Fort Freak

“Kavitha, no. Do you hear me? I said no!”

“It’s Natya. And I’m going. Get there as soon as you can.”

♣

Minal stumbled as Nicor shoved her into the hall, still clutching Isai to her chest with both arms. Her injured arm was aching, but she didn’t dare let the little girl go; Isai was sobbing quietly, gasping between her tears. If Minal put her down, she didn’t know what Isai would do.

There were maybe a dozen men in the main lobby, nobody she recognized, a sea of black leather and grotesque appearances. One particularly freaky guy had three heads. No sign of the one with the crown of horns, the one who’d dislocated her shoulder. Nicor walked up to one of them and asked, “Is he here?” The man jerked his head toward the hallway. “In back. He’s meeting someone right now, so just keep her here. Keep her quiet.”

Nicor came back to her side, water streaming down his face faster than she’d ever seen it—maybe that meant something? Maybe he was scared, or sad. He said quietly, “Look, just sit down, okay? With any luck, it’ll all be over soon.” He didn’t say how it would be over, but Minal could see it in his eyes. At this point, the best she could hope for was that it would be quick. And that they wouldn’t hurt the kid.

Minal bit her tongue and slid into a chair. It was a gorgeous velvet, very plush, but dirty. Typical. She’d seen way too many rooms like this, back in the day. Part of why she took so much pleasure in cleaning Michael and Kavitha’s apartment, even knowing that Isai would make it a disaster area half an hour later. Her skin crawled as she sat down, and Isai didn’t seem to like it either.

“Aunty Minal? Want to go home!”

“I know, baby. Shh.…”

“Want Mama! Want Daddy!” Her voice was rising, and the men were glancing over at them now.

“Quiet, Isai. Quiet down, little girl.” The poor child was shaking in her arms; she was probably freezing. Minal was on the verge of demanding Nicor’s coat, at least, when she realized, terror rising in her throat, that Isai wasn’t just shaking. She was shifting, growing. Changing.

“No, baby. No, no, no…”

But it was too late. Isai was just too panicked, and with a loud cry, the child exploded out of her arms, blazing into her largest Garuda shape, larger than Minal had ever seen her. Wings at least a dozen feet wide, a naked girl-child body and an eagle’s head above, tipped back, shrieking its fear and rage. Isai pushed off for the ceiling, her talons raking bloody furrows in Minal’s body as she went. And Minal howled herself, clutching after the child, seeing the panicked men raising their guns to take aim.

♠

Michael turned to Leo, his face ashen as he put away his phone. “Natya’s heading to McGurk’s. I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

Leo kept driving with one hand, hanging up his own phone with the other. “K-10 confirms that your kid’s at McGurk’s—some dogs saw her dragged inside. A short human female was carrying her, which I’m guessing is Minal. The dogs said the pup smelled scared, but they didn’t smell any blood. Captain Chawah says we can pull whomever we need for this. Dr. Dildo and Rodriguez, Beastie and Chey will all beat us there. Dildo and Beastie will take down some walls if they have to. Puff and Angel are coming in too, ditto Wingman, but they’re ten minutes away. We’ll be there in five.”

“Natya’s going to beat us there. Gods, Leo. She’s a goddamned pacifist—what the hell is she doing running into the middle of a firefight?”

“She’s not exactly powerless, from what I saw at her last show. Natya ought to be able to take care of herself.”

“She doesn’t know how to fight. She can’t even watch action movies or fucking hospital TV shows—she gets too upset when she sees the blood. She’s a fucking civilian.”

Leo shook his head. “Michael, they’ve got her kid. She’s going to fight faster and harder than anyone else. I’ve seen moms do some crazy shit, protecting their kids.”

Michael tried to swallow down the panic in his throat. He’d known he loved her—he just hadn’t known how much. And now there was Minal too … He was so furious and scared that he couldn’t think straight. He ground out the words, “Just drive faster.” He knew Leo was going as fast as the battered patrol car could manage, but Michael leaned forward anyway, as if he could make the car beat Natya there by sheer force of will.

♦

Natya had a plan. She had a whole, calm, sensible plan that she’d carefully worked out as she raced the several blocks to McGurk’s, the power building in her with every step that pounded into the pavement. She would throw a field around Minal and Isai first, something to protect them. Then another, around each of the men. However many men there were. She could do it; she’d built dozens of kundalini spheres in her performances. Usually she didn’t bother to make them solid, but she was pretty sure she could do it, if she built up enough power first. And the power was there, plenty of it, fueled by the movement of her body running through the city streets.

She just had to keep going, keep it up. She could do this. She could go in, build the spheres, contain them all until the cops came. It was a perfect, peaceful solution, and no one would get hurt. It was a great plan, and it went right out the window the moment she burst into McGurk’s and saw the guns lifting up, raising to the ceiling, taking aim at her little girl.

Her peaceful intentions shattered. She flung one arm out, and a blazing crimson wave of force sprang out with it, throwing three men against a wall, knocking them out. Maybe she hurt some of them, maybe killed them. Natya couldn’t care less. She couldn’t do the same on the other side of the room, not with Minal in the center of that group. Natya took two quick steps toward them instead, as the guns swiveled down toward her, and then she leaped into the middle of the crowd, grabbing Minal and pulling her close.

Natya spun into a pirouette, dragging Minal with her. A gold cyclone rose around them, the force of the winds sending the two men left staggering away, their guns falling. Minal pulled away, long enough to hold her arms up to the ceiling, where Isai flew, directly above. Before Natya could do anything more, Isai was shifting back and falling into them, a small naked bundle, screaming, “Mama Mama Mama!!!” She ignored Minal’s outstretched arms and slammed into Natya, the force of the fall knocking them both to the floor.

As soon as Natya stopped moving, all of her fields died, leaving them, for a moment, defenseless.

♥

Minal shouted, “No, Nicor!” He was raising his arms, and she knew what came next—and here it was, a tide of water rising out of nowhere, knocking her off her feet, sending Natya and Isai under. “Nicor, please!” He could drown them all, she knew—he’d chosen his Demon name for his ace ability, named for a demon of old who could raise the waters and call down tempests. It would exhaust him quickly, and the more water he raised, the sicker he’d be afterward, his own body drowning as well. The last time he’d raised a wall of water for the Princes, he’d been out for weeks with pneumonia; he’d nearly died. And maybe Nicor was remembering that now, or maybe he was remembering the nights they’d shared. Maybe he wasn’t quite as indifferent to her fate as he’d acted in the car, because the waters were already receding, dropping down, down, until Natya and Isai were coughing on a sodden red carpet—but alive, alive.

But now it was Raum’s turn. Raum, a man who had ambitions. Raum, Lord of Crows. Raum threw his head back, shrieking a loud caw, caw into the night. And the crows answered, first a few, then dozens of them, hurtling in through the inner doors. How long had his crows been nesting in McGurk’s? Just as Natya started struggling to her feet, a wall of crows hurled into her, beating their wings and pecking, pecking, surrounding her. She flung her arms up to protect her eyes, her face, but that left the rest of her body vulnerable, protected only by a thin layer of clothing, soon shredded. She was bleeding. And little Isai was shrieking, swinging her arms wildly at the crows, but they ignored her, all of them under Raum’s direction concentrating their attack on Natya. And Raum was rising up into the air—what Minal had thought was a black trench coat turned out to be black feathered wings folded against his back. Now they were open, raising him up, and he was swooping up high, directing the battle from above.

Minal had never felt so helpless in her life. What the hell could she do against crows? She could hear sirens blaring now, the megaphone of cops demanding that those inside surrender, that they come out with their hands up. Nicor was on her, grabbing her uninjured arm and trying to drag her away. To what she didn’t know—maybe he was trying to get her to safety, or maybe he was just going to deliver her to his boss. He was stronger than she was, but she was a hell of a lot angrier than him, and with a quick jerk Minal yanked her arm out of his grip. Then she grabbed a massive metal pot from a nearby column with both her hands, ignoring the scream of pain from her still-healing shoulder, and slammed it into his head, knocking him to the ground. That felt good.

♣

Kavitha was bleeding, bleeding—covered in blood from a thousand tiny cuts, and it was her nightmare all over again. She was a child, covered in blood. Blood dripping down her face from a thrown stone that had cut her forehead. Blood on her body from a stranger who had staggered into her in the rioting crowd. Blood on her parents, struggling to pull her through the chaos, to get her and her siblings to some kind of safety. And she had seen the man raising a gun to point it at her mother. She had bent down, grabbed a stone, and with the strength and surety trained into her from childhood cricket games with her brothers, Kavitha had hurled the stone straight at the man’s head. And he’d cried out, and stepped back, lost his footing, and fell down in the crowd. Maybe he’d gotten up again—it was possible. Her parents had pulled her away, into the safety of a neighbor’s house. Maybe the man had gotten up, walked away. Or maybe he’d stayed down, been trampled by the crowd. In that crowd, on that day, either was equally possible.

