Like some sadist's idea of the cruelest joke in the world. Sal Carbone, her one real friend, had fallen and struck his head and breathed soapy water till he died. Only five weeks ago.
"Sal, you're my soulmate," she'd told him over and over, and he'd allowed it was true. They had a rare friendship, a meeting of minds, hearts, and spirits.
Perfect for each other except for the fact that he'd been gay. The second-cruelest joke in the world.
"Water Lily."
The name snapped her back to the present. "I told you not to call me that. Only Sal called me Water Lily."
"Sal's exclusive option expired with him." The man suddenly softened again.
"Never mind, dear. Tell me, just how how much do you know about what's been happening over the last few months?"
"As much as anybody else." She reached forward shyly and picked up the cup of coffee nearest her. "I watch the news. I guess I mentioned that."
"Well, it isn't over. In the next month, this town-this country, the entire world-will see something that made what happened a few months ago look like a Bible-class picnic. Only the people we recruit stand a chance of ending up on the right side of the graveyard."
More water appeared on her face. "If you're not the police, who are you?"
The man smiled approvingly as she sipped at her coffee. "What do you know about the Masons, Jane?"
"Masons? Masons?" In spite of everything, she burst into laughter. "My father's a Mason!" She forced her giggles to subside before they became hysterics. "What do Masons have to do with anything?"
"Scottish rite."
"Pardon?" Jane's laughter wound down and faded away. The flat cold quality was back in the man's smile.
"Your father's affiliation was probably Scottish-rite. We're Egyptian. Egyptian is quite different."
Her giggles threatened to come back. "That's funny, you don't look Egyptian."
"Don't get nervy, it doesn't become you."
She glanced at the man and woman by the door. "You're the one who knows everything. I just got here." More moisture sprang out on her face and ran down her neck. "And I can't leave, can I?"
"We need you, Jane." He sounded almost kind now. She pulled a napkin off the desk and blotted her face with it. "We need you very badly. Your power could make all the difference."
"My power," she echoed thoughtfully, remembering the boy in the cafeteria five years before, tears pouring from his eyes while he screamed. He hadn't cried a bit at the news of Debbie's suicide (exsanguination from self-inflicted lacerations-medicalese for she slashed her wrists and bled to death-and, oh, yes, victim had been thirteen weeks pregnant). She'd always wondered what Debbie would have thought about what she'd done to her faithless boyfriend. Debbie had been her best friend before Sal but she never prayed to Debbie the way she prayed to Sal, as though Debbie belonged to some other universe. Maybe that was so. And maybe there was still another universe where Debbie hadn't taken her own life when the father of her baby had rejected her, and so no need for Jane to have forced the tears out of the boy's eyes, no wild card virus to have shown itself. And then maybe there was even another universe where Sal hadn't had to drown in his own bathtub, leaving her alone and so in need of someone, anyone, to trust. Maybe . . .
She looked at the man sitting in front of her. Maybe if pigs had wings, they could soar like eagles. "We need you," he'd said. Whoever we were. Egyptian Masons, whatever. How good it would be to give herself over to someone's care and know that she'd be looked after and protected.
Can you understand that, Sal? she thought at the great void. Can you understand what it's like to be completely alone with a power too big for you? They need me, Sal, that's what they say. I don't like them-and you'd hate them-but they'll look after me and I need someone to do that right now. I'm all alone, Sal, no matter where I am, and I've come here by lost ways and there's nowhere else to go. You know, Sal?
There was no answer from the great void. She found herself nodding at the handsome man. "All right. I'll stay. I mean, I know you won't let me go but I'll stay willingly."
His answering smile almost soothed her heart. "We understand the difference. Red and Kim Toy will take you to your room " He stood up and reached across the desk to take her hand. "Welcome, Jane. You're one of us now."
She drew back, putting both hands up as though she were at gunpoint. "No, I'm not," she said firmly. "I'm staying here of my own will but that's all. I'm not one of you."
That frightening coldness returned to his eyes. He let his hand drop. "All right. You're staying but you're not one of us. We understand the difference there, too."
The room they gave her was the corner of some larger area of dismal, cold stone converted into a warren of smaller rooms with prefab, plasterboard walls.
Thoughtfully, they fetched her few worldly goods from the tiny efficiency she'd rented and, also thoughtfully, they provided her with a television as well as a bed. She watched the news, looking for more footage of Jumpin' Jack Flash.
Otherwise, she occupied herself by producing small droplets of water from her fingertips and watching them distend and fall.
"Is she pretty?" asked the Astronomer, sitting in his wheelchair by the tomb of Jean d'Alluye. There was still some blood on the stone figure; the Astronomer had lately felt the need to recharge his power.
"Quite pretty." Roman took a perfunctory sip from the glass of wine and set it aside on the preacher's table nearby. The Astronomer was always offering him things-booze, drugs, women. He would take a taste out of courtesy and then set whatever it was aside. Exactly how much longer the Astronomer would allow that to go on was anyone's guess. Sooner or later he was bound to make some bizarre demand involving Roman's debasement. No one came out of association with the Astronomer unscathed. Roman's attention wandered to a shadowy area under a brick arch where the skinny blasted ruin called Demise slouched brooding, his bottomless gaze fixed on something no one else could see. In another part of the room, near one of the lantern poles, Kafka was rustling impatiently. He couldn't help rustling with that damned exoskeleton. It sounded like a multitude of cockroaches going wingcase to wingcase. Roman didn't bother trying to hide his disgust at Kafka's appearance. And Demise-well, he was beyond disgusting.
Sometimes Roman thought that even the Astronomer was ginger about Demise. But both Demise and Kafka had been through their allotted humiliations courtesy of the wild card virus, while he could only wait and see what the Astronomer had in mind for him. He hoped there'd be enough time to know which way to jump. And then there was Ellie. . . . The thought of his wife was a fist in his stomach.
No, please, no more for Ellie. He looked at the glass of wine and refused for the millionth time to succumb to the desire for anesthesia. If I go down-no, when I go down, I will go down in full possession of my faculties. . .
The Astronomer laughed suddenly. "Melodrama becomes you, Roman. It's your good looks. I could see you in some other life rescuing widows and orphans from blizzards." The laughter faded, leaving a malicious smile. "Watch yourself around that girl. You could end up a little prematurely as the dust we all are."
"I could." Roman's gaze went to the upper gallery. The Italian wood sculptures were gone now; he couldn't remember what they'd looked like. "But I won't."
"And what makes you so sure?"
"She's a white-hat. A good guy. She's a twenty-one-yearold innocent, she doesn't have murder in her soul." Belatedly, he looked at Demise, who was staring at him the way you never wanted Demise to stare at you.
