And there, standing alongside the bad guys’ head good guy, was Noel Matthews, looking slightly less smug than usual. The little Brit had changed a lot since the days when he’d used his skills at sleight of hand to flummox the aces of American Hero. He’d even changed in the time since their adventures in Texas and New Orleans with the nuclear kid. If it was possible for a man to look relieved and hunted at the same time, that was Noel Matthews.
“Hey,” Bugsy said. “Want to go kill two birds with one stone?”
“It depends,” she said. “What exactly do you plan to kill?”
“Trust me. We’ve got the perfect excuse to go hang close to Okimba. Let’s go talk some shop.” Bugsy tipped the bartender and walked across the most elegant, civilized room in Western civilization.
Noel didn’t see him coming until he was too close to ignore. “Mr. Tipton-Clarke,” Matthews said with a half smile. “Or do you prefer Hive?”
“I answer to any of them. You know Cameo?”
Noel nodded politely. Dr. Okimba smiled like he was hoping they’d both go away.
No chance of that.
“I was hoping I’d run into you,” Bugsy said. “We’re doing some work for the Committee, and I needed to ask you something. Maybe you can help out too, Doc.”
“I’m pleased to be of service,” Noel said in a tone that suggested he might not actually be pleased, “but—”
“It’s a little thing. All history and background stuff. Nothing important. I’ve been finding out some more about our partners in peace over in the PPA. It’s been a trip. Have you ever been to Vietnam, Doc?”
Okimba’s eyes went a degree wider. “No,” he said carefully. “I don’t believe I have.”
“We just got back,” Bugsy said with a smile. “Nice place. Lousy traffic. Anyway. I’ve been looking at the early life of our man Tom Weathers, and especially the nice retarded lady Sprout?”
“I am sure,” Noel said, “that Dr. Okimba isn’t—”
“No, please,” Okimba said. “Continue.”
“Bugs,” Cameo said, and the tone of her voice was a warning.
“Well, we all kind of know the Radical’s not the world’s most stable guy. No offense, Doc. But it turns out this one girl, Sprout, is like the only person on the planet he’s not willing to sacrifice. So I was wondering how you knew to grab her in particular.”
“I do not understand,” Dr. Okimba said. “It was Bahir who took Sprout.”
“Well, sure,” Bugsy said, “but that’s Noel. Bahir, Lilith, and . . . Oh. Shit. That was still a secret, wasn’t it? Look, Doc. Forget I said anything, okay?”
It took all of Tom’s self-control to keep from frying both men where they stood on general principles. “How dare this man show his face at a peace conference!” he boomed, volume rising. His bull-hippo bellow echoed from the pyramidal roof; everyone else had stopped talking at once. Heads turned to stare. “I demand that this man be arrested immediately! He is a spy, an assassin, an international war criminal! I demand justice.”
Jonathan Hive’s eyes had gone wide in a suddenly pale face. “I didn’t mean to pee on anybody’s parade—”
Around them voices broke the silence like so many falling crystal goblets, some brittle with confusion, others sharp with anger. Tom’s fury had welled up like lava as his own voice rose. It was the look in the Englishman’s indigo eyes—half stricken, half calculating—that convinced Tom of his guilt. “You ratfucker,” he screamed, making no pretense of hiding his own voice. “You kidnapped my daughter!”
He raised his arms as if reaching for Noel Matthews’s throat. Flame billowed red from his palms.
“Oh, shit,” Bugsy said, and his body literally exploded into a cloud of green wasps. His clothing puddled on the white marble floor.
Noel threw himself to the side, and the blast of flame roared past him. He felt its searing heat upon his cheeks, smelled burning hair, and felt the bite of fire on his shoulder.
Dr. Okimba’s round fat face was shimmering, running, changing. Into Tom Weathers.
And Noel was on fire. A quick glance revealed the flames dancing across his tuxedo jacket. He needed to get the fuck out of here, but he didn’t want to transform into Lilith in front of half the world’s media. Ripping off his jacket, he grabbed a glass of bourbon from a man’s hand and tossed it on the flames. They roared up greedily, consuming the alcohol. Noel whipped the coat into the face of an oncoming Leopard Man.