And here she was again—but of course, she wasn’t. Kavitha shook her head, trying to clear it. Just that motion sent a bit of the kundalini energy pulsing through her, and that cleared her thoughts even more. She wasn’t in the chaos of a civil war, with thousands of civilians and soldiers rioting on the streets—she was in a fight with a few overgrown bullies, greedy men who were just in it for the money. And she wasn’t a terrified child anymore—she was a grown woman, and more than that, a mother. A mother with her own child in danger, and that thought was enough to set her feet to thumping, her arms to moving in the precise motions of the dance. The snake dance, to combat birds.

Heedless of the beaks and wings that still tore at her, Natya steadily called the power, raising it from her core, pulsing it up and up until finally it spilled out in a cascade of coruscating fields of light. Pushing out, out, until the birds were forced away, until they fled, cawing wildly, to their master who flew high above. Now her eyes were open again, and there was the front door, splintering into dust. There was a massive creature—a bear?—running into the room, followed by a good handful of cops, and yes, there was Michael among them, relief and fury mixed equally on his face. Most importantly, now she could see Isai, transformed again into Garuda form, and as far as Natya could tell, unharmed—but just as Natya reached out to gather her daughter into her arms, Isai shrieked her rage and hurled herself up into the sky. Chasing the birds that had hurt her mommy.

♠

Michael stormed in to find the fight almost over. Four men were down already, and Minal and Kavitha were still standing, although Minal’s face was crumpled in pain, and Kavitha’s clothes were bloody rags. No more men on the ground, but the last of the battle was taking place up in the air. His eyes went up and his gun followed, tracking the flight of the crow-man who swooped above, surrounded by a crowd of birds. And there—there was his little girl, screaming her toddler rage louder than he’d ever heard before, her eagle head snapping at the crows that buffeted her body. There was nothing to shoot—the crow-man was half hidden behind Isai’s body, and the crows were too small to aim at. He’d never regretted being normal before, but now he would have suffered the agonies of the virus a thousand times over if it would have just left him with one power, something that he could use.

The other cops were equally helpless—there was nothing left for Dr. Dildo to vibrate, and Beastie wasn’t nearly tall enough to reach the action. Michael was reduced to shouting to his daughter, “Isai! Isai, come down here right this minute!” But she wasn’t normally inclined to listen, and she paid even less attention now. “Isai!!”

And then Natya was beside him, flinging her arms out, building a great gold staircase out of thin air. She was dancing furiously, whipping her body around like a serpent, and he knew that she couldn’t keep that up for much longer. But he didn’t need long. Gods bless them, the other cops followed as he raced up the staircase, up and up and up the steps built of dance and dreams. Trusting his judgment, as he trusted Natya to keep him safe, keep them all safe. Up two stories through a crowd of crows and then he was at Isai, he was grabbing her, heedless of wings and talons, pulling her into his arms, and then she was shifting back, clinging to him naked and weeping. “Daddy Daddy Daddy! The bad birds hurt Mommy!”

“I know, sweetie, I know,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay.” And around him the others stood on the final upper landing, their guns out, pointed steadily at the crow-man. Leo was the one who got him cuffed and herded him down the steps—which was just as well, since if it had been up to Michael in that moment, he would have blown the bastard’s brains out right there. Instead, he held his daughter close until she was safely down on the ground. When the last cop made it to the floor, Natya stopped dancing and collapsed into his arms. Somehow, he managed to hold them both. And then Minal walked over, and not caring what the other guys thought, he pulled her into the embrace too. His girls were safe, all of them. He would never let them get hurt again.

♦

“So that’s it? It’s over?” Minal couldn’t quite believe it, even though it had been a full twenty-four hours since that hellish time at McGurk’s, and they were all feeling better. It turned out that when she slept with someone for a long time, holding them close, some of her healing powers extended to them as well. She’d never cuddled someone for long enough to find that out before—it was a nice bonus to her powers. It made up for some of the downsides. They’d all stayed in bed together until hunger finally drove them out—Minal had made towering piles of pancakes and eggs, and Isai had devoured so many that she’d collapsed, falling asleep on the dining-room floor. Michael had carried her to bed, and then come back to curl up with them on the love seat. Minal was snuggled into Kavitha’s arms, but managed to shift back a few inches—enough for Michael to squeeze into the little space, though he had to wrap his arms around them to manage it. Oh, the tragedy.

Michael shook his head. “We can’t know for certain, of course. All of the upper-level Demon Princes had cleared out by the time we showed up. But word at the station and on the street is that they’re not interested in you anymore—they seem to have decided that you’re not really a threat to them.”

Minal shrugged. “Well, they’re right about that. Joe didn’t tell me anything useful.”

Michael frowned. “We can’t be sure that the kidnapping was even connected to Joe Twitch, although I admit that seems the most likely. I’ll keep looking.”

“But they’re not after me now?” Minal kept her focus on the important part.

Michael said, “No. It looks like you’re safe. You can even go back home.”

“Oh.” Minal had known this was coming, of course, had known that her life here was too good to last. “Sure. Of course.” She started untangling herself, suddenly too unsettled to keep sitting on the little red love seat. “I can pack up my things. Maybe I can wait and say good-bye to the kid in the morning? Or—no, maybe it’s better if I just go tonight. Easier on her, not to have to say good-bye.” Easier on herself too. It was going to hurt, not seeing that kid again.

Kavitha pulled her back down. “Hey! He said you can go back home. Not that you have to.”

Minal froze, and said tentatively, “It’s not like I have any better choices.” Did she? What was Kavitha implying?

Kavitha wrapped her arms around Minal and dropped a kiss on her ear, sending a shiver through her. “You could stay here. With us.”

“Seriously?” Minal turned her head to Michael—he would be the tough sell, she knew. Kavitha was a softy.

Michael smiled too, lighting up his face. “Seriously. Move in with us. Please. Kavitha and I talked about it last night while you were sleeping. We like you, Minal. We like you a lot.”

Minal swallowed, fighting back surprising tears. “I like you too. Both of you. All of you.” It was too soon to be saying the word “love” out loud, she was pretty sure. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t think it. She was happier with these three than she’d ever been in her life. Even if the quarters were a little cramped … “Hey, I have an idea. Are you guys terribly attached to this apartment? For sentimental reasons or something?”

“No, not really,” Michael said.

Kavitha said, “It’s just what we could afford.”

Minal hesitated, then offered shyly, “Why don’t you move in with me? I have a three-bedroom condo, and I put a lot down. Everything I’d saved from the first few years of hooking—my dad did teach me how to save, even if he didn’t teach me anything else. The mortgage payments shouldn’t be any more than what you’re paying right now for rent. And it’s twice the size of this place. Way more room than I needed, really; I had been thinking about getting a cat.” She smiled. “But this is better.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “If we’re paying the mortgage, then does that mean you’re going to quit hooking?”

Minal nodded. “If you guys don’t mind me sponging off you for a while. Or at least I’d cut way back on it, just keep a few select clients. Safe clients. I could keep babysitting Isai, give Kavitha more time to dance. And—” She paused, feeling stupid even saying it. But then she went on, encouraged by the smiles on their faces. “Maybe I could go back to school.”

Kavitha grinned. “That would be great! For what?”

Minal said hesitantly, “Don’t laugh, but I always wanted to become a chef, open my own restaurant. I kept thinking of going back to school, but hooking was easier, and the money was so good.” She shrugged. “But the life’s getting too dangerous. I think I might want to make an investment in my future. Find a career more suited to family life.” Minal stopped, wondering if she’d presumed too much, scared them off.

Michael grinned. “So you mean your cooking is going to get even more delicious? Excellent.”

“I’d be happy not to share you with anyone else,” Kavitha added. “For a while, anyway.”

Minal relaxed into the red love seat. It was battered, but she was determined to find a space for it in her condo. It was good luck. “Then I guess you guys are coming home with me.”

Michael took a deep breath and said, “And tomorrow, you’re coming to Thanksgiving with me. With us. I’d like you to meet my parents.”

“Seriously?” Minal asked. That was an even bigger step than moving in together.

