Ray scanned them quickly, but they said nothing about the Black Trump. He tried the desk's center drawer. Locked. He pulled at the drawer and it came loose with a screech of tearing metal. Among the miscellaneous crap that you find in most desk drawers, locked or not, Ray found a journal. He smiled.
He opened to the last page. "Last vial to Casaday," the note read. "Johnson and I will divide the remaining culture and head for our targets tonight. God help them then!"
Ray looked up, frowning at the sound of the door swooshing shut. Poynter had snuck out of the room. He tucked the journal into the deep thigh pocket of his appropriated fatigues and went after her.
She was in the lab ahead of him, but she'd stopped and turned to look back as he skidded to a halt. There were a dozen well-armed Sharks in the room with her.
"Shoot him!" she screeched, pointing at Ray. "Shoot him!"
"We will, but not just yet." The man who spoke stood behind the security men. He was tall, muscular, and black. He wore the fatigues of the Shark security forces. He was their leader, General MacArthur Johnson. "Billy Ray, isn't it?"
Ray's fury had burnt so deep that he appeared relaxed, almost casual as he leaned against a lab bench that had a mess of glassware on it. There was no hint of anger in his voice as he calmly answered. "That's right."
Johnson shook his head, "How'd you find us?"
"Your comrades are singing their butts off," Ray said, "hoping to avoid serious time in the federal pen - though that's not too likely."
"We should have killed those motherfuckers," Johnson said. His voice was an angry bass growl, "We can still have it done."
"Too late," Ray was almost smiling. "You're under arrest. All of you."
"You're nuts," Johnson said. "You know, it'd be a real pleasure to see if you're as tough as they say, Ray." He flexed his hands, his smile feral.
"I'm tougher, Johnson. You're just a fucking nat. I'm an ace. Take me about a second to rip your head off and stuff it up your ass."
Johnson twitched, took half a step forward, then controlled himself. "No ... no. Much as I want to, I'm not going to dick around with you, you mutant diseased scum." He stepped back behind his men. "Hose him down."
Fingers twitched on triggers. Poynter was standing out of the line of fire, but the Sharks had released a firestorm of death. Bullets whanged off the stainless steel benches and sinks, caromed off the white-painted walls. Ricochets buzzed like angry bees and Poynter gasped as a couple of rounds cut through her. She went down.
Ray had moved before Johnson gave the command to fire. His head was full of white noise. The only thing he knew was that this was payback time for those poor fucking jokers. He vaulted over the lab bench as the fusillade began. One bullet punched through his left calf, but it missed the bone and the wound was already starting to close when his feet hit the ground. Not that it didn't hurt. It hurt like a motherfucker.
Ray grunted with pain. He squatted behind the bench as the fusillade continued, ignoring the ricochets that whined around him. For once Ray was lucky. None hit him. He put his arms out, against the bench. He pushed, and it scraped along the floor.
"Yaaaaahhhhh!"
He pushed harder, screaming, and he and the bench picked up speed.
"Holy shit!" he heard, then he felt the shock of impact as the lab bench slammed into the gunmen crowded around the door. There were screams and groans. The bench bucked like it was going over a speed bump, then the shooting mostly stopped and Ray was in the middle of the gunmen.
Only half of them were standing. The others were under the bench or smashed like flies swatted against the wall. Johnson was standing in the doorway, undecided.
"Come on!" Ray shouted.
Johnson and Ray locked eyes.
"I'll eat you up," Johnson promised, "and spit you out!"
"Eat this," Ray said as he grabbed one of Johnson's men by collar and crotch, heaved him off the ground and threw him.
Johnson ducked. The Shark slammed against the wall. There was a loud cracking as bones snapped and the man slumped to the floor.
"Hold as long as you can," Johnson ordered the remaining Sharks, and ducked into the hall.
The two standing security men looked at each other. One shook his head and dropped his rifle. He put his hands up. The other did the same. Then they saw the look on Ray's face and they ran, too.
Ray hurtled down the hall after them, grinning like a madman. He had them on the run. It was only a matter of time - what was that smell? he thought as he blundered around a corner and ran into a man-sized heap of stuff that smelled like shit and garbage.
