Death Draws Five

Chapter three

Jerry had been in tough situations in the past where lives were on the line, but this was almost overwhelmingly desperate. If Ray hadn’t charged onto the stage he might have hesitated for a long time, but when the government ace had leaped into action something in Jerry made him follow Ray into the heart of danger.

It certainly wasn’t his brain. If he’d thought about it at all, he’d have run away from the flying bullets. Whatever it was that made him accompany Ray was something deeper in his make-up. His heart. Perhaps his gut. His reaction was more instinctive than rational. Jerry would have sighed to himself if he’d had the time. He’d always considered himself a smart guy, and this was just crazy.

Ray executed a sharp right and hurled himself into the off-stage darkness. Sudden sounds of fists hitting flesh and bone, the cracking of those bones, and screams of pain, quickly followed. Jerry didn’t follow Ray. Realizing that people on the stage needed help, Jerry passed by Siegfried and Ralph, who were petrified by fear but otherwise unharmed, and headed for Kitty O’Leary’s desk where the hysterical anchorwoman was covered in blood.

“Get your tigers out of here before something terrible happens,” he said to the entertainers as he went by. “Again.”

They glanced at each other and then took his advice and ran, their leashed cats roaring wildly as they bounded after them. Jerry dropped down to one knee when he reached O’Leary’s desk and checked the body propped up against it. It was the male half of the pair of floating Living Gods. Jerry didn’t know his name. Blood pumped sluggishly from a series of horrific puncture wounds in his torso. As Jerry grabbed his wrist to feel for a pulse, the injured man suddenly focused his large, beautiful eyes on Jerry’s face, and said something in Arabic. Jerry looked on helplessly as he vomited a gout of blood and died.

Jerry stood, suppressing a sigh. He didn’t have time for pity. He examined O’Leary quickly for wounds and discovered that none of the blood splashed on her chest and face seemed to be hers.

“Shut up,” he said, and “get down.”

She just kept screaming, so he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. When that didn’t catch her attention, he slapped her, adrenaline making his open-palmed blow a little harder than he’d intended. She shut her mouth and looked at him in amazement and anger flared in her eyes. Jerry was suddenly glad that he looked like tough guy Alan Ladd. It made it all the easier to act the part.

“I said, shut up,” he repeated, putting his hand on the top of her head, “and get the Hell down.”

He shoved hard enough to push her to the floor and she crawled under the stage furniture. That was the safest place for her. He turned away, hoping she’d stay put. He couldn’t waste any more time on her.

More sounds of gunfire and terror came from the auditorium. Ray, and Angel, Jerry supposed, were keeping the bad guys off the stage. At least for the moment. Jerry went swiftly to the overturned sofa where Peregrine huddled over the bloody, unmoving body of her son. He vaulted over the divan and went down to one knee beside her. Her teeth were clenched. She was panting like a hyperventilating dog, or a woman trying to give birth.

“He’s all right,” she gasped out. “Not hurt. Hit his head when the sofa went over. Just knocked out. Be... all... right...”

Her voice started to fade. Jerry took her arm and half lifted her off the boy, wincing at what he saw. A line of slugs stitched sideways across Peregrine’s body from her loins, across her abdomen and chest to her right wing where feathers had been shot away and delicate bones shattered.

“Christ,” he said in a low voice.

It didn’t look good. He stripped his off shirt, ripped it to rags and applied pressure bandages as best he could to what seemed to be Peregrine’s worst wounds. Her only response was to moan feebly. There wasn’t anything else he could do for her, and he realized that Peregrine didn’t have much time left if she didn’t receive immediate medical attention. He turned his attention to John Fortune, thinking that Peregrine really needed his new-found ace abilities. But the kid was still out cold.

What a time to get knocked senseless, Jerry thought. He tried to revive the boy, but the best he could get from him was an unintelligible groan. He could feel a knot on the back of the kid’s skull the size of a golf ball. He must have really slammed his head hard on the floor when the sofa had tipped over on them.

Jerry felt as useless as Rock Hudson in the opening scenes of one of his screwball comedies. He didn’t want to mess around with the kid, in case he had a real head injury. And Peregrine needed expert attention, fast. Someone would have to help. Angel, he thought. Or Ray...

Jerry stood and went swiftly to the edge of the stage, shielded his eyes from the light and looked out just in time to see Ray go mano a mano with a chubby little guy who looked like someone’s favorite older uncle until the guy suddenly turned into something that wasn’t so avuncular. Jerry recognized the transformed man. He was the British killer ace called Butcher Dagon.

Eerily, it seemed as if the world had stopped to watch their breathtaking exhibition of violence. He saw Angel, some stiff who was much too good-looking for his own good, and even a few of the goons with guns as well as some of the crazy-scared onlookers pause to take a breath as Ray and Dagon tore at each other like gladiators from another, much more savage age.

For a moment John Fortune was forgotten. Even Peregrine slipped from his mind until the epic battle ended with the brilliant one-two punch of Angel and Ray cold-cocking the British ace.

Jerry saw the handsome guy climb onto the stage. Some of the surviving gunmen followed him. Fortunately none were near Jerry. He knew that he had only a few moments in which to make the right move. Peregrine was now beyond any help he could give her. There was only the kid, his sacred charge, to consider. He suddenly knew what to do.

He ripped off his clothes and the lights went out as he took on mass.

The auditorium fell into utter darkness. It was all very much like that night back in ‘65 when he’d turned into the Big Ape and sucked enough energy out of his surroundings to start a chain reaction that blacked out New York City and ultimately most of the eastern seaboard.

Energy to mass, as the equation went. This time around, he needed a lot less mass, so he siphoned off a lot less energy. Enough, probably, to blow most of the electric circuits in the auditorium, maybe in all of the Mirage. He welcomed the darkness. It made his task easier.

Jerry knew that he had to work fast. He added pounds of flab to his transformed frame. He didn’t have time to get his features exactly right, so he puffed them up into a pulpy mess. His hands were already bloody, so he smeared them on his face and torso, blurring more detail. He groaned realistically and threw himself down, huddling on his side, his hands over his still-changing face. Someone kneeled next to him.

“Dagon?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

Jerry squinted upwards.

“Wh—who?” he quavered.

“It’s the Witness,” said the handsome guy in a voice decidedly lacking pity. He leaned closer. “I’m surprised you’re already conscious. Man, you got your ass kicked.” The Witness looked up. “Juan—Sam—let the others grab the kid. Come over here and give Dagon a hand,” he said with open contempt. “And for God’s sake, get something to cover him up with. He’s fat and bloody and naked. Come on. Move. Move!”

The last was a general order shouted to everyone as the two men Witness singled out came to Jerry’s side.

“Here you are,” one of them said, slipping a cloak around Jerry with surprisingly gentle hands. “Up you go. Come on, before that asshole Ray finds us hanging around here on the stage.”

Jerry moaned convincingly. They hustled him away, right behind another pair of gunmen who were dragging a limp John Fortune into the wings.

“What about the others?” one of the men supporting Jerry asked as they passed Witness, who was waiting impatiently.

“They knew what they were getting into,” he said shortly. “Let’s get the Hell out of here.”

Jerry kept his face burrowed in the cloak as best he could. He was sure he hadn’t copied Dagon’s features perfectly, but the bruising and swelling and blood that he’d smeared on his face seemed to be an adequate disguise.

The kidnappers, with Jerry and John Fortune in tow, burst out into the sunny parking lot where a van was waiting for them. The two thugs hustled Jerry into the back with six or seven other gunmen, as well as John Fortune, who was only now starting to come around.

The Witness hustled to the front of the van. Its engine was already racing and it started to move before he could slam the passenger-side door shut. They pulled away from the Mirage quickly and immediately headed for the side streets off the strip.

Jerry couldn’t see out of the van’s windows. He didn’t know this part of Vegas —no tourist did—and he was immediately lost. The muscles joked and kidded with macho toughness now that the fight was over, except for the one who cradled his broken arm and endlessly cursed Ray.

They drove for perhaps twenty minutes. Jerry’s mind raced in high gear the entire time, but he was unable to construct a workable plan to escape from the gang. John Fortune groaned awake halfway through the trip. One of the gunmen told him to sit down and shut up, and the kid wisely took his advice. Jerry tried to catch his eye, but Fortune wouldn’t look at him.

Finally they stopped before an abandoned, boarded-up 7-11. The asphalt parking lot shimmered in the summer heat, drooping weeds poking up through the aimless cracks in its surface like dying flowers on the floor of Hell.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Witness ordered.