Michael shrugged, smiling. “What the hell. Maybe I’ll invite Leo to join us too. We’ll make a real family Thanksgiving this year. If you ladies can take on the Demon Princes—and win!—I think I can manage two aging parents.”

Kavitha grinned, and reached over to drop a kiss on Michael’s cheek. “You’re very brave. My hero.”

Minal said quietly, “Mine too. Both of you. You rescued me.” In so many ways.

Kavitha said lightly, “We rescued each other, and we’re all very brave and noble, but if we keep on thanking each other, we’ll be talking all night. I think there are much better uses for our mouths, don’t you?”

Minal laughed, and couldn’t help but agree.

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

The Rat Race

Part 15.

LEO’S RETIREMENT RACKET WENT down at the High Hand as predetermined at the insistence of Dr. Pretorius, Charles Dutton, and Lucas Tate. They called it a gift to an old friend; Leo figured they were also calling it a tax write-off, but he didn’t mind.

The detective dressed up. Not a penguin suit or anything, but everything was washed and pressed, and he had Wanda on his arm—glittering like a million bucks—so nobody would be looking at him anyway. She was wearing a deep green dress that made her eyes look crazy bright, and her hair smelled faintly of perfume. Her shoes cost more than everything he was wearing put together; and they made her an inch taller than he was.

He didn’t care.

But not even the curve of her hip tapping lightly against his could distract him from the strangeness of it—this party to send him off, this event filled with coworkers and pals, and with friends so old they were nearly strangers. They swirled about him, glasses clinking, depositing hors d’oeuvres toothpicks onto doily-covered trays.

Along the far wall of east-facing windows, a table ran the length of the dining area, covered with the things you might expect, and the things Leo had asked for specifically. A pyramid of melon cubes sat next to a crock pot full of chili, and an assortment of cheese and crackers was placed beside a spread of pizza slices shaped like a Chinese fan.

As Wanda pointed out, all the food was disappearing at about the same rate. So people were eating, and that was the measure of a good party, wasn’t it? A good, blurry party peppered with back slaps, dirty jokes, congratulations, and questions about what came next.

One arm snaked around Wanda’s waist as she lifted a chip to her mouth and chewed with a tight-lipped smile. There was life in him yet. There was also a planned community brochure in his top desk drawer.

There was time to think.

The room was fairly full, and it was populated like an old episode of This Is Your Life. Over by the buffet table was Lieutenant Kant, chatting with one of the kitchen staffers—probably asking for another round of something. At one of the large tables, Tenry Fong and Slim Jim were laughing at something Beastie Bester had said. Mitch Moore and Razor Joan were laughing too, and Wingman was looking funny at Rodriguez. Puff was standing by the punch bowl, dipping himself a new drink every couple of minutes and augmenting it with something from the flask tucked into his belt. Angel was beside him, sticking to the alcohol levels that were provided by catering. She looked great—radiant and lovely, if cool. She’d recovered beautifully from her run-in with the Infamous Black Tongue.

The chief was nearby, standing around in her dress uniform and looking slightly less confrontational than usual, but maybe that was the glass of white wine she was holding, since it was mostly empty.

Ralph was the only one missing. He’d been buried the week before.

Leo half expected to glance at an unoccupied corner and spy his pissy white ghost loitering about, sneering at the spread and waiting with a shitty joke about seeing his old partner soon. Leo glanced from vacant corner to vacant corner. He saw nothing. He didn’t even feel like he was being watched.

Dr. Pretorius was there too, and Ice Blue Sibyl was with him, wearing an oversized white cloak with a fur-rimmed hood pushed back across her shoulders … and nothing else. Her glassy blue skin was smooth, poreless, and lacked any visible orifice. Silent and statuesque for something so small, she stood beside her benefactor and if they chatted back and forth, they did it discreetly.

Leo’d already gone out of his way to thank them for coming, even though Sibyl’s silent, seamless presence had always unsettled him—he was starting to get used to it. Just in time to quit seeing her so often.

Charles Dutton made it too, though he made it in a wheelchair with a nurse attending him. He camped in the middle of the room and held court there, dressed like a king on a business trip. The nurse looked a little bored by the whole thing.

Tabby Driscoll grabbed Leo’s hand and gave it a hearty shake that was made a little heartier by whatever beer the old cop smelled on the younger cop’s breath. “Ramshead, you old bastard. Gonna miss you ’round the Fort.”

“Eh, you’ll never know I’m gone,” he replied with a smile that hoped it was lying.

“Of course we will,” interrupted Bill Chen, who spun around to join the conversation. “You’re an institution.”

Leo was tipsy enough to laugh, and the party pirouetted onward.

At the edge of Dutton’s circle Leo spied Father Squid, quietly nodding at something the wheelchair-bound man was saying. The priest’s eyes snagged the detective’s, and jerked away. Leo’s stomach did a little leap, but he said nothing, and for the purposes of that night, he pretended he suspected nothing.

Pretending only got him so far.

Wanda spied someone’s wife. She tugged on Leo’s arm and whispered, “They’re looking for a new unit, more downtown than uptown. You didn’t hear it from me, but I’m pretty sure she’s expecting.” Then she sashayed away from Leo and gave the other woman a predatory, professional greeting.

Otto Gordon was lurking alone near a platter he’d brought and left lying beside the cheese plate, so Leo took the Wanda-less opportunity to visit.

Otto was the morgue’s mad—and presumably benevolent—scientist. Everyone called him “Gordon the Ghoul.” As far as anyone knew, he didn’t mind. Gordon was a cartoon of a man, too long and too narrow, and too pointy by half. His sloping forehead, enormous nose, and understated chin conspired to give him the look of an intellectual beanpole in a lab coat.

No one else was eating from his platter, which almost seemed to please him.

Leo sidled up to him and said, “Hey there, Gordon, got a question for you.”

“Then I hope I have an answer.”

“Yeah. Here’s a hypothetical, okay?” He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to gross Gordon out, so he ran with it. “Say I wanted to get some evidence from old tissue. How old can it be, and still give usable DNA samples?”

Gordon dipped a chip in something gray with lumps in it, and stuffed it into his mouth while he considered the question. He chewed slowly before replying. “It depends, really. Sometimes DNA can be recovered from tissue hundreds of years old—even thousands, though that’s less likely. We have to extract it from inside the teeth, drilling down through the enamel into the pulp,” and here he added the appropriate thrust and lift of his elbow, miming a drilling motion. “But any number of things can cause the DNA to deteriorate. Certain chemicals, humidity, temperatures, and storage considerations could—”

Leo clarified, “Let’s say we’re talking thirty-year-old fetal tissue, kept sealed up in evidence.”

The ghoul said, “Assuming nothing has contaminated it, it’s entirely possible. But now we’re leaving the hypothetical, aren’t we, Detective?”

“Yeah, we’re leaving it. And I have a favor to ask you, if that’s okay.”

“It’s your party,” Gordon pointed out. “Ask whatever you like.”

Leo reached into his pocket and pulled out a flatted, smashed paper coffee cup in a Ziploc bag. “Could you take this for me? And swab it for DNA?”

“This is … not thirty-year-old fetal tissue,” Gordon said as he took the bag. He sounded disappointed.

“No, it isn’t. But I’ll have that for you on Monday, all right?”

“Very well.”

“Just, um. Stash it, would you? And keep this between us.”

“Absolutely.”

Leaving that encounter, Leo found himself starved for fresh air and—for the first moment in an hour—he was cut loose from the congratulations, vows of enduring friendship, or offers of yet more to drink. The restaurant felt close, and the band where his hat met his pate felt sweaty.

Just a quick breather, that’s what he’d take. And no one would miss him. No one stopped him as he found the elevators and let himself down to the lobby, and out into the street in front of the building.

It was colder already than when he’d first come inside to start the festivities. The air was brittle and fogged with ice crystals, and when he breathed his exhalations glittered in the lamplight and the ambient light of the restaurant behind him. He stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together, blowing into them, leaning up against the wall and then changing his mind, wanting to walk.

Just around the block. He’d be back in ten minutes, and the frigid air would clear his head.

He was running out of things to say up there, anyway—there were only so many times he could shake hands and laugh, and glance nervously left to right, and back again. He was troubled by the enigmatic priest with all his secrets; and he was suddenly annoyed with Tate and Dutton for insisting on the venue; and he was horrified by how it might actually be the last time he ever saw some of these people again.

