Death Draws Five

Chapter five

Jerry and John Fortune crossed the Hudson at Tarrytown just as dawn was breaking in a car they’d taken from the parking lot at St. Dympna’s. It was a dark, late-model Mercedes. Not flashy, but nicely appointed with a comfortable, smooth ride and a powerful engine. Once they’d gotten safely away from the asylum, Jerry took the precaution of stopping to switch plates with a car parked on a dark, quiet street.

Cameo, of all people, had proved surprisingly adept at hot-wiring cars, utilizing some innocuous-looking tool she’d taken out of her capacious handbag. Even Nighthawk had looked surprised as she quickly started two cars, one for her and Nighthawk, the other for Jerry and John Fortune.

They had to leave the other freed prisoners to fend for themselves. Some had gone into the parking lot with them and scattered into the night. Some had opted to stay in the asylum walls, committing mischief that Jerry was afraid to contemplate.

Jerry last saw Nighthawk and Cameo get into a Cadillac Seville as he and John Fortune had roared out of the parking lot. He still had no idea who the Hell Nighthawk really was and what the Hell he was really up to. At that point, Jerry didn’t care. He’d rescued the kid, and they were heading off to safety. Jerry didn’t know if he could trust the old man, but he could conceive of no possible scenario in which Nighthawk would help them flee, only to connive at their recapture. That just made no sense. And using the camp as a sanctuary was a great idea. Once there they could take the time for a deep breath, and a long, refreshing sleep. Jerry could call the office for reinforcements. And they’d be safe. No one would ever find them because although it was located only sixty miles or so north of the city, that part of New York was essentially one big empty space.

Jerry had been there a couple of times when they were getting the camp up and running. It was a favorite charity funded to a large degree by him and Ackroyd, and administered by Father Squid and a committee drawn mainly from his parish. Located on a couple of dozen acres set in the middle of nowhere which were owned by a friend of the joker priest, Camp Xavier Desmond was a year round retreat whose purpose was to get poor joker and nat kids out of the city so they could hang out together and learn about each other. It was open all summer and on weekends when school was in session, just to give kids a breath of fresh air, to show them what a tree looked like and maybe help them realize that nats and jokers weren’t so different after all.

Once they’d crossed over the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee Bridge, Jerry avoided the Palisades Parkway feeder road, sticking to the thoroughfare leading to old Route 17. He could have taken the 87, also known as the Thruway, which was wider, straighter, and faster. But he didn’t want wide, straight, and fast. He wanted narrow, crooked, and obscure, and old 17 was that in spades.

The little traffic there was on 17 consisted of commuters heading south to New York City. Virtually nobody was traveling on his side of the road. He kept to the speed limit and drove conservatively, glancing every now and then at John Fortune, who had conked out in the front seat next to him well before they’d crossed the Hudson. The boy had been through a lot, and this was probably the first time he’d felt safe enough to get a good rest. Jerry himself was going on the last dregs of adrenaline his body had left. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, and food was nearly a forgotten concept. He could have stopped at one of the diners that catered to travelers on the old road, but he had no wallet, no I.D., no money. Doggedly, he drove on.

Wanting real obscurity, he turned west on 17A as soon as possible, entering the empty big space on the road map. As always, he found it kind of hard to believe that there was so much nothing so close to New York City. A confirmed city boy, the nearness of so much unused land always bothered him. More than once he found himself thinking that what these open fields needed was a couple of good apartment complexes to fill them up, but intellectually he realized that these open space were not really wasted. The rich soil was burgeoning with crops of all kinds—corn, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, celery, and other vegetables that would eventually make themselves useful at one salad bar or another. He was just not used to seeing them in the wild.

It was slow going, and even slower once he’d reached the sleepy hamlet of Florida with its one traffic light. He turned from 17A to the network of county roads that spread through the rural landscape like capillaries meandering off larger blood vessels. The traffic was now at a minimum, mainly locals headed for their jobs at metropolises like Middletown and Goshen, places whose populations didn’t exceed that of a decent-sized apartment complex.

Half relieved to find the place again, he pulled into Camp Xavier Desmond just as it was waking up to face another beautiful summer day. He was still wearing Butcher Dagon’s face and body, not thinking it prudent to take the time to transform in the middle of their escape, but was still easily able to establish his bona fides with the camp superintendent while keeping John under wraps in the car. It was before office hours at Ackroyd and Creighton, but he called to check in and leave a message, saying where they were and that they were all right. He got the kid settled into an empty guest cabin, had a big, satisfying breakfast, and went to the cabin himself and crashed.

He slept well and deeply, knowing that he’d earned every moment of the rest he took.

Las Vegas: Airport

They had to rush through breakfast to catch their early morning flight. The Angel wasn’t happy about that. All she wanted was to get her money’s worth (Well, she reminded herself, The Hand’s money’s worth.), but there was also the fact that they were going to be on the plane for a good part of the day and plane food was notoriously bad. And scanty.

Breakfast unfortunately turned out to be the high point of the day, which went downhill really fast.

The Angel and Ray boarded the plane half an hour before take-off. The flight was already full. Ray grumbled endlessly about the fact that they’d gotten stuck in the main cabin because they’d had to buy their tickets at the last second. He was, the Angel thought, acting like a spoiled child. Their seats were perfectly adequate.

They had two seats in a row in the cabin’s central section. Ray offered her the aisle seat, but she declined. That was her first mistake. Her second was being nice to the man who sat down next to her, smiling at him when he first plopped down. He was young, rather handsome with lean, dark good looks. Almost Mediterranean, with thick, wavy hair and dark, puppy-dog eyes. She was somewhat suspicious of him at first, but she told herself not to stereotype. Not every Italian-looking man was an Allumbrado.

She had her first qualm when she smelled the liquor wafting off him in waves, the smell of which was undisguised by his rather potent hair tonic, skin lotion, and cologne. It was an uneasy combination of odors to experience so early in the morning and it didn’t help any when their take-off was delayed for unspecified reasons and the air-conditioning was turned off as they sat on the runway and waited. And waited. And waited.

The passenger sitting next to the Angel wanted to while away the time drinking, but the flight attendant refused him alcohol. He then turned his attention to the Angel and she finally realized that he was hitting on her when she felt his hand on her upper thigh.

“Take your hand off me,” she said in a cold voice.

He only smiled back at her. Ray, who had been focused in on his own little world, turned his head and frowned as she spoke. “You want to take it down a notch, Jack?” he asked.

“Please, Billy—” the Angel began, but the drunk interrupted her.

“I’m not poaching your private preserve, am I?” he asked Ray.

Ray frowned. “No, but—”

“Hey,” the drunk interrupted again, “she’s free, white, and twenty-one, ain’t she?”

Ray’s expression went cold. “How’d you like to be drunk, dead, and thirty-five, dork?”

“Billy!”

“You threatening me?” the drunk asked belligerently.

Ray laughed in his face. The drunk turned red, stood, and drew his fist back. The Angel caught it in her palm as he tried to punch Ray.

“Stop it!” she ordered.

The drunk tried to pull free. She twisted his wrist a little harder than she’d intended, and heard something snap. He screamed, “You broke my fucking arm, you fucking bitch!”

Then his face turned puce and he gagged.

“No,” the Angel said. “Oh, no.”

He threw up in her lap.