This guy clearly, Jerry thought, lacked patience. Mystified, Jerry allowed himself to be half-dragged to the convenience store’s front door, which proved to be unlocked. Three men were waiting inside. One had a gun, another held a leash, and the third one wore it.

This last unfortunate was obviously a joker. His body was twisted so that his legs were thick hindquarters, his arms scrawny forelegs. His face had a vaguely canine look, with a snout underslung by a long jaw, no chin, and drooping ears that could have belonged to a hound dog. His skin was unfurred, but sallow, blotchy, and unhealthy-looking. His expression was not intelligent.

“Let’s go, Blood,” his handler said.

The joker looked at him, snuffling eagerly.

“Home, boy. Let’s go home. There’s a nice steak waiting for you. Nice and raw and dripping.”

Blood drooled, grinning idiotically, and walked on four limbs toward the store’s back wall, and then through it in a tunnel that suddenly appeared the instant before his nose would have touched the wall. They all followed him. Jerry was totally mystified, wondering what the Hell was going on.

It was cool and quiet on the other side of the tunnel, which opened into a small room built of naked stone. The room had no windows to the outside and was lit by a single unreachable bulb dangling from a naked fixture in the ceiling. The only door leading out of it was iron, with a tiny barred window. The small chamber smelled of ancient sickness that seemed to have soaked into the very stones of its walls and floor. Jerry didn’t know where they were, but suddenly he was afraid.

Blood howled for his meat.

New York City: The Waldorf-Astoria

John Nighthawk watched Contarini stare at Cameo as if she’d just hooked a quarter from the collection plate, or done something equally unforgivable. Usher and Magda looked on with interest. Usher’s seemed mild. He really had no dog in this fight. Nighthawk knew that he was along just for the paycheck. But Magda’s expression was hurt compounded with fury.

If there’s trouble, Nighthawk thought, it’ll come from her.

Magda looked at Cameo as if she’d expected the Second Coming to occur right before her eyes and instead had been given a third rate vauDeville act. (Which, Nighthawk realized, was pretty much close to what had happened.) The nun looked from the transformed Cameo to Nighthawk, to Contarini, searching for a clue as how to react. Cameo posed no immediate threat to the Cardinal or anyone else. But, obviously, things hadn’t gone right. The Shroud should have produced Jesus Christ. Instead they’d gotten... someone else. It was clear that Magda had no idea who Cole Porter was, but Contarini, whom Nighthawk knew was a well-educated sophisticate, quickly showed that he labored under no such handicap.

“I don’t understand.” The Cardinal’s voice sounded like cracking ice on a frozen lake in the Italian Alps. “What... where is Our Lord? Why do we have this, this degenerate writer of, of degenerate popular songs instead of Our Lord?”

Nighthawk, who knew a little about music, couldn’t agree with Contarini’s assessment of Porter’s talents and was also more than a little amused that the Cardinal’s fury had made him almost tongue-tied. More importantly, he had an explanation regarding Porter’s unexpected appearance.

“It seems,” Nighthawk said quietly, “that we may have been a little impetuous in insisting that Cameo do her reading here instead of her usual room in Club Dead Nicholas.”

Everyone, even Cameo channeling Porter, looked at him with interest.

“What do you mean?” the Cardinal asked.

Nighthawk shrugged. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Look around. This is Porter’s apartment. When he was in New York he lived in the Waldorf-Astoria, since, when?”

“Nineteen thirty-four,” Porter said. “Though I did move once, from another room in the hotel to this very apartment. It’s so much more spacious than my old flat.“

”Did you brought your furniture with you?” Nighthawk asked.

“Some,” Porter allowed.

“Like the chair you’re sitting on?”

“Yes,” Porter said. “It’s a very comfortable reading chair. Naturally, I brought it along for my library.”

Nighthawk looked at Contarini and spread his hands in a silent, there-you-have-it gesture.

“Are you saying,” the Cardinal said in his low, dangerous voice, “that somehow the spirit, the soul, of this, this sodomite jingle-writer—as expressed in his chair—somehow overcame the potency of Our Lord Savior’s soul—as expressed in his Shroud?”

“No,” Nighthawk suggested quietly. “I’m saying that the scientists and skeptics have been right all along.”

“Che?” Contarini’s anger made him slip into his native language.

“Like the scientists and skeptics have said all along, maybe this isn’t really the burial cloth of Jesus. Maybe it’s a fake.”

For a moment Nighthawk thought that the Cardinal was going to have a stroke. The churchman’s face turned white, then a dangerous-looking red. Veins stood out on his forehead and he swayed on the sofa as if tossed by unfelt winds. Finally he steadied himself and stared at Nighthawk like a malignant demon or a righteous angel. Nighthawk couldn’t decide which.

“It isn’t,” he hissed. “It is real. It is the burial cloth of My Lord and Savior. My faith tells me so.”

“This is all so fascinating,” Porter said, eyeing them closely, “but what does it all have to with me?”

Nighthawk shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, and thought silently to himself, and everything. Nighthawk knew that he had to end this farce soon. Magda was picking up on the Cardinal’s distress. There was no telling how she’d react if the Cardinal made a hasty, unfortunate decision.

And if she reacted badly, his chance to learn what he’d hoped to learn when he’d accepted this mission would probably vanish. It was clear, whatever the Cardinal’s faith told him, that the Shroud was a fake, but this little comedy had shown Nighthawk one thing: the undeniable durability of the soul. There was life after death. The soul did transcend the death of the body. What had been a matter of uncertain faith had suddenly become a matter of certain fact.

He had so many questions he wanted to ask Porter, but he couldn’t ask them now. Not in front of the Cardinal. He hated to see the revenant go, but Porter had to go back to wherever he’d come from before the situation blew up in their faces. There’d be other opportunities to get answers to his questions. Now, for the benefit of all involved, Nighthawk knew that he had to end this scene as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Mr. Porter,” he said in polite tones, “would you come here for a moment? There’s something I’d like you to see.”

Porter looked at him from across the room. “I’d love to, but you see—” He interrupted himself, laughing. “Of course. I have legs that work now. One forgets after doing without for so long.” He glanced down at Cameo’s limbs. “Such slender, pretty ones, too. I would have been quite the popular chap in the old days. But, no, of course, I suppose it wouldn’t have been the same.”

He stood with a sigh, and Cameo swayed as her body broke contact with the chair. She reached out as if to steady herself against the chair’s arm, then snatched her hand away before touching it. She looked from Nighthawk to Contarini, ignoring the two who stood behind her like door guards in a medieval hall.

“It didn’t go as you expected.” It was a statement, not a question.

Contarini stared at her, frowning. “No. It didn’t. Not at all.”

Nighthawk didn’t like his expression, or the inflection of his voice. It didn’t take a revelation to realize what the Cardinal was contemplating. The only question was how far the Cardinal dared to go.

“Nighthawk.” The churchman snapped the ace’s name without looking at him, his terrifying gaze reserved solely for Cameo. “Take this... take our... visitor... out of my sight.”

Nighthawk suddenly relaxed. Whichever way Contarini wanted to go, he, Nighthawk, would actually be in control of Cameo’s destiny. And he’d find a way to work things out.

Nighthawk went to her side. “Come with me,” he said quietly.

She looked at him, made a move to her handbag. Nighthawk shook his head briefly, almost imperceptibly, but she noticed. She looked at him for what seemed a long time, and then she finally nodded.

“Take her to St. Dympna’s,” Contarini said in detached, almost uncaring tones. He gestured vaguely. “Usher and Magda will accompany you.”

“I don’t need—” Nighthawk began, but Contarini interrupted him with a lion’s roar.

“Don’t tell me what you need or don’t need!” he shouted. “I tell you what to do. You obey. Capice?”

Nighthawk bowed silently. Usher moved as quietly as a jungle cat on a deep pile carpet, and before Cameo had a chance to react, he grabbed her handbag away from her. She made a single convulsive motion toward snatching it back, but Usher just shook his head and held it out of her reach.

“Uh-uh,” he said. He looked inside, and frowned. He reached in and took out a battered old fedora that had definitely seen better days. “What’s this?” he asked, bemused. “I thought you were lugging a hand cannon around with you, and it’s just an old hat?”

“Don’t let her touch it,” Nighthawk said warningly.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Usher agreed.

Cameo glared at Nighthawk, who offered her the slightest of shrugs.