His time left on the force could be counted in hours, if he felt like it. He could tick them off, predicting these last days in the lingo of paycheck stubs and morning coffees shared and spilled with Michael at their desks—jammed together like teenagers in a high school biology lab. Some of those people upstairs at the party worked different shifts, or were about to take vacation time, or would simply be walking different paths in different corridors through Fort Freak; some of them might get injured and knocked out of the game that way—knocked out of his sphere, and out of the familiar course that he’d walked through that station, through this city, for over thirty-five years.

Could he imagine that?

Not really. But awareness of this finality clung to him like cigarette smoke on an old jacket. It wafted around him and made him shudder.

In his jacket pocket he fumbled for his badge and found it, and gripped it, and wiped a bit of chilly mist off the metal with the side of his thumb.

It wasn’t fair. He was now more capable than ever—if you wanted his completely unbiased opinion. It was the stupidest goddamn thing in the world, picking a number and calling it the end on a whole career when there were still thefts and rapes and gangs and murders out there, dangling loose threads that might never be tied off.

For the millionth time he thought of the Rathole.

He was almost out of time, and none of the answers he’d found made him feel any better about what had happened there. It made his gut ache, how he found himself wondering so hard about friends and trusted compatriots.

His eyes snapped to the jutting ledge above him, as if he could see through it and back up into the party upstairs. Again, his belly constricted, thinking of the men up there, and wondering about one man and what he might’ve done decades ago.

Maybe it was just as well he had no proof of anything.

He kicked his toes against the sidewalk to jar some feeling into them. Around the corner he found a narrower road, larger than an alley but nearly as dark. A pair of Dumpsters against a wall smelled like day-old death and last week’s vegetables, expired rats and dirty diapers. An old shipping pallet had dried out and cracked in the middle of the way, and it crunched under his foot.

A few seconds behind him, it crunched again.

He stopped.

He knew before he turned around that he wasn’t alone. He knew as he stood there, one hand on his useless badge and no gun anywhere on him, that he was being followed again, and he could guess.

He did guess.

“You got to leave Raul alone,” she said, and in six words Leo heard bluegrass and hill country. He wondered what had happened to this child, that she’d found her way to New York.

With a pivot on one foot, he faced her then. Hands in his pockets, now. Not wanting to give too much away. He told her, “Raul has answers.”

“He doesn’t,” she argued. The billowing wind caught her straggly brown hair, lifting it up and gusting it about—and only her cheap knitted cap kept her mane from becoming an angry cloud of snakes. She was folded in on herself, hands up under her arms and legs jammed together, feet planted heel against heel.

Leo said, “He didn’t send you tonight.”

She was quick to defend him some more. “Course not. He don’t know I’m here, even.”

“Your … your boss, or your guardian, or whatever he is—Raul isn’t afraid of me, you know that, don’t you?”

“He thinks he’s safe.”

“He’s probably right,” Leo told her. Though he rather strongly suspected that somehow, someway the mobster was connected to the Rathole, this was one more case where he’d be hard-pressed to prove it. “I don’t have anything on him.”

“But you’re looking.”

“You think I’ll find something?”

She made a puzzled face and tried to hide it. “No.”

“Then what are you so worried about?”

Leo thought she was going to argue some more, but instead she shouted, “Don’t you get it? He’s all I got!” She began to stomp toward him, and it started as a stumble but it brought her up fast. “There’s nobody else on earth gives a shit what happens to me, but he does. He looks out for me, and I’m gonna look out for him—even if he thinks he doesn’t need me to.”

The detective backed up, just a step. And a second step. Not too far. Not enough to let her think she had the upper hand, but he remembered the disorientation, the nausea, and the draining fear from the time she’d grabbed him at the hospital. So he took a third step, back away from her.

He said, “Listen, kid, I don’t want to hurt you—”

“But you want to hurt Raul.” She kept coming, and he was stopped by a stash of crates that once delivered bottles of something drinkable.

He stopped against them. “No. I don’t.”

“You’re going to put him in jail,” she said through chattering teeth that clipped the edge off every word. Her hands came out of her pockets and she reached for him, coming up close enough that the clouds of their breath touched and mingled.

With a swift grasp he caught her by the wrists, grasping her coat-covered arms and holding her naked hands away—at all the distance he could reach. He picked her up almost off her feet and pushed her back, lifting her as she lunged for him, fighting him.

“Kid,” he growled, and she cracked out one long, skinny leg and hooked her foot behind his knee. She pulled.

They both went down, side by side and wrestling. They rolled. He was stronger but heavier, and even though he’d had a couple glasses of scotch upstairs she wasn’t tough enough to pin him—but she didn’t have to pin him. She only had to get one bit of skin up against his skin, and it’d be all over.

She thrashed and wrestled. He wished for a set of handcuffs.

She tried to hit him. He clamped his fingers around her wrist again, adjusting his grip to keep any bit of flesh from becoming exposed.

“Kid!” he barked. “I swear to God, if you don’t—” and it was a futile thing, the beginning of his threat. It meant nothing and she was thrusting her face down toward his, as if she were trying to bite him or kiss him. Attacking him with her face because she could, and because she had to.

She tried to knee him in the crotch and almost succeeded, but ended up digging into his upper thigh instead. He lifted his own knee, working it between them, preparing to throw her off—all he needed was a little leverage, for God’s sake, this was just a child, and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he’d be damned if he’d let her touch him.

And then, as immediately as she’d pounced …

She was gone.

Hoisted off him and out of his sight, as he lay there on the ground—still poised, and hands still held up in a pair of defensive squeezes.

With a scramble that scraped one of his palms he was on his feet again and starting to feel the first dim grumbles of aches in his elbows and knees. Reflexively he reached for the gun that wasn’t there. And then he realized he didn’t need it.

Sibyl—that blue-glass being with the shimmering, hairless skin—she was there, covered in that long hooded cloak that protected her from the first fluttering chips of the almost-snow that was starting to fall.

In her unyielding arms the teenaged girl raged and cried.

A large cluster of flakes smacked Leo in the eye, leaving him bleary. He wiped at it and watched the two strange women, and he tried to recall if he’d ever seen anyone touch Sibyl before—if she’d ever let anyone touch her, even the lawyer whose side she so rarely left.

But now she was holding the girl by the shoulders, and by the hands. The blue fingers entwined with the ghost-white girl’s quivering fingers and they were steady, unmoved. Uncompromised by the teenager’s awful power.

And Maggie Graves crumpled to her knees, crying harder.

As the detective caught his breath and stared, he wondered if it wasn’t very simple, really. Two vulnerable women, no family and no recourse. Both of them taken under the wing of an older man and treated well enough to become protective of those men—protective to the point of murder, if it came to that.

He straightened his jacket and adjusted his hat.

Ice Blue Sibyl’s inscrutable eyes peered up from under her hood, telling him nothing.

As he walked around them, back around the corner and back to the front of the building, the girl’s tear-choked voice followed him, amazed and moved. Over and over again she was saying the same thing, and it rang in Leo’s ears until he was back to the building where the party raged upstairs, and the carousel glass doors had slipped shut behind him.

“You can touch me, can’t you? You can touch me, you can touch me…”

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

… And All the Sinners Saints

Part 4.

CHARLIE SAT PLANNING HIS legal defense with the attorney Pretorius had recommended to him. Within an hour of their first meeting, he had begun to suspect that he was quite a lot smarter than the man. Now, after several weeks of filed motions and legal wrangling, he realized to his great relief that he was very wrong. His attorney was laying out their strategy for the next round of motions when Charlie’s phone rang.

Mother, Charlie thought wearily. Of late she had taken to calling her soon-to-be-jailed son a dozen or more times a day, so he answered without looking. Instead of his mother’s worried tone, he heard a loud whooping. “Uh, who is this?”

“Charlie, my boy, I am about to save your fucking life!” Vincent Marinelli shouted into the phone. “That was gold you got, Flipper! Absolute gold. Richard fucking Long!”

Charlie said, “Listen, I’m in a meeting with my attorney, and—”

“Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. Fuck your attorney. Richard Long? Dick Long! Look for the dick names, your girl said. We found Puff’s secret account, and a big fat payment dropping into it a day before the Joe Twitch murder. We got that motherfucker, Charlie. We got him. You got him. I need you to come in and help me plan stage two.”

Charlie slumped in his swivel chair. Relief flooded him. He waved off his attorney’s worried glance. “So we won?” he said. “This’ll nail him?”

“Nope.”

“But—Minal said Twitch didn’t have a gun. That he was blackmailing someone important. That the cops shot him at or on his way to the meeting. And she gave us the name on one of the fake accounts he uses to launder his bribes. And you found money in it that arrived just before the murder. Isn’t that enough to hang him?”

