Chapter Sixteen
9:00 p.m.
He was too exhausted to try crawling out of the truck; regenerating was taking all his energy. Spector lay atop the garbage as the vehicle bounced down the street. He looked down at his bad foot. Flesh was sticking out several inches beyond the ragged edge of his pants leg. He was growing a new foot. Nothing like this had ever happened before and he’d been figuring he’d have to get some kind of prosthetic foot. His regenerating ability was even more powerful than he’d dreamed. His system was taking tissue fi-om the rest of his body to build the new foot. No wonder he was so exhausted. It itched like hell. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from scratching it. He watched the buildings roll by and tried to figure out where he was. Dock area, maybe. There was some traffic, but the truck was still making pretty good time.
He pulled the plastic-wrapped notebooks out of his pants. He couldn’t see much while the truck was moving; the illumination-from the streetlights was too irregular. Lucky he’d heard the girl talking about them. They’d better be the right ones after all the grief they’d cost him. No way he could have figured on a guy turning into an alligator. All the aces were supposed to be at Fatman’s for the evening.
The truck slowed and he couldn’t see buildings anymore. This was probably the end of the line. He tucked the books away and grabbed the rim of the steel wall with both hands.
Spector pulled and kicked with his good leg. His muscles trembled for a moment, then failed him entirely. He settled back into the garbage, completely drained.
The truck stopped. Spector heard a metal chain being undone and the creak of a gate. He couldn’t even manage to sit up. The truck moved slowly forward for a few moments, then stopped again. He knew what was coming next.
“Stop,” he said. His voice was too weak for the driver to hear.
Hydraulic arms lifted the steel box of garbage off the truck and into the air. It began to tilt down. Spector covered his face and rolled into a ball. He caught his breath as he began to fall and pulled the notebooks to his chest. He landed on his head and shoulders and blacked out.
When the dessert carts started making their stately rounds, Hiram’s table was, of course, served first.
He was feeling so relaxed and pleased with himself by then that his appetite had quite returned. He accepted a piece of the amaretto cheesecake from one of the new waiters, a wizened little man with a large head and thick glasses. He added a slice of chocolate mango pie for good measure. The cheesecake was up to the lofty Aces High standards, and the pie was exquisite, its top covered with thin shavings of bittersweet chocolate.
Peregrine had chosen the pie as well. Chocolate, she had explained to Water Lily with that famous smile, was the third best thing there was.
Jane was staring at the waiter with a strange blank look on her face. “Is something wrcng, dear?” the old man asked her. She blinked slowly, and shook her head, like someone waking from a dream. “No. I mean… I don’t remember.” She shivered suddenly. “I feel funny.”
“Chocolate cures all ills,” Peregrine suggested.
But Jane selected the cherries jubilee. “Because,” she told Hiram and Peregrine with a smile of her own, “I’ve heard that when choosing between two evils, you should pick the one you’ve never tried before.” Hiram found himself laughing out loud at her unexpected Mae West intonations. The wizened little waiter laughed too, a shrill thin giggle that went on too long, as if he was amused by some private jest as he wheeled the dessert cart around the table.
All around them, attentive waiters were pouring freshbrewed coffee from slender silver pots, and setting down little pitchers of heavy cream. Bottles of a delightful sweet wine were opened at tableside for who those who cared to imbibe.
After dessert, the seats would begin to empty, as the guests accepted brandy snifters and tiny glasses of liqueur and began the annual ritual of table-hopping. Modular Man had already gotten a head start; the android had bypassed dessert and was field-testing some Courvoisier.
Hiram dispatched his desserts in short order, washed them down with just the quickest taste of wine, and pushed back his chair. “Pardon my haste,” he said to his dinner companions, who were eating more slowly, savoring every bite. “As the host, I have certain duties, though I hate to leave such delightful company even for an instant.” He, smiled. “Please don’t rush off, the evening is just beginning.”
Hiram drifted from table to table, smiling at the guests, inquiring about their dinners, accepting the compliments with a gracious smile.
Mistral, holding court at her table near the balcony doors, said her father would undoubtedly be pleased to know he’d been one of the ice sculptures. “We could hardly leave out Cyclone,” Hiram told her, “even if he does miss far too many of these affairs. Living in San Francisco is really no excuse, and you can tell him I said so.”
Hiram hardly recognized Croyd, who was looking around anxiously for the dessert cart, still two tables away. Next to him, Fortunato sat like a man in a dark shroud, and seemed to take no part in the dinner conversation that swirled about him. Hiram considered stopping by the table and giving him a reassuring word, but the look in those dark eyes beneath his massively swollen forehead seemed to forbid it.