Nighthawk glanced at Contarini. The Cardinal stared with eyes wide open at nothing at all but the scene of loss and devastation playing in his head. Nighthawk could almost feel sorry for him, if he didn’t dislike the stiff-necked old bastard so much. Magda, taking her cue from her beloved leader, wore a lost-soul expression that also would have been touching if Nighthawk hadn’t known her better. She looked as if she wanted to comfort Contarini, but was stopped by the fact that human emotions were so foreign to her that she just didn’t know how to do it. Only Usher looked cool and composed, and openly wondering as he observed the by-play between Nighthawk and Cameo.

Nighthawk could do nothing now. He could only get the girl away from Contarini as quickly as possible. And then see what he could do about St. Dympna’s.

“Come with us,” he said quietly, and for once something went right. She nodded, and followed him without a word, Magda and Usher bracing her like prison guards on death row. Nighthawk looked back as they left the library to see Contarini still staring fix-eyed at nothing.

Christ’s supposed Shroud was tossed carelessly over Cole Porter’s unoccupied reading chair.

Las Vegas, Nevada: The Mirage

The blood had been the hardest thing. That, and the screaming. The Angel couldn’t decide which was worse. She also didn’t like the memory of the Witness’s lips grinding against hers, but she was a warrior for the Lord and she could deal with wounds and indignities. It was the suffering of the innocents that bothered her so.

She’d fought for The Hand before, but never in a battle this intense. It wasn’t so much her and Ray fighting the Allumbrados. The fighting had been fine. Thrilling, even. Except when it came to the Witness. The Angel knew that she hadn’t acquitted herself well with him. But she realized she shouldn’t dwell on that. Or on the blood. Or on the screaming, especially of the innocent tourists caught in the indiscriminate firing. Of Kitty O’Leary, screeching like a maniac behind her desk. Of Peregrine and the bloody sheet wrapped around her as they took her off on a gurney. She shouldn’t dwell on all that, she knew, because it was part of the Lord’s plan. But the blood—

“Hey.”

The Angel’s eyes focused and she realized that Ray was standing before her.

“You okay?”

His once immaculate suit was torn into rags. His body didn’t look much better. His face was battered and bloody. A vivid purple welt like the scar from a noose colored an arc around his neck. A flap of skin and meat hung down from his upper chest, exposing the muscle underneath, as well as a glimmer of bone. He was still bleeding from half a dozen body wounds and he held his side as if he had broken or at least rearranged ribs.

But he’d proved himself more competent than she thought he’d be. He’d handled himself quite well and his fighting technique had been, well, a revelation. He was faster than she was, if not stronger. And, she had to admit, much more deadly with a killer instinct that at times was frightening.

“Yes,” she finally lied. The next sentence came out unbidden from her mouth. “Tell me something.”

Ray brushed at his cheek, smearing a trail of clotting blood. “Sure.” He waited a moment, frowned, and then asked into the silence between them, “What is it?”

The Angel forced herself to focus. “Do you ever get used to the blood?”

“The blood?” She could see that he was puzzled. It was almost as if she’d asked him if he ever got used to the air he breathed, or the food he ate. “If blood bothers you, you’re in the wrong line of work, ba— uh, Angel. The people we deal with bleed all the time.” He grinned, and it was not comforting. “Better them than us, but we have to bleed too, sometimes. It’s the nature of the job.”

She nodded. She believed his words, but she wasn’t sure that she understood them. She’d have to pray over it and seek the Lord’s guidance.

“What do we do now?”

“Now?” The word came out of Ray as a long sigh. “Now we wait for the paper pushers to show up and start asking stupid questions.”

The Angel looked around the auditorium. It was quieter now than during the attack, but almost as chaotic, though the chaos had a controlled feel to it, as the men and women in EMT uniforms worked to alleviate the pain and suffering that surrounded them.

It wasn’t long before a florid-faced man with a dark rumpled suit and short rumpled haircut that screamed “COP” approached, looking as if he’d rather have a gun than a notebook in his hand as he faced them

“Now just who the Hell are you two?” he asked unpleasantly. “Witnesses said you two played a major part in the fight—”

“Somebody had to protect the citizens while you were out chugging donuts,” Ray said.

“Just a minute—”

“I’m going to reach into the back pocket of my pants,” Ray said, “and get my I.D.” He frowned. It was not a pleasant sight. “If the pocket’s still attached to my ass.” Fortunately it was, and the I.D. wallet was still in it. He took it out and showed it to the cop. “I’m Agent Billy Ray. Secret Service. This is Agent Angel.”

“You—” the Angel started to say, but he froze her with a look.

That doesn’t, she thought as the cop frowned at Ray’s I.D., happen very often.

The cop looked up. It was hard to say if the realization that the Feds were on the case made him more or less truculent. “Ray. Yeah, I guess I heard of you. Well,” he said gruffly, “you’ll have to come down to the station and make a statement.”

“Certainly, officer.” The Angel was amazed at the sudden courtesy in Ray’s manner and tone. “Do you mind if I stop bleeding first? Maybe change out of my rags? Get my broken ribs bound up?”

The cop’s florid features grew redder. “No,” he said shortly.

“Excellent, officer.” Ray took the Angel by her upper right arm and moved off. She went with him without a murmur. “We’ll stop by as soon as possible. Perhaps tomorrow morning. Whatever the doctor says.”

The cop opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He waved them on.

“You didn’t have to lie,” the Angel said when they were out of his hearing.

“Lie?” Ray asked innocently.

“I’m not a Secret Service agent.”

“Did I say you were a Secret Service agent?” Ray shook his head. “No.”

“You said—”

“I said ‘Agent Angel,’” Ray quoted himself. “And didn’t you tell me yourself that you’re an agent of the Lord?”

“I,” the Angel paused. “Maybe. I—I probably said ‘instrument of the Lord.’”

Ray shrugged. “Agent, instrument. Let’s not get technical. Now, be quiet for a moment.”

They’d reached the exit, which was blocked by uniformed cops. The Angel didn’t even listen to Ray’s explanation as he showed them his identification. Something about clearance levels and need-to-know and having to report back to the chief immediately as to what had happened. She was suddenly so tired that she really didn’t know how he’d managed it. The sleepless hours, the exhausting travel, the mentally and physically draining combat had finally caught up with her. Suddenly they were outside the auditorium.

People stared at them as they went through the lobby, but the Angel for once hardly noticed, let alone cared. She could hear the buzz of conversation. They were already whispering about the “Mayhem at the Mirage,” as she and Ray went to the elevator bank. Unsurprisingly, no one else got on the elevator with them as they went up to the connecting rooms that Ray had rented earlier.

Ray looked at her judiciously in the hallway outside their rooms as he handed her the electronic key for her half of the suite. She took it from him, and managed to insert it into the lock on the third try. She opened the door and stumbled into the room.

“You’d better get some rest—” Ray began, and she closed the door in his face.

She thought about taking a shower, but barely managed to peel off her torn and bloodied fighting suit and slip off her sweat-soaked underwear before collapsing onto the cool, welcoming bed.

If she dreamed, she didn’t remember.

New York City: Jokertown

Fortunato ditched Digger Downs at Tomlin International as soon as they cleared customs and reached ground transport outside the terminal. He’d had enough of the man’s company on the long flights across the Pacific and over the country. He needed some time to himself, some time to think about his return to a land he’d left behind sixteen years ago along with a life he had no desire to renew.

Before getting into the cab waiting in line at ground transport, he took a few hundred in expense money from Downs, as well as a cell phone so they could keep in touch. Fortunato marveled at the slim piece of equipment before he slipped it into the pocket of his robe. Portable phones had gotten a lot smaller since the last time he’d used one, but Fortunato was sure that they wouldn’t be the only marvel to meet his eyes.

The cabby glanced up into the mirror as he pulled away from the curb. He had a turban and a long, thick beard, and he wore white robes. He spoke barely understandable English.

“Where to, Mack?”

It was, Fortunato reflected, good to back in the good old U.S.A. And that was the question. Where to?

“Manhattan,” Fortunato said. Who in New York, he pondered, did he still have ties to?

Peregrine. He had no idea where she lived or what her phone number was. Besides, she was still in Vegas with the boy. His mother was dead. Miranda...Veronica... the last he’d heard from her had been a telegram telling him of Ichiko’s death. He’d ignored it. He could hardly drop in on her now, even if he knew where to find her. There were others, but time had not been good to his friends, allies, and or even his foes.

Xavier Desmond, the one-time unofficial mayor of Jokertown and one of the best clients Fortunato had when he ran his string of geishas, had been dead over fifteen years. Cancer had taken him soon after that memorable round the world trip on the Busted Flush, right after Fortunato had taken up the monastic life.