Roman braced himself against a broken-off pedestal. It would be horrible but it wouldn't last long, not really. The eternity of a few seconds. At least it would put him beyond the Astronomer's reach for all time. But it also meant he wouldn't be able to help Ellie, either. I'm sorry, darling, he thought, and waited for the darkness.
A quarter of a second later, the Astronomer lifted one finger. Demise sank back into himself and resumed staring at nothing. Roman forced himself not to sigh.
"Twenty-one," mused the Astronomer, as though one of his people had not just narrowly escaped being killed by his pet murder machine. "Such a fine age.
Plenty of life and strength. Not the most level-headed age. An impulsive age.
You're sure you're not just a little bit afraid of her impulses, Roman?"
Roman couldn't resist sneaking a glance at Demise, who was no longer paying any attention. " I don't mind staking my life on someone whose heart is in the right place."
"Your life." The Astronomer chuckled. "How about something of value?"
Roman allowed himself an answering smile. "Excuse me, sir, but if my life didn't have some value to you, you'd have let Demise do me a long time ago."
The Astronomer burst into surprisingly hearty laughter. "Brains and good looks.
They're what make you so damned useful to all of us. Must be what attracted your wife to you. You think?"
Roman kept smiling. "Very likely."
Her dreams were full of strange pictures, things she'd never seen before. They troubled her sleep, passing through her head with an urgency that felt directed and reminded her of Roman's impassioned pleas for her to join them. Whoever they were. Egyptian Masons. Her dreams told her all about them. And the Astronomer.
The Astronomer. A little man, shorter than she was, bone thin, head too large.
What Sal would have called bad-ass eyes while making that sign with his hand, the index and little fingers thrust out like horns, the middle two curled over his palm, some kind of Italian thing. Sal's face floated through her dreams briefly and was swept away.
She saw the entrance of some kind of church-no, a temple, definitely not a church. She saw it .but she wasn't there, couldn't have been there; this was a time before she'd been born. Her disembodied presence scanned a nighttime street and then floated up the temple steps past the man on the door who seemed to be frozen. She had a glimpse of a great room aglow with candles, two columns, and a man on a platform, wearing'some kind of gaudy red and white thing over his front, just before the screams began.
Not just screams but screams, SCREAMS, ripped from the throat of a soul gone forfeit. The sound stabbed into her. There was time for her point of view to swing around cameralike so she could see it was the little man screaming, the Astronomer, staggering into the hall. Then there was a fast jumble of pictures, a jackal face, a hawk's head, another man, his wide face pale; light glinting off the little man's glasses and then some kind of a thing, a creature-thing-slime-massdamned-thing-thing-thing.
She found herself sitting up in bed, her arms thrown up in front of her face.
"TIAMAT." Unbidden, the word came to her, and unwanted it hung there in the darkness. She rubbed her face with both hands and lay down again.
The dream returned immediately, dragging her under with horrible strength. The little man with the enormous head was smiling at her-no, not at her, she wasn't there and she was glad; she didn't ever want anyone to smile at her that way.
Her point of view drew back and she saw that he was now standing on the platform, and around him she saw several figures-Roman, the red man, and the oriental woman, a thin wreck of a man with the feel of death about him, a woman with regret so etched into her features that it hurt to look at her (somehow she knew the woman was a nurse), a young albino man with a prematurely old face, a creature male, she thought-that might have been an anthropomorphic cockroach.
There but for the grace of God, she thought.
God is still out on coffee break, little girl. She was looking into the face of the man who had brought her here, the one they called Judas. He was the only one who could see her. It's just the luck of the draw, babe, and you were lucky. And so was I. Blackjack!
Everything went dark. There was a sensation of incredibly fast movement.
Something was propelling her toward a tiny point of light far ahead in the blackness.
And then suddenly she was there; the light swelled from a pinpoint to a fiery mass and she hit going full-out at the speed of thought. The light shattered and she was tumbling softly on the mossy floor of a forest. She rolled over once and came to rest gently at the base of a large tree.
Well, she thought, this is more like it. I must have missed the White Rabbit, but the Mad Hatter ought to be around here somewhere. She shifted position and found she had to grab hold of a large root to keep from floating away.
Look, whispered a voice very close to her ear. She turned her head, her hair floating around her as though she were underwater, but she saw no one. Look.
Look! Look and you'll see them!
A puff of mist blew between two larches in front of her and disintegrated, leaving behind a man dressed in the height of eighteenth-century finery. His face was aristocratic, his eyes so piercing that she caught her breath as his gaze rested on her. But she had nothing to fear. He turned; the air beside him shimmered and a strange machine melted into existence. She blinked several times, trying to see it clearly, but the angles refused to resolve themselves.
Try as she would, she couldn't tell whether it was large and sharp-cornered or small and molded, sculpted in marble or nailed together with wood and rags.
Something glimmered and detached itself from the machine. She marveled; a part of it had just gotten up and walked away.
No. What she thought was part of the machine was a living being. She wanted to pull her gaze away just for a moment but she couldn't. It wouldn't let her.
Alien. Reminiscent of certain other aliens she'd seen on the news in the attack.
Jumpin' Jack Flash. The thought was neatly shoved aside.
The alien turned to the man and stretched out an arm, or some appendage. Now it began to look more like living matter than part of a machine. The alien smoothed into something roughly bipedal though it seemed to be holding the form only by sheer will-the ergotic hypothesis (where had that come from?). The appendage touched the machine and melted into it. A moment later something protruded from the side near the man. He took hold of it and very carefully removed it. The alien sank a little, diminished. She realized it had expended a great deal of its life-force to give the man-what?
The man held the thing to his lips, his forehead, and then lifted it high overhead. Briefly, it took on the form of a human bone, a club, a gun, then something else.
Shakti, whispered the voice. Remember this. The Shakti device.
I'll never forget it, she thought. The floating feeling was starting to leave her and she grew afraid.
Now, look. Look up.
Unwillingly, she raised her head and looked up at the sky. Her vision shot up, racing through the sunlight, through the blue, through clouds, until it left the Earth entirely and she was looking at the naked stars. The stars dispersed before her until she was staring into the blackness of space, and still her vision was traveling.
Something was there ahead of her, invisible in the blackness. Something . . . it was so far away she could not begin to conceive of the distance. It was on its way to Earth. It had been this far away in 1777, when that man (Cagliostro, said her mind and she didn't wonder how she knew) had accepted the thing-Shakti-from the alien and then-and then-went on to perform many feats seen as miraculous including mind reading, levitation, transubstantiation, amazing all those in the courts of Europe while passionately recruiting for the Egyptian Freemasons . .
She struggled to absorb the information pouring into her from the dream. Not that it mattered, because when she woke up she wouldn't remember any of it. That was the way it was with dreams. Wasn't it?