Ray was out of his seat and standing in the aisle before the spatter could hit him. “Son of a—” he started to say when a swarm of flight attendants descended on them. Some of them tried to placate Ray, some tried to help the Angel and a couple others led the still-retching drunk away.

“I saw it all,” one of the stewardesses said. “It wasn’t your fault. Not at all. But I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the plane so we can clean... this... all... up.”

The Angel saw Ray muttering to himself, barely under control.

“My name is Billy Ray. I’m with the Secret Service. This is my associate. We have to get to New York as soon as possible—”

”I sympathize,” the stewardess said. “But surely you can’t expect to travel in this condition.”

Ray took a deep breath as if to calm himself, then screwed up his face when he got a good whiff of the Angel.

“No,” he said woodenly. “Of course not.”

“I’m sorry,” the Angel said. She grimaced at the vomit-covered front of her pants and blouse, holding her arms out from her body in dismay. “I didn’t mean—”

“No one’s blaming you,” Ray said. He glared at the stewardess. “Are they?”

“No, certainly not, sir. We all saw that she was simply protecting herself from an obnoxious drunk.”

“That’s right,” chimed in an interested passenger. “We all saw it.”

The captain came down the aisle, frowning. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Trouble?”

“No, sir,” the Angel said in a meek voice. “No trouble at all.”

But of course they had to deplane. She had to clean up, using one of the airport shower facilities to wash off the vomit that had soaked her to the skin. Ray had to buy her another outfit, because all the clothes she had in the world had finally taken off for New York City. Then the cops came and she had to tell the story. Then more cops came and they had to tell the story again. Then they had to tell it one more time, officially, for their statement. Ray’s status helped, but he didn’t want to push it because he didn’t want the locals to look at them too deeply. It was afternoon by the time they’d cut their way through the red tape, and having had the satisfaction of seeing the obnoxious drunk hauled off to the poky with his arm in a sling.

They were saying their good-byes to the airport cops, who, the Angel thought, were googling at her all too avidly in the tight jeans and form-fitting tee-shirt that said “I Lost It In Vegas” that Ray had purchased for her. Fortunately she’d been able to salvage her bra. Without it she would have been too much of a spectacle to be endured. She should have made Ray go back to the airport stores and find something a little more appropriate for her to wear. She supposed it wasn’t his fault. She was difficult to fit in the best of times, and the clothing selection in an airport mall was not exactly extensive.

They were leaving the security office when one of the cops who’d just answered a ringing phone yelled out for them to stop.

“Hey, Mr. Ray,” he called, “it’s headquarters.”

Ray stopped with a sigh and a put-upon expression on his face. He had something, the Angel decided, of a martyr’s complex.

“They need your help.”

He looked slightly mollified. “Sure,” he said, glancing at the Angel. She looked away, rolling her eyes. “What about?”

“It’s Butcher Dagon.” The Angel had a sudden bad feeling that was quickly confirmed. “He’s escaped.”

Ray shrugged. “That’s your—”

The Angel laid a hand on his arm. “We can’t let him run lose. Think of the innocents!”

“In Vegas?” Ray asked.

“You know what I mean,” she replied.

Ray sighed again. His expression was clouded, but the Angel knew that she had him half-convinced.

“I’ll go on ahead. I can handle things at the New York end. You take care of Butcher Dagon.” She added what she realized would be the clincher. “Only you can handle him.”

Ray paused to consider. “Well. Yeah. All right.”

The Angel paused as well. She really hated to do this, but she had no choice.

“One other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have any money. I’ll need the credit card.”

Ray’s expression turned pained, but he nodded, somewhat regretfully, the Angel thought, and handed it over.

“Take good care of it,” Ray thought and added, with only the slightest hesitation, “and yourself.”

It was, the Angel thought, rather sweet of him to be concerned.

New York City: St Dympna’s Parking Lot

“Let’s go,” Cameo said flatly. She took off her old, battered hat and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Cadillac Seville she’d hot-wired moments before.

Nighthawk gave a final wave to whoever the fellow was who looked like Butcher Dagon as he and the boy peeled out of Dympna’s parking lot. He looked at Cameo. She looked back. She seemed different, somehow.

“I’m driving,” Cameo said.

Nighthawk shrugged. It was all the same to him. He went around the car and got into the passenger’s side and had just settled down when Cameo gunned it. They hit a pothole, bounced, and roared out of the lot, jouncing about like Mexican jumping beans. Nighthawk grabbed the dashboard and watched Cameo. She had a tight smile on her face. Her eyes, her whole expression, were harder, somehow tougher. As if she were a different person.

Maybe, Nighthawk thought, she was.

“You all right, missy?” he asked.

“No thanks to you,” she replied shortly. The inflection of her voice was different. Her words were as hard as her expression. Nighthawk wondered who he was dealing with now.

“You’re not Cameo, are you?”

She snorted. “We’re all Cameo, honey.”

Nighthawk nodded. “If you say so.”

“Where are we headed?”

“I’ve got some places around town,” Nighthawk said. He thought for a moment. “How about Staten Island?”

“Staten Island?” Cameo asked. “It stinks. It’s the sticks.”

“It’s quiet. It’s out of sight. We’ll be able to rest and talk some.”

“Talk?” Cameo asked. “About what?”

“About a job I want you to do for me.”

Cameo glanced at him as she skidded around a corner practically on two wheels.

“You’ve got your nerve,” she said.

Nighthawk nodded. “That I do, missy. That I do.”

New York City: Jokertown

From far away, from under a league of water or perhaps a thousand yards of cotton batting, Fortunato heard someone call his name. But he couldn’t answer. He was wrapped in a cloak of weakness, a cocoon that isolated him almost completely from the world.

And all of his senses told him one thing: pain. Horrific, mind-numbing, soul-eating pain that should have killed him but ironically was helping him cling to the edge of life. Pain, and from somewhere far away, insignificant insect-like vibrations that touched the edge of his consciousness.

“Father! Father Squid! Jesus Christ, come here, quick!”

There was a momentary cessation of vibration, then the whole floor quivered as if something very heavy was approaching very quickly. Then there was peace again.

“Is he still alive, Father?”

Pressure on his face, gentle, as if tendrils of a willow tree blown across his features by a soft wind that smelled faintly of the sea.

“He is.”

Fortunato was still hiding too deep in his consciousness to understand the surprise in the voice.

“It’s a miracle, Father.”

“I don’t know about that. That mental cry for help must have penetrated nearly every corner of Jokertown. Only a powerful ace could have done it. Only a powerful ace could survive a beating like this.”

“Then the old Fortunato’s back?”

“I don’t know about that, either, but if we don’t get him some help fast, we’ll never find out.”

“It took a long time to find a single man hidden in a falling down building, even if he was just across the street from Our Lady.”

“We did the best we could for him, now it’s out of our hands. Call 911. Tell them to get here quick. I’m afraid to move him ourselves.”

There were shuffling vibrations along the floor of comings and goings.

“But, good God, Father, what happened to these others? It looks like they’ve been torn to pieces by wild beasts. There’s Carlos... that has to be part of that big guy... they’re all from that gang.”

The smell of the sea receded. The floor creaked as massive weight shifted upon it.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe the old Fortunato is back. And the Bruddas bit off a little more than they could chew...”

There was an eternity of silence. Then the pain that he thought was ultimate agony exploded into agony multiplied exponentially as gentle angel wings lifted him up and brought to mercifully peaceful, painless Heaven.

