Wild Cards_ Jokers Wild Part 39

He was standing in the door, a black hood pulled over his face, a complex bow in his hands. An arrow was nocked and ready.

Wyrm's hiss was pure poison.

Hiram gaped. "Who in d.a.m.nation are you?"

As he spoke, a young woman wearing a black string bikini and nothing else stepped out of the mirror behind the bar.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Popinjay offered.

Wyrm grabbed Chrysalis by the arm. "You ssset usss up, c.u.n.t. You'll pay for thisss."

"I had nothing to do with this," she said. She wrenched her arm free of his grasp, and looked at the masked man in the door. "Yeoman, I don't care for this," she told him.

"My regrets." He raised the bow, drew back on the arrow. "Unless the book is handed over, I'm going to put an arrow in the right eye of the gentleman in the three-piece suit."

Latham regarded him emotionlessly.

"And you're always telling me to dress better," Jay Ackroyd said to Hiram. "See what it gets you?" He turned to the bowman. "The book isn't here. You don't think we'd be dumb enough to bring it with us?"

"Wraith, pat them down."

The woman in the bikini walked right through the bar and approached the table. Suddenly Hiram recognized her. She'd been wearing rather more clothes at Aces High, but he was sure she was the same young woman who'd vanished through his floor when Billy Ray had tried to apprehend her. It made him sad. She was young and attractive, far too lovely to be a criminal. Undoubtedly she'd been corrupted by evil companions.

She frisked Jay first, then Hiram. When she touched him, her hands seem to go insubstantial, sliding through the fabric of his clothes and even his skin as they moved up and down, searching. It gave him a shiver. "Nothing," she said. The archer lowered his bow.

"You know, I'm a little slow," Popinjay put in. "You're the bow-and-arrow vigilante, right? The ace-of-spades man. How many guys have you killed? Gotta be in double figures, right?"

Wraith's eyes went to her partner, and she looked a little startled. An innocent in over her head, Hiram thought. His heart went out to her. He had read the accounts of the ace-of-spades killer in the Jokertown Jokertown Cry Cry and the and the Daily Daily News News, and he couldn't imagine how a sweet young lady like her had gotten involved with such a homicidal lunatic.

"Where's the book?" the archer said.

Hiram stared at the arrow. He ought to have been cold with dread, but curiously, he felt nothing but annoyance. It had been a very long day. "In a safe place," he said. He took a step forward, his fist clenching his side. He had had entirely enough. "Where it's going to stay." He began to walk toward the door, his bulk shielding the others behind him. "I've gone to a great deal of trouble to set this up, and I'm not having Gills hurt or Bludgeon freed because you want these books for your own undoubtedly criminal purposes."

The eyes behind the mask looked absolutely astonished as Hiram strode forward. The archer hesitated, but only for a second. Then the bow came up again, Hiram tensed as the string was pulled back smoothly, pulleys turning, and Hiram clenched his fist as the gravity waves shimmered around the arrow, invisible to all but him, the moment of truth almost at hand, and- -there was a pop pop, and the archer was gone.

Hiram heard Wraith gasp, and then Wyrm screamed in sibilant triumph. The lizard-man shoved at the table that trapped him inside the booth, and it came out of the floor with a metallic ripping sound. Wyrm hurtled over it toward the woman, who back-stepped away from him. "Leave her alone!" Hiram yelled.

Wyrm ignored him. He lunged, hissing, clawed hands grasping to embrace her, and pa.s.sed right through her body, smashing hard up against a barstool. Popinjay laughed.

Wraith spun around wildly, wide eyes searching for her ally for a moment before she gave up and ran. She dashed through the bar again and vanished back into the mirror, its silvered surface closing over her like a pool of mercury.

"Nice of you to drop in," Popinjay called after her. He turned back to the others. "I don't suppose anyone got her phone number?" He sighed. "Oh, well . . ."

Wyrm climbed back to his feet, screeching in dismay. "I'll kill her! I'll kill them both!"

"Later," Loophole suggested. The lawyer folded his hands as if the little interruption had never happened. "Do we still have an understanding?"

"I don't want the d.a.m.nable books," Hiram said. "If you'll honor my terms, they're yours."

"Fine. Where are they?"

"We hid them," Hiram told him, "in Jetboy's Tomb. In the c.o.c.kpit of the JB-1 replica."

"If they're there, our agreement will be honored."

"If not," Wyrm added, "you'll all be very sssorry."

Chrysalis crossed to the bar and took down a bottle. "Perhaps we should have a little toast, to the successful conclusion of a difficult transaction."