Chrysalis, purveyor of fine drink and even better information, had followed Des into death not long after. Her Crystal Palace had burned to the ground.

The amiable Hiram Worchester, one of the aces Fortunato had been closest to back in the day, had gone down for her murder. Though not a lot of news had reached Fortunato while he’d been isolated in the monastery, that had, and it had shocked him. He understood that Hiram had retired from public life. Even his fabulous restaurant, where Fortunato had first met the unbelievably beautiful Peregrine and had commenced his final battle with the Astronomer, was no more.

Yeoman, whom he’d traveled with to the gut of the Swarm... there had been a bond between them born of mutual respect and shared danger. But as far as Fortunato knew there hadn’t been an Ace of Spades killing for a long time. He had no idea what had happened to his one-time comrade. They hadn’t exactly been swapping Christmas cards the last decade and a half.

Even Tachyon, the whiny little space wimp, was gone. He’d run back to Takis when the going had gotten tough. First he’d come to the monastery begging for help. Then he’d gone back to his own planet, trapped in a woman’s body, like... like a man running to a monastery on a distant and remote island, cutting himself off entirely from his old life. Cutting himself off from family, friends, lovers, comrades, and enemies. Cutting himself off from everything.

Christ, Fortunato thought, is that what it’s come down to? Unflattering self-comparison to that little alien Fauntleroy?

Fortunato stared out of the taxi window, knowing that he had to get out of the awful, self-pitying, introspective mood into which he’d fallen. It wasn’t doing him, nor anyone else, any good. He had—

“Stop,” he said suddenly, and the cabby took him for his word. He yanked the taxi’s wheel hard right and they squealed to a halt against the curb. The cabby thrust his head out the window and screamed words at the driver of the car behind them, who had swerved and barely missed side-swiping the cab, and was now going down the street with his hand sticking out the driver-side window, middle finger extended.

“Amateur!” the cabby screamed as his final insult. He caught Fortunato’s eye in the rear view window. “Your destination, Mack?”

Fortunato nodded. Even if this wasn’t his destination, he realized he’d better get the Hell out of that cab if he wanted to live through the first day of his return to New York.

“Yes, this’ll do.” He got out of the cab and nearly did a double take when he saw the fare. He counted off a couple of bills and added a ten. “Here you go.”

The cabby didn’t seem overly excited by a ten-dollar tip. Times had changed.

“Thanks, Mack,” he said, and roared off to his next adventure, almost clipping a passing Caddie as he pulled away from the curb.

Fortunato looked around. He should have been surprised to find himself in the heart of Jokertown, but he wasn’t. It was almost as if he’d been magically drawn to there. As if he were a pigeon who’d returned, almost unconsciously, to home territory. He smiled to himself. Jokertown hadn’t changed much. It was just as dirty as it had been in his day. Just as crowded. Just as damned funky.

He put out a hand to touch the curb-side glass and plastic phone booth that was plastered with handbills advertising the next rave at the Freak Zone (The Hottest New Joker Hang! Nats With Masks Welcome!). Pedestrians with too many or too few limbs, with fur, with feathers, with skin like leather, with skin like silk, with extra mouths, noses, ears, or eyes, passed him by without a glance. To the jokers he was nothing, just a tall, skinny black guy. Maybe a nat, maybe a hidden joker. Maybe strung out, maybe grossed out. It was all the same to them. They had their own problems.

He used to be Fortunato. Tachyon had once called him the most powerful ace of all. Once, they all would have known who he was.

He didn’t know where it came from, but sudden anger churned his gut as if he’d ingested a five-star curry. He knew it wouldn’t go away, so instead he focused on it to the exclusion of all else, building a pyre that burned hotter and hotter until he could incinerate all the frustrations of the last day.

The last day? he asked himself. How about the last sixteen years?

“Hey, old man, what you doing?”

The voice was young, careless, and uncaring. It tore Fortunato from his standing meditation to the dirty, noisy present of the Jokertown street. He focused his eyes on a group of kids standing around him. There were half a dozen of them. They weren’t threatening, but Fortunato had the sense that they could be, in a heartbeat. All the pedestrians around them had suddenly faded from the scene. Their innate urban dweller senses perceived imminent danger and they either crossed the street or turned and retraced their steps when they saw the knot of juveniles surrounding the lone man.

The kids were all jokers. Some, like the slag-faced hulking giant who stood behind the speaker, were severely marked. Others, like the speaker himself, whose only visible abnormality was a rather attractive pair of feathery antennae that sprouted where his eyebrows should have been, were only touched by what was still regarded as the taint of the wild card, even after all these years.

Fortunato looked at them tolerantly. They were his people. He could have been one of them, if he hadn’t been inhumanly lucky in the cosmic crapshoot. Their expressions, as they looked back at him, ranged from totally blank to utterly hostile.

“I’m just standing here,” Fortunato said, finally answering the spokesman’s question.

The spokesman snorted. “You on our corner, man.”

Fortunato’s eyebrows rose. This was the old game that had been played on the streets for generations. He himself had played it, before he’d gone on to bigger games.

“Your corner?” he asked.

“Yah,” the kid replied. “We’re the Jokka Bruddas, dig, and like I spoke, you taking up space on our corner. You owe us, man.”

“Owe you?” the anger in Fortunato’s gut flared at the gangbanger’s insouciance. “I owned this corner, this street, and all those around it before you were born, boy. You’d best believe that.”

There was no fear in the boy’s eyes. “Yeah? Who are you supposed to be, old man?”

“I’m Fortunato,” he said.

There was a moment’s silence as they all stared at him, then the kid started to laugh and all his followers joined in. “Fortunato!” He shook his head. “You ain’t nothing but a crazy old man. Fortunato, he dead, old man. Been dead many a year. Everybody knows.”

“Knows what?” Fortunato said through clenched teeth, his gut roiling as the anger threatened to explode all bonds.

“He died years ago, before I was born. He flew up into the sky and fought the Devil. They fought all night, throwing lightning and thunder at each other. My daddy told me. He saw it. Fortunato was strong, but the Devil, he stronger. Fortunato fell from the sky like a stone and burned all up and the Devil took his soul to Hell because he was a pimp and a whore-runner.”

“They weren’t whores,” Fortunato ground out, “they were geishas.”

The boy shrugged. “You Fortunato? Go ahead, hit me with a lightning bolt. Fly. They said you could even stop time. Go ahead, old man. Do it. You better have more’n your mouth because we’re going to cap your ass and take everything you have.”

Fortunato’s anger called on the power, but nothing responded. He had shut it away for too long. He had turned his back on it, and now when he needed it, it wouldn’t respond. And Fortunato knew, suddenly and desperately, that he really needed it. The giant whose face was a lava field of pitted sores grinned horrifically, and stepped forward. Fortunato tensed.

“Are you all right, my son?” a deep, concerned voice asked. Suddenly, all around them, was the smell of the sea.

They all turned to see a man in priest’s robes who was not as tall as Fortunato, and more than twice as wide. His skin was a shiny, glabrous gray. His round face had nictating membranes over his eyes instead of normal lids, and a fall of short, constantly twitching tentacles where his nose should have been. His hands, folded over his comfortable paunch, were large, with long attenuated fingers that twitched bonelessly. Vestigial suckers lined his palms. He smelled like the ocean on a pleasant summer day.

“Father Squid,” Fortunato said.

“My son,” the priest of the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, acknowledged with a bow and a smile, “or should I call you ‘my brother’?”

“Whatever you call me, Father, it’s good to see you.”

Though not a touchy-feely person, Fortunato, accepted the priest’s embrace gratefully. Held against his broad chest, the smell reminded Fortunato of boyhood summer days spent at the beach. They hugged for a long moment, then Fortunato backed away.

Father Squid looked at him critically. “You look tired, my son.”

“I’ve been on a long journey.”

Father Squid nodded. “I’m glad to be here to welcome you home.” He gestured benevolently at the bangers standing all around them. “I’m glad that some of my flock has already welcomed you.” There was shuffling of feet and almost inaudible murmurs. “But it might be best if you were to come down the street to my church, and rest for awhile. We can catch up on the happenings of the last fifteen years.”

That suddenly sounded like a good idea. Father Squid was a well-known, well-beloved figure about Jokertown. Or, Fortunato thought, at least he was the last time he knew anything about Jokertown. But something the joker priest said wasn’t right. Fortunato frowned as he glanced at the street sign on the corner.

“We’re across Jokertown from Our Lady of Perpetual Misery,” Fortunato said. For a moment he wondered if his mind was going. If he was starting to forget details of his previous life. “Aren’t we?”