...because he wanted an organization that would keep the Shakti device safe and hand it down from generation to generation, to only the most trusted people, until its mysteries could be unlocked and completed, when it would be needed for the arrival on Earth of--Something writhed in the darkness ahead of her. Or perhaps the darkness itself was writhing in agony at having to contain this thing, this--for the arrival on Earth of--
It burst upon her without warning or mercy, far worse than it had been when she touched it in the Astronomer's mind. It was the gathering, the congealing, of the highest, lowest, most developed, polished, and refined forms of evil in the universe, evil that made the greatest human atrocities seem petty by comparison, evil she could not understand except with her gut, evil that had been rushing toward this world for thousands of years, swallowing anything in its path, evil that would be arriving any day now, any day.
TIAMAT.
She woke up screaming. Hands were on her and she fought them, twisting, striking out. Water poured over her, thickening the air, soaking the bed and the rug.
"Sh, sh, it's all right," said a voice. Not the voice from her dream but a female voice. The oriental woman Kim Toy was there, trying to soothe her as though she were a delirious child. A light went on; Kim Toy enfolded her in a calming embrace. She let herself be held and willed the water flowing over both of them to stop.
"I'm okay," she said when she could speak. Her wet hair dripped into her eyes, mixing with her tears. The whole bed was drenched, but she saw with a little relief that she had spared the rest of the room.
"You were screaming," Kim Toy said. "I thought someone was killing you."
TIAMAT "I had a nightmare."
Kim Toy stroked her wet hair gently. "A nightmare?"
"I dreamt someone threw a bucket of worms in my face."
The Astronomer roared with laughter. "Oh, she's excellent, she really is excellent!"
The albino sitting on the floor next to the wheelchair looked up at him imploringly.
"Was it a good dream, then?"
"Oh, yes, the dream was excellent, too." The Astronomer petted the white hair.
"You did it just right, Revenant." The man smiled, the prematurely aged skin around his pink eyes crinkling with pathetic joy.
"Roman."
Across the shadowy room, Roman looked up from the computer display terminal.
"We'll give her just a little more time for the horror to sink in before you introduce her to the rest of our little confederation. And keep Kim Toy mothering her."
Roman nodded, glancing surreptitiously at the computer terminal.
"Tomorrow night again, Revenant," the Astronomer said to the albino. "You'll do it once more. I want her to wake up screaming for the next two nights."
The pink eyes lowered with shame.
"Now, now. You know you're better off than before, when you were selling perverts wet dreams at ten bucks a crack. If you'll pardon the expression." The Astronomer chuckled.
"You're one of my most useful aces. Now, go get some rest yourself. "
As soon as the albino disappeared down a darkened gallery, the Astronomer sagged in his wheelchair. "Demise." Demise was at his side instantly.
"Yes, Demise. We both need it now, don't we? Call for the car. "
Roman remained at the computer terminal as Demise wheeled the Astronomer out.
Going out to find some poor streetwalking scumbag who didn't know this would be her last date. He refused to think about it. He would not feel sorry for any of them, he would not. All of them-Revenant, Kim Toy, Red, Judas, John F X. Black, Coleman Hubbard (oh, hadn't that been a piece of work, the Astronomer's big ace in the hole, one-zero-zero-one), even that little piece of innocence Jane Water Lily-they were all the same, every one of them. Pawns in the Astronomer's game.
Himself, too, but only for Ellie's sake, to try to protect her.
ELLIE, he typed, the letters glowing on the monitor. I LOVE YOU.
The words I LOVE YOU, Too flashed briefly on the screen before they were replaced by INVALID ENTRY, NULL PROGRAM.
Somewhere else in town, Fortunato woke, shuddering, his face covered with cold sweat.
"Easy. Easy, baby." Michelle's voice was gentle, her hands soft and warm.
"Michelle's got you. I'm here, honey, I'm here." Fortunato allowed her to gather him into her arms and press his face to her perfect breasts.
"It's those dreams again, isn't it? Don't worry. I'm here." He nuzzled her, stroking the warm flesh and willing her to sleep. Then he slipped out of her embrace and locked himself in the elegant bathroom.
Once you were in, you were in. What was learned could not be unlearned.
Knowledge was power, and power could trap.
He would have to call Tachyon; better, go down to the Village and wake him up.
Eileen.
Fortunato clenched his eyes shut until the thought of her had passed. He should have let Tachyon give him something for that, some kind of forgetfulness drug so he wouldn't keep stumbling over her in his mind, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to do it. Because then she really would be gone. He splashed water on his face and paused in the act of blotting it with a towel, staring at himself in the mirror. For half a second, he had seen another face covered with water; young, female, wide green eyes, dark reddish hair, very pretty, a stranger to him, calling for help. Not calling to him, specifically, but calling without a hope in hell of answer. Praying. Then the face was gone and he was alone with his reflection.
He pressed his face into the towel. One of a soft, luxurious set that Michelle had bought. When she'd brought them home, they had rubbed them all over each other and made love.
Kundalini. Feel the power.
(Lenore. Erika. Eileen. All lost to him.) He went out to Michelle.
Jane accepted the steaming cup of green tea from Kim Toy and sipped at it delicately. "Here's to the second night in a row of no nightmares," she said with a weak smile. "I hope."
Kim Toy's answering smile was less than hearty. The girl should have been a quivering mound of jelly after the dreams the Astronomer had sent her, and that was barely a taste of TIAMAT Real contact would have driven her permanently mad.
But here she was, the fragile little innocent, drinking tea and getting her color back. She was made of sterner stuff than any of them had given her credit for. It was always the innocent ones you had to watch, Kim Toy thought wryly.
Their strength was as the strength of ten because their hearts were pure and their sincerity made them lethal. She wondered if twisted-up old pervos like the Astronomer had any inkling or whether he was so far removed from anything even remotely resembling innocence that he couldn't even conceive of such a thing.
When she thought about the way the Astronomer recharged his power, yeah, she could allow that was entirely possible. What would a sick old fuck like that know about innocence?
And he was going to own the world. Sure.
But she did believe that. She was unshakable on that. Had been unshakable on that. No, still was. Wasn't she? And who was she calling a sick old fuck, anyway? What was it when you scrambled a man's brains to make him fall in love with you, and then, when he'd served his purpose, you turned it up from scramble to liquify, and the same people who dumped the bodies for the Astronomer dumped that one, too. She looked at Jane. It was no wonder she preferred the company of women if she couldn't be with Red.
Jane reached over and pressed the On button of the remote control. The TV screen flickered to life. "I watched Peregrine's Perch last night and I didn't have the dreams," she said, a bit sheepishly. "Now it's made me superstitious. I feel like I have to watch it to keep the nightmares away. Even if its a re-run."
Kim Toy nodded. "You and about a billion other people."