“Not even close. It’s a good start, but the public worships cops. They’re well conditioned by all those TV shows. And Angel Grady’s a certified war hero. There’s flies on her too, but we haven’t found the maggots yet. Aside from the fact that she pumped half a dozen rounds into Joe, we also found half the money in Long’s account disappeared the day after the shoot. Looks a lot like he paid his accomplice to me.”

Defeat ran Relief’s ass out and settled into Charlie as if he were a comfortable pair of slippers. “So how do we get them if this isn’t enough?” He found himself dizzy with the roller coaster of emotions Vince’s call had already wrung out of him. Now he was back to being excited by the prospect of actually winning. Maybe finally being able to bring Marcus in out of the cold. “What else do we need?”

“To get an indictment?” Vince said. “A video of Lu Long kneeling on Jesus Christ’s own chest while Angel pounds nails through His palms. And even then the Cry’s gonna smear the victim.”

“So we’ve lost?”

“Oh, fuck to the no, kid,” Ratboy said. “I told you, you brought the goods. We needed evidence. This is evidence. We can start building a case. And IAB’s got forensic accountants who can make this dragon fucker’s accounts chatter like seagulls on the pier at Coney Island. But we’re gonna need more.”

Charlie didn’t even know how to feel at this point. Which left him mostly exhausted. “Okay. What can we do?”

“I told you I saw maybe some chinks in the blue wall. I been working those. There are some honest cops at Fort Freak. Actually, maybe a whole lot of them.”

“I’m surprised you admit that.”

“If there were no honest cops there’d be no point to doing my job. There’s also some maybe not as clear-cut ones who don’t care so much for Angel Grady’s sexual preferences, or Lu Long’s general dickery. And even the bent ones have their limits—until they bend so far they break, like this gavoon Puff. If we can prove he’s crossed the line to bad-guydom, they’ll turn on him. We got to turn one of the fucks. Puff’s my choice. He’s hotheaded and not terribly bright. Angel is the opposite. Cold as ice, and smart as hell. If he’s pulled Angel Grady into a killing for hire, then she’s gone full-on supervillian. I’d love to know why, but I don’t need to know to nail her. Puff though, Puff’s just an asshole. Assholes are candy. Assholes I can work with.”

“They all think they’re the good guys,” Charlie said bitterly.

“Kid, here’s the deal with cops. Every man, woman, and indeterminate of us believes heart and soul that every crook is fundamentally broken. That the act of breaking the law, even once, renders you intrinsically wrong and untrustworthy. Now, what is the one thing Puff and Angel each know beyond any possible doubt? That the other one’s a criminal. A murderer. Subconsciously, that’s gotta be eating on them.”

Charlie had his doubts. “Puff seems pretty sociopathic. Hard to see anything bothering his conscience.” He thought of the burn scar marring the odd alien perfection of Minal Patel.

“He’s got a sense of self-preservation, right? He’s not a genius, but he’s not stupid. He knows his partner’s not like him. She’s a saint to everyone else. The minute that selling him out helps her, she’ll do it and walk away clean. We want him to be the bad guy. We want her to be righteous. All she has to do is give us a nudge and we burn Puff to the ground. And he has to see that as a bigger threat than anything you or I can do. Because if she flips on him, he’s toast.”

“So we play them off against each other until one of them really does turn?”

“You got the picture.”

“But—how?”

Charlie could hear Vince’s smile right through the phone.

“I got ways,” Ratboy said. “Trust me.”

♥

Ernie’s Bar and Grill was dark, cozy, and largely empty in early afternoon. It also wasn’t a usual cop hangout. Which made it ideal for Vince and his companion to hold their little sit-down.

If Vince Marinelli could be intimidated—and growing up in a tough Brooklyn Italian neighborhood where you were called Ratboy, you’d never make adolescence if you could—the uniformed officer who sat hunched in the comfortable cracked-leather booth across from him would’ve scared pellets out of him. Bill Chen had shown himself to be a decent guy in their own prior meeting, and he had a good rep around the station as a straight shooter. Flipper’s former law school chum, Francis Black, had done nothing but sing Bill’s praises as a partner.

But now Vince was asking him to turn on a brother cop, and that never went over well. Chen’s face was already like a block of granite in its natural state. But his frown line kept getting chiseled deeper and deeper as Minal Patel’s recorded voice spoke from Vince’s cell phone on the table.

When the MP3 ended, the big cop sat up. “That’s pretty heavy, Detective,” he said in his six-year-old girl voice. “You think she’s straight?”

“Yes, I do, Officer Chen. My girl in the Bureau has identified a second false-name account traceable to Long as well as the one the witness mentions. This account received a large deposit just before the Joe Twitch shooting.”

Bill Chen rubbed his jut of jaw. “This makes us all look bad.”

“There are straight cops at Fort Freak, Chen. I hear you’re one of them.”

Chen grunted. He even did that falsetto. “I hate it double when a cop of Chinese descent goes wrong,” he said. “I hate it like poison, but this needs brought into the light. Come what may. What do you want from me?”

“A pair of ears in the precinct house wouldn’t hurt. Yeah, I know. You don’t want to spy on your brother and sister officers. But think about this—if they committed murder, if they shot Joe Moritz in cold blood, what does that brotherhood mean to them?”

“Okay, I get it.”

“You could maybe drop a hint or two to Grady that if she wants to come back to the straight path, she’d be welcome. If she goes State’s evidence she’ll never do hard time. I want her badge, but if she comes clean I’m fine if she gets the sweet plea bargain we both know they’ll offer. This job’s the art of the possible. Long’s the real dirtbag. It’s his scaly ass I wanna nail to the wall.”

“I wish I could say that was a surprise.”

It bothered Vince to lie to Chen like that when the officer was being open and honest with him, but the truth was he knew that Angel would never cop a plea. She’d throw Long under the bus way before she’d give herself up.

And if she did that, well then that might be enough to get Long to reach out and drag her under the bus with him. And then he’d get them both. At the very least, just the rumor of deals might be enough to drive a wedge between them.

“One more thing,” Vince said. “If you could put a bug in Sergeant Choy’s ear, let her know I’m not looking to bust apple cops here, that’d be a huge favor.”

Chen frowned. “Why me? Because we’re both Chinese?”

“Fuck me, officer. Don’t let the snout and the lovely brown fur fool you. I’m an Italian cop, right? Someone in the department needs a go-between with me, do they go to a Jewish cop? An Irish cop? A fucking Armenian?”

Chen tittered. “Yeah. You got me there. And you’re right. Choy is one of the good guys. I’m glad you see that. Makes me feel like you’re not just head-hunting here.” He looked at his watch. “Okay, gotta get back to the fort. Franny will be wondering where I am, and I don’t want you busting my chops for padding my lunch break.”

“Call me Vince,” Vince said, sticking out a paw. “And I won’t call you Tinkerbill.”

Chen just laughed. “You’ll be the only one, then.”

♣

“I hate to do this, Morgan,” Charlie said. You don’t have any idea how much I hate it, he thought. Marcus had only come out of hiding long enough to leave a message for Charlie a week ago, and already he was being asked to risk his life again. “We need your help.”

Dry leaves crackled on sidewalks as the wind blew them across the cement and stone. Columbus Park didn’t have much cover, but it was pretty empty at this time of night, and Marcus could use trees and light poles as his own personal escape route. It wasn’t a bad location for a discreet meet.

And there was your problem with Morgan. He wasn’t stupid—far from it. But if he had one-quarter the sense he did ingenuity, they wouldn’t be here with Charlie constantly looking over his own shoulder for Doom in many guises.

“I’ll do it, Mr. Herriman,” Marcus said. “I’m tired of hiding in sewers and subway tunnels and eating out of Dumpsters. Even jail has to be better than that.”

I suck, Charlie thought. FML. “This is going to be tricky,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, you might wind up in prison for the rest of your life. But if we want to clear your name and nail two bad cops, it’s the only way.”

“You want to use me as bait, don’t you?”

Charlie sagged. “Well, no, we actually need to use you as a threat.”

♠

Ratboy perp-walked the Infamous Black Tongue into the 5th precinct like Eliot Ness bringing in Al Capone … if Ness had been a giant rat instead of just a glory hound, and if Capone had slithered in on fifteen feet of tail with a barrel cinched tight around his arms and upper torso. But still, he made a big show of it.

Charlie followed along behind at a respectful distance, the conscientious civil servant there to make sure his client got adequate representation. Vince did his best to completely ignore him, as befits a scum-sucking defense lawyer.