Father Squid smiled behind his fall of nasal tentacles. “The old Lady of Perpetual Misery,” he explained, “burned down almost a decade ago. We moved our premises here after the fire to a desanctified Roman Catholic Church in an abandoned parish.” He leaned forward to speak in a low voice. The odor of the ocean wafted from his ample form “Frankly, the insurance money didn’t go as far as we thought it would, and the real estate in this part of Jokertown is cheaper.”

Fortunato glanced at the Jokka Bruddas still standing around, some shuffling their feet, some glaring, and nodded.

“Right,” Father Squid said, smiling again. “This way.” He paused for a moment and glanced at the youths, taking them all in with his kindly, but penetrating gaze. “I haven’t seen you boys at confession lately. Or, come to think about it, even Mass. I hope you’ll be there this Sunday.”

“Ah, Father,” said their spokesman.

Father Squid’s gaze turned somewhat less kindly. “Carlos.”

The joker hung his head. “Yes, Father.”

The priest looked at the giant with the terrible face. “Ricky, you make sure Carlos makes it to Mass, won’t you.”

“I will, Father,” the giant said in a curiously high, sweet voice, the words of an angel issuing from a Hellhound’s mouth.

“All right,” Father Squid said with a nod. “We’ll see you boys soon.”

Carlos mumbled something as they walked away. To Fortunato it sounded like a slurred threat, but he ignored their words and their unblinking glares, as he went off down the street with the amiable joker priest.

New York City: To St. Dympna’s

On the way down from the Tower, Cameo, said to Nighthawk, “I don’t think I like the sound of St. Dympna’s.” She paused momentarily. “Whatever it is.”

Nighthawk shook his head. “You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s a charity hospital for crazy folks. It’s been shut down for years, but the Church still holds the deed and Contarini uses it as his sort of unofficial headquarters. It’s where the obsequenti have their barracks and Blood his kennel.”

Cameo frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s an awful place,” Nighthawk agreed.

The elevator came to a stop and Nighthawk politely waited for her to exit, holding the door for her and then following her into the lobby with Usher and Magda still at her side. He paused for a moment to look around. Whenever he stood in the Waldorf-Astoria’s lobby, it made him feel as if seventy years had fallen off the age of the earth. And off him.

She gazed at him.

“So,” she said, “you’re not taking me there. Right?”

Nighthawk looked around the lobby. So many memories. There was a maid he’d loved, lived with, and lost to a younger man who’d been a flashier dresser and had better prospects. She was young then, when he was old, but now she’d be ancient, if she’d somehow managed to survive. Nighthawk suppressed an introspective sigh. The past had been weighing heavily on him lately. He had to rid himself of it, one way or the other.

He looked at Cameo, wishing he’d gotten some really useful ace ability, like telepathy. But that, he thought, would have just made things too easy. “I have no choice,” his voice said. His eyes pled, Trust me. Just trust me for a little while longer.

“What if I scream?” Cameo asked conversationally.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Usher said.

Magda just smiled.

It was the nun’s smile, Nighthawk thought, that decided her. For now. Her gaze withdrew. Her eyes became hooded. It wasn’t exactly as if she lost all interest in her surroundings, but she acted as if she were preoccupied with something else more important, as if she were conversing with unseen spectres.

Maybe, Nighthawk thought, she was.

Usher went to the parking garage while Nighthawk, Cameo, and Magda waited on the street. It was late, and almost quiet. Cameo looked at Nighthawk, ignoring the silent nun.

“Can’t I go and find some place to go hide until this is all over?” she asked. “Whatever this is.”

Nighthawk nodded approvingly. “That would be the thing to do.” He paused, frowning. “Unfortunately, this will only be over, one, if Contarini dies, or, two, when Jesus Christ again walks this earth. I ain’t saying which is more likely. At this point, I don’t know.”

“Contarini is that determined?”

“He’s a fanatic. Fanatics are usually fairly determined.”

“And you’re not?” Cameo asked him. “A fanatic, I mean?”

Nighthawk laughed. “Not like Contarini. I have faith, but I’m not blinded by it. I have... questions. That’s why I took this job. I’d done some work for Contarini’s Allumbrados in the past—”

A big black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, Usher behind the wheel. Nighthawk opened the rear passenger side door and gestured for Cameo to enter. She got in gracefully and slid across the seat. Magda started to follow her, but Nighthawk took her forearm with his gloved left hand and shook his head.

“In the front,” he said, “with Usher.”

She stared at his gloved hand on her arm, then looked up at Nighthawk as if she were going to dispute his order, but dropped her gaze after a few moments. She pulled her arm away and got into the front passenger seat, obviously perturbed.

Nighthawk got in the back and toggled the dark glass panel into place between front and rear seats. Magda twisted backward to glare at them as the panel slid into place. Usher pulled away from the curb, melding easily with the light stream of traffic.

“She doesn’t like you,” Cameo observed.

“No,” Nighthawk said. “But, even better, she fears me.”

Cameo looked him over coolly. “Why?”

Nighthawk smiled. “Pray you never find out, missy.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded.

”All right,” she said. “You mentioned ‘Allumbrados,’ what does that mean? Who exactly are they?”

“It means ‘the Enlightened Ones.’ They’re an ancient brotherhood within the Church. Cardinal Contarini is their current leader, but they’ve been around since medieval times. Some say back to the time of the Inquisition, to which they had tight ties.”

“Contarini’s a Cardinal?” she repeated, half to herself, as if not totally surprised. “I’m not totally surprised,” she said. “The stink of sanctimony clings to him like cheap aftershave.”

Nighthawk smiled. That was a pretty fair assessment.

“But these Allumbrados, what exactly do they believe in?”

“They believe in the Millennium,” Nighthawk said. “They believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth. That after casting Satan and his minions into the pit He’ll establish a Kingdom of Peace and reign for a thousand years. Then He’ll fight the Devil one last time, and in this final confrontation will be victorious. Then the world will end and the righteous will go to Heaven to spend eternity praising God.”

“Literally?”

“Oh, yes. They believe this to be the pre-ordained fate of the universe. They believe that they can help this process along and hasten the coming of Parousia.”

“Parousia?”

“Sorry,” Nighthawk said. “You hang around these people enough and you forget how to talk like ordinary folk. Parousia is just a fancy word for Jesus’ Kingdom on Earth.”

“So, they hired you to help them?”

“I got them the Shroud, didn’t I?” Nighthawk asked with some indignation. “I found you to channel Jesus’ spirit so the Cardinal could discover how exactly they could help bring about Jesus’ return. Is it my fault you got Cole Porter instead?”

Cameo had to fight back a smile. “No.”

“Anyway,” Nighthawk said, “that’s only part of the plan.”

“The other part being?”

“The other part being destroying the Anti-Christ, who Contarini believes has already appeared on Earth, as Scripture has predicted.”

“That’s crazy,” Cameo said. “Just who is this supposed Anti-Christ, anyway?”

“The Spawn of the Whore of Babylon and Satan himself.”

Cameo shook her head. “I’m still in the dark.”

Nighthawk sat silently as Usher drove with quiet, sure skill through the empty streets. The Mercedes windows were all blacked out so Cameo could have no clue where they were going. That was part of the reason why he had activated the barrier between the front and back seats. He also didn’t want Usher or Magda to hear their conversation. He slouched back on his seat.

“The Whore of Babylon is a famous television star and documentary film producer who has dared to oppose the Church on pretty much every social issue imaginable. Abortion rights. Ordaining women for the priesthood. Homosexuality. Even the doctrine of papal infallibility which, it turns out, was invented in the nineteenth century. Plus, she’s a wild carder.”

“Peregrine?” Cameo hazarded.

Nighthawk nodded. “That’s right, missy. Now, Satan himself: He’s also a wild carder. He deals in sex, drugs, and violence. Or at least used to. He’s black—”

“Fortunato! But,” Cameo said, “he’s been in that monastery in Japan, what, it seems like forever now.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nighthawk said. “If he doesn’t come out when things start happening, Contarini will send someone after him. And,” Nighthawk added significantly, ”things have definitely started to happen.

“And the Anti-Christ,” Cameo said thoughtfully. “Their son, John Fortune.”

Nighthawk nodded again. “You got that right. The only known offspring from the union of two aces. That’s important to Contarini. Wild carders are equivalent to demons in his theology. He believes we’re all damned from birth. That we’ll all suffer the agonies of Hell for eternity.”

“Yet you work for him,” Cameo said with an edge of disgust in her voice.