"Sal adored talk shows. Especially Peregrine's Perch. He said he watched because he was dying to see how they'd work around those wings each night." She paused as a commercial gave way to the stunning features of Peregrine herself. "Sal said they never disappointed him." ,
"Who?"
"Her wardrobe department."
"Oh." Kim Toy fell silent and dutifully watched the program with the girl. Half an hour into the show, a picture of a handsome red-haired man with russet eyes and a lean, sculpted face appeared on the screen, causing Jane to leap out of her chair.
"There he is!" She knelt down close to the TV "Jumpin' Jack Flash. I followed all the news stories about him. He's one of my heroes."
Kim Toy turned up the sound. The man's face vanished and was replaced by the talk-show set where Peregrine was interviewing an expensively dressed woman holding an even more-expensive-looking camera.
"I think you've captured the spirit of Jumpin' Jack Flash exactly," Peregrine was saying. "That couldn't have been easy."
"Well, it was all the more difficult because it was a candid shot," the other woman said. "Believe it or not, I was just lucky, being in the right place at the right time. J. J. didn't know I was taking that picture, although he later gave permission for its use."
"J. J. ?" said Peregrine.
The photographer looked down demurely. "That's what his intimates call him."
"I'll bet," Kim Toy muttered. "What?" said Jane.
"His ìntimates.' Gimme a break. He probably tells all the women he sleeps with to call him J.J., just so he can keep track. It's easier than remembering their names, and far less trouble than notching their ears, or having them all rounded up and branded."
Jane looked a little hurt. One of her heroes, right. Kim Toy shook her head. At her age, the girl was overdue to learn that certain heroes had-well, not dicks of clay, but certainly hyperactive ones.
Like your heroes, madam? Like the Astronomer, maybe? Kim Toy shoved the thought away and forced herself to concentrate on the interview. The photographer apparently specialized in photographing aces. More pictures flashed on the screen; to Jane's delight, Jumpin' Jack Flash reappeared several times in between shots of Modular Man, Dr. Tachyon, the shell of the Great and Powerful Turtle, Starshine, and Peregrine herself.
"Too bad she can't take your picture," Kim Toy said as the segment ended and the show went to another commercial. Jane shrugged. "I'm a joker."
"You're starting to get on my nerves."
"But the joke's on me. One of the two people who meant the most to me drowned; the other bled to death." She turned away from the TV "Yeah, the joke's definitely on me and it isn't a bit funny."
Kim Toy was about to answer when something shimmered in the air to the right of the TV set. Both women were very still as the image of the Astronomer congealed out of the shadows. "Kim Toy. Jane. I wish to see you."
There was no need to answer. Kim Toy remained at a sort of attention, hoping her annoyance didn't show. Cheap theatrics for Jane's benefit. The Astronomer must have thought she was one hell of a hot ticket to go this far to impress her. He could have conserved his energy and sent Red to fetch them.
Dr. Tachyon still looked his stylish best, even on the downside of midnight. "I knew he had some aces up there. But the machine you describe from the dreams-well, it does exist and it's very old by your standards." His eyes narrowed as he studied Fortunato's swollen forehead. "Rather unusual for you to have an out-of-body experience spontaneously, isn't it?"
Fortunato turned away from Tachyon (goddamn faggot, just what we need, faggots from space) and stared out the window in the direction of the Cloisters. "I just came here to tell you. There's a hell of a lot of power massing up there. It called me. Power calls to power."
"Indeed," murmured Tachyon. Faggots from space. Fortunato would never love him, but he had never seen the tall, exotic Earthman in such an openly emotional state before.
"They're calling to that thing out there. TIAMAT The whole organization has existed for centuries just for the purpose of bringing that horror down on us."
Tachyon's sigh was heavy. Suddenly he felt very tired. Forty years of one horror and another, he was entitled to feel fatigued. He knew Fortunato, standing in his elegant living room with his bulging forehead and the power practically crackling in the air, wouldn't have agreed with him. Power calls to power? Oh, what he could have told them about that, Tachyon thought. And if he could have stepped back far enough to see the grand design of the universe, what he might have learned himself about his own people and the Wild Card Day and the approach of TIAMAT or the Swarm or whatever it was. Maybe there was a true grand design to the universe; or maybe it was just the wild card powers calling the Swarm. Of course, that would mean the virus had called the Swarm before the virus had even existed, but Tachyon was accustomed to dealing with the absurdities of space and time. Not that any of it mattered anyway. He looked at Fortunato, who was energized with kundalini and impatience. The time for agonizing was long, long past; now was the time for doing, for doing as much as he could and not a bit less. To atone, perhaps, for a time when he might have done more, but had failed.
When he had failed Blythe.
After so many years, the sense of loss had not abated. It wouldn't stay hidden at the bottom of a bottle, it couldn't be obscured by an unending parade of the finest lovers. Only the work he did at the clinic ever seemed to give him some kind of comfort, inadequate but better than nothing at all.
His gaze met Fortunato's and he recognized the look in the other man's eyes.
"Power calls to power and sorrow to sorrow." He gave Fortunato the barest of smiles. "We have all lost something precious to us in this battle against horror. But still we must go on, go on and turn back the darkness. If we can."
Fortunato didn't return the smile. Everything seemed to call for one of his goddamn fucking faggot speeches. "Yeah, sure," he said roughly, turning away.
"Go up there and kick some ass, you and me and what army?"
Tachyon reached for the telephone. "We'll have to call them out."
The cop actually threw a net over him. It was so startling that he reverted to human form, bruising elbows and knees and scraping his flesh as he rolled over and over on the sidewalk. The cop was laughing even as he pulled his gun out and stuck it through the net.
"Don't get any ideas about changing back," said the cop, "or I'll have to put you out of your misery. Jesus, wait till they check your action up to the Cloisters. I can hardly believe it myself."
He shivered in the net, unable to take his eyes of the barrel of the pistol. The cop really would shoot him, he didn't doubt it. Silently, he cursed himself for not being content with simply sailing over the city enjoying the lights and scaring the piss out of the occasional rooftop couple. How many people could say they'd been buzzed by a pterodactyl-lately?
The cop bundled him into the back of his car and drove through town, still snickering. "I don't know what the Astronomer'll want to do about you, but you'll probably amuse the hell out of him. You make the smallest tyrannosaurus that ever was."
"Ornithosuchus," he murmured, swallowing hard. Another dinosaur-illiterate with a gun. He wasn't sure what to be more afraid of-the gun, this Astronomer guy, or his own father, who would shortly discover he wasn't up in his room asleep. He was only thirteen and he wasn't supposed to be out this late on a school night, especially in the form of a fastrunning flesh-eater of the Triassic period.
"Come here, my dear. So I can see you better."
