Jack shook his head. “I’m a fool. I’m deludin’ myself, is what I’m doing. Look at me. Why would anyone as pretty as her want anythin’ to do with me? And I try to be charmin’ and witty when she’s around and I just come off as... I dunno.”
“Desperate?” said Sanguine. “Sad? Pathetic?”
“Yeah. All those things. I repulse her. She looks at me and her stomach turns. She talks to me and all she wants to do is walk away. I’ll never get her. I’m destined to be alone for the rest of my miserable life.”
“You know what she told me?” Tanith said. “She said she’s on the lookout for a new man. She said she’s bored of the type she usually dates − she wants someone a bit... different.”
“I’m different, all right.”
“She said she doesn’t care about looks,” Tanith said. “All she wants is someone to make her laugh. Can you make her laugh, Jack?”
“I... I think so.”
“Because you know something else? When she was saying all this to me, her eyes kept drifting over to you.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Jack went quiet. Sanguine imagined that he could see the hope blossom deep within him, and Jack stood a bit straighter, and held his head up a bit higher, so that when Tanith swung her sword, the head came cleanly off without the need for any hacking.
The body crumpled and the head bounced beside it, losing the top hat as it came rolling to a gentle stop.
“I could have done it,” said Sanguine. “Didn’t have to be you.”
Tanith shrugged and wiped the blood from her blade. “Seemed only fair that I be the one,” she said. “Did you like the bit about Sabine maybe fancying him?”
“I did. Thought it was a really sweet thing to do for him in his last moments.”
“Yeah,” said Tanith, “that’s me all over. Give me sixty seconds to get to the others, then dump his body over the side.”
She jumped off the roof and disappeared.
Sanguine moved the body to the very edge and waited. When the sixty seconds were up, he counted out fifteen more, just to be generous, then nudged the body over the edge with his foot. The body of Springheeled Jack fell clumsily, with none of the grace he had displayed when he used to dance across rooftops. It hit the street far below in a wet, tangled mess of limbs and broken bones, and from where he stood Sanguine could hear the screams of passers-by. He kicked the head off after it, and picked up the top hat and threw it into the wind.
24