Ray had momentum on his side, but it didn't help any. He hit and bounced, sputtering and spitting unmentionable filth. He was back on his feet almost before he hit the floor, but he stopped, stunned, when he realized whom he was facing.
It was a shambling mockery of a man and it smelled like it was long dead - which it was. Its stench was awful, its appearance hardly less so. It wore a sagging uniform that once fit tautly across its broad chest and wide shoulders. Now the cloth hung loose on a battered body that was sunken, twisted, broken, and charred. It couldn't possibly look that bad and still be alive - and it wasn't - but the one eye that was exposed by its full hood was open and tracking blearily on Ray as it stood and blocked his path.
"Bobby Joe?" Ray said unbelievingly. "How the hell are you still getting around?"
The dead ace called Crypt Kicker wasn't fast in his best moments. The accumulated wear and tear of his previous few adventures, some of which he'd shared with Ray, had taken even more of a toll. When he spoke it was in an agonizingly slow, barely understandable drawl.
"The Lord isn't ready to receive me yet. There's still more for me to do here on Earth."
Ray felt like screaming in what was left of Crypt Kicker's face (thankfully hidden by the hood he wore), but restrained himself.
"Well, Jesus, Bobby Joe, get the hell out of my way and let me do what I'm supposed to do."
Ray went to step around Crypt Kicker, but the huge ace snaked out a hand and grabbed Ray around the upper arm in a grip that even Rays strength couldn't break. "I can't let you do that, Billy."
"You fucking moron," Ray blazed. "You're working with the Sharks?"
Crypt Kicker nodded ponderously. "Yes. They have a serum to cure the wild card. It's the Lord's work, to bring an end to the pain and suffering."
Jesus, Ray thought. "Let me go, Bobby Joe," he said in a low, tight voice.
"Can't ..." Bobby Joe Puckett said, and Ray struck him in the forearm hard enough to snap the bones of most men.
But Crypt Kicker clung on doggedly. Ray swung again and again as the massive ace wound up to retaliate. Puckett's blow came with all the force of a diesel locomotive and all the speed of a sleeping sloth. Ray ducked and Puckett's fist slammed into the wall. The wall buckled, Puckett turned his attention to pulling his fist out of the hole it'd made in the wall and Ray yanked free. He turned, grabbed the back of Puckett's hood, and slammed his head as hard as he could into the wall.
The wall gave before the onslaught of Puckett's head. Ray took a deep breath of thanks, but before he could get away Puckett bellowed like a wounded elephant and tore out a huge chunk of plasterboard as he pulled himself free of the wall.
"Shit," Ray said, and Crypt Kicker, flailing around blindly, caught Ray across the chest with a blow powerful enough to knock him off his feet and send him skidding down the hall on his backside. By the time Ray got up Puckett had managed to extricate himself from the piece of wall framing him like an especially ugly Picasso.
Ray charged and Puckett lifted his hands and let fly with the toxic wastes and poisons that had accumulated in his body. Ray tried to twist away from the streams of venomous chemicals, but some splashed against his side, sizzling through his borrowed fatigues and eating skin and flesh.
Ray didn't even try to suppress his scream. Yelling like a maniac, he hurled himself at Puckett. The dead ace waited with open arms, wanting, no
doubt, to enfold Ray to his massive bosom where he could alternately crush him with his inhuman strength and fry him with the toxicity of his flesh.
Ray knew that he couldn't out-strength Puckett. He had to out-think and out-quick him.
At the last second he went down, hitting the floor and kicking out with a leg-whip that smashed Crypt Kicker's knees, Puckett toppled like a falling redwood. Ray leapt to his feet and stomped hard on Puckett's throat. Puckett clutched at his legs, but Ray pulled away. He stomped again, then again, and he heard a sickening crunching sound as cartilage and flesh collapsed. Puckett clutched at his throat, wheezing like an organ with a broken bellows.
Ray stepped away from him, shaking his head. "Stupid fucking redneck," he said, then he turned and ran down the hall after Johnson.
He activated his throat mike as he ran and screamed, "Come in, come on in! They're bolting like fucking rats! Don't let anyone get away!"