New Hampton: Camp Xavier Desmond

Jerry was still tired when he woke up mid-afternoon. He was still tired, but he knew that he had to get going. He and John Fortune were safe for now, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. Literally, he thought, as he surveyed the forest outside the cabin window. John Fortune was still sleeping in the next bunk. The poor kid had been through Hell, Jerry thought, and he didn’t have the heart to wake him up. On the other hand, he didn’t want the boy to awaken, find him gone, and start wandering about the grounds looking for him. Even at Camp Xavier Desmond—or, as the kids called it, C-X-Dez—a new kid who glowed would attract an unwelcome amount of attention and cause unwanted speculation.

He left a note, telling him that he was not to leave the bunk under any circumstances—unless it caught fire or was hit by a meteor—and went off to the administrative office to find a phone. He dialed the office and was pleased when a sultry voice said “Ackroyd and Creighton. How may I help you?” in a sexy, French-accented contralto.

“Hello, Ezili—”

“Jerry!” the receptionist interrupted before he could say another word. “Are you still at the camp? Are you really all right?”

Jerry was touched by the authentic concern in her voice. He’d known Ezili for years, during most of which they’d had an on-again, off-again love affair, which unfortunately had recently been mostly off again. Jerry didn’t know if Ezili—who was named after the least forgiving aspect of her native Haiti’s love goddess—had been touched by the wild card and given a minor ace, or was merely very, very good at her favorite activity, which was sex. He didn’t love her, really, but he had feelings for her which he weren’t at all sure were reciprocated. As hot as she was in bed, she was cool out of it. It was nice to hear the concern in her voice.

“We’re okay. Got the message on I left on the tape?”

“Oui—”

It was his turn to interrupt. “All right. We’re still at the camp. We’re still all right. We still don’t have a clue as to what the Hell is going on. We could probably use some reinforcements, in case the bad guys show up again. I can’t imagine how they could trace us here... but...”

“Oui. I understand.”

“Is Jay there?”

Jay was Jay Ackroyd, senior partner of Ackroyd and Creighton. Though he looked more like a low-level bookie than an ace detective, Jay Ackroyd, both an ace and a detective, was one of the finest P.I.’s in the city. In fact, as Jay liked to say since his return from Takis, he was one of the finest P.I.’s on two planets. No one else could put that on their Yellow Pages ad.

“Non,” Ezili said, “he is still in Jersey on that Giant Rat of Passaic case. He hopes to be done with it today.”

“Who’s on call?”

Ackroyd and Creighton employed investigators of all types—nat, joker, deuce, and ace. What Jerry wanted was a boatload of aces streaming up Route 17 as soon as possible.

“Elmo Schaeffer,” Ezili said, as if reading his mind, “Sascha Starfin, and Peter Pann are the only aces.”

Jerry thought it over. It was a mixed bag. Elmo was a dwarf, stronger than any nat. Sascha was a blind telepath. Pann had his tinks. Not the strongest line-up in the world, but they all had their uses and Jerry was in no position to be picky.

“All right,” he said decisively. “Send them up.”

“I will,” Ezili said. “They will be there was soon as possible.”

“Great,” Jerry said. His stomach suddenly rumbled, and he realized that he was hungry again. “Listen, Ezili, I’ve got to go. Tell them to get here ASAP.”

“Oui,” she said. “And Jerry.”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful, mon cherie. I have a feeling that much bad may still come out of this.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “Me too. But at least now we’re prepared.”

I hope, anyway, Jerry said as he hung up the phone. I hope.

Staten Island: Nighthawk’s Nest

Nighthawk’s hideaway was on a quiet little Staten Island street that could have been in just about any American small town. Cameo parked the car in the detached garage. Nighthawk unlocked the front door and then opened windows to clear out the stale air. He was the only one who had access to the house and it had been some time since he’d been there. Now that someone else knew about it, he’d sell it at his first opportunity. It was too bad, because he liked the place. It was nice and small, private and quiet, yet close to Manhattan. But that was all right. Plenty of houses fit the same bill.

He came back to the living room. Cameo was stretched out on the comfortable old sofa, eyes closed as if asleep. But as soon as he entered the room her eyes flew open, and there was something in them that told him that the old Cameo, the first Cameo he’d met, was looking out at him.

“Back are we?” he asked pleasantly.

Cameo just nodded.

“Would you like some tea, missy?”

“That would be nice.”

“Have to use lemon and sugar.”

“That’s all right.”

He got a couple of mugs out of the kitchen cabinet as he brewed the tea. It was organic Earl Gray, one of his favorites. His real favorite was Gunpowder, but that was best served with cream, and Nighthawk couldn’t keep perishables in his boltholes. They could have stopped for supplies, but somehow that wasn’t the first consideration on his mind when they were running for cover. Too bad. Donuts would have been nice, too.

He brought a tray with mugs, teapot, sugar, and lemon juice into his small living room. The furniture was cheap, but comfy. There were few personal touches about the room, or the whole house for that matter, but Nighthawk didn’t really accumulate material possessions. He knew too well what happened to them over time. For one reason or another, few seemed to last for very long.

“Here you go.”

He set the tray on the coffee table and took the comfy chair set at right angles to the sofa that Cameo had collapsed on. She looked awful. Beyond tired. Beyond frightened. He watched her as she poured a cup, added lots of sugar but no lemon. Her hands shook as they conveyed the cup to her lips. She took a little sip.

“I’m sorry about St. Dympna’s. But things have a way of working out for the best. I think we’re safe here, for now. I don’t think there’s a chance in Hell that the Cardinal will be able to find us here.”

Cameo shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “We’re safe? For now?”

Nighthawk nodded, sipping at his own cup. It was time, he thought to get down to what he really wanted from her.

“How old do you think I am, missy?”

“Umm.” Cameo hesitated, as if not really caring. “Maybe... sixty?”

Nighthawk chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “Nope. Not even close.” He looked at her, his dark eyes haunted by years gone by and the deeds done in them. “Next year I’ll be a hundred and fifty one. If me and world makes it to next year.”

“A hundred...” That caught her attention. She stared at him, her voice trailing off in astonishment.

“Why not?” Nighthawk asked. “The world has changed considerably since the wild card virus came down on Manhattan in 1946. People fly without machines. They leap tall buildings in a single bound. Why, some even can channel spirits through objects they’d used in their lifetimes. Is it so impossible to believe a man could live a hundred and fifty years?”

“How do you do it?” she asked.

“I’ve never told my story to a living soul,” Nighthawk said. He sipped tea thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s time I did. I was born in Mississippi in 1852, on a plantation. My people were slaves, and so was I. Pa was a field hand. Ma worked in the big house. I was a field hand like Pa. Then came the Civil War. Pa lived through that, but Ma wasn’t so lucky. She died in the Yankee raid when they burned the big house. After the war, Pa stayed on as a sharecropper. It was the only life he knew, but I knew I had to leave. Slave or sharecropper, it was no life for me. I went north in ‘68. Never saw my Pa again. Never knew what happened to him.” Nighthawk paused as if reliving the years and the events that were marked so deeply in his memory. “No sense in telling you about the next seventy-five years or so. I lived. Sometimes good, sometimes hard. I never had formal schooling, but I taught myself a lot of what I needed to know, or joined up with others who could teach me. Only problem was, I got old.

“I come from good stock. My Pa was a strong man, as was his before him, and his before him. So was my Ma’s family. I made it to 1946, but barely.” He looked Cameo in the eye. “You know what happened then.”