The show had its desired effect. Cops came from all over the precinct house to watch the fugitive brought in, including both Angel Grady, only recently returned to active duty and assigned a desk, and her scaly partner Lu Long. Grady played it cool, but Long stared daggers at Marcus, as though he were trying to set him on fire without actually having to spit.

Vince slither-marched Marcus up to Vivian Choy, who was manning the desk that night, and said, “I’m going to need one of your interrogation rooms for this shithead.”

Choy gestured and Bill Chen and Franny Black came to take custody of Marcus.

“What’s IAB doing on a fugitive collar, Detective?” Choy asked, her suspicion palpable. Vince had arranged ahead of time, through Bill Chen, that she be the one to ask the obvious question. Better to get it out in the open from an ally than from an enemy. When he answered her, no one else would ask.

“Well, Sergeant, I happen to be working a case involving this perp. Material witness. And since the officers at this precinct couldn’t find their own asses with a map and a flashlight, I went ahead and rounded him up myself.”

Make it about showing the cops at the 5th up, and they’d buy that as motive for a piece of shit from the rat squad. Prejudice and preconception were tools just like anything else.

“His asshole lawyer should be in lockup with him,” Lu Long yelled out. “We all know he was hiding him.”

“Mr. Herriman is here at Mr. Morgan’s request, to protect his God-given civil rights,” Vince replied with a wink.

Bill Chen returned. “Your guy’s getting prepped. We’ll move him to three when you’re ready.”

“Thank you, Officer Chen,” Vince said. He was playing to the rear seats. Everyone knew he was up to something, but as long as he kept up the act, no one could be sure what. More cops were drifting from the room, moving back to their assignments. Angel gave Lu Long a significant glance and started to head for the staircase. Before she could get out of sight, Vince called out in a loud voice, “Officer Grady! A moment, before you return to work?”

Angel shared another look with Long, then walked over to him. “Yes?”

Vince gave her his best rat smile, the one that showed all his sharp teeth at once. It was an obvious attempt to intimidate, which made Grady half roll her eyes and dismiss him as a threat, which is exactly what he wanted.

With Lu Long across the room watching, Vince lowered his voice. “Puff is done. I’ve got him. I’d call my union rep right now if I were you. This is going to be a long night for the both of you. Lieutenant Kant has been informed of my intent to arrest you both, and will make sure you don’t leave the building. In fact, don’t leave this room.”

Grady stared at him. Vince had to give her credit. She was one cool customer. She didn’t flinch or start shouting denials. She just waited a moment, then pulled out her phone. Across the room, Long was looking at her, his face a question. She ignored him.

Perfect.

Before Long could come over and ask her anything, Vince crossed the room and got in front of him. “Officer Long, could you join me in interrogation room three?”

“What for?”

“Mr. Herriman is waiting there. I have a few more questions about the night you claim he attacked you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Long said, then slouched off toward the interrogation room, his tail dragging across the floor with a sound like high grit sandpaper.

When they reached the room, Charlie was already sitting in it, writing something on a yellow legal pad. He looked up with irritation when they came in. “Excuse me? I haven’t yet had a chance to meet with my client.”

Lu Long snarled and said, “Your client can suck my balls, shyster.”

“Interesting choice of words, officer,” Vince said with a toothy smile. “Let’s everyone have a seat.” He climbed up into one of the room’s uncomfortable plastic chairs. “Mr. Herriman, what do you run, a buck fifty soaking wet?”

“Around there, Detective.”

“Officer Long, what do you run? Gotta be three bills if you’re a pound.”

“What the fuck’s that got to do with this asshole attacking me?”

“Well,” Vince said, pulling his feet up onto the chair and rocking on his haunches. “I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I’ve been in a lot of scrapes, and I have police training and a gun. And I gotta tell you, Puff, I wouldn’t take you on on a dare. I mean, look at you. Built like a brick shithouse, that tail looks like it could break a man off at the knees, and top it off with flaming loogies. You’re hell on wheels, big fella.”

Lu Long’s expression changed, just starting to realize that he might be being mocked. “So fucking what?”

“So, what makes a 150-pound joker with flipper arms do a body tackle on Godzilla’s baby brother?” Vince turned to Charlie and said, “So, why did you do it? Must have been something crazy serious.”

“He was about to shoot my client in the back.”

“Fuck you, you fucking ambulance-chasing prick!” Long stood up, knocking his chair over. His tail lashed side to side, slapping against the wall.

“Well, that certainly qualifies as serious enough for a man to do something crazy,” Vince said without missing a beat. “Officer Long, do you have an alternate theory?”

Long stood for a moment, panting, looking like he was caught between killing Charlie with his bare hands and just running away. “My theory is that this guy is a shithead, and you assholes are up to something.”

Here we go, Vince thought. All in. “Well, Officer Long, I admit that I told Officer Grady she should call her union rep and her lawyer just before we came in. I’m sure she’s doing the same for you.” He charged on before Long could reply. One way to avoid showing the other side you’ve got nothing in your hand is to keep pushing chips into the pot. “Let me tell you my theory. You and Grady capped Joe Twitch, and Marcus Morgan saw you. Hell, he tried to save poor old Joe. You guys tussle, he gets away, now there’s a witness on the loose. But what could Marcus have seen? He saw the shooting, but you guys don’t dispute that you shot Joe. Then it occurs to me, Marcus saw that Joe wasn’t packing when you capped him, so you had to have used a drop gun afterward. You blasted Joe, then you pulled out that piece of shit .380 and stuck it in his hand. So, sure he can testify that Joe wasn’t holding a gun when he was shot, but that’s not the part that really fucks you if he gets on a witness stand.”

Puff sneered. “His word against ours, and he’s a fucking black snake that likes to poison women cops. Who will the jury like, asshole? Why the fuck are you wasting my time with this shit?”

“Snakes and rats are mortal enemies,” Vince said, using his best schoolteacher tone. “I pointed that out to Charles there once. I’m a human trapped in a rat body, and even I get the cold sweats just looking at Marcus. But we do have one important thing in common. Do you know what that is?”

“You’re both vermin?” suggested Puff.

“I was thinking of our vomeronasal organs. You know what those are?”

“Tiny dicks?” Lu Long replied.

“No, it’s an extrasensory organ both snakes and rats have for smelling. For example, did you know that rats use this organ to smell each other’s pheromones? Yeah, they can tell which of the female rats are ready to screw just by the pheromones they give off. And snakes, shit, they’re even better at it. They’re fucking bloodhounds.”

“So you smell,” said Puff. “So the fuck what?”

“You and I both know you dropped that gun. We both know Marcus can testify that Joe didn’t have a gun at the time of the shooting. But there’s no way a jury is just going to buy into his testimony without a real good reason.

“Like ball sweat. I can smell your scaly little balls right now, asshole. And that means Marcus could too. And you had that cheap-ass .380 stuffed down your pants, and no matter how much you wiped it for prints, you couldn’t get those pheromones off of it. While you and he were tussling, he kept throwing that tongue of his at you, right? Sure, he can poison you with it, but a snake’s tongue does something else too. It grabs scent particles and deposits them on that vomeronasal organ I was telling you about. That’s better than a fucking bloodhound. That’s like a bloodhound on steroids.”

Lu Long laughed. “No one is going to believe that shit!”

“Oh, yes they will,” Charlie said over the top of him. “Vince and I have got it all figured out. We lay out ten identical guns to the one you dropped. Marcus will pick the one you carried every time. We do that over and over again, eventually the jury won’t be able to ignore it. Witness testimony can be about all sorts of thing. Things a person saw, or heard … or in this case, smelled.”

Charlie got up and headed toward the interrogation-room door. Vince pointed one finger at Long’s face. “You’re cooked, motherfucker. We got you. I got your account with money going into it the day before the shoot, I got a witness saw you at the shoot, and I got your ball sweat all over the gun you planted on Joe Moritz.”

He stopped when someone knocked at the door. Charlie opened it to admit Sergeant Squinch. She handed Vince a plastic evidence bag with a small automatic in it. The gun they claimed Joe Twitch had when he died.

Vince said, “Sergeant, is Officer Grady with anyone out there?”

“Yeah, she’s been talking to a union rep for a few minutes now. Why?”

“Has this union representative asked to see Officer Long?”

“Nope.”

“Thank you.” Vince turned back to Lu Long. “I know about the money you paid Grady for her half of the hit. I don’t know if you brought her in, or vice versa. And frankly, I don’t give a shit. But what I do know is that she took half the money and fired half the bullets, and she’s out there right now getting ready to toss you to the wolves.”