Nighthawk shook his head. “I don’t work for him. I take his money. There’s a difference.”

“A vague one,” Cameo said.

“No. An important one. I told you before—I took this job for a reason.”

“The money?” she asked.

Nighthawk shook his head silently. His gaze turned inwards as if he were reliving memories of old, unforgettable, unpleasant events.

“No. I took this job because I wanted to see if you were the real thing, or just some kind of fake.”

“It wasn’t my fault that I got Cole Porter, either—” Cameo began, but Nighthawk interrupted her.

“No, I believe you. You’ve convinced me that you can channel the dead.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Your trust, for now.” He frowned. “We’re probably all right, here, now. If we’re being taped, we’re both dead if the Cardinal ever hears this conversation—”

Cameo snorted. “I thought you weren’t afraid of the Cardinal.”

“I’ve lived a long time, missy,” Nighthawk said, “and I didn’t do it by being stupid. Of course I’m afraid of the Cardinal. If you had any sense, you’d be too. I can’t afford to openly oppose him. I’m one old man. He has the Allumbrados. Aces. Money. More thugs with guns than I could kill in a year.”

“All right,” Cameo said in a small voice. “I believe you.”

“You better,” he said. “St. Dympna’s now, is not a nice place. It will be hard for you there. But you’ll only have to endure it for maybe a day, no more, then I’ll get you out. Trust me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because,” Nighthawk said softly. “I swear on the honor of my immortal soul.”

They looked at each other for a long time, and then Cameo finally nodded.

“All right,” she said in the voice of a little girl.

“Thank you,” Nighthawk said.

She nodded again, and they rode the rest of the way to St. Dympna’s in silence.

Jokertown: Rectory, Our Lady of Perpetual Mystery

Father Squid’s rectory was suffused with the peace of the monastery. Fortunato felt that he’d found an oasis of tranquility after nearly two days of travel and re-immersion in the strangeness of Jokertown. It was a small room in a small cottage attached to a church that had been abandoned by the Catholic diocese sometime in the 1960’s after they’d pulled out of Jokertown without regard for the souls of their vastly changed parishioners. Somehow it felt very much like home.

After enjoying a glass of mellow, surprisingly tasty wine in the rectory, Father Squid took Fortunato on a quick tour of his church, which after several years of reconstruction still wasn’t quite up to snuff.

“We’re doing the best we can,” Father Squid said as if reading Fortunato’s thoughts. He gestured at the scaffolds half-holding up one of the interior walls, the flooring that was partly warped plywood, the mismatched pews that must have come from half a dozen other forgotten churches. “But money is tight. And I hesitate to spend it all on building projects when so much has to be done for the parish poor. Meals for the elderly, or those incapable of taking care of themselves. Money for heating oil in the winter. A small camp we send joker children to in the summer, so they might know what sunshine and forests and clean lake water feels like.” The priest shook his head ponderously. “Never enough time. Never enough money.”

Fortunato nodded. He felt ashamed. He would have felt worse if he’d let himself dwell on it. Here he’d spent sixteen years gazing at his own navel, while this fat old joker was out in the real world, trying to make a difference. He looked around the church’s interior. It was nowhere as nice as the old Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. Fortunato particularly missed the icons that had been part of the old church. The old representations had been genuine works of art. Their replacements...

Fortunato frowned as he looked at them closely.

“I know,” Father Squid said, sadly. “We lost much that night Our Lady of Perpetual Misery burned to the ground. Many parishioners. But also some things nearly as irreplaceable as human beings.” He gestured at the mosaic upon the walls. The two headed male/female joker crucified on the DNA helix; the handsome, golden-auraed demon juggling his thirty pieces of silver; the two-faced scientist in his lab coat dispensing pain with one hand and relief with the other; the thin black man with curling ram horns and a bulging forehead hurling thunderbolts as he floated in the air. Another part of him bulged inhumanly large in his pants. “Crude as they are, these will have to do until a joker artist with more ability comes along.”

Fortunato stared at the mural. The thin black man with curling ram horns and a bulging forehead hurling thunderbolts looked familiar. “That’s me,” he said, half fascinated, half horrified.

Father Squid smiled. At least, his facial tentacles twitched. “It’s what your legend has become, my son.”

“And that is?” Fortunato asked, still unable to take his eyes off the mural.

Father Squid shrugged broad shoulders. “Like most things in Jokertown, theology is two-faced. You’ve become the fertility god who showers both fecundity and destruction upon his people. Pregnant jokers pray to you that their children be normal. Or at least not hideous. On the other hand, you’ve become a cult figure to certain of those with a destructive bent. Youth gangs in particular.”

“The Jokka Bruddas,” Fortunato said.

Father Squid nodded. “Among others. I deal with them frequently. Their clubhouse, as they call it, is an abandoned apartment building just across the street—”

“Excuse me,” Fortunato said, as his cell phone went off. He fumbled with it for a moment, unfamiliar was he was with the controls, but finally got it working. “Yes?”

“Fortunato?” a familiar, frenzied voice asked. “Digger,” it said, before Fortunato could reply. “Have you heard the news?”

“News?” Fortunato looked at Father Squid. Father Squid shrugged. He shrugged back.

“There was some kind of dust-up in Vegas. Your son’s been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” he heard himself repeating stupidly.

“Yeah, and Peregrine, she... she was hurt. Apparently she’s been flown back to New York and is at the Jokertown Clinic—”

“This must have happened hours ago! Why didn’t you find out about it until now?”

“I was busy, all right?” Digger said defensively.

“Busy doing what?” Fortunato asked.

“Writing up your story at my apartment—then my girlfriend came by and one thing led to another, and I just turned on the TV—”

Fortunato caught himself about to swear, then shut his mouth. He took a deep breath and ran through the Heart Sutra a couple of times. He didn’t feel any calmer when he was finished, but he realized that it was all water under the bridge and there was no use crying over it.

“All right,” he said. He checked with the map of Jokertown that was still etched into the furrows of his brain. “I’m going to the Jokertown Clinic—”

“I’ll meet you there—”

“If you want.”

”I’m on the way. Keep the channel open and I’ll fill you in on the details.”

“All right,” Fortunato said. He turned to Father Squid. “I have to go,” he said.

The priest nodded ponderously. “God go with you, my son.”

Fortunato nodded as he ran out of the church, Digger still yammering in his ear.

Las Vegas: Urgent Care Center

Ray made sure that he was still bleeding a little when he checked himself into the emergency clinic. Experience had taught him that nothing proclaimed emergency like spurting blood. It was a sure way to jump right to the head of the line.

After Angel had slammed her door in his face, he’d figured he had nothing better to do, so he decided to tie up some loose ends. He didn’t really feel like going down to the cop shop and lying his ass off to the locals, so, first things first, he went to his own room and changed into a set of old sweats. He left what was left of his suit in a pile on the bathroom floor, went down to the cab stand and had the taxi take him to the nearest emergency clinic.

He paid off the cabby, striped off his short-sleeved tee, and dropped it in a garbage can as he approached the clinic, then walked into the front door holding the flap of torn skin and meat up against his upper chest. The receptionist took one look at him and had an orderly escort him to an empty waiting room. Once there he twiddled his thumbs, as usual waiting for the doctor to finish his sandwich or counting his Medicaid kickbacks, or whatever it was that occupied his time when he could actually be seeing patients.

The tiny room was sterile and uninteresting. Ray looked at the poster of the little kitten dangling from a branch with the words “HANG IN THERE” emblazoned with bold yellow letters, and pursed his lips. All in all, it was better than being shot in the ass and having to sit in a cave in Afghanistan while awaiting medical treatment, but not by much.

Well, he told himself, you asked for it.

Speaking of asking for it, he reminded himself that he had some other unpleasant tasks to perform. Ignoring the sign that said “Please turn off cell phones as a courtesy to the doctors and staff,” he took his cell phone out and dialed Barnett’s number.

There was a click after the third ring and a sexy and bored voice said, “Peaceable Kingdom, President Leo Barnett’s Office.”

“Hello, Sally Lou,” Ray said. “Let me talk to the big guy.”

“You mean President Barnett?”

It was their little joke. He always called Barnett “the big guy” and she pretended that she didn’t know whom he meant. But Ray wasn’t really in the mood to drag this out for too long. “I don’t mean the Pope.”

She must have heard something in the tone of his voice, for there was a click, a buzz, and then Barnett’s smooth voice was on the line, with more than a hint of distress in it. “Billy, my boy, what in the name of Melchisidek is going on there in Vegas, boy? I’m hearing strange tales. Strange tales indeed—”

“Yeah, well, you should have actually been here.” Ray gave a concise report on the day’s activities, and then listened to a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Disturbing,” Barnett finally said.

