It took Jennifer nearly two nightmarish hours to make her way to the ground floor of the Empire State Building. She was afraid to use the elevators or the main staircases and had to continually ghost through ceilings, walls, and locked doors. Before long she had to rest between each phase of insubstantiality, balancing her weariness against the continual need to move on in case the federal agent was still tracking her. Kien, she realized, must have friends in very high places indeed. She wondered, not for the first time, what Yeoman’s—Brennan’s—connection with him was.
She finally made it, unobserved she thought, down to the street, where she merged with the pedestrian traffic and headed toward the corner of 43rd and Seventh, carefully keeping to the darkness and ignoring the occasional invitations to come party. The streets became more densely jammed with drinking, dope-smoking revelers as she approached Times Square, which was almost as crowded as it is on New Year’s Eve. The people milling about the streets were determined, damned determined it seemed, not to let anything get in the way of a good time. Their desperate attitude tainted the atmosphere with a taste of depression, as well as something of menace.
Maybe, Jennifer thought, it was all in her head. Maybe the hulking man in dirty leathers and plastic Dr. Tachyon mask who seemed to be following her was just an innocent fellow out to have a little fun. Maybe, but she started walking faster when she realized he was following her, and her fear increased when she saw that he kept pace behind her.
She was never so happy to see someone as when she saw Brennan waiting for her on the designated corner. She broke into a ragged run toward him, dodging immovable knots of partiers. He turned as she approached, and Jennifer faltered. She could see his anger by the taut way he held his body,.by his hard-clenched jaw and the thin line of his lips. Some of his tenseness drained away when he saw her, and was replaced by uncertainty. Some, but not all.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show up,” he said curtly.
“Why?” They spoke in low voices, even though none of the people milling around seemed to be paying them any attention.
“The Tachyon statue was smashed, scattered around the gallery. The books were gone,” he said in clipped tones. “Gone?” The astonishment in her voice and on her face softened his expression. He sighed, rubbed his chin wearily. “Kien must have gotten to them … somehow … someway.” He shook his head. “He’s a tricky bastard. His reach extends farther and into more places than you’d ever dream of.”
“It’s not possible.” Jennifer frowned and glanced sharply at Brennan, suddenly suspicious that he might have the books and was holding out on his promise to return the stamps to her.
But his shoulders were slumped, and weariness and defeat was on his face. He can’t be that good of an actor, Jennifer thought. But what possibly could have happened?
Brennan seemed to rouse himself. He straightened his shoulders, composed his features, and looked again at Jennifer. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “It looks like I have to find you some more clothes.” He frowned. “How’d you lose the ones you were wearing?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” she said, “but first let’s get some food somewhere. I’m still starved. I only had half a cracker with some chopped liver at Aces High. Why don’t we go for a late dinner somewhere? I’ll buy. I’ll tell you what went on at Aces High and you can tell me why you’re after Kien’s diary.”
Jennifer told herself she made the offer out of simple curiosity, but part of her whispered that she was rationalizing. In reality, she didn’t want Brennan to walk away from her.
He looked at her with a tight smile.
“I don’t think that’d be wise,” he began, then he lost his smile, grimaced, and swung his bowcase at Jennifer. “Duck!”
She ghosted.
A stocky man wearing a dark-blue satin jacket with a beautifully embroidered white bird on the back—a crane? Jennifer wondered—passed through her. He stumbled forward, his arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance. Brennan’s case caught him flush in the face and he went down. sighed “Egret,” Brennan snapped. “Let’s get out of here.”
He grabbed for Jennifer’s hand, started to run, stopped,sighed half to himself, and waited for her to solidify.
“Sometimes you’re difficult to cope with,” he complained. Jennifer smiled and offered him her hand. It looked like this affair wasn’t over yet. What, she wondered, is an Egret?
He took her hand and they ran.
It was impossible to make straight-line progress through the crowd. They left a trail of partiers in their wake cursing them or whistling catcalls at the sight of Jennifer’s bikini-clad form, or both.
“We’re never going to shake them at this rate,” Brennan grumbled. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a pack of men wearing dark jackets—more Egrets, Jennifer realized—pushing through the crowd after them. They were less subtle than Brennan and Jennifer and simply shoved past anyone who blocked their way. Few cared to lecture them about their boorishness. “Eight of them.” Brennan said, and his grip on Jennifer’s hand was broken as she suddenly stopped in her tracks.
“Oh no,” she said, staring.
“What is it?”
“Him.”
A man wearing a skintight white suit was coming toward them.
“Who’s that?” Brennan asked.
Jennifer shook her head. “He tried to arrest me at Aces High. Said he was a federal agent.”
“Great.” Brennan glanced around quickly. They were near a corner that was cluttered with a phone booth, mail repository, and several trash cans. “This way. Maybe he hasn’t spotted you yet.”
Jennifer and Brennan veered off to the side and the man in the battle suit called out, “Stop right there! You’re under arrest!”
Jennifer groaned, jostled a man wearing a mask with an elephant’s nose and ears-no, Jennifer realized, he wasn’t wearing a mask after all-apologized, and stepped to the curb just as a limo pulled to a screeching halt. Its doors flew open and Wvrm and half a dozen thugs leapt out.
“Christ,” Brennan swore. He let go of Jennifer’s hand and everything happened at once.