All around him people were shouting and guns were appearing, the muzzles like small dark mouths ready to spit death. Weathers was coming after him. Apparently incinerating Noel was not going to be enough. Weathers wanted his hands on him.
Noel seized a champagne bottle out of an ice bucket. He placed his finger over the top, shook it hard, and sent the resulting fountain of bubbly into Weathers’s face. As the Radical roared and cursed, Noel danced away from him, grabbed Prince Siraj by the back of his tuxedo jacket, and pulled him off his feet, out of the line of fire. Siraj landed hard on his back on the marble floor. The fire alarms were howling, and the sprinklers sprang to life. Water pattered onto Noel’s body. He kicked off his shoes. The force of the fall had driven the breath from Siraj’s lungs. He lay gasping in the center of the floor.
Fortunately, in addition to being hard, the marble was slick. More so now that it was wet. Noel tangled his fingers in Siraj’s collar and dragged the winded leader behind him beneath a banqueting table. “Stay down,” he hissed.
“Fuck!” Tom yelled in pain and anger. His eyes stung from the champagne, and the green insects were all over him. Each sting felt as if a hot needle had been plunged into his flesh.
He wreathed a hand in fire and slapped himself where he felt the insects crawling, then loosed another blast of flame at those buzzing around his head. Wasps fell to the floor like crisp black snowflakes, along with a few hapless bystanders. It didn’t help. The wasps kept coming. Tom went insubstantial, moved from the green cloud of pain. Then he phased back in and flamed them.
He became aware of his Leopard Man detail fighting to keep his back clear. Alicia’s pets had shape-shifted; those who couldn’t scythed bullets from Micro UZI and Beretta 93 machine pistols. Screams erupted from the crowd.
Pivoting widdershins, Tom jetted flame from his left palm. An operator from the home-team Service de Protection des Hautes Personnalités had jammed a hand inside his suit coat. The man shrieked as a plasma burst lit him up. He fell to the shiny floor, dead on the instant. The cartridges in whatever handgun he’d been going for cooked off like a string of fireworks.
Something heavy hit Tom on the back. His chin cracked against the polished concrete floor. White sparks shot through his brain. Pain ripped into his left shoulder, accompanied by rank animal smell and guttural growling. Rough fur rasped his left ear.
Tom got palms on smooth concrete and thrust upward hard. Although whatever the hell was gnawing on him weighed as much as a big man, Tom’s superhuman strength snapped him upright. Reaching back with his right hand he grabbed a handful of coarse fur and muscle like wound steel wire. The jaws clamping his trapezius slackened. The beast squealed as Tom dug fingers in.
He found himself holding a huge black wolf by the scruff like a naughty puppy. It twisted in his grip, snarling, trying to bite. Bloody drool trailed from its jaws. Shreds of Tom’s muscle dangled from its teeth.
“Fuck you.” Turning quickly, he flung the wolf up and away with all his ace strength. The creature shot up and hit one of the metal braces that made up the pyramidal roof. It howled as head and hindquarters shattered the tough glass-laminate panels on either side of the strut. Limp, the beast plummeted. What hit the floor with a sodden thump was a naked dude.
“Garou!” he heard somebody shout.
“I fucking hate shape-shifters,” Tom said.
SPHP types hustled screaming attendees out the door. Others aimed guns at him. He took flight and laughed as they ripped each other with full-auto bursts. A couple went down. Anot
her staggered backward, screaming into the mouth of a leopard that was biting his face and raking his guts out onto his Armani shoes with black hind legs.
The Radical torched a couple more pigs, then touched down as their buddies booked. Even brave men weren’t eager to tangle with somebody who could fly, toss you like a Frisbee, and set your ass on fire. He swiveled his head, searching chaos for Noel. The sneaky little shit needed badly to be burning.
Bullets flew overhead. A woman screamed in agony, and flames splashed across a stone pillar.
The long drape of the tablecloth hid them. But there was an itch between Noel’s shoulder blades. The flatware and the mahogany table were not going to stop one of Tom Weathers’s plasma blasts.
And indeed a second table, about three feet to their right, blew to pieces. A long splinter flew into Siraj’s leg. The prince shrieked, grabbed his calf. His hands turned red as blood pumped between his fingers.