She nodded.

“I was dying in a charity hospital full of sad old cases like me. Full of old men and women worn down by age, young men and women, worn down by drink. By injury. By disease. Just by life. When the virus came it was like nothing you could imagine. Like Hell, I guess. We must have been hit by a good dose of it ‘cause most everyone on the ward caught it all at the same time. The docs just ran away. Those that could, that is. They left us all to die, and most of us did. I saw people just melt away to puddles. Saw them turn hard like rocks, screaming for breath. Saw them turn all funny like they was inside out, and flop and twist before they huddled down on their dirty sheets to die. A couple just walked away changed some, but still living. One just rose out of his bed and flew out through a window. Never saw him again.”

Nighthawk fell silent. He couldn’t help the sudden tears that traced twisting paths down his cheeks, but neither was he ashamed of them. He wiped them away with his thumbs.

“What about you?” Cameo asked quietly.

“Me?”

“Yes. What happened to you?”

Nighthawk sighed. “I was a dying old man. I was frightened. I didn’t want to die. I felt sure that I would go to Hell for some of the things I’d done over the years. I surely didn’t want to turn into a pile of goo, or grow extra legs, or turn inside out. I just kind of reached out, crying for help. I needed strength to live. I took it from the man in the bed next to me. Old Robert Nash.”

“Took it?”

“Drained it right away from him. Took it right out of his body and old Robert died looking at me, knowing what I did. I felt bad because we were friends. We talked all the time. He played music on his mouth harp. He was a blues man, nicknamed Lightning. When I knew I killed him I was even more scared. I reached out and took more from others. I felt stronger. More powerful. In the end, I didn’t even know what I was doing. How many I killed. I just know that I walked out of that hospital when I’d been days, maybe hours from death. Walked away with a spring in my step, black hair on my head, and juice in my lemon, if you know what I mean. It was like I was fifty years younger.”

“You turned over an ace,” Cameo said. “You tapped into their life force. Somehow converted it for your own use.”

“Which I’ve been doing ever since,” Nighthawk admitted. “But usually carefully, taking the energy mostly from those about to die a violent death, drawn to them by my other power—visions, unclear and uncertain, of the future.”

Cameo pursed her lips. “Awesome,” she said.

Nighthawk nodded. “Yes. So you see. I have to find the answer to my question. You can tell me.”

“Your question?”

His eyes were pleading, even tortured. “Have I been stealing their souls? Have I been using them up, condemning them to limbo, or worse?”

They looked at each other in silence for a long moment before Cameo spoke. “How can I know that?” she asked quietly.

Nighthawk reached into his jacket pocket and held up an old mouth organ. “I took it from Robert’s bedside before I left the hospital,” he said. “I’ve carried it with me for almost fifty-seven years.”

Cameo stared into space, fingering the jewelry around her neck, and her eyes changed again. As did her voice when she spoke. “What’s in it for me?” she asked.

Nighthawk smiled. “Fair enough,” he said. He got out of his comfy chair, and moved it aside as Cameo looked on curiously. There were seams in the carpet under the chair. Nighthawk removed a square of pile, and flipped up the trap door that was revealed underneath. He took a metal box from the small cavity under the flooring. From the metal box he took half a dozen bundles of hundred dollar bills and put them on the coffee table. They were thick bundles. “How about,” Nighthawk asked, “sixty thousand dollars?”

Cameo laughed out loud, uproariously. “Don’t you trust banks?” she asked.

“They keep inconvenient hours, “ Nighthawk said.

Cameo grew quiet. She looked serious. “I think I should get out of town for awhile.”

“That’d be real smart,” Nighthawk said, but he said it flatly, without emotion or hope.

“For that,” she said thoughtfully, “I’ll need money.”

Nighthawk’s face suddenly shone. “We best be careful,” he said. “If Contarini catches us we’d both be consigned to the pits of St. Dympna.”

“I’ll leave it up to you,” Cameo said, “to keep us out of there.”

Nighthawk nodded. He gave the old mouth organ a last loving glance and put it away in his jacket pocket. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in a hundred and fifty years, it’s caution.”

Cameo laughed again. “I see. That’s why you cross men like Contarini. Don’t they ever go after you?”

Nighthawk smiled. “Not more’n once,” he said.

Las Vegas

The cell in the city lock-up was totally wrecked. Its bars were broken and steel door burst asunder like a herd of buffalo had run through cardboard toilet paper rolls. The bodies had been removed from the corridor, but bloodstains still splattered the floor and half way up the walls to the ceiling. Ray had seen worse, but not often.

“How many cops were killed?” Ray asked.

“Seven,” Captain Martinez said through clenched teeth.

Ray looked up at the sharpness of the tone in her voice. “Hey, don’t blame me. I warned you.”

She sighed. Her dark, short hair was plastered to her skull with sweat which ran in runnels down her full cheeks. Her eyes were big, soft, and brown. They were not cop eyes. She herself was big, soft, and brown. She looked as if she were out of her depth. Ray actually felt somewhat sorry for her. Clearly she was not used to dealing with killer aces.

“You got any aces on the roll call?” Ray asked.

“Quite a few,” she said. “Mostly telepaths and a few precogs who work out of bunco. Assigned mostly to casino duty trying to keep scumbag wild carders from ripping the casinos blind.”

Ray just looked at her.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment, her eyes avoiding his.

“That’s all right,” Ray said flatly. “I’ve dealt with a few scumbag wild carders in my day. A few scumbag nats, too. I suggest you take your best telepaths and precogs off keeping the casinos safe from losing a couple of bucks to rogue gamblers and put them on scouring the city to keep your citizens safe from a homicidal maniac.”

“Of course.” Martinez turned to a group of horrified-looking assistants who were clustered around her. “You heard the man.”

One of them nodded, and ran off.

Ray looked into the cell. Butcher Dagon’s one-piece orange jumpsuit lay shredded among the twisted metal that was once his bunk. Fortunately, he hadn’t had a roommate, or else what was left of him would have been lying on the floor in pieces as well.

“Were all the bodies fully dressed?” he asked.

“What?” the Captain asked.

Ray looked at her coldly. “I’m beginning to think that you’re out of your depth here, Captain. Dagon loses his clothes when he transforms into his fighting form. I was wondering if he’d managed to dress after waltzing out of your cell here, or if we’re still dealing with a naked homicidal maniac. If that’s the case, he should be a little easier to spot, and we’re going to need all the help we can get with this one.”

Martinez looked at another one of her assistants, a tall, thin man with a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed nervously every time he swallowed.

“Well.” Swallow. “I don’t know.” Swallow. “Some of the bodies.” Long swallow. “Were pretty... damaged.” Swallow.

“Find out,” Martinez said between clenched teeth.

He nodded, swallowing, and ran off as well.

Ray shook his head. “Not much we can do until he’s spotted.”

Martinez nodded. “I was afraid you were going to say that. I was hoping...”

Ray shrugged as her voice trailed off.

“I’m a fighter,” he said. “Not a finder. Our best hope is the telepaths and precogs. Our second best is the ordinary citizen. If this burg has any ordinary citizens. You’ve got to put the word out, publicize his escape like Hell. Let everyone know he’s dangerous. Someone has to have seen the hairy little bastard.”

Martinez frowned. “That’ll only cause a panic. Plus, we’ll look bad.”