There was no way to deny it. “Yes, sir,” Ray said. “You know that those Allumbrados have aces working for them as well as assholes with guns.”

Barnett sighed. “So I’ve heard.”

“One of them is Butcher Dagon.”

“Have those damned Papists no sense of morality?” Barnett asked, outraged.

“Well, Angel and I laid him out like a slab of cold meat. The local cops currently have him on ice, but I wouldn’t trust them to hold a lost dog let alone a bad guy the caliber of Dagon.”

“Forget Dagon,” Barnett said flatly. “We’ve got to find Je—the boy before those murderous bastards kill him. Do you know where they’ve taken him?”

“No,” Ray said, “but I’ve got a got an idea or two—”

There was a soft knock on the door, and it suddenly opened. A young female doctor looked in. She was Asian, probably Korean, with big dark eyes and long, straight glossy black hair.

“—Got to run,” Ray interrupted himself, and shut down his cell. He smiled at the doctor, who paused, frowning in the doorway. “Bet you’ve never stitched up an ace before,” he said with a bright smile.

New York City: St Dympna’s Home for the Mentally Deficient and Criminally Inclined

Jerry quickly realized that they’d been transported to a Hellhole that would make Bedlam look like a day at Disneyworld.

“Home sweet home,” the big blonde guy said, looking around disgustedly. He said it as if he didn’t really mean it. “You know,” he continued confidingly to Jerry, “I’ve got to say that this really sucks. The Cardinal gets to lord it up over at the Waldorf, while we have to scrounge around here in a building barely fit to be Blood’s kennel.”

Jerry grunted noncommittally as the blonde guy, as if emphasizing his displeasure, aimed a kick at Blood’s ribs as his handler dragged him by on his leash. The kick landed solidly. Blood howled like a kicked dog while the blonde guy sneered his satisfaction.

“You shouldn’t oughta do that, Witness,” the keeper said. “Blood ain’t done nothing wrong. You treat him like that, you confuse him, and then he’s hard to handle.”

“He’s disgusting,” Witness said. “Get him out of my sight.”

Grumbling, the handler pulled Blood away, tugging hard at his leash and saying in an aggrieved voice, “Come on, boy, come on,” while Witness looked on, grinning. Jerry felt sick to his stomach.

Witness turned to him, his face suddenly wearing an expression of concern that didn’t quite look authentic. “How you doing, Dagon? You look pretty well beat. I guess that Ray is one tough customer.”

Jerry, trying to speak as little as possible, only nodded.

“I tell you what,” Witness said. “Why don’t you stay here and rest awhile? Get some medical attention. I’ll have some of the boys help you up to the infirmary. They’ll take care of you there.”

Although his words were sympathetic, his voice had an underlying tone that Jerry interpreted as meaning, “Look out, I’m going to screw you now.”

“Don’t worry about reporting to the Cardinal. I’ll go into Manhattan and do it. Though,” he gripped his left shoulder and swung it experimentally while grimacing, “I could probably use some medical attention myself. I think I pulled something here.”

Jerry kept a look of elation off Dagon’s face. At least he knew where they were, that somehow they’d been transported back to Manhattan. That would make things easier, if they could only get out of St. Dympna’s, whatever the Hell this place was. Jerry nodded and made groaning noises in what he hoped sounded like an acquiescent tone.

Witness brightened perceptibly, smiling like he’d just put one over. Apparently he was eager to get to this Cardinal and report. Maybe to tell him his particular version of events. Maybe to take all the credit for it. That was fine with Jerry.

Witness barely restrained himself from rubbing his hands together with glee. He turned to the men who’d been holding a silent, sullen John Fortune by his arms. “Take the brat to the oubliette,” Witness ordered.

That doesn’t sound good, Jerry thought.

“You others help Dagon.” Jerry winced realistically as they put their arms around his waist. “Careful, dolts! Can’t you see that he’s injured?”

The thugs murmured apologies that Jerry accepted with a feeble nod. Witness nodded, and with a final farewell bustled off, planning whatever stab in the back move he clearly intended.

This, Jerry thought, was not a subtle guy. Probably more muscles than brains.

As they shuffled off together, Jerry stopped, turned, and looked at John Fortune. “Be seeing you, kid,” he said.

He said it as quickly and quietly as he could and still be sure that John Fortune heard him. He really didn’t have a firm grasp of Dagon’s voice, and he was a bad mimic anyway, as his utter failure as the Projectionist proved, so he just used his regular voice and hoped no one was really paying attention

John Fortune glanced wildly back over his shoulder as two thugs hustled him down the hall, and their eyes met. For the first time since their capture, Jerry saw hope on the kid’s face. Jerry risked a single nod as he was shuffled off in the other direction. John Fortune had understood. He’d recognized Jerry’s voice, or perhaps he’d just recognized one of Jerry’s favorite tag lines.

He knew that his shape-shifting bodyguard was still on the job.

New York City: Jokertown Clinic

The doctor had a white coat, a stethoscope, and the hindquarters of a horse. Palomino, Fortunato thought. Very handsome.

His front end was good-looking, too, with a blondeish, Californian surfer dude cast to it, but underlain with an uncommon strength and thoughtfulness. Fortunato thought that this was a man who had seen a lot, been through a lot, and had paid a price for all the knowledge he’d won from life.

“Bradley!” Digger said, glad-handing the joker doctor. Fortunato had met the reporter on the clinic steps, and Digger had commanded him to “Leave everything to me.” Considering the state that he was in, Fortunato thought that was a good idea. Digger seemed to know the place as well as the people in charge, and it took him only moments to get them up to Finn’s office.

“Good to have you back from Takis,” Digger said to the doctor with what seemed to be a fair amount of sincerity in his voice. “That must have been some exciting trip. You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

Finn seemed more weary than welcoming, but he returned the reporter’s handshake readily enough. “It was, and maybe I will,” Finn said. He glanced inquisitively at Fortunato who’d been silent since they’d been led into his cramped office by a legless joker in a nurse’s uniform. “Right now, I’m kind of busy.”

“Of course,” Digger said. “You always are.”

“Too many patients, too little time,” Finn said.

“Right. Actually, we’re here to see one of them.”

Finn questioned him with a raised eyebrow.

“Peregrine,” Digger said.

The doctor looked at then both. Fortunato returned his gaze steadily, his heart beating unaccountably fast, afraid that Finn would turn them away, afraid that he wouldn’t. “She’s in no condition to be badgered, Digger,” Finn said flatly.

“No, you misunderstand,” Digger said soothingly. He looked at Fortunato. “You two have never met?” he asked.

Fortunato shook his head. “No. I haven’t had the pleasure.”

Digger smiled his customary knowing smirk. “Dr. Bradley Finn,” he said, “this is Fortunato. He’s recently returned to New York from Japan.”

Fortunato could see that Finn was impressed by the mention of his name. Despite having tried to drown his ego for the last decade and a half, he was more than a little pleased that it still did carry weight.

“Fortunato.” Bradley moved around from behind his desk, his bootied hooves clicking hollowly on the carpeted floor. He held out a hand. “It’s very nice to meet you. I’ve read so much about you. Sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

“I’ve been away for a long time,” Fortunato said.

“Well, nice to have you back.”

“Not really,” Fortunato said. He released Finn’s hand. “I wish the circumstances of my return were different.”

“Of course.” The centaur looked thoughtful. “You want to see Peregrine, I understand, but she was severely wounded—”

“I want to know what happened,” Fortunato said. Even to himself his voice sounded dry. Curiously devoid of emotion. But it wasn’t missing, only constrained. He had to dam them all up. He was afraid what would happen if he gave into the feelings burning through his brain.

“She was ambushed while being interviewed about her son’s, er, your son’s, I should say, card turning.”

“Why?” Fortunato asked.

“No one seems to know. Maybe it was a plot to kidnap the boy. He was missing after all the furor died down. But there’s been no ransom demand. They left a score of wounded bystanders. Half a dozen dead.” Finn shook his head at the mystifying cruelty of it all.

Fortunato’s heart started to race again, but he managed to control his voice low. “And Peregrine?” he asked.

“She took more than half a dozen bullets, suffering massive internal injuries and severe wing damage. Frankly, it was fortunate that her husband had immediately arranged her transportation to the clinic. I doubt that they could have dealt with the vagaries of her wild card metabolism in Vegas.”

“She’s going to be all right, though?” Digger asked.