There was no time for first aid. The room reeked of smoke and blood. Noel was nearly deafened. The screams and shouts that filled the room seemed to be coming through cotton batting. Noel needed Lilith. Needed her now.
He put the fear in a little box and set it aside. He did the same with his thoughts of Niobe. Noel concentrated, and felt his body begin to shift. Then the table was flung over revealing them like bugs under a rock. China, crystal, and flatware ware clattered all around them.
It was one of the Leopard Men, grinning, enjoying the moment. The closest thing to hand was a fish fork. Noel snatched it up, rolled, and came to his feet. Only inches separated them. Noel could feel the man’s breath, warm and liquor-laden, on his face. He drove the small fork deep into the man’s eye, and gave it one final slap that left it lodged in his cerebral cortex.
Never gloat, he thought . . . and heeding his own advice he finished the transition to Lilith, grabbed the writhing Prince Siraj, and got the hell out of Paris.
The woman with Prince Siraj was pale as ice, with raven hair cascading down her back. Her eyes were silver. Lilith. Hot sweaty nights in Africa flashed through Tom’s memory.
All the time I was fucking her, she was fucking me. Well, now I’m going to fuck her up. Payback’s a bitch, bitch.
But no sooner had he seen her than she was gone, and Siraj with her. Tom roared and loosed a sunburst at the place where they’d been standing. The heat bubbled paint on the walls and made the lights explode. Connections clicked in place in his mind: The golden-eyed man—the silver-eyed woman—they’re both Matthews!
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” a voice said in a German accent you could spread mustard on.
Lohengrin. Tom whirled, and showed him teeth.
And suddenly the big guy was encased in plate armor that glowed a soft white. On his arm a shield, in his hand a broadsword, on his breastplate the Grail. A winged helmet covered his entire head.
“If it isn’t Heinrich Himmler’s wet dream,” said Tom. “Well, you’re broiled bratwurst now.” He raised his hand and gave the German a blast of flame. It hit the shining shield. And splashed.
Even Tom’s faster-than-normal speed wasn’t enough to get him fully clear of the whistling sword stroke as Lohengrin stepped forward. He winced as the glowing blade laid his left cheek open, and came back with a full-power palm-heel shot to the middle of the shield.
The knight flew back, bowling over aces, nat security, and Leopard Men in human and leopard form. Lohengrin hit a wall. The wall lost. He slumped down from a sort of vertical crater. Tom saw a leopard snatched off the floor and into the air by what looked suspiciously like a long, pink tongue. Fucking Buford, he thought. Then something erupted through the floor right beneath his feet, knocking him up and over. He hit hard on his ass, jarring his whole spine. A dark form hovered over Tom. Burrowing Owl. Those were wings, outspread now, though they didn’t flap. The Belgian ace folded them and dove helmet-first at Tom.
Tom rolled right. A grinding whine rattled his teeth in their sockets. Tiny cement bits stung his face. He threw up an arm to protect his eyes. When he dropped it the flying man had vanished. He’d left a hole drilled right into the dark cement of the Louvre entry floor. “How the hell did he do that?”
Lohengrin answered with his longsword. Tom rolled right. The blade bit into the cement for half its three-foot length. Tom rolled back, swinging his right foot across him in a fierce crescent kick. He caught the blade’s flat. He expected the blade to snap. Instead it ripped a big divot out of the cement as it snapped from the knight’s gauntleted hand. Then it vanished.
Neither surprised Tom enough to put him back. But the glowing fist-sized spiked ball whistling down toward his face did. He threw up an arm, managed to block the morningstar’s stubby handle. It didn’t stop the ball on its chain. It whipped around and slammed into the side of Tom’s head, just behind his left eye.
Once more superhuman reflexes saved him; he yanked his head sideways far enough to keep from having a spike driven into his brain. But the ghost steel bit painfully into his temple. He felt his left cheekbone break, shoot pain back through his brain like white lightning, tasted blood as a spike pierced his cheek.
Tom kicked. His sole caught the spectral tasset that protected the top of Lohengrin’s right thigh. The knight’s feet shot out from under him. His faceplate shattered cement beneath him as the morningstar disappeared.