Jane hesitated. The aura of evil that her dreams had hinted at was too definitely present around the old man in the wheelchair. Moisture began to bead lightly on her face and neck. She looked to Kim Toy but the woman's attention was on the Astronomer, just like everyone else's in the great hall. Whoever they all were. Masons. She recognized the man who'd brought her in-Judas, Roman had called him. Roman was seated at a computer terminal off to one side, near a low brick wall that seemed to have been attacked with a pickax. Spray-painted on it in metallic gold was the legend EAT ME.
"You have a great power, my dear," the old man said. "One that would be greatly useful for the visitor bearing down on us from the stars. TIAMAT" He paused, waiting for her reaction. She stood uncomfortably under his gaze. The extra illumination they had brought in and tacked up so carelessly had only made the shadows at the far corners that much darker. She had a sense of horrible things waiting there for a signal from this Astronomer to crawl out and devour her. EAT
ME. She put one elbow in her fist, pressing the other hand against her mouth so she wouldn't start laughing and never stop.
"Are you familiar with that name? TIAMAT?" prodded the Astronomer. Jane pressed her hand tighter against her mouth and shrugged awkwardly.
"Well." The old man leaned forward slightly. "It would be helpful if we could have a demonstration of your power. Aside from what you did on the street with the fire hydrant." He squinted at her. "Or are you doing it now, my dear?"
"Oh, really subtle," said the bleakly thin man standing at the Astronomer's right. His eyes made Jane think of tombstones. "Just what we need, an ace whose big power is heavy sweating. World domination, here we come."
The Astronomer chuckled and Jane thought it was the most evil sound she'd ever heard. "Now, now. We all know she's capable of much greater feats. Aren't you.
Yes. For instance, you could conceivably remove all the water from a body, leaving-well, not much." He gestured at the rest of the people and chuckled again at the look on her face. "No, I thought not. The only one you might care to use it on right now is myself, and I'm immune." He nodded to Red, who vanished under one of the brick arches. A few moments later, he reappeared, guiding two men who were pushing a cage on wheels into the middle of the room.
Jane blinked several times, unable to believe her eyes in the bad light.
There was a dinosaur in the cage. A Tyrannosaurus rex, all of three feet high.
As she watched, it bared its ferocious-looking teeth and ran back and forth behind the bars' its little forearms cuddled up close to its scaly body. One dark reptilian eye regarded Jane with a glitter of intelligence.
"Vicious creature," said the Astronomer. "If I were to let it out, it could snap your leg off in one bite. Kill it. Withdraw all the water from its body."
Jane lowered her arms, her hands still curled into fists. "Oh, come now."
Another of those evil chuckles. "Don't tell me your heart is touched by every stray dinosaur that comes along."
"There's someone in there," she said. "You want a sample of my power? Here's a close-up!"
Something almost happened. She had focused on an area just in front of the Astronomer's face, intending to dash a gallon of water into his eyes. The air blurred momentarily and then cleared. The old man threw back his head and roared with laughter. "You were right, Roman, she breaks out with bravado at the oddest moments! I told you, my excellent dear, that your power won't work if I don't want it to. No matter how much power you have, I have more. Isn't that right, Demise?"
The skinny man stepped forward, ready to obey some order. The Astronomer shook his head. "There's another waiting for us, much more receptive. She won't try to throw a bucket of water in our faces."
Jane wiped her own face without effect. Water was beginning to pool around her feet. The Astronomer watched her, unmoved. "To have real power is to be able to use it, to be able to do certain things, no matter how awful you may find them.
There is more power than you can imagine in being able to do such things, or in being able to make someone do them." He gestured at the cage. Jane followed the movement and then had to clap both hands over her mouth to keep from crying out.
The tyrannosaur had been replaced by a boy no more than twelve or thirteen years old, with sandy brown hair, gray-blue eyes, and a small pink birthmark on his forehead. He would have been startling enough, except that he was also completely naked. He crouched at the bars, doing his best to cover himself.
"There is no more time to try to court you, my dear," said the Astronomer, and all pretense of kindliness was gone from his voice. "TIAMAT is very close now and I cannot waste even a moment trying to lure you in with us. It's too bad; your killing a child even in the guise of a dangerous dinosaur would have bound you over to us, traumatically but completely. If I had but a few more weeks, you would have been ours painlessly. Now it's a matter of choosing between your life and your brave little ethics. You have as much time to decide as it takes for me to cross this room. I have no doubt which you'll choose. May your ethics sustain you in the next life. If there is one." He gestured at the skinny man. "Demise-"
Several things happened at once. The cockroach-man stepped forward with a loud rustling sound and shouted "No!" just as water splashed into Demise's face forcefully enough to knock him over and then another voice, incredibly loud, bellowed, "THIS IS THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TURTLE! YOU WILL ALL COME OUT
PEACEFULLY, WE HAVE THIS PLACE SURROUNDED AND NO ONE NEEDS TO GET HURT!" And then, impossibly, Jane thought she heard something that sounded like the old theme from the Mighty Mouse cartoons: Here I come to save the daaaaaaaay! This was followed by an ungodly caterwauling that went from extreme bass to an earsplitting high, shaking the entire building. There was a crash as the cage topped to the floor, spilling the boy out. Jane fought to keep her balance and reach the boy in the general chaos of people trying to run in every direction.
He turned into another dinosaur barely two feet high, this one very slender and agile-looking, with slim, clawed fingers. She forced herself to grab the fingers as it scuttled over to her.
"We've got to get out of here!" she said breathlessly and more than a little unnecessarily, and looked around. Demise and the Astronomer had vanished. The little dinosaur pulled her across the room and into a shadowy gallery under the archways. Holding hands with a dinosaur, she thought as they fled down the gallery. Only in New York.
She didn't notice Kafka struggling after them.
It was really a hell of a beautiful sight, the Great and Powerful Turtle said later. Aces of every variety rising up out of the trees around the Cloisters, swooping down on the Masons that spilled out of the building onto the brick paths and into the ruined gardens. He had seen just about everything during the battle. One of the things he missed, however, was Jane and the boy-dinosaur creeping along part of a columned arcade surrounding an outdoor area now overgrown with weeds. They saw the Turtle sailing overhead with several colorfully costumed aces clinging to his shell. One of the aces pointed down at something; in the next moment, he was floating gently to earth, lowered by the Turtle's power. Jane heard the little dinosaur hiss alarmingly. When she turned to see what was the matter, he had changed back into a boy, his nudity covered by shadows.
"That's the Turtle!" he whispered to Jane. "If we could just get his attention, he could get you out of here!"
"What about you?"