He saw no one as he ran through the manor and burst outside. The government cutter he'd called was bearing down on the island at full speed, lights flashing and clarions blaring. Amphibious helicopters were swooping in like birds of prey, guarding the sky in case the Sharks tried an aerial escape.
Ray went around the back of the manor to the small airstrip where something was taxiing out of a hangar. He put on a burst of speed. He wanted to reach it before the choppers did. He wanted to tear Johnson and whoever was with him to pieces.
But Johnson's aircraft suddenly rose straight up. It hung there insouciantly for a moment, as if daring the choppers to try to tag it. Then it was gone with a scream of jet turbines, leaving the choppers far behind like the fat, clumsy children they were. Ray's sprint stumbled to a halt and he stared in disbelief.
"A Harrier," Ray swore under his breath. "A fucking vertical take-off fucking jet." He sat down on the edge of the runway, suddenly very tired. "Where the fuck did Johnson get a fucking Harrier?"
He sat with his head in his hands for a long moment, a pose very uncharacteristic for Billy Ray. Then he stood, and strode around the manor to where the assault team had gathered on the beach. The choppers bumbled around like angry, uncertain bees. They knew they had missed their target, but they had no idea what their target was.
Ray knew. He knew it was the Black Trump, death to all things born from the wild card.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
By tradition, the muezzin called when he could distinguish a black thread from a white. In the dim dawn light, the faithful hurried to prayers, dodging their way past vendors who brought polished vegetables down from rooftop gardens. Silent jokers carried plastic coolers on their shoulders, hurrying toward the City Gate where traders would fill them with crushed ice and eggs and farm-raised fish from pens in the Sea of Galilee. Soon, boys would begin their morning rounds, carrying brass trays hung from swinging chains. The trays would be loaded with cups of thick coffee and steaming tea and cans of trademarked, guaranteed genuine Coca-Cola It never tasted right to Zoe, in spite of the logo.
The air smelled of cucumbers and orange blossoms, of compost and last night's cooking. Zoe followed the vendors toward the souk, the area outside the City Gate where an uneasy truce held, the city's denizens usually kept at peace by the necessities of trade. She stayed in the shadows and walked as quietly as she could. If she found Needles following her, she planned to send him right back home. He would follow, she was sure of it, thinking to protect her, or to protect himself. She watched and listened, but she couldn't see him.
She hadn't gone half a block before she picked up a tail, a hunched figure in a black cloak. Needles? The figure vanished behind her.
The street angled sharply. Upper stories overhung the cobblestones in this section, so close that neighbors could borrow a cup of sugar through the opened windows. Or, more likely, exchange insults. The night's shadows lingered here and made the street seem even narrower than it was. Zoe heard heavy breathing behind her and caught a glimpse of a figure in a black cloak. She forced herself not to run. The black cloak brushed against the wall beside her in a passageway narrow enough that Zoe's hand touched a doorway on the opposite side of the street.
"You look nat." Not Needles, the joker's voice came from the folds of his hood, a cultured British accent, a fine tenor. He spoke in quiet, conversational cadence. A giant snail's foot showed beneath swirling folds of black cotton. The joker's cowled head bobbed at the level of her elbow and something was wrong with the shape of his back and shoulders. "Are you a whore?"
This man wouldn't kill a joker, not in the quarter. But a nat might die here, and vanish from the street in some narrow doorway. "No," Zoe said.
"Are you, perhaps, a customer? My equipment is both adequate and unique."
"Not a customer," Zoe said.
"Pity," the joker said. "It is my duty, then, to escort you out of the Quarter."
"I'm going to the City Gate," Zoe said.
"That is fortunate," the joker said.
They walked in silence for a while.
"I'm going to the City Gate because I know it's guarded - by the Twisted Fists."
She heard his indrawn breath. "A shadow organization. A myth," the joker said.
His dismissal was too casual, too offhand. He was a Fist, or he knew them. "Bullshit," Zoe said. "They've enlisted five of my kids."
"Five? You look rather less maternal than that. My compliments."
"Wards. Foster kids. Whatever. You're a Fist, aren't you? Isn't everyone around here?"
"You are a fool," the joker said "Go home."