“You’ll look worse,” Ray pointed out, “as the body count mounts. Now you’ve got a cop killer running around. The citizens are sympathetic. But when—not if, but when—Dagon adds a couple of ordinary citizens to his score, all Hell will break out. You’ve got to let the public know what’s going on.”

Martinez nodded reluctantly.

“Put me in a room with him,” Ray promised, “and I’ll take care of him. Until then, I’ve got to be patient and wait. Just like you.”

Martinez nodded again.

Ray had the feeling that this was going to be a long, difficult wait.

Staten Island: Nighthawk’s Nest

Cameo spread the comforter that Nighthawk had given her upon the living room sofa. It was new, right out of its plastic wrapping. She settled down on it and closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at Nighthawk.

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded from the adjacent loveseat. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out the harmonica, turning it over in his hands for a moment. Then he tossed it to her.

Cameo caught it deftly and studied it herself. She put it to her lips and blew a tentative note that came out like a blaaaattt! from a whoopie cushion. She paused, then ran a simple scale, smiled, and a song came spilling out of it that Nighthawk hadn’t heard in a long time. It was Robert Johnson’s “Drunken-Hearted Man,” and before it ended Nighthawk was laughing and crying and clapping his hands in time all at once. He recognized the style in which it was played, and there was no doubt at all in his mind that it was Lightning Robert Nash blowing like he did back in ‘46 when they were both dying together in that charity hospital.

Cameo took the harmonica from her lips and smiled. “You looking good for such an old fart, Nighthawk. Too damn good.”

Choked up with emotion, Nighthawk couldn’t answer for a moment. “I… I got a disease that day. You remember.”

“Hard to forget the day I died, old boy.”

Nighthawk nodded. “I’ve never forgotten, either. This disease went way deep into me, deeper than my flesh, deeper than my bone. It changed me. It gave me powers, Lightning. I can take other peoples’ essence. I can take it from them and use it myself.”

Lightning Robert whistled through Cameo’s lips. “That sounds mighty powerful, John.”

Nighthawk nodded solemnly. “It is. I’ve tried to use it righteously over the years... but that first day... when it first came over me... I didn’t know how to control it.” He looked down, unable to look his old friend in Cameo’s eyes. “I took too much from you, Lightning. And I killed you. I’ve been living all these years afraid that I stole your soul—or part of it—to keep me alive. You, and others, that day.”

Lightning looked at him. “You may have took something from me, John, but it wasn’t my soul.” He laughed. “I seem to still have that. I sure do.”

“I’m glad of that, Lightning.”

“Maybe you killed me.” Cameo’s head shook. “I don’t know. I do know I was old and dying, anyway. The cancer was eating me alive. I hurt. Man, how I hurt. If you were able to take the pain away and by the way send me home, well, John, we was friends. I wouldn’t begrudge you that.”

“Thank you, Lightning.”

“My pleasure, John.” He looked around. “Where am I, anyway?”

“You’re in the body of a young lady named Cameo. She was able to call you back by holding your harmonica.”

Lightning looked down at it, held in her small white hands. “You live in a strange world, John Nighthawk.”

Nighthawk laughed. “You don’t know the half of it, Lightning. I’m a hundred and fifty years old now. In my time men have walked on the moon and visited the planets of another star. Men can fly. They can read your mind. They can turn invisible and disappear. They can do most anything except bring peace to the world.”

Lightning shook his head. “Then I’m glad I’m where I am and you’re here. You was always one for stirring things up, John. I was the quiet one.”

They sat in silence for a moment like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in decades enjoying an unexpected meeting.

Then Nighthawk asked, “What’s it like, Lightning, where you’re at now?”

Lightning looked at him and smiled. “I can’t rightly say, John. It’s like I don’t know anything past the time my heart stopped beating, but there’s dreams, like, I can almost remember. Dreams of a place that feels like home.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“That’s all I can say.”

Nighthawk nodded. It was enough. He knew now that he hadn’t destroyed his friend’s soul all those years ago. If he had, Cameo would never have been able to call it back from wherever it was now.

“You got to get back right away?” Nighthawk asked.

Lightning Robert Nash considered. “I can sit awhile. Play some tunes.”

“That’d be nice,” Nighthawk said.

“You know this one,” Lightning said, and put the mouth organ to his lips and started to blow “Sweet Home Chicago.”

John Nighthawk clapped his hands and sung in a sweet baritone that age had not dulled.

Those who heard them faintly through the walls of Nighthawk’s small house were mesmerized by the music. It sounded like nothing they’d ever heard before, as if it were being played by spirits, or perhaps angels.

Las Vegas

Ray spent the afternoon with a special flying SWAT squad investigating Butcher Dagon’s progress through Las Vegas, which was marked by a tidal wave of unsubstantiated rumor and a smaller trail of very substantiated bodies spread across the city in no discernible pattern.

The SWAT team guys were all right, but Ray would have felt better if they’d had at least some other wild carders in the field who had some useful powers. It turned out, however, that the Las Vegas PD was not exactly on the cutting edge when it came to hiring non-nats. Not that the telepaths pulled off casino patrol by Captain Martinez didn’t have their uses.

The command center that Martinez set up to deal with the Dagon situation got over five hundred tips in the first four hours, thanks mainly to Ray’s suggestion to publicize the killer ace’s escape as widely as possible. It was hard to separate the few clearly authentic sightings from cases of mistaken identity from the ravings of the lunatic fringe, but the telepaths helped. They were able to immediately discredit the obvious loonies and attention-seekers, but plenty of dead ends were left that had to be investigated.

The widespread publicity also led to a series of unfortunate gaffes. Six portly tourists were mistaken for Dagon and arrested before they could be vetted and cleared by the telepaths. Two other innocents were assaulted by irate vigilante bands, one in a cheap dive off the strip, the other in a gay bar that was having teddy bear day. Fortunately neither were seriously injured.

Ray and the SWAT guys, backed up by experienced homicide detectives, investigated four bodies that were found with Dagon’s M.O.—excessively brutal violence—literally stamped all over them, but by the time the bodies had been discovered the crime scenes were cold. There were no witnesses, no clues as to Dagon’s current whereabouts.

Around sunset a fifth body was found behind an abandoned 7-11 in a poorer section of the city. It had been stuffed between the back seat and the floor of a vehicle that had been left in the alley behind the deserted building, the keys still in the ignition.

“What’s bothering me,” Ray said to the SWAT team commander, “is, what is Dagon thinking? There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to his activities. Yeah, he’s out of jail, he’s on the run, but what’s he trying to accomplish here? What’s his ultimate goal in all this wandering around?”

“Maybe he’s changing his hiding spots,” the SWAT guy said. “But he can’t stay hidden forever, especially if he keeps littering the city with bodies. He must have some kind of goal in mind—maybe he’s trying to reach a safe house. Maybe someplace where he can connect with his gang again.”

Ray nodded. He looked thoughtfully at the back of the 7-11. It was boarded up and graffiti-ed to Hell and back. “You may be right,” he said, strolling toward the structure.

He tried the rear door. It was unlocked. He looked at the SWAT lieutenant, who stared back, and then silently waved his arms to his men to gain their attention. Ray opened the door slowly, and from inside the structure came the sound of some animal howling a long, drawn-out, lingering greeting. It sounded almost human.

“Jesus Christ,” Ray said. He threw open the door, and looked inside the abandoned store.