Cap’n Trips had spilled a cup of herbal tea in the lap of Frank Beaumont’s date, and was mopping ‘at it ineffectually with a napkin, apologizing profusely, so Hiram was spared the necessity of learning about the dangers of processed sugar.
Wallwalker and the Harlem Hammer were talking together intently. When Hiram asked how their dinner had been, a curt nod from the Hammer was all the answer he got.
Rahda O’Reilly, a petite red-haired lady who had been known to metamorphose into a full-grown Asiatic elephant with a startling capacity for flight, thanked him in a charming Indian accent. Fantasy had deserted the minor playwright who’d accompanied her, and wits flirting with the Professor. Digger Downs had snuck in somehow, and was off in a corner by the window, interviewing Pulse. Hiram frowned, gave a signal, and two of Peter Chou’s security men escorted Digger firmly toward the elevators. A man who could heat a pot of coffee with his bare hands tried to give Hiram a job application, and was directed to Chock Full O’ Nuts. Ladybug reminisced fondly about the year they’d served a gigantic baked Alaska in the shape of Jetboy’s plane.
Jay Ackroyd looked as though he was about to rupture and die. “I’ll never eat again,” he promised solemnly.
Hiram dropped down in a vacant chair next to Jay. “Things seem to have gone very well,” he said, relieved.
A dessert cart made its way between the tables, but nobody seemed to be in charge of it. Not that it mattered, Fortunato didn’t eat sugar, meat, or preservatives if he could help it.
It was one of the biggest disappointments the wild card virus had brought him. All his senses had gotten ridiculously sharp. The weird thing was that natural odors, even wet dogs or decaying vegetables, didn’t bother him much. It was only the man-made smells-bus exhaust, insecticides, fresh paint-that irritated him. He’d even given up cocaine years ago. Now when he needed an altered state he used grass or mushrooms or fresh coca leaves.
He’d have preferred an altered state at the moment. Hiram had put him at the same table with Croyd Crenson, which was not itself the problem. Croyd had been a valued customer for years. The problem was Croyd’s date. In a masterpiece of bad timing, Ichiko had set Croyd up with Veronica. Veronica smiled and laughed and hardly touched her plate. Fortunato knew her good mood was nothing but bullshit and heroin buzz. He was glad he had both Cordelia and Croyd to separate him from her. She’d ignored him all the way through dinner, and her hand was in Croyd’s lap enough that Croyd didn’t pay attention to much of anything else. Except Cordelia, who’d gotten his attention right away.
Croyd was looking good-thin, tanned, high cheekbones, nice smile lines. Fortunato didn’t ask how long Croyd had been awake, but he suspected it was already several days.
There was an amphetamine brightness to his eyes. When it played out he’d sleep for days or weeks and wake up with a new look and a new power.
His power this time had something to do with metals. His knife and fork kept going limp in his hands. He would concentrate and they would stiflen, up again. He and Veronica spent a lot of innuendo on the subject, and before long Cordelia had joined in.
Fortunato had eaten some of the salad and asparagus and let the rest of it go.
“Listen,” Croyd said as a white-jacketed waiter switched his dinner plate for a clean one. “Do you think you could refigure my bill to include this one too?” He had one arm around Cordelia.
“There’s a problem there,” Fortunato said. “Cordelia isn’t on the payroll. At least not yet.”
“Oh,” Croyd said. “I wouldn’t want to cut in.”
“It’s not like that,” Fortunato said. “You could say we’re sort of auditioning one another.”
Croyd looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to mistake you for… uh, a professional,” he said to Cordelia. “If you’d like to come to my place after, though, we could have a couple drinks and horse around. No strings, you understand. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you didn’t feel up to. I’ve got a hell of a stereo in this pad down by the waterfront where they don’t care how loud I play it…”
Suddenly there was a piece of cheesecake on Croyd’s plate. Fortunato didn’t know where it had come from. He glanced quickly around the room and when he looked back Croyd had added an apple cobbler and a slice of chocolate pie. Something was badly wrong. Fortunato stood up. Various aces had moved to the balcony, and through the plate-glass window he could see Peregrine and Water Lily talking, their heads close together.
He couldn’t seem to think. He leaned forward, palms on the table, and shook his head. The desserts. Where were the desserts coming from?
Think, goddammit. Pastries don’t move themselves. That means somebody’s moving them. Somebody you can’t see. Is there anybody you know of that you can’t see’.
“Shit!” The huge round table was between him and the balcony. He grabbed the edges and hurled it out of the way, Croyd lunging futilely for his desserts. He was two steps away from the glass doors when Water Lily screamed.