“Angel wouldn’t—”

“The fuck she wouldn’t,” Vince said, raising his voice for the first time. “I told her that I had you by the balls. I told her she’d better get you a lawyer and a rep fast, because I was about to burn you down. You know what she did? She called her rep. She’s out there right now figuring out what kind of deal she can work. And she’ll get away with it, because you’re a piece of shit who likes hurting people, and she’s Angel Grady, war hero and straight arrow. We’ll want to believe it was all you. We’ll eat that shit up as long as she feeds it to us. But what’s really sad is that it’s a fucking split tail that will send big tough Lu Long to the needle. I got you by your ball sweat, and a fucking woman is going to have the last laugh while you get the hot shot.” There, push all the chips to the middle of the table and dare the other side to call. When they flip that river card, you go home a millionaire or you go bust. The adrenaline coursing though Vince’s body made time seem to slow to a crawl while Lu Long sat in stunned silence.

“Fuck no she isn’t,” Lu Long finally growled.

Aces all the way, game over, cash me out.

♦

Sergeant Vivian Choy popped the cork on a fresh bottle of Charles Heidsieck 1995 Blanc des Millénaires champagne. Everyone cheered as white foam frothed out the top and down the sides.

It was a festive early evening at New Big Wang. Dr. Pretorius had sprung for the bubbly and finger food. The lawyer himself cheerfully accepted the first refill.

Though he wasn’t much of a drinker Charlie had already put away the better part of a glass. It was his party. His license to practice saved from disbarment, his client rescued from a false murder charge. His information let Ratboy nail all the bad guys. Almost in spite of himself, he’d won.

Along with staff and well-wishers roistered representatives of the media and a few Fort Freak cops: Sergeant Choy, passing out the champagne and looking trim and definitely not bad for a woman her age. Franny Black from Columbia, and his partner, that huge Chinese patrol guy everybody called Tinkerbill. Who beneath his permanent frown was grinning and looking to be having a fine old time in his pale yellow polo shirt and tan slacks. Detective Michael Stevens. At the edge of the crowd floated Ice Blue Sibyl, smiling her enigmatic smile. And of course, Detective-Investigator Second-Grade Vincent Marinelli, who was holding court in the midst of an attentive mob. He was running through his line of bullshit about the snake and rat sense of smell again. It was definitely going to become legend.

“So I said, ‘I got you by the ball sweat, Puff!’” Vince said.

“So you can’t really smell people’s balls?” Bill Chen asked in his squeaky voice.

“You’ve got balls, Tink?” someone called out to him. More laughter.

Charlie pushed through the crowd to the front door and stepped outside. The crisp night air grounded him, helped push back the growing surreal feeling he had in the party. A few moments later, the door opened behind him accompanied by a short burst of party noise that faded when the door closed again. Charlie didn’t turn around, but he heard the clack of claws on concrete and the raspy sweep of a tail. “Vince.”

“What’s eating you, kid?” Marinelli asked. “The good guys won. Marcus is cleared. We’re in the clear. And Puff is merrily spilling his guts about his erstwhile partner, ensuring that both of them will get a nice long vacation courtesy of the Department of Corrections.”

Charlie blinked at him. “He’s going to do hard time, isn’t he? They won’t plea him down to nothing, will they? He still scares the living shit out of me.”

“He’s not getting off with a slap on the wrist, plea bargain or not. He did kill someone for money. They sort of frown on cops doing that. But who knew it was really Angel’s show?”

“You believe that? Maybe Puff’s just saying that to save his hide.”

Vince nodded. “Maybe. But it doesn’t matter. Someday I’d like to know why Angel went bad too. Did Puff twist her? Some shit she was into? Who can say, and it doesn’t change the facts anyway.” He crossed his arms. “And none of that’s why you look like you’re about to puke until your asshole gets hung up on your tonsils, is it?”

Charlie shook his head. “It was such a gamble. I mean, I’m glad you pulled it off, but if you hadn’t, Marcus would have done hard time. That’s pretty shitty. And I did it because I was scared. Scared of losing my license, of going to jail.”

“You did the right thing. Once the Tongue came in, his odds of getting offed went down about a million percent. And he’s off the hook for the real charges. And the community seems to be turning his way. The Cry is calling him a hero.”

“But I still put him in harm’s way,” Charlie said. “I talked him into it. How does it excuse what I did, that everything turned out mostly all right?”

“You did the best you could under the circumstances.”

“I thought you were Captain See the World in Black and White,” Charlie said. He meant it ugly. It came out ugly. He regretted it immediately.

Vince didn’t seem to notice. “Kid,” he said, “if you can’t handle moral ambiguity, you’re gonna need to find a whole different planet to live on.”

The door opened again, and Sergeant Choy came out. This time, the sounds of a party didn’t follow. Sensing something was wrong, Vince said, “What killed the party? Need to hear my ball sweat story again?”

Choy scowled. “Puff got away. They were moving him to the courthouse, and he burned a federal marshal’s face off along the way. He’s in the wind.”

“Fuck me,” Vince said.

♥

It was almost full dark, a couple nights later. His backpack slung over one shoulder, Charlie trotted up the steps of the law library. He and Marcus had a meeting with the D.A.’s office in the morning. He had some research to do first.

The door opened before him. A tall, willowy woman in a skirt and blue-gray sweater emerged. Dark hair hung past her shoulders. She stopped. Her blue eyes went wide. “You’re Charles Herriman!”

“Uh—yeah. Wait. Have I seen you before?”

She laughed. “I knocked your files everywhere just a few nights ago, in the Diamond,” she said. “I didn’t know I ran into a hero.”

“A—wait, what?”

“I just want you to know,” she said, “that some of us are really proud of what you did for that poor joker boy. The world needs more lawyers like you.”

And she kissed him on the cheek.

He finally came out of full freeze as she was disappearing down the steps to street level. “Okay,” he told himself, in a puff of condensation. “Okay. I almost got up the nerve to ask her name. Next time. For sure.”

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

The Rat Race

Part 16.

WANDA STOOD NAKED BY the window, half behind the curtain in some lingering excuse for modesty. No one could see her but Leo, and he looked at her as hard as he could. Light from outside—from the moon, or from some nearby neon, or somebody else’s window—cut sharp shadows across her body.

He was still in bed. The quilt was somewhere on the floor, and a tenacious gray striped sheet was pulled up over Leo’s waist.

Pillow talk had turned to talk of work, and the end of work. It had turned to the Rathole, and to suspicions, and to conjecture. He’d told her everything he knew, and everything he believed—even the things he probably should’ve kept to himself. It aggravated him that she wasn’t wearing a badge and couldn’t join him everywhere. He wanted her to join him everywhere, he realized this now. And he didn’t think it was some weird compensation for the end of one life, searching for the start of a new one.

Besides, the Rathole was her case too.

“Time’s running out,” she murmured, still looking out the window, down at the street and at God knew what.

“No kidding.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs beneath the sheet. “I’m just not sure what to do next. I’ve chased every lead, no matter how old and rusty. I’ve learned things I didn’t want to know about my friends.”

“Squid? I saw his name on the white board. You didn’t erase it very well.”

“I should’ve left it up there in the first place. I’d be an idiot if I didn’t wonder.”

She chewed softly on her bottom lip. “What about Esposito?”

“What about him?”

“That awful girl who came after you … she must believe he knows something.”

“Oh, he knows something,” Leo confirmed. “He was in it up to his eyeballs back in the day.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t the trigger?”

He took a minute. Then he said, “No, I’m not sure. It could’ve been him. From a certain slant, he even looks good for it. He was in the neighborhood, involved with Hash Maddox, and prone to wearing masks. He was also a bouncer at Freakers, where one of the victims worked. Any way you look at it, he’s tied up in it.”

“But your gut tells you no?” she asked.

“My gut tells me he didn’t do it. The Sleeper said the shooter was frantic, and demanding to know who owned that goddamned car. I can’t see a pro like Raul stumbling into trouble like that.” Leo sighed. “The case has all the hallmarks of something personal. And his involvement, if he had any, would’ve been business.”

“You ever try just asking him who the shooter was?”

“Yeah. He says he doesn’t know.”

“You believe him?”

“I don’t know.”

Wanda turned away from the window, leaning against the wall beside it. “The car,” she breathed. “The Mercedes.”

“Don Reynolds either stole it or found it after the hit-and-run a week or two before the Rathole. Contarini had ditched it.”