"I'm afraid we don't have the time," Latham said, closing his briefcase. Hiram wasn't listening. He was staring past Chrysalis, staring at the silvered surface of the long mirror where-for just an instant-he thought he had seen something move.

She watched him struggle against the current, his stick-thin arms flailing wearily at the dark water. A dying water spider skimming hopelessly toward sh.o.r.e. Roulette had waited for him to die in the sky over Manhattan. Instead he had fallen like a tiny fleshy meteor, and her imperative continued. Now, watching his battle against the water, she again waited for him to die. The small dark k.n.o.bof his head vanished, but she forced herself to wait. The Astronomer had cheated death before.

His head broke the water, and the violence of his thrashings shattered an oil slick into a hundred rainbow drops. Die Die, Roulette prayed, but the black, oily waters of the East River were carrying him to the refuse-strewn sh.o.r.e.

The Astronomer came crawling out, the vomit of the river. His naked body, pink flesh showing between the cracking flame-seared skin, lay like a rotting animal among the rusted cans and soggy hamburger wrappings like tiny disintegrating paper hillocks on the muddy sh.o.r.e. His left hand gripped his gla.s.ses, and slowly, skin flaking and cascading from him with every move, he tried to replace them.

Roulette, the heels of her dainty strap sandals sucking at the ooze, ran to him. Her kick caught him in the back of the hand. Fingers jerked open like scattered twigs, the gla.s.ses flying free to lie glinting on the mud. Roulette fell on them as if they contained the essence of the Astronomer, the soul of Tachyon. Drove down with a heel only to have it slide harmlessly off the thick lens and bury itself in the mud. The muck released her with a sad, repellent sound. Sobbing, she scooped up the gla.s.ses.

"c.u.n.t! Filthy whoring p.u.s.s.y! My gla.s.ses, give me my gla.s.ses!" His voice spiraled to a frenzied shriek.

A splintered plank offered support. Pulling off her shoe she knelt in the mud, and hammered at the gla.s.ses with the sharp heel. The rhinestone studs cut into her hand, drawing blood. She tightened her grip on the blood-slick leather.

"Kill you! Kill you!" howled the Astronomer, groping about on his belly, hands outstretched, touching and re-coiling from the various bits of detritus.

One lens broke with a sharp crystal sound.

"No!"

The second.

"Kill me? You can't even see me. Where will you run to this time? They're hunting you. Who will you kill to find the power? Tachyon's coming. Then only one of you will be left. For me. Better crawl."

His face, nose burned away, mouth a pale slit, eyes red from rupturing capillaries, was turned to her. "Over, all over," he quavered. His hands dug deep into the mud, fingers squeezing shut on the noisome ooze as if remembering other, more glorious, moments.

Finally he began to crawl, and Roulette followed. Bare feet slapping on the slick mud, hem trailing, chain of her evening bag cutting deep into her shoulder from the weight of the Magnum.

CHAPTER 24.

5:00 a.m. a.m.

The streets were finally emptying. Only the hardiest revelers were left to cry up the dawn, or the least hardiest who had pa.s.sed out-or worse-and were lying like abandoned rag dolls in the street.

The Crystal Palace was about a mile from Jetboy's Tomb. Jennifer knew that there was no way she was going to beat them to the mausoleum. It was difficult to run in the thonged sandals Brennan had lent her, but it was better than going barefoot down the refuse-littered streets.

Brennan. What in the world had happened to him? The little guy had pointed a finger at him and, whoosh, he was gone. Just like that. Well, she thought, her breath coming a little faster as she ate up the blocks between the Palace and the Tomb with an easy, long-legged stride, she had started this caper by herself, and she would finish it.

Big talk, she thought. Already she was missing Brennan's gruff presence. She hoped he was all right.

The great edifice that was Jetboy's Tomb was a looming black silhouette before the quiet waters of the Hudson River. It looked deserted, but there was a long limousine, brother to the one Jennifer and Brennan had borrowed, parked next to the twenty-foot-tall statue of Jetboy that stood in front of the Tomb's main entrance.

There was no one in or around the limo. Wyrm and the others, Jennifer realized, must already be inside the vast building.

She went quietly up the marble steps, as silent as the namesake she had chosen for herself, stripped off the cloak Brennan had lent her, and kicked away the sandals. A surge of adrenaline pushed back the weariness that threatened to overwhelm her.

It's been a long day, she told herself. But soon it's going to be over. One way or another.

The tomb was vast. A full-sized replica of Jetboy's plane, the JB-1, hung from the ceiling, bathed in muted light shining from hidden lamps also hanging from the inside of the dome.

