully. ‘Didn’t you just have that coming, you hellbound mocker.’
    Jack collapsed slowly to the floor, sobbing.
    Sunlight Gardener leaned slowly down, his face patient – almost beatific. ‘Next time, it will be your friend down here,’ Sunlight Gardener said gently. ‘And with him I will not hesitate. Think about it, Jack. Until tomorrow night.’
    But tomorrow night, Jack decided, he and Wolf would not be here. If only the Territories were left, then the Territories it would be . . .
    . . . if he could get them back there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
    JACK AND WOLF GO TO HELL
----
    1
    They had to flip from downstairs. He concentrated on that rather than on the question of whether or not they would be able to flip at all. It would be simpler to go from the room, but the miserable little cubicle he and Wolf shared was on the third floor, forty feet above the ground. Jack didn’t know how exactly the Territories geography and topography corresponded to the geography and topography of Indiana, but he wasn’t going to take a chance that could get their necks broken.
    He explained to Wolf what they would do.
    ‘You understand?’
    ‘Yes,’ Wolf said listlessly.
    ‘Give it back to me, anyway, pal.’
    ‘After breakfast, I go into the bathroom across from the common room. I go into the first stall. If no one notices I’m gone, you’ll come in. And we’ll go back to the Territories. Is that right, Jacky?’
    ‘That’s it,’ Jack said. He put a hand on Wolf’s shoulder and squeezed it. Wolf smiled wanly. Jack hesitated and said, ‘I’m sorry I got you into this. It’s all my fault.’
    ‘No, Jack,’ Wolf said kindly. ‘We’ll try this. Maybe . . .’ A small, wistful hope seemed to glimmer briefly in Wolf’s eyes.
    ‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘Maybe.’
    2
    Jack was too scared and excited to want breakfast, but he thought he might attract attention by not eating. So he shovelled in eggs and potatoes that tasted like sawdust, and even managed one fatty piece of bacon.
    The weather had finally cleared. There had been frost the night before, and the rocks in Far Field would be like chunks of slag embedded in hardened plastic.
    Plates taken out to the kitchen.
    Boys allowed to go back to the common room while Sonny Singer, Hector Bast, and Andy Warwick got their day-rosters.
    They sat around, looking blank. Pedersen had a fresh copy of the magazine the Gardener organization published, The Sunlight of Jesus . He turned the pages idly, glancing up every once in a while to look at the boys.
    Wolf looked a question at Jack. Jack nodded. Wolf got up and lumbered from the room. Pedersen glanced up, saw Wolf cross the hall and go into the long, narrow bathroom across the way, and then went back to his magazine.
    Jack counted to sixty, then forced himself to count to