"No," Zoe said. What could she do to get shuttled up the chain of command? Offer to screw someone? Use her ace? She hated to do that, wouldn't unless she was forced, didn't want to be known in the streets as an ace, for aces were feared here almost as much as nats. Maybe more so.
Zoe and her one-footed companion turned a corner into a wider street where small signs printed in three or more languages hung above barricaded doorways. Above them, the massive bulk of the gate loomed black against a cloudless violet sky.
Jokers came from the night's shadows to set up their wares in the little square, some yawning, most silent. One looked at her and hissed. Another spat in her direction and made a sign to ward off the evil eye. A breeze brought a scent of hot fat and charcoal, of garlic and coriander and frying dough.
Zoe clenched her folded robe in her left hand and walked to the center of the souk. The stone ramparts of the gate looked empty, but there were men with rifles hiding in shadows. She knew it.
The snail-footed joker accompanied her to the middle of the square. "You can't leave yet," he said. "The gates won't open for another half hour."
"I know," Zoe said.
The joker backed away from her. In a moment, he had vanished.
Zoe picked out an area of the wall where the shadows were deepest, where a cul-de-sac cut into the stone bulk of the gate. She walked toward it with all the bravado she could muster, her ears listening for the click of a safety. The cul-de-sac hid a passageway that seemed to end in a blank stone wall. A hooded figure waited there, his rifle pointed at her belly.
"Good morning!" Zoe said.
The swathed black figure wore a veil. She looked like a Halloween depiction of death.
"Are you in charge here?" Zoe asked. She smiled brightly and tried to look innocent and confused.
Eyes don't have much expression, Zoe knew. The mouth does. She couldn't see this joker's mouth or gauge her facial language. The guard's rifle barrel drew a small circle in the air, still pointed at Zoe's belly.
"The Gate opens at six," the guard said. A man, not a woman. "You go home then, nat."
He had a local accent, the melodic lilt of the Mideast. The man was tall, almost skeletal beneath that swirling robe.
"But I don't want to leave," Zoe said. "I want to talk to you." To you, Fist, and I don't want formal speeches that you've memorized from the how-to-deal-with-stray-nats handbook. Zoe took a step forward in spite of the objections of her belly button. I
t was trying to retreat toward her backbone. Terror was one hell of an ab exercise, it seemed.
"Stop!"
Zoe stopped. "But I only want to talk ..." The quaver in her voice was not faked.
Someone laughed, high above them on the gate, a terrible laugh.
"I want to see the Black Dog," Zoe said "I - I have information for him."
She felt the jokers behind her before she saw them. Two of them, silent and fast. She saw an outstretched arm, A solid blow to the back of her knees knocked her flat, sprawled on the caftan she'd dropped. One of its bangles cut into her cheek. Someone twisted her arms behind her and ground his knee into the small of her back. Hot pain drew diagrams of the joints in her shoulders.
"Nat," one of her attackers hissed. "Nat whore. Don't yell, pretty thing."
"Why are you looking for trouble, nat?" the tall joker said. "Tired of living?"
"Let me have her." The joker behind her twisted her arms a fraction more. "She'll talk. Shell scream. I like screams."
"Take her inside," the tall joker said. "She'll last long enough for all three of us."
Terror or sexual arousal, either of those activated Zoe's ace, her anima, her gift of the breath of life. Sometimes she had to force its appearance. Not now. She drew in a single breath and sighed into the caftan, a desperate breath that included memories of Needles' desolate face as he scrubbed blood from his hands, Turtle's gentle touch in a dark hotel room, the long black fingers of an animated mannequin locked into the flesh of a skinhead's throat.
The cloak twisted out from beneath her. It rose like a dervish, its gold coins razor-edged, a spinning terror of writhing fabric with a woman's shape and the speed of a whirlwind. The dervish whipped an arm toward the tall joker's eyes. He dropped his rifle and fell backward, screaming, his hands clutching at his torn eyelids. The dervish scattered drops of blood and spread into a whirling net. It dropped over the joker on Zoe's back and cocooned him in windings of steel-strong mesh. The cocoon flung itself against the third joker, slamming him against the wall. A pseudopod of twisted copper snaked around the third jokers thick neck and squeezed.