The light filtered to the floor of the tomb where it vaguely illuminated three men staring up at the plane hanging from the ceiling. She recognized Wyrm, of course, and the man called Loophole. The third was a stranger, of average size and build, his features unrecognizable in the gloom.

Jennifer smiled to herself. Unless one of them could fly, there was no way they could reach the c.o.c.kpit of the mock plane. It was a different matter, of course, for her.

She worked her way around to the far side of the tomb, keeping to the dark shadows along the walls. The acoustics inside the place were excellent and she could hear the men discussing what to do.

"That fat ssson of a b.i.t.c.h mussst have fffloated up to the ceiling and put the bookssss there."

"It doesn't matter how they got there," the unidentified man said in a hard, angry voice. "I want them down. Immediately."

They argued the problem as Jennifer reached the rear of the building. Still in shadows, she ghosted, fighting off a brief wave of vertigo, and pulled herself up through the wall to the ceiling. That was the easy part. Now it got a little tricky. She kept the body of the plane between her and the men below as she slipped into the c.o.c.kpit and saw a small plastic bag, the bag she'd put the books in-was it only this morning? It seemed like a year ago.

She couldn't risk solidifying herself and checking them. She touched them, ghosted them, then, instead of feeling the triumph she antic.i.p.ated, an uneasy tremor pa.s.sed through her insubstantial form.

She was reaching the end of her endurance. She had pushed herself hard, ghosting more in the last twenty-two hours than she'd ever done in her life, and she hadn't had much food or rest between her periods of insubstantiality. She had only a little time left to get solid, or else she'd be in trouble.

She slipped out of the c.o.c.kpit, but was careless in her haste. Loophole had walked around the plane to get another viewing angle, and he saw Jennifer's insubstantial form, shimmering like a Halloween specter as she was silhouetted against the wing.

"It's her again! She's got the books!"

She looked down and was a.s.saulted by a sudden wave of dizziness. She had to get solid fast. Instinct took over and she stepped off the wing of the plane.

She floated as gently as a feather to earth, barely conscious, and when she touched ground her body took over and became solid. The transformation ate up all her energy reserves, and she blacked out.

"But what about Cordelia?" Bagabond said, as they carried the packages down through the City Hall station toward the pa.s.sageways leading to Jack's home. The cats had joined them, the calico and the black rubbing contentedly against Bagabond's legs.

"The Cajuns have a saying," said Jack, opening the metal access door.

"What saying?"

The calico and black purred like Rip Van Winkle's snoring.

"I don't remember any more," said Jack. His voice seemed to Bagabond to possess a manic edge. "Something to the effect that if you do the best you can, then the breaks'll come. Or they won't."

"Right," said Bagabond.

"I'll find Cordelia. She'll be okay."

"You're tired," said the woman. "You're exhausted."

"So are you."

"I'm fine."

Racing ahead, the cats beat them to Jack's door. As he unlocked it and they all started in, Bagabond suddenly stiffened. "Jack," she said, staggering a little. "I've got-something."

Jack halted in midmotion, keys halfway into his pocket.

"It's a rat," she continued. "It's in the shadows, on top of a cabinet. It sees . . ." Bagabond hesitated. "d.a.m.n it, Jack, it's her! her!"

He hustled the cats and her inside the Victorian living room and shut the door. "Where?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. There are other rats in the building. I'm switching from one to the other . . . There!" She grinned. "I've got one outside, peeking out of the alley. It's a bar, a club of some sort. There's a big neon sign that moves." She shook her head. "It's in the form of a woman, a stripper with six b.r.e.a.s.t.s. You, uh . . ." Bagabond hesitated. "You have to walk between the legs to get in."

"I've heard of it," said Jack. "Freakers. Never been there." He picked up an East East Village Village Other Other, scanned the ads. "Nothing." He grabbed the Fetish Fetish Times Times. "When all else fails . . ." Leafing through the pages, he said, "Okay! Here it is. Chatham Square."

"Not too far," said Bagabond. She was already up and heading for the door, the cats on her heels.

"No," said Jack.

She turned to look at him. "No?" Tails switching, the cats stared at him too.

"You've got things to do. I can handle this."

"Jack-"

"I mean it." Jack set down the parcels he was still holding. "You get ready." He unwrapped a smaller package and took out some cosmetics. "I took the liberty of buying these."

"What are you doing doing?" she said as he set her down in front of the antique silvered mirror.

"It won't take long," he promised. "Then I'll drop in at Freakers."

"You're crazy," she said.

"Absolutely."

Jack juggled the lip gloss and the blush. He tilted her head so that she was staring at herself in the mirror.

"It's show time," he said.