It was a dusty and dirty confusion of toppled shelves, of empty refrigerated drink banks, of merchandise racks tossed in untidy piles. And on the far wall was a door. It wasn’t a normal door. It was just a black-semi circle imposed upon the wall which once held shelves laden with motor oil and pet food and pork rinds. A couple of men were walking right through the blackness, disappearing as if they’d been cut in half, but seemingly unconcerned by what should be a discomfiting experience.

They looked back at Ray as he came through the door, and one of them shouted, “Jesus Christ! It’s that Ray fucker!” before he plunged further onward and disappeared.

A disconcertingly human-looking dog, or maybe a disconcerting canine-looking human, was standing next to the gateway. He was held by another man on a leash, and he was fawning over Butcher Dagon, who was in his human form. Dagon looked less jolly than usual. His clothes were tattered and bloodstained, and he was pushing disgustedly at what Ray now realized was a particularly unfortunate-looking joker, saying, “Down, Blood, down.”

He, too, turned to look at Ray. He didn’t look happy at Ray’s sudden appearance.

“Your ass is mine, Dagon,” Ray said happily. “Again.”

“Move it,” the man holding Blood’s leash said as Ray charged across the room, dodging empty merchandise racks, “you’ve got to go through first before Blood can close the gate.”

“Shit,” Dagon said, and plunged through the blackness, Blood and his handler on his heels.

If Ray had a clear shot across the room, he would have had him. He would have pounced on Dagon before he could disappear. As it was, he had to zigzag around and jump over half a dozen obstacles, and as he reached the far wall Blood’s handler had already dragged the joker through the blackness. Blood’s hindquarters were disappearing. The blackness was starting to dilate shut like the closing of a pupil in a bright flash of light.

Ray heard the SWAT team charging after him. He heard their cries of amazement. He didn’t hesitate. He hurled himself, diving arms outstretched at the shrinking pool of blackness. He went into it head first. The shouts from the SWAT team were cut off as if by a knife. He heard nothing. For a disconcerting moment that might have lasted hours for all he could tell, he saw nothing, neither darkness nor light. He felt nothing, neither coolness nor warmth. He wondered if this was what death was like. If this was the Big Nothing. The sensation, or lack of sensation, of a spirit plunging endlessly through limbo. He was suddenly afraid. This was something that could drive a man mad in little order. To be stuck inside his mind, feeling nothing, forever. He concentrated as hard as he could, questing outward with all his senses. Suddenly he felt a low thrumming throb, and he realized that it was a single beat of his heart, stretching out impossibly long, its reverberations filling up the universe.

Abruptly, it ended.

He fell on his face on grass and dirt. It was dark, nighttime, wherever he was. Air felt cool and soothing on his skin. His knee hurt a little from where he’d landed right on a sharp-edged pebble. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was back again, somehow, in the real universe.

He looked up at the circle of men who stared down at him with varying degrees of disbelief on their faces. Butcher Dagon. The man and his leashed joker. Three guys with guns.

All right! Ray thought joyously. And he got to work.

A quick-as-a-cat leg-sweep brought down two of the men. He swarmed over them, punching and kicking as Dagon ran off into the night. As the third jerked his rifle into line, Ray yanked it away from him and tossed it away over the small, rustic building that was at their back. The man tried to run, but Ray snagged his ankle before he could take a step, and pulled him down, kicking and screaming and clawing at the dirt. Ray bounced his head once off the ground and he shut up.

Ray got to his feet. The deformed joker cringed before him, huddled against the man holding his leash. “Don’t hurt Blood none, mister,” the handler said. “It ain’t none of his fault what went on.”

“What the Hell is he?” Ray asked.

“He’s an ace, Blood is,” the man said, nodding vigorously. “He can open gates, like, to connect places what are far away from each other. Bring them next door, like. Only,” the man shrugged helplessly, “he ain’t too smart. It ain’t his fault we fell in with bad men.”

“It’s your fault, then?” Ray asked. He stepped closer to the two and Blood whimpered piteously.

“It is,” the man said. “It is my fault.” He put his hand out in a gesture as piteous as Blood’s whimpering. “You don’t know these people, mister. Yeah, I got ourselves mixed up with them. I’m trying to look out for the boy. I’m his brother.” He put his hand down on his Blood’s head, protectively. “I got us working for them, which was a sure enough mistake. These people are mean, mister, I mean mean.”

“Yeah, well, so am I.”

The man nodded. “I know, mister. They’re afraid of you. They truly are.”

That made Ray feel at least a little better. “Well, where the Hell are we, anyway?” he asked.

“Some place called New Hampton,” the man said, and Ray almost did a double take at his revelation.

“The camp?” Ray asked. “The camp where John Fortune is hiding out?”

The man nodded vigorously.

“How they Hell did they discover that the kid was here?”

The man shook his head. Blood, sensing that the mood of the conversation was shifting, tried to smile. “I don’t know. They don’t tell me shit. Just, have Blood take us here, have Blood take us there. You’d think it was easy on the fellow for all they put us through—”

“We all got problems,” Ray said flatly. “Focus on mine.”

“Yessir.”

“The boy’s here?”

“Yessir.”

“They’ve come to get him again?”

“Yessir.”

“Why, for Christ’s sakes?”

“Well, that’s just it. The Allumbrados think he’s the Anti-Christ whom they have to bind in chains if the real Jesus Christ is to come to restore his Kingdom on Earth.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Yessir.”

Ray didn’t bother to explain that he was just exclaiming, not questioning. Though, in a way he was. This was no time, though, to sort through dubious theology. There’d be time for that later. Maybe.

“How many men have they got?” Ray asked.

“About twenty, counting me’n—”

“Aces?”

“Well, there’s Blood—”

“I know that,” Ray said impatiently.

“—And now Dagon, of course. The Younger Witness—”

“Younger Witness?” Ray repeated.

“Yeah, there’s two Witnessess to Revelations. They’re brothers—”

Ray nodded. “One’s big and blonde—”

“The other’s dark and skinny.”

“Right,” Ray said grimly. “I’ve seen the blonde one in action. He the younger one?”

The man nodded.

“Any more aces?”

The man shrugged. “Nighthawk and his team are supposed to be here, but the Cardinal couldn’t find Nighthawk. He was real peeved about that—”

A cascade of gunfire echoed through the still night, waking it up. Ray turned toward the rolling thunder of sound like a dog on point, practically quivering with eagerness. He turned back to Blood and his brother.

“All right,” he said. “Stay out of this. Get out if you can. But stay out of my way. You’re only getting one warning.”

Blood’s brother nodded. “Yessir. Thank you sir.”

“Don’t thank me,” Ray said, before he vanished into the night. “Just obey me.”

And then he was gone.

New Hampton, New York

Jerry was in the administration office drinking coffee with the boys from the agency when Sascha Starfin, the blind telepath, suddenly put his mug down. There was just an unbroken expanse of skin where his eyes should have been.

“What is it?” Jerry asked.

“Men approaching,” he said. “Ten or so. They want the boy.”

Damn it, Jerry swore to himself. “How the Hell did they track us down so fast?”

Peter Pann, the immaculate Englishman, shook his head. “Damned if I know. But we can worry about that later. Get the boy. Vanish.”

“We’ll hold them,” Elmo Schaeffer said. He was about four feet tall and almost as wide. He was strong, even for a wild carder, but Jerry was not sanguine. A blind telepath, a strong dwarf, and a man who could call upon tiny little fairies that he called “tinks” to do his bidding.