For answer, he reverted to dinosaur again, this one wellmuscled and almost as ferocious-looking as the tyrannosaur. It looked vaguely familiar to Jane, who couldn't tell a crocodile from an alligator. She tried to remember the name. An Alicesomething-or-other. Alice or perhaps alas, for as mean-looking as it was, it was also no bigger than a German shepherd. It growled and pushed her along with its three-clawed hands, hustling her onto the stone path surrounding the weed-choked garden. There was another one of those grotesque howls; Jane felt it shudder clear through her and the little dinosaurallosaurus, she remembered suddenly, for no reason-roared in response, clawing at its head painfully. She bent, meaning to embrace it or comfort it, when there was a flurry of feathers, a glint of metal, and then an extraordinarily beautiful woman lit on a low marble wall.
"Peregrine!" Jane breathed.
The allosaurus made a small, excited sound, looking the winged woman over with wild eyes.
"Better get out," Peregrine said good-naturedly. "The Howler is going to shout this place down. Can you manage, you and your, uh, pet lizard there?"
"It's a boy. I mean, he's really a little boy, an ace-" The allosaurus bellowed, either in agreement or in protest at being called a little boy.
"Vicious, really vicious." Peregrine smiled at Jane as she launched herself upward, her great wings beating the air.
"Best you get out now. I mean it," she called and soared away, the famed titanium talons up and ready.
Jane and the allosaurus ran around the ruined garden and tore down another arcade. She heard the little dinosaur fall behind, and paused, squinting in the darkness. "What's wrong?"
She could just make out a human silhouette. "Gotta change. Need a fast runner, I'm getting tired. Hypsilophodon's better than an allosaurus for running."
A moment later she felt long claws grab her gently and tug her along. This one was about the size of a large kangaroo. "I don't think we're going the right way to get out of here," she huffed as they came to a dimly lit area and a staircase leading down. The dinosaur melted into boy briefly before he reshaped as a pterodactyl and glided down the stairs. IJane could only gallop after him. At the foot of the stairs, the pterodactyl suddenly swooped around and came back toward her. Reflexively, she ducked, stumbled, and hit the bottom just in time to come face to face with a man even handsomer than Roman. He wore a navy-blue jumpsuit and a tight-fitting skullcap and there were guns seemingly attached directly to his shoulders.
"Hi," he said. "Didn't I see you at the ape-escape?" Jane blinked, shaking her head dazedly. "What-I don't-" And then, as the man's guns swung up to track the pterodactyl circling around them, "No! He's just a little boy, he's a good guy!"
"Oh, all right, then," said the man, smiling at her. "You two better get going."
Jane ran past him, the pterodactyl gliding over her head. "Are you sure I didn't see you at the ape-escape?" he called after her.
She wouldn't have had the breath to answer him even if she'd wanted to. The pterodactyl sailed ahead of her as she felt her legs beginning to weaken.
Panting, she stumbled along, watching as the gap between herself and the pterodactyl began to widen.
The pterodactyl banked sharply to round a corner in the hall and disappeared.
Half a moment later there was a flash of blue light, a screech, and .a thump.
Jane thudded to a stop, hanging onto the stone wall. Please, she prayed. Not the little boy. Don't let them hurt the little boy and they can do anything they want with me. She forced herself to move forward, holding the wall for support, and peeked around the corner.
He had changed-back into a boy again when he'd hit the floor, but she could see his bare chest rising and falling as he breathed. The roach-man was standing over him with a nastylooking weapon that looked like a stinger.
"I had to stop him," the roach-man said, looking up at her. "He's not really hurt, though. He'll come out of it in a few minutes. Honest. I need your help."
He held out his free hand to Jane. She took a step forward. The face was inhuman but the eyes were not. Just before she would have taken his hand, he snatched it back.
"I meant that just as a gesture. Don't touch me. Rouse him and come with me."
Jane knelt beside the unconscious boy.
Judas stood by the tomb with his hands over his ears, unable to clear his head long enough to decide what he should do. Every time he tried to think, another one of those awful howls would shiver through him. He swore his ears were bleeding.
The chaos was beyond believable. The Astronomer's people had been running in and out of the large room like the bunch of chickenshit losers they all really were.
He'd known they were all chickenshits in the beginning, he'd been a cop long enough to recognize the breed. It was enough to make a person want to change sides and start wiping them out himself, and maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, what with aces storming the place; sure, he had his badge, he had his gun, he could claim he'd been undercover, who would bother checking, at least for tonight. Sure.
He looked around and saw Red and Kim Toy making their way toward one of the darkened galleries, searching for a way out. Might as well start with them as anyone else, he thought, and drew his gun.
"Halt! Halt or I'll shoot!"
Kim Toy's head snapped around, her long straight dark hair flying with the movement.
Judas switched his aim from her face to Red's. "I told you not to move!"
Red threw a hand up in front of his head as Judas was about to pull the trigger and then, suddenly, he was in love. Birds were singing, making nests in his brain, and the whole world was beautiful, especially Kim Toy, most exciting and exotic of women. He flung his gun away and staggered toward her, loving her too much to feel hurt when she fled from him with Red.
His ears really were bleeding now but he no longer cared enough to notice.
Like all the rooms in this place, this one reminded her of a chapel. She could see where an altar or a baptismal font might have stood; that place was now occupied by a machine.
"You've seen this in a dream," Kafka said to Jane, putting a hand on one of the machine's impossible angles. Jane had to look away-the craziness of the outline was threatening to tie her vision in knots. She stared at the more-prosaic form of a nearby computer housing with a large monitor sitting dark and silent on top of it.
"The Shakti device," she said.
"Yes. The Shakti device." He winced as another one of those awful howls tore through the building. "Tonight we may all die, but this must be protected."
Jane's mouth twisted with distaste. "That TIAMAT creature-"
"Our only chance . . ."
There was a rustle as the dinosaur-boy--Kid Dinosaur, he'd told her-wrapped a sheet from Kafka's cot more tightly around himself. She'd asked him to stay in human form so she could talk with him and reluctantly he'd agreed, provided the roach-man would give him something to cover himself with. "I don't know how much you think you can trust this guy," the boy said, "but I sure wouldn't."
Steps thudded in the hall outside and Roman raced in, wild-eyed. "The computer housing-is it all right?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved Kafka aside, scrambling madly for the computer. "Ellie! I'm here, Ellie, I'm here!" Kafka went to him. "Where's the Astronomer?"
"Fuck him," Roman said and pushed Kafka away. "Fuck him and fuck all of you!"
Another howl shook the building and they both fell against the computer together. One of the panels came off in Roman's hands, exposing part of the computer's circuitry.
"Holy shit!" said the boy. "Gross me out!"
Even in the bad light, Jane could see the circuitry pulsing, could see the texture of the boards and the moistness there, the living flesh mixed with the hard, dead machinery.
Or had the flesh itself hardened?-Jane put a hand over her eyes, feeling sick.
"Water Lily!"
Kafka's warning came just as she felt the hands on her from behind. They spun her around and she was staring into the tombstone gaze of Demise. She put her hands on his shoulders, and for one absurd moment it was as though they were embracing.