There was about a half second of silence and then everything went to pieces. Modular Man charged the balcony, shouting, “Get away from her!” His body began to crackle with energy. Croyd lifted his hands like he was trying to channel his power. It didn’t work. As Modular Man swept by them the radar dish inside his dome went limp and he veered off and crashed helplessly into a wall. He hit hard. The impact must have scrambled something because he began firing off smoke and tear-gas grenades.
That was when the lights went out. In the first second of darkness Fortunato heard the unmistakable sound of a trumpeting elephant.
He blinked his eyes and let what light there was come to him. In another second he could see, dimly. The air was full of noxious gases so he stopped breathing.
Water Lily was on the balcony, her back to the rail. It started to rain all around her, and in the outline left by the falling water he could see the Astronomer reaching for her.
It was Kid Dinosaur and the park all over again. He fought to get to her and his muscles strained against an invisible force that made him seem powerless. “No!” he shouted, “goddammit, no!” as Water Lily rose into the air and spun around and hurtled off the edge of the balcony into darkness.
It was reminiscent of antiwar marches. The wet handkerchief across the mouth and nose to filter out the worst effects of the tear gas. The clouds of billowing smoke eructed harsh gags, coughs and screams.
Roulette shoved someone aside, making for Tachyon. She had seen him enter, focus on the balcony, move forward, but she had lost him when the lights failed. An ace let go with a burst of flame. Shading her eyes with a hand, she scanned the crowd. Modular Man struggling to his feet, a screaming woman, and Tachyon revealed against a backdrop of drifting smoke.
Tears streamed down his face, and his chest heaved as he struggled to hold back the coughs. His chin lifted as if he was steeling himself for some ultimate effort. Radiance flared about the Astronomer’s wizened body as the blow from Tachyon’s mind tested the limits of whatever power animated him. Then Modular Man blew up.
Pieces of burnt steel and plastic shrapneled through the restaurant. One jagged chunk, still trailing a rag from the creature’s uniform, struck Tachyon full in the forehead, and he went down, his face a mask of blood.
Screams tore from her throat, and she fought her way to the alien’s side. Don’t be dead! Don’t be dead! But she was uncertain whether the mental cry arose from anguish over his loss, or anger at being cheated.
She dropped to her knees, and clutched his limp form to her breast, his blood staining the front of her white gown. Tearing the napkin from her face, she pressed it to the pumping, jagged cut. The tear gas raked at her throat and eyes, and she began to weep. Her tears rained down on Tachyon’s face, leaving pale rivulets in the blood.
Water Lily’s last scream still hung in the air. The restaurant was in complete chaos. Pieces of Modular Man spun harmlessly off Fortunato’s force field. He watched random winds tear through the room as Mistral tried to clear the smoke. Some idiot with flame throwing powers tried to light the place up but only succeeded in setting the curtains on fire. Hiram ran toward the balcony, clenching his fist, shouting, “No! No!” Entire tables floated in the air and hung there, the aces who had lifted them not sure where to throw them. Someone ran upside-down across the ceiling. The noise of smashing china was almost continuous, almost loud enough to drown the sound of vomiting.
The Astronomer turned hazily visible on the balcony and bowed toward Fortunato. Jane, Fortunato thought, would still be falling. Peregrine had turned toward the rail to go after her.
The Astronomer took her by the arm and tried to throw her to the floor.
She was clearly stronger than he realized. She gritted her teeth and went to one knee, and with her free arm she reached across and clawed for the Astronomer’s eyes. His thick glasses fell to the concrete and blood ran down his cheeks.
The Astronomer smiled. His tongue flicked out and caught a drop of his own blood. The glasses rose by themselves and settled back on his face.
Fortunato took all the power Miranda had given him and centered it at the Manipura chakra at the center of’ his abdomen. A weird groaning noise came out of his throat and he pushed the prana, the pure energy, out of him and at the Astronomer.
It shot out of Fortunato as a glowing blue-green sphere the size of a softball. Fortunato pulled his arms back, fingers spread, his eyes stretched wide open. The prana bored through the lines of power surrounding the Astronomer and turned them inside out. From concentric circles they shrank to crescents, all on the far side of his body.
The little man’s hold on Peregrine’s arm began to slip. Peregrine whirled on him, slamming one knee into his crotch and breaking his nose with the palm of her right hand. Blood spurted from the Astronomer’s face.
As soon as she was loose Peregrine dove over the side of the balcony, her wings beating furiously. The Astronomer spat at her and then turned back to Fortunato.
The little man’s eyes were dead. The same eyes Demise had, the same eyes as the dead boy in the loft. The Astronomer had become Death itself, mindless, brutal, inevitable. You can run, the eyes said, but I will find you.
And then the Astronomer was gone.