Somehow it just didn’t seem like enough.

But Jerry didn’t waste time arguing. He slipped through the back door, keeping low to the ground and moving fast into a copse of trees. From there it was a short shot to the guest cabin where John Fortune was still resting after his ordeal of the past couple of days. He made the trees and looked out back toward the admin building. A squad of armed men had converged on it. Gunfire rattled the night and Jerry worried about the men inside, all of whom he’d worked with for years, all of whom were friends.

It was a tough business, Jerry thought, but the customer always had to come first.

And then he ran into a brick wall.

Fingers like steel cables grabbed him from behind, whirled him around. His eyes went wide with astonishment. His lips formed the word “Ray!” but before he could say anything a punch exploded like a sledgehammer in his gut and the only thing holding him up were the fingers from Ray’s left hand digging like claws into his shoulder.

His lips worked frantically but no sounds, other than a wheezing grunt, came from his mouth. Ray was winding up for another blow and all Jerry could do was shake his head feebly, his eyes wide and horrified as it descended like a thunderbolt.

Somehow, at the last instant, Ray pulled it. Most of it, anyway. It still rocked Jerry’s mid-section and he felt like puking. He held on grimly, because he knew that the last thing he wanted to do was throw up all over Billy Ray. It might, in fact, be the last thing he would ever do.

“What’s the matter, Dagon,” Ray sneered. “Can’t take it all of a sudden?”

Somehow Jerry sucked air into his laboring lungs. “Nuh-nuh Dag’n,” he wheezed.

Ray looked at him skeptically.

“Jer-jer-ry.”

Ray frowned.

Shit, Jerry thought. All those identities, all those names were really catching up to him. For a moment he couldn’t remember the name that Ray knew him by. It had blown out of his brain like the air from his lungs. He forced another shuddering breath down his trachea. It hurt like Hell. “Cray-ton,” he managed to gasp.

Ray’s eyebrows went up. “Creighton? The kid’s bodyguard?”

Jerry nodded weakly.

“Jesus, man,” Ray said, “it is you. That’s how you managed to get away with the kid. By mimicking Dagon.”

Jerry nodded again, relief in his eyes.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry.”

“All right,” Jerry wheezed. “Breath coming back. Can stand now.”

Ray let him go and he stood bent over, his hands on his knees. Sounds of commotion came to them from the cabin.

“What’s going on?”

“Cabin attacked by Dagon’s men,” Jerry said. “Our men trying to hold them off.”

“Where’s the boy?” Ray asked.

“I was going to him.”

“All right,” Ray said. “I’ll go help them hold off Dagon’s goons. Dagon himself is back, too, by the way. I saw him run off a few minutes ago. You vanish into the woods with the boy. We’ll find you, eventually.”

Jerry nodded.

“Can you walk?”

Jerry nodded again, and took a step, gingerly.

“All right,” Ray said. “Good luck.”

Jerry waved back as Ray ran toward the sounds of conflict. All right, Jerry thought. All right. All I have to do is walk. And breathe.

The first few steps were agony, but his breath soon came back and all he had to deal with was the rolling waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him with every step. Somehow he fought it down and made his way to the guest cabin where it was still and dark.

He entered quietly and went to John Fortune’s bunk. There was no need to turn on a light, because the kid’s face, arms, and hands were glowing softly like a beacon in the night as he slept fitfully.

John Fortune had had a quiet day, only getting up once to eat. Jerry didn’t want him to leave the cabin, and he was glad when the kid didn’t argue. It wasn’t surprising that he was feeling a little down after his long ordeal. He was also running a temperature. Maybe he’d picked something up in the Hellhole they’d imprisoned him in, but all in all he was in pretty good shape. He just needed a little rest. Which he wasn’t going to get tonight.

Jerry checked around the cabin before waking him, finding a hooded sweatshirt for him to wear. It would be a little warm on a night like this, but he didn’t want the kid shining like a lighthouse, revealing their presence to the world.

He shook John Fortune gently by the shoulder. The kid woke up immediately and only grumbled a little when Jerry told him that they had to get going.

“I don’t know how they found us so fast,” Jerry said, “but they did. Maybe they have some precogs or telepaths or whatever working for them. At any rate, we gotta move.”

“Where are we going?” the kid asked sleepily, putting on his jeans and his shoes and pulling the sweatshirt on over his head as Jerry directed.

“For now, the woods.”

“The woods?” He put the hood up over his head and drew the drawstrings tight, leaving only a bit of his face showing. It still glowed a little, but it was the best they could do. Jerry wished that he had a mask handy.

“It’s our best bet. If we’re lucky, Dagon’s men will never find us.”

“I hope someone will,” John Fortune muttered as they exited the cabin and plunged into the trees behind it.

“Don’t worry,” Jerry said with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel. “It’s not like we’re headed off into the Amazon, or anything. I mean, we’re only about an hour, hour and a half north of the city.”

He glanced back as the trees closed among them, hoping to God that they were doing the right thing.

Memphis

The Angel sat in an uncomfortable chair in the Memphis airport. Soon it would close down around her and she would have to leave, find a hotel for the night, and come back in the morning.

It had not been a good day. Her flight had been diverted to Memphis due to engine trouble. By the time they’d realized that they weren’t going to be able to fix it and get the plane back in the air, it was night.

Their plane had been full, and hundreds of passengers scrambled to get the few available seats on the flights headed east. If Ray had been with her, he could have conceivably used his Secret Service pull and gotten them one of the coveted seats. As it was, she just had to wait and take her turn as it came up.

She prayed it would come soon.

New Hampton: The Woods

It was dark in the forest. Damn dark. The ground was uneven. Half-buried rocks lurked everywhere. Bushes and shrubs and fallen trees all clutched at their ankles and tripped up their feet. And there were mysterious sounds. Jerry had no idea what was making them. He didn’t think there were bears or wildcats in these woods, but he wasn’t sure. But men with guns were chasing him and John Fortune, and he was unarmed. In retrospect, Jerry thought, perhaps it would have been wiser to take the gun Pann had offered him. But he wasn’t the greatest marksman in the world. Probably not good enough to stand up to Dagon and his men. Running had been the wise course, the only proper action to take. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best he could come up with.

“You all right, John?”

“Uh-huh.”

The kid looked at him. Jerry couldn’t see much in the moonless night, but he could discern a glimmer of excitement on the boy’s features. To him, this was an adventure, exhilaration intruding upon what had been an otherwise terribly sheltered life. Jerry could understand that. But long experience had taught him that things that started out exciting sometimes ended in disaster, even for the good guys.

“Jerry, what happened in Vegas, anyway? How’s my Mom?”

They hadn’t had a chance to talk over the events of the previous days. Now was as good a time as any, but Jerry didn’t get into details. Actually, he didn’t know Peregrine’s fate anyway. He didn’t want to lie to the kid, but neither did he want to depress him unnecessarily.

“So, my Mom’s all right, then?” John Fortune asked after Jerry told him a sanitized version of the battle at the Mirage, and how he had eventually rescued him from St. Dympna’s.

“Maybe—watch out!”

He grabbed John Fortune’s arm, steadying him, before he could trip over the fallen tree that blocked their path. They weren’t following an actual trail. They were just wandering aimlessly through trees. While that tactic might throw off pursuit for the moment, Jerry knew that it wasn’t a feasible long-term strategy. He didn’t know what kind of technology Dagon might have access to. Night scopes. Heat detection devices. If Dagon had anything high tech with him, or maybe some kind of ace, they were sunk. He could only hope that the attackers hadn’t planned on a night hunt through thick forest.