"Are you afraid to die?" he asked her.
In such extremity, she did not find his question out of place. "Yes," she said simply.
Something in his face changed and his grip loosened slowly.
"Water Lily!" Kafka cried again, his voice filled with despair. But she remained standing, remained alive, putting one hand on Demise's gaunt face. He recoiled from her touch. "It hurts, doesn't it?"
"Everything hurts," he said roughly and shoved her away from him. She sprawled on the floor near Kafka's machine and started to get up again just as a thick, stained-glass window exploded inward, spraying the room with multicolored shards. She covered her head with both arms, diving for the floor; a long flame roared across the room, scorching wood and stone. She heard someone scream.
There was a rustling sound as Kafka crawled across the floor to her and tried to urge her closer to the machine.
"The only thing," he panted. Another howl shook them like an earthquake. ". . .
TIAMAT . . . protect . . . need your help for TIAMAT's-"
He was torn away from her; she heard him shriek at the contact. Then someone pulled her to her feet and she saw Kafka fall backward from a kick to the head.
"Nooooo!" she screamed. "Don't hurt him, don't!-" She had seen those russet eyes a thousand times, most recently tonight. Her mouth worked but she couldn't make a sound. The russet eyes crinkled with a quick smile before they thrust her to one side.
"Stand back, honey, I don't want to mix you up with the french fries." He turned and began to point at Kafka and the Shakti device and the boy, who had turned back into a dinosaur, a stegosaurus this time, and was all too obviously in the line of fire. Jane fought for her voice and the right words and came up with possibly the only thing that could have stopped him from making one big cinder of them all.
"J.J., don't!"
Jumpin' Jack Flash turned back to her, his mouth dropping open with surprise.
A moment later, he was even more surprised to see that she was covered with water.
Fortunato had been running in and out of every room and gallery and alcove he could find, searching for aces or anyone else, the faggot from space hot on his heels. So far, they'd only found some clown crawling around on a stone floor with blood running out his ears. The space faggot had wanted to stop and examine him but Fortunato had fixed that. This wasn't the clinic at noon, he'd said, and had dragged the space faggot away by the fancy collar of his faggot coat-faggot, yeah, sure, man, let's talk faggot, call your man Crowley a faggot, and while we're at it, how was it you raised that boy from the dead, speaking of faggots-he shut the flow of thoughts off firmly as he ran down a narrow hall.
"Fortunato-where-what are you-trying to do?" huffed Tachyon.
"I feel him," Fortunato said over his shoulder. "Feel who?"
"He did Eileen. And Balsam. And a lot of others-" he staggered as the Howler gave another one of those long, horrible screams. Tachyon stumbled into him and the two of them nearly fell. "Shit, I wish he'd shut the fuck up," Fortunato muttered. He stopped suddenly and grabbed Tachyon by his faggot coat-front.
"Listen, you stand back. He's all mine, understand that?"
Tachyon looked up at Fortunato's swollen forehead, his dark, angry eyes. Then he pried Fortunato's hands off himself. "I've never seen you like this before."
"Yeah, well, you ain't seen shit yet," Fortunato growled, and kept going, with the space faggot tagging after him.
For several long moments, it seemed as though nobody knew what to do. Roman had gotten to his feet and was shielding the exposed computer with his body. Kafka had scuttled over to the Shakti machine; the little stegosaurus was looking from side to side. Even Jumpin' Jack Flash seemed to be frozen, looking from Jane to the strange machine and Kafka, to Roman and back to Jane.
Then he turned away from her and time started again and he was stretching an arm out toward Kafka's machine. "Not him," Jane said desperately, and reached for him just as Demise said, almost too soft to hear, "Hey. You." Before Jumpin'
Jack Flash could react, the stegosaurus twinkled to the form of a naked boy and then to a tyrannosaur, and launched himself across the room to bury his teeth in Demise's thigh. Demise screamed and fell backward, wrestling with the tyrannosaur. Kafka started to shout; there was a swirl of light, a glimmering, and the Astronomer was standing in the middle of the room. His head was something out of a nightmare now-he had a strange curved snout, rectangular ears, and slanting eyes, but Jane knew it was the Astronomer. She heard Kafka say "The god Setekh!" with either fear or relief. The Astronomer smiled at Jane and she saw blood smeared on his teeth and lips. No wheelchair now; he seemed to be filled with vitality and strength. As though to confirm her thoughts, he suddenly rose five feet in the air.
Jumpin' Jack Flash took a step back, lifted both hands, and then looked puzzled.
The Astronomer wagged a finger at him as though he were a naughty child, and turned his attention to Demise, who was still rolling around on the floor with the tyrannosaur. A moment later, the tyrannosaur was a naked boy again.
"Aw, shit!" the boy yelled, and squirmed out of Demise's grasp, fighting to get to the door. Just as he reached it, a tall black man with a bulging forehead appeared at the threshold. Jane gasped, not at his appearance but at the sense of power around him; she could feel the unreleased forces charging the air.
"I've sensed you," said the Astronomer, "stirring around the edges, here and there."
"More than stirring, motherfucker." The man drew himself up so that he seemed even taller, and reached out toward the Astronomer as though to embrace him. The Astronomer descended slightly, still smiling.
"I would enjoy putting you through your paces . . ." said the Astronomer, and suddenly drew back, floating across the room to Kafka's machine. He twisted his fists sharply upward. The tall man staggered forward several steps, stopped, and braced himself with his feet wide apart.
"Don't be coy, Fortunato. Come closer." The pull on Fortunato seemed to grow stronger. Jumpin' Jack Flash looked at Jane.:
"If you know any other tricks besides drowning yourself, honey," he said in a low voice, "you better use them." Another man suddenly appeared in the doorway.
Jane had just enough time to notice the improbable red hair and the flashy clothing before there was even more red, a whole body's worth of red, knocking the man over. The two forms rolled over and over on the floor, Red fighting to pin the smaller man. Then Kim Toy was there, pulling at her husband, telling him to forget it, just forget it and let's get out of here.
Near Kafka's machine, the Astronomer and Fortunato were still balanced against each other. Jane had the feeling the Astronomer was gaining slightly. The strain on Fortunato's face intensified with the strange glow around him and now horns projected from his bulging forehead. In response, the Astronomer's body was assuming an animal shape, like a greyhound, with a huge forked tail rising up like something poisonous. Her fear began to crescendo and there was no one to hold onto, no one who offered shelter or comfort or escape.
The boy-dinosaur, thin and long-tailed now, whipped back into the room and landed on Red, knocking him off the man in fancy dress. Kim Toy jumped back and then a fourth person was confusing things, throwing himself on Kim Toy. With a shock, Jane saw it was Judas. Blood was trickling from his ears but he seemed not to notice as he knelt on Kim Toy's legs, pinned her chest with one hand, and then, absurdly, began to undo his pants.