Finn shook his head. “Too early to tell. But she’s got a chance.” Finn gestured, encompassing the extent of his tiny office. “We may not look like much, but the Jokertown Clinic is state of the art when it comes to the treatment of wild carders, even for those suffering from such mundane things as bullet wounds. Even without Tachyon, we’ve got the most knowledgeable doctors in the world. That said, we just don’t know yet about Peregrine. She suffered damage to her internal organs. Part of her liver was pulped. Lost one of her kidneys. The delicate bone structure of one wing was smashed. There’s a serious question as to whether she’ll ever fly again.”

Finn’s calm recital of Peregrine’s injuries made Fortunato feel as if he’d been shot himself. The sickness that burned in his gut because of the deaths of all the people he’d lost over the years came back. It had been gone when he’d been in Japan, but now it was back.

“Can I see her?” he asked.

Finn looked at him thoughtfully. “She’s resting. Maybe sleeping. Her husband’s with her. Just got back into town himself.” He clip-clopped over to his desk and activated the intercom. “Jesse,” he said, “check and see if Peregrine’s awake.” They waited in silence for a few moments until the nurse replied affirmatively. “Okay. Come to my office and escort mister, uh, this gentleman to her room, would you?”

While they waited for the nurse, Finn lectured Fortunato about not tiring her out. Fortunato only half-listened. He was thinking about Peregrine. About the night they had made love and made their son, and Peregrine had supplied Fortunato with enough energy to defeat the murderous Astronomer in combat high in the skies over Manhattan. The next morning Fortunato had left for Japan. He’d seen her only once after that, some months later when she’d come to Japan on the World Health Organization sponsored tour. Occasionally he’d seen her photo in some magazine or newspaper. He’d never seen their son.

The nurse’s face looked relatively human but for the brightly patterned scales that covered it in lieu of normal skin. Her arms were oddly sinuous, almost boneless, and she had too many fingers. She looked at Fortunato curiously, but was professional enough to simply say, “This way, sir.”

As Fortunato followed her out of Finn’s office he could hear the ever-optimistic Digger Downs say, “Now, Dr. Finn, about this spaceship you took back to Earth, I heard that you stopped at many planets along the way—” He heard Finn sigh as if he realized he couldn’t escape Downs’ relentless interrogation, and then they were out of earshot.

The corridor was clean, quiet, and dimly lit. It smelled like a hospital. Not even the burning pungency of strong antiseptic could wipe out the odors of fear and pain and death and, somewhere underneath it all, hope. The nurse opened the door to Peregrine’s private room, one of the few in the clinic, and shut it softly after Fortunato slipped quietly inside.

The room was darker than the hallway outside, and Fortunato’s hypersensitive senses rebelled against the hurt and pain he could discern, not all of which emanated from the bandaged form on the bed attached to a raft of tubes and machines monitoring her heart, lungs, and brain.

A man sat in a chair by the side of the bed. He looked up as Fortunato entered, fear and pain in his eyes. He looked ordinary enough, fairly handsome with blonde hair and a darker beard. He nodded at Fortunato, and stood.

“I’m Josh McCoy.”

Fortunato nodded. He had never seen the man but he knew the name. “I know. I’m—”

“Fortunato.” McCoy said. “I know.”

Fortunato moved to the foot of the bed. “How’s she doing?”

“Sleeping, now. Trying to get some strength back...” McCoy’s voice trailed off as he looked at Peregrine’s quiescent form.

Somehow, seeing her lying there made Fortunato feel inadequate and inept. Like somehow he’d failed her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with her,” he said, surprising himself as he realized the truth of his statement.

“Not your fault,” McCoy said. “I just wish I’d been there myself.”

Fortunato shrugged. “Probably nothing you could have done, except get hurt. Or killed, maybe.”

McCoy looked at him. “But at least I would have been with her. For her.”

Fortunato frowned. He shouldn’t have to defend himself, he thought, or the decisions he’d made about his life. Not to this man. Not to any man. He was about to reply to McCoy’s veiled accusation when the sounds of movement under crisp sheets came to his ears, and both of the men turned to look at Peregrine.

She’d opened her eyes. They were drugged with pain and morphine, but it seemed she recognize them both. She held up a hand taped to a board with tubes running up to an intravenous drip that Finn had ratcheted up in potency to work with Peregrine’s souped-up metabolism. McCoy sat down in the chair next to her bed and took her hand and put it against his cheek.

“How you doing, darling?” he asked in a low voice.

A ghost of a smile passed over Peregrine’s drawn and tired face where, Fortunato thought, her beauty waited patiently to reveal itself like the sun eclipsed by dark shadows. “Been better,” she whispered. Her eyes wandered across the room and took in Fortunato.

“You’re here,” she said.

“I’m here.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

She glanced back at McCoy. “John?” she asked.

“He’s—he’s missing, but okay, as far as we know.”

Peregrine made a supreme effort and nodded. She looked again at Fortunato. “What’s this all about?”

That helpless feeling crawled around like a snake, biting Fortunato in the gut. “I don’t know,” he said. “What’s it ever all about? Some nut probably. Some fucking nut. You take care of one. Another takes his place. There’s no shortage of nuts—” Fortunato caught himself. He took a deep breath.

“I’ve never asked you for anything,” Peregrine whispered in words so low and slow that Fortunato could barely hear her. “But find him. Find him and bring him back safe.”

The snake coiled in Fortunato’s gut and clamped down on his intestines with its sharp fangs. He was being sucked into it all again, after almost sixteen years away. But how could he say no to his son’s mother? How could he not go find his son?

McCoy released Peregrine’s hand and stood up. “I’m coming with you.”

Fortunato shook his head. “No.”

McCoy’s fear and pain turned to sudden anger. “Don’t tell me no! You made him—I raised him. I changed his diapers. I helped him learn how to walk and talk. I helped him to grow into a good kid. Where were you all that time, you, you big hero?” McCoy’s voice rose with his anger. “Where were you?”

“Josh...” Peregrine said, reaching out to him.

Fortunato shook his head. “I just... I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”

“He’s right, Josh,” Peregrine said in her soft, pained voice. “He’s made for this.”

I was, Fortunato thought. But that was a long time ago. Now, I just don’t know...

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Fortunato took his leave, but they had already seemed to have forgotten him. McCoy sat next to her, his head against the mattress by her side. Her hand rested on it, so weak it was barely able to stir the strands of his hair. McCoy had earned that place by her side through sixteen years of ceaseless loyalty. Fortunato had tossed it aside.

He left the room, went down the corridor and took a side staircase down to the lobby. He didn’t want to see Finn again. He sure as Hell didn’t want to see Downs. He didn’t really want to be alone either, but he didn’t have much of a choice with that.

He looked out at the street. It was fairly quiet this time at night, but there were still occasional cars, a taxi or two, trucks off on their delivery rounds. Pedestrians went by singly or in groups, without a glance his way. No one knew who he was. Why should they?

His son was out there. He didn’t have a clue where. He didn’t have a clue as to who took him or why they took him or what his condition was. In the old days he might have gone to Chrysalis. She knew everything that happened in this city, most things of import that happened in the world of wild carders. But she was dead. Once he might have gone out of his body and searched for clues himself, but those days, like his powers, were gone. He had thrown them away, just like he’d tossed Peregrine aside. And for what?

“Hey, old man.”

The voice that startled Fortunato out of his reverie was that of Carlos, spokesman for the Jokka Bruddas. He was accompanied by the behemoth with the pustule-ridden face whom Father Squid had called Ricky.

“Where’s the rest of the crowd?” Fortunato asked.

Carlos shrugged. “Don’ worry about them. It’s your skinny old ass that’s in trouble.”

If Fortunato hadn’t recently been hammered by the double emotional blows of Peregrine’s wounding and his son’s kidnapping, he would have been amused. Now he was just angry at these kids for wasting his time.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

Carlos shrugged again. “Don’ get snappy with me, dog, when I’m doin’ you a favor. Father Squid sent us to get you. He didn’t say what the problem was, but he said to get you and bring your ass back to the church andale, baby.”

Fortunato couldn’t imagine what the priest wanted, but knew that it must be important. “All right, let’s go.”

He started down the street, but Carlos grabbed his sleeve.

“This way, esse. We got a drive waiting.”

Following Carlos down the street, he turned left into the alley running alongside a wing of the Clinic, and suddenly thought, Where’s Ricky? He turned around to see the hulk behind him, grinning like a melting wax dummy as his fist descended in a blur.

Fortunato’s last thoughts were, Christ, I am getting too old, and darkness dropped on him like a falling cliff.