“A road!” Jerry exclaimed as they stumbled out of the trees and onto a dirt path. “Thank God!”

“It’s not much of a road,” John Fortune said.

And it wasn’t. It was a simple dirt lane leading deeper into the woods.

“But it’s all we’ve got,” Jerry said, “and it’s got to lead somewhere.”

“I’m kind of hot in this sweatshirt,” the kid said.

“All the more reason to hurry. The sooner we get on down the road the sooner we find someplace we can relax. But you’ve got to leave that hood up for now, and keep your hands in your pockets. Otherwise you’ll betray our position by glowing like a king-sized firefly.”

“I understand,” John Fortune said, “but I can sure use something to drink.”

They went down the trail. It curved in lazy swathes through the forest, but it was smoothly surfaced gravel, without potholes or ruts, well-maintained, and nice and level. At least they didn’t have to worry about tripping over unseen branches anymore.

“Hey!” John Fortune said. “A light.”

Jerry nodded. He had spotted it himself. It was dim, rather diffuse. As they walked up the curved road they could see that it looked like a flashlight, or something of that relative size and power, sitting on the ground. It cast its light upon a wooden sign standing before an even smaller dirt lane, perhaps a driveway, diverging from the road. As they approached Jerry could see the figure of a small garden gnome leaning against the sign, as if he were guarding the turn-off.

Jerry looked up at the sign. The small floodlight only illuminated part of it.

“Nursery...” Jerry read aloud. He and John Fortune looked at each other.

“Some kind of garden store?” the kid asked.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe they have a telephone. We can call for help.”

“Maybe.”

“What are you folks doing out in the woods so late at night?” a tiny voice asked.

Jerry felt his heart surge up into his mouth. He grabbed John Fortune by the arm and yanked him backward, stepping in front of him. Jerry looked frantically in all directions.

“Hey!” John Fortune said, peering around him. “It’s the garden gnome. It speaks.”

“Of course I speak,” the gnome said. “Why the Hell not?”

Jerry looked down at him. What he had thought was a two-foot high statue was a little man... or something resembling such. He had a fat, jolly face and a white, pointed chin beard, and wore garden-gnome type clothing.

“Cool,” John Fortune said. “Do you live here?”

“Sure do,” the gnome said. “I keep on eye on the place at night. You folks in trouble or something? I heard some gunshots earlier, but that’s not too unusual around here. At least in hunting season, which this ain’t.”

“Uh—” Jerry began.

“You bet,” John Fortune said. “Kidnappers are after me. They have guns, but we don’t.”

“Kidnappers!” the gnome exclaimed.

“Uh—” Jerry said.

“Yep. I’m John Fortune. I just became an ace. My Mom’s Peregrine, the ace. You know, she has a TV show, Peregrine’s Perch, but she and my Dad also make movies.”

“I guess you do need help,” the gnome said. He pressed a button on the floodlight control panel, then shut off the light.

Jerry felt as if he were drowning in darkness. “What’d you do that for?”

“No sense lighting up our location if guys with guns are looking for you.”

“Good idea,” John Fortune said. “Are you going to help us?”

“Sit tight,” the gnome advised. “I rang for the boss. He’ll be here in a minute.”

“The boss—” Jerry began.

“He owns this land,” the gnome said, waving airily about. “And he don’t allow no hunting. Not even of kids.”

They stood silent for what seemed a minute. Maybe two. “Where is he?” Jerry asked, getting impatient.

“Right here,” a low, deep voice said, not six feet from Jerry’s side. A light suddenly flashed in his eyes, strong enough to almost blind him. He automatically threw up a hand and turned his head aside. The light went from Jerry’s face to John Fortune’s, who let out a plaintive, “Hey,” and blinked.

“Say,” said the garden gnome, “you’re not the boss.”

The man with the flashlight looked down, surprised. “Shut up,” he said when he saw who had spoken, “before I stomp you flat.”

No doubt about it now, Jerry thought. Dagon’s men had found them, damn it. Again. They were infuriatingly competent. There were actually two of them this time. The man with the flashlight and a silent companion.

“You won’t be talking so big in a minute or two, fella,” the gnome said.

“I said, shut up.” The man raised a hand canon with a gigantic bore, spotlighting the blinking gnome with his flashlight.

“Hey—” Jerry said. He knew the man was going to shoot. Even a glancing hit would tear the gnome to pieces.

From nowhere there was a sound in the night as if the mother of all mosquitoes buzzed past them. The tough guy with the pistol grunted, like someone punched him in the gut. He swayed on his feet, staring at the aluminum arrow shaft planted directly in the center of his chest.

“Jesus Christ,” his companion said.

The man with the flashlight looked at him. Jerry could see that the arrow had gone nearly all the way through his body. Half a foot protruded from his back and blood dripped off the razor-tipped four-bladed head.

“Son of a bitch,” Dagon’s man said, and he fell on his flashlight, bringing darkness again to the night as his companion wildly sprayed bullets into the trees all around them. Jerry felt a shock burn across his forehead like a blow from a red hot poker. He fell to the ground and with a frantic last effort dragged a bewildered John Fortune down with him. He held him tightly, covering him with his own body as best he could as his consciousness faded away.

Jerry woke with the feeling that he was being watched. Closely and relentlessly. He was in a strange but comfortable bed in an unfamiliar room. He was laying on his side, looking right at a wall so he couldn’t see much of the room, but Jerry was certain that he’d never been in it before.

He turned suddenly away from the wall, and immediately regretted it. A wave of pain rushed through his head, accompanied by a swarming nausea that was even more distressing. He swallowed hard and put his hand to his forehead, which he discovered was swathed in a soft, thick bandage. He looked into the room and saw his audience and suppressed an urge to groan aloud.

Two kids stood by his bedside staring at him. One was a boy, maybe ten. The other, a girl, was four or five years younger. Jerry wasn’t sure. He hadn’t had much experience with kids, other than John Fortune. The boy was tall and lean. He was blonde with delicate, almost elfin features. The girl was darker and stockier, but there was a certain familial resemblance between the two that marked them as brother and sister.

The girl looked at him solemnly. “Make your face do that again,” she said to Jerry.

“Do what?” Jerry was surprised that his voice sounded so weak and scratchy.

“Go all funny and wriggly,” the girl said.

“Jeez, shut up, will you?” her brother interrupted. “You’re not being very polite.”

She made a face. “I’m telling Mom you’re harassing me.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Go ahead. Tell her our, uh, guest, is awake, too.”

The girl ran from the room, yelling, “Mommmmmm!!!” in a voice loud enough to make Jerry wince.

The boy seemed to notice his discomfort. “Sorry about that. She can be a real brat sometime.”

Jerry suppressed his notion to nod. “Where am I?”

“Our house,” the boy said, unconsciously uninformative. “Dad brought you home last night. He found you in the woods. Said you were shot in the head, but nothing important was hit.”

Shot, Jerry thought. He remembered it all, suddenly. “Did he—was anyone else with me?”

The boy shook his head.

Jerry lurched upright, doing his best to ignore the whirling as the room pirouetted around him. John Fortune, he thought, was still out in the woods. Or—maybe Butcher Dagon had gotten him! He tried to stand, but couldn’t make it to his feet.