A battered vellow taxi rear-ended the limo just as Wvrm screamed, “Get her! Get him!” The taxi bumped the limo forward and the open door on the passenger’s side slammed into Wyrm. The reptilian joker went down as the Egrets burst through the onlookers surrounding the scene and tried to encircle Brennan and Jennifer. People trapped within the circle realized something heavy was about to come down and tried to get away. People outside the circle realized that something heavy was about to come down and pushed closer to watch. Billy Ray, now running toward them, screamed, “I’m a federal agent and you’re under arrest!” and the huge man in dirty leathers and plastic Tachyon mask, who was also pushing through the crowd toward Jennifer and Brennan, whirled and clubbed him to the sidewalk with a single blow from his deformed, clublike right fist.
The Egrets looked at each other uncertainly and Brennan looked at Jennifer.
“What the hell?” he asked, and kicked the nearest Egret in the stomach. The Egret went down and two others leaped at Brennan and tried, unsuccessfully, to grapple him.
Billy Ray, to the astonishment of Jennifer, the onlookers, and most especially the huge joker who had struck him down, was already getting to his feet.
“Sucker,” Ray said through clenched teeth. “I’m going to kick your ass.”
The giant growled something inarticulate as Jennifer watched Brennan take out the two Egrets who had come at him. The hack leaped out of his taxi and screamed at the man who was driving the limo as one of the Egrets got by Brennan and grabbed at Jennifer. She smiled at him and ghosted and he tried over and over again to grapple her while she shimmered insubstantially on the sidewalk. Tiring of his attentions, Jennifer grabbed a lid from one of the garbage cans by the curb, solidified, and brought the lid down hard on his head. He stared at her with hurt indignation for a moment, then his legs went rubbery and he slipped, unconscious, to the sidewalk. Some of the onlookers applauded.
The giant spoke, his voice drawing Jennifer’s attention back to him and Ray. “Fuck off, asshole.” His voice was a monstrous rasping that sounded barely human. He was awesomely intimidating, but Ray smiled back at him. Jennifer thought he looked genuinely happy.
“You’re under arrest for assaulting a federal agent.”
The big joker growled and swung his deformed right fist, but Ray had already moved. He ducked under the punch and came up throwing one of his own that caught the giant in his hard, bulging gut. All the air whooshed out of his lungs and he stumbled and went down. But he wasn’t out. He reached up as Ray tried to step by him, grabbed Ray’s leg, and yanked. Ray went down again and the giant joker rolled over him like a tsunami, pinning him to the sidewalk. He struck before Ray could move, crushing Ray’s jaw and mouth with his hammering right fist. Blood splattered everywhere. Jennifer, feeling faint, backed away, and felt herself bump into someone. Hands grabbed her waist and she whirled and found herself staring into a pair of pretty blue eyes. Eyes, and nothing else, except for tendrils that might have been nerve endings trailing off them. She suppressed an urge to scream and swung the garbage-can lid with all her strength. There was a satisfying loud thunk and the metal lid bent in her hands. The eyes disappeared, as if rolled up behind invisible eyelids; the invisible hands released her. After a moment a tall, lanky form blinked into sight, crumpled on the sidewalk. Jennifer dropped the bent garbage-can lid and backpedaled.
Three of the thugs who’d arrived in the limo with Wyrm started toward her while two others tried to help Wyrm to his feet and the other one rolled around on the street punching at and cursing out the driver of the cab that’d rear-ended them. Out of the corner of her eye Jennifer saw the joker draw back to strike Ray again, but somehow, while spitting blood and fragments of teeth, Ray reached up and caught the joker’s arm with one hand while raking across his masked face with the other. The mask came off, exposing a face that looked like a bombed-out battlefield. The man’s scar-encumbered mouth was wide open and sucking for air.
“You’re one ugly son of a bitch,” Ray mumbled through mashed lips and broken teeth. A merry light danced strangely in his eves. He twisted like an eel, jerked his leg upward, and caught the joker in the groin.
A stream of spittle ran down the joker’s chin and he howled. Ray flipped him over, straddled his chest, and pummeled the joker’s face until his fist was splashed with the joker’s blood. The joker went limp, and Ray laughed lightly and stood up. His eyes, gleaming with an uncanny light, fastened on Jennifer. She glanced at Brennan, but he was busy with the Egrets. Ray started toward her, fastidiously wiping away the blood that dripped from his smashed jaw before it could fall on his uniform, as the three thugs from the limo approached from the other side.
“You’re coming with me,” Ray said. Jennifer could barely understand his mumbled words, but she let him take her arm. “Hey, bug off, man. The chick’s ours,” one of the thugs said, and Jennifer let him take her other arm.
” I can only accompany one of you,” Jennifer said, then ghosted and stepped aside. Ray grinned fixedly and advanced on the thugs as Brennan beat down another Egret with a crushing backhanded blow. The two Egrets still on their feet exchanged glances, decided it wasn’t worth it, and beat cheeks down the sidewalk and through the crowd. Brennan turned back toward Jennifer. He wasn’t even breathing hard, although he did look baffled as he watched Ray punch out Wyrm’s thugs. Jennifer glanced at the limousine sitting in the street before them, motor running and door open.
“Come on,” she called to Brennan, and dove through the open door. He followed her into the car, pulled the door shut, and a huge birdlike form hurtled out of the sky and slammed against the windshield. It was a skinny winged joker with a crown of dirty white feathers like the crest of a scraggly cockatoo, ugly purple and red wattles hanging from his jaw. He shook his head, stunned by the impact like a sparrow that’d flown into a plate-glass window, croaked something unintelligible, and slipped off the hood into the street, tripping Ray who had just disposed of his final adversary and was leaping toward the limo. Brennan watched them fall to the pavement in a tangle of limbs. Jennifer gunned the motor as Wyrm stood up groggily. The limo sped off as the reptilian joker looked around in bewilderment.
“What happened?” he asked, but no one could really tell him.