Head pounding, Tom jumped to his feet. Lohengrin popped up just as quickly. A spike-backed battle-ax appeared in his hand. “Shit, where do you get those?” Tom asked, and loosed a sunbeam. It struck the center of Lohengrin’s breastplate. It seemed to shatter into a hundred backscatter shafts of blinding light. Tom heard screams as bystanders got scorched.
He launched an overhead right at Lohengrin. If he didn’t knock the knight into something hard enough to jelly his bones, he’d at least stun the fuck enough to finish him. But the German learned fast. Rather than blocking with his shield he swung it up like a tailgate. Its edge jammed painfully into Tom’s biceps, jamming the punch midflight. Its freight-train momentum still blasted Lohengrin back, skidding across the floor with a shriek of ghost-steel digging furrows in concrete. But he caught Tom a glancing shot under the arm with his ax.
Tom gasped and dropped to one knee. The blow had either busted several ribs or chopped them right through. And Lohengrin had kept both his feet and his grip on his weapon. His ice-blue eyes glaring over the top of his shield from behind narrow eye slits, he charged.
But Tom learned quick, too. He flung his left palm up toward the ghost steel-masked face. Lohengrin read the threat within the gesture. He tried to throw himself aside. He was almost fast enough to defeat Tom’s movement. But not faster than light. The sunbeam clipped the left side of the winged helmet, enveloping his eye slit. Tom saw hell-glare flare within.
When Lohengrin hit the floor and rolled onto his back he was once more a studly German dude in a suit, with arms outflung and the left side of his face a smoking mess.
Bugsy saw the room from ten thousand angles, each one of them moving, spinning, trying not to get killed. He’d lost too many wasps already. If too many more went down, he wouldn’t be able to re-form. Endgame. Over. Dead unless Cameo used some little tchotchke of his to haul him back out of the grave. He swirled around, going in for fast stings on the PPA Leopard Men, distracting the guys with just guns, and trying to stay clear of Tom Weathers.
Then Lohengrin went down, ghost steel armor blinking out like it had never been there, and Tom Weathers towering over him for the kill.
Ah fuck it, Bugsy thought, and dove in.
From all across the Louvre, the wasps dove in toward a single target: Tom Weathers. The Radical turned at the sound of wings, flame dancing out. Bugsy split, shifted, tried to avoid the fire. He felt wasps cooking off like a deep, unspecific ache. Lohengrin was moving, moaning. He had his hands up, cupping his seared face.
Not letting you kill him, Bugsy thought and pressed in. A dozen wasps got through, stinging Weathers on the back of
the neck and curling around toward his eyes.
Ellen’s voice came out of nowhere. “Bugsy! Drop!”
No. Not Ellen’s.
Simoon’s.
Bugsy retreated, pulling his wasps together in a corner near the men’s room. The wind picked up, grit in the air. Bugsy shifted his insect bodies into the more familiar flesh. There weren’t enough. He could feel his breath rattling in his lungs. The tendrils of sand in the air bit at his skin.
Which meant it was shredding Weathers.
Simoon’s wind shrieked like a banshee, the sand looking more like a fog. The glass pyramid was already pocked and white where she’d brushed against it. Weathers, in the worst of it, lifted off his feet, arms and legs swinging, and crashed against the wall.
“That’s my girl,” Bugsy said weakly. “Get him.”
Baghdad, Iraq
The Caliphate of Arabia
They landed hard on the red-and-black Persian rug. Noel left Siraj whimpering on the floor, ran, and yanked an embroidered runner off a table. He couldn’t help but notice in one of those odd dislocating thoughts that always float past when a person was in a crisis that he hadn’t disturbed a single item of bric-a-brac on the table.
Returning to Siraj, he pulled out the splinter and wrapped the leg tightly in the runner. He stood and wiped his bloody hands down his pants. “I’ll let them know you’re here. They’ll get you to a hospital.”
“Never mind me,” Siraj gritted, through teeth clenched against the pain. “Get a gun. You have to go back. Go back and kill him. Make certain of it this time.”
“You seem to be under the misapprehension that you can still give me orders. Quite wrong. You just lost your hold on me. The secret is out. Weathers knows, and there’s nothing you can do to me. Now my wife is a target, and I’m more concerned about her than I am about you. Here’s some free advice. Never sleep in the same place twice, and get yourself some good doubles. Good luck.”