Jane shook her head incredulously. It was some weird vision of hell, the Astronomer, Roman, that obscene computer, Kafka, the Shakti machine, the dinosaur and Red and the black man and his horns and the other man-Tachyon, she recognized him now, he seemed to be dazed-and Jumpin' Jack Flash, unable to do a thing, and that sleazy scumbag who had brought her here-whom she had allowed to bring her here, she corrected herself, like somebody's dog on a short leashthe scumbag trying to rape Kim Toy in the middle of a fight for all their lives.
All this ran through her mind in a second and the power gathered itself effortlessly and poured out of her.
This time Judas was the only one who was oblivious to what she was doing. He never knew, even when it hit him, that all she had meant to do was blind him by drawing a flood of tears to his eyes, but the power had been building up without proper release for too long and she was too scared and too strong in her fear.
He never knew, even as he raised up. Then he was not, and in his place was a form made of powder that hung briefly in the air for an impossible moment before it disintegrated. Wetness splattered the walls, the floor, and Kim Toy.
Jane tried to scream but only a faint sighing came out. Everything stopped; even the struggle between the Astronomer and Fortunato seemed to diminish slightly.
Then Jumpin'
Jack Flash yelled, "Don't anybody move or she'll do it again!" Jane burst into tears.
The whole room burst into tears; suddenly there was a rainstorm in the room, water spraying from every direction. Jumpin' Jack Flash flung himself out the window and hung suspended in midair. "Drown 'em or turn it off!" he shouted. And then it was turned off, with a gesture from the Astronomer. He favored Jane with another hideous smile. "Do it again. For me."
She felt herself being turned by an invisible hand and power gathered itself within her again, aiming itself-for the black man, Fortunato- Who was no longer there but behind the Astronomer, standing over Kafka's Shakti machine with both arms raisedAnd Kafka hollered, "NO!" and the word echoed in Jane's mind as the power flew from her against her will, deflected at the final moment with her last shred of strength, so that it bypassed everyone, even the Astronomer, and hit the computer just as the Shakti machine collapsed with a sound too much like a human scream.
The force from Fortunato struck the machine again and there was another scream, this time very human, as the computer's awful living circuitry crumpled to powder that flowed over Roman's arms and chest.
Fortunato turned to the Astronomer, reaching out for him. The animal form melted away, leaving the Astronomer human again and very small. He wavered in the air for a moment and the light around him began to dim.
"Fool," he whispered, but the whisper penetrated the whole room and everyone in it. "Stupid blind nigger fool." He looked around at all of them. "You will all die screaming." And then, like smoke, he vanished.
"Wait! Wait, goddamn you!" Demise struggled to his feet, clutching his already-healing leg. "You promised me, goddamn you, you promised me!" Underneath his enraged shrieks, Roman's sobs made a bizarre counterpoint.
Jane felt her knees start to give. She had nothing left. Even with her power, she had no more strength. Tachyon was beside her, holding her up. "Come," he said gently, pulling her toward the door. She felt something flow over the incipient hysteria in her mind, as comforting as a warm blanket. Half in trance, she let him take her out of the room. With another part of her mind, she heard Kafka call to her, and distantly, she was sad that she could not answer him.
From the shelter of a stand of trees, she watched the last of what became known as the Great Cloisters Raid. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of Peregrine swooping around the tower or flying rings around the Turtle's shell, sometimes accompanied by a graceful, if rather small (to her eyes), pteranodon. Columns of fire shot up into the night, exploding through rooftops, scorching stone.
Vainly, she searched for a glimpse of Kafka or Demise in the groups of people Masons, she thought, shaking her head at the absurdity, Masonsgathered neatly up and removed from harm by the Turtle's power.
"In the end, I tried to take care of someone. I tried to take care of the little boy," she murmured, uncaring if Tachyon beside her knew what she was talking about or not. But he did.
She could feel his presence sorting through her thoughts, touching her memories of Debbie and Sal and how Judas had found her. And wherever he touched, he left the warmth of comfort and understanding.
The Howler let loose with another one of those awful wails, but it was a short one.
She might have cried, except she seemed to have no tears left for the time being.
A little later, familiar voices brought her back to awareness. Jumpin' Jack Flash was there with the boy-dinosaur, who had chosen another odd form she didn't know. ("Iguanodon,"
Tachyon whispered to her. "Look appreciative." And, somehow, she did.) Fortunato emerged from an entrance that flickered with dying fire; he stepped over glowing fragments and found his way to them, looking even more tired than Jane felt.
"Lost them," he said to Tachyon. "The cockroach, the death freak, the other one.
That red guy and his woman. Got away, unless the Turtle's picked them up." He jerked his chin at Jane. "What's her story?"
She looked past him to the burning Cloisters, pulled herself together, felt for the power. There was a surprising amount still left, enough for what she wanted to do.
Water splashed down on the worst of the flames, helping a little, not much.
There was an arsonist around when you needed one after all, she thought, glancing at Jumpin' Jack Flash.
"Don't waste your energy," he said, and as though to back him up, she heard the sound of fire engines approaching. "I was born in a fire station," she said. "My mother didn't get to the hospital in time."
"Fascinating," he said "but I've got to leave pretty soon." He looked at Tachyon. "I, uh, I would like to know how you knew-uh, why you called me J.J."
She shrugged. "J.J. Jumpin' Jack. It was faster to say." She managed a tiny smile. "That's all. We've never met before. Honest."
Relief was large on his face. "Ah. Well, listen, sometime soon we could get acquainted and-"
" Sixty minutes," Tachyon said. "I'd say you're just about out of time. What we could call the Cinderella factor. When someone trips."
Jumpin' Jack Flash gave him a dirty look before he lifted into the air. A halo of flame ignited itself around him as he roared off into the darkness.
Jane stared after him for a moment and then looked down sadly. "I almost hurt him back there. I did hurt someone - I... "
Tachyon put his arms around her. "Lean on me. It's all right."
Gently, she removed his arms from her. "Thank you. But I'm done leaning." Okay, Sal?
She turned back to the burning Cloisters and continued to pour water on the worst of the flames.
Curled up in an alleyway, Demise shuddered. His leg was bad enough that it wasn't completely healed yet, but it would heal; he knew it the way he knew how much he hated the Astronomer for abandoning him, for ever pulling him in with his promises and favors in the first place. TIAMAT, hell. He'd get that twisted-up old fuck before TIAMAT ever got here and that was a promise. He'd put that old fuck through a dance he'd take to hell with him.
He drifted in semidelirium. Not far away, but unknown to him, Kafka watched the destruction of the Cloisters. When the water poured down into the flames from thin air he turned away, willing the cold deadness of hatred to stay in him.