She strolled forward, crawling onto the foot of the bed and dragging herself toward the spot beside him. The mattress squeaked softly as her knees and elbows and hands pulled her flesh into line beside his. She nabbed a pillow and shoved it behind her shoulders. “So what about the girl who died in the hit-and-run?”

“What about her?”

“Who missed her?” she said, pointing a long fingernail into Leo’s side, and tapping an emphatic beat against his skin.

He shrugged his head back and forth, pouting thoughtfully. “As near as I could tell, Ramona Holt had no family, no partners. No nobody but the Demon Princes, none of whom had any connection to the car.”

“But somebody was really, really mad about that car. Mad at either Don Reynolds, or mad at Contarini.”

“My money’s on Contarini. And Squid was mad enough to throw him out of church.”

“You don’t really believe Squid was the shooter. I know you don’t,” she said, but it sounded like she didn’t know it. She only hoped it.

Leo said, “Squid was connected to the car. He was also connected to one of the victims—Lizzie Wallace. He knew her, and he liked her. He’s the one point of commonality between them.”

Wanda rolled over to face him. “If Squid had a friend at the Rathole, why would he go down there and kill her? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know.”

“But the counter girl’s boyfriend was in the Werewolves. Right?”

He hemmed and hawed, finally saying, “Well, yeah. But no one accused the Werewolves of driving the Mercedes.”

Wanda squinted thoughtfully at Leo’s face. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t about Ramona. But you said it looked personal.”

He would’ve speculated further but her fingers were running gently scratchy, long-nailed circles on the sheet that covered his lap. “Personal,” he repeated, distracted. Being drawn into a change of subject, now that her nails were picking at the sheet’s hem, drawing it back and down, leaving him as naked as she was. “It’s personal at least half the time, with … with…”

She slipped her hand down his thigh and draped one of her legs over his, bringing the soft heat of her crotch to rest against his hip.

“This kind of case,” he muttered, taking her hand in his and kissing it, then using it as leverage to pull her all the way across him, so that her weight was a lovely thing—her breasts compressed irresistibly against his collarbone as her face hovered above his. “Sex or money,” he concluded.

He craned his neck up to kiss her. She kissed back, and shifted her hips until she fully straddled him. Sitting up, she stretched—giving him one hell of a view. Then she leaned forward again and ran her hand along the side of his face, fiddling with the smooth, bony curl of keratin that spiraled there.

“I can’t stay all night,” she said softly. “Got a big meeting with the housing board in the morning.”

“But one more round?” he asked, already so stiff underneath her that he thought he’d die if she got up and left.

She wiggled her hips to give his erection a little room, rather than keep it cramped down beneath her. “Again? Already?”

“Oh, you know me. Always horny.” He tapped at the thick growths she’d been toying with earlier, and then added, “Wocka … wocka?”

She laughed with silly delight and kissed him hard, adjusting herself to better accommodate him between her legs; and as he tensed and grasped her with anticipation, she settled down on him with no small degree of skill, taking him easily inside her. With a gasp he threw his head back but she grabbed his horns and used them to brace herself as she moved—holding them like a steering wheel at three and six o’clock, forcing him to watch—and Leo thanked God he wasn’t a younger man because he never could’ve withstood the sight. Five seconds and it would’ve been all over.

So age had its privileges after all.

When they were finished, covered in sweat—with nothing left on the bed except the bottom fitted sheet—they lay tangled together. One of her feet hung off the bed. One of his arms was pinned beneath her shoulders, but he wasn’t complaining.

Leo turned to her, still panting faintly, and said, “I want to say this before you take off.”

“Say what?” she whispered back.

“I know I don’t talk about it much, but I want you to know. This. You and me. I don’t care if it makes me sound soft, but you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years.”

“Aw, Leo,” she said, curling up against him, drawing the one distant foot back onto the mattress.

“No, don’t say anything. You don’t have to say anything back. I just wanted to get that out there. It’s meant everything to me, these last few months especially. It’s been a tough time. Been a strange time. And the first time me and you came around, all those years ago, the time wasn’t right. But this…” he said, running out of words. “It feels like a second chance.”

She took his face in her hands and pulled her damp body as close to his as she could. “So it’s a second chance. I don’t want this one to get away.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good, me either.” She grinned, her face so close that her cheek grazed his. “And you know, you left one out.”

“What?” he asked, afraid of what she might mean.

“What you said before, about motives. Sex and money. Maybe you ought to add a third. Sometimes things happen for love.”

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

Faith

Part 4.

DECEMBER, 2010

FATHER SQUID LOOKED UP from the sheaf of forms that Leo Storgman had just handed him. He supposed that the exhumation order was punctiliously correct, but he wouldn’t actually know. He’d never seen one before.

He looked past Storgman into the hallway beyond. His office in Our Lady was too small to hold the entourage that the detective had bought with him. They waited in the hallway beyond the entrance, wheeled cart, body bag, and all. He recognized the uniformed cops—the joker named Miranda Michaelson, who looked like nothing more than a human whippet, five feet five, barrel-chested with a tiny waist, long, powerful legs, and vestigial fangs in an otherwise normal face. Rikki, she was called. She looked more odd than ugly. Better-looking, in fact, than her partner Bugeye Bronkowski, who was a nat, but a decidedly unattractive one with large, protruding eyes that were just this side of normal. Father Squid didn’t know the two nats caddying the go-to-Jesus cart. Two functionaries, he assumed, from the coroner’s office.

“I don’t know what you’re going to gain from exhuming Lizzie’s body,” the priest said.

Leo shrugged. “Neither do I,” he admitted. “But that’s why we’re doing it. Something may turn up.”

“I’d hate to see Lizzie’s rest disturbed by a fishing expedition.”

“She’s beyond caring, Father.”

Father Squid regretted his lack of eyebrows. It was hard to register skepticism without the ability to lift an eyebrow. He had to make do with a ripple of his nasal tentacles. “Is she? What about her loved ones?”

“Does she have loved ones?” Storgman asked.

“You’d be surprised,” Father Squid muttered.

DECEMBER, 1978

Ralph Pleasant dropped by the storefront a few days after the killings. The pageant rehearsal was continuing, but in a lackluster manner. The Rathole murders had shaken the entire Jokertown community down to its very roots.

“What is this crap?” Pleasant said, not even bothering to lower his voice. “Christ, what a freak show. Joker fags playacting. I hate this fucking precinct.”

Dorian Wilde turned his bleary gaze onto the cop. The whites of his eyes were red, as if he’d been drinking heavily. “Officer Pleasant, isn’t it?”

“Detective Pleasant.” Pleasant flashed his badge, started to put it away. His manner gave the lie to his name.

“May I see that?” Wilde asked archly.

Pleasant sighed his put-upon sigh and took out the wallet again, pulling away when he noticed the slime-dripping tentacles that the joker reached out to take it with. “Fuck, no,” he said, with something of horror in his voice.

“Yes,” Wilde said, “indubitably, a cop.”

“Mind answering some questions, Padre?” Pleasant asked Father Squid.

“Perhaps we’d better go to my office,” the priest said.

“Perhaps we’d better,” Pleasant agreed.

The office was tiny and ill-furnished and cluttered with cardboard boxes filled with ratty, smelly donated clothing. A small chair for the priest, a small, battered table before it. A single battered, paint-spattered wooden chair on the other side of the table. The detective sat, crossed his legs, and took out a pad and ballpoint pen.

Father Squid had expected to be questioned about Lizzie, but Pleasant never so much as mentioned the Rathole killings. Instead he wanted to know about Monsignor Contarini. When he arrived, when he left, what was discussed. Father Squid answered dutifully. His voice was monotonous, almost zombielike. In truth, he was deadly tired. He hadn’t slept at all. He didn’t want to sleep, even if he could. Whenever he closed his eyes, he dreamed he was back with the Twisted Fists, gunning down women who looked like Lizzie.

“Had the wop been drinking?” the detective finally asked.

“The monsignor?” said Father Squid. “No. Of course not. He was … upset.”

Pleasant made a note of that, clicked the pen shut. “That’s all I need.” He got to his feet and put the notepad away.

“What is all this about?” Father Squid asked him.

“Stolen car. Nothing to concern you.”

Father Squid nodded. “I thought perhaps … perhaps it might concern the Rathole. I go … used to go … there often when my day is done. I … I liked their coffee.”

Pleasant gave him a curious look. “Coffee? That’s it?”

“And their pies. I … I knew Lizzie.” His throat constricted with his words. He had to admit to that. Their affair had been a secret, it had to be, but a lot of people knew that he went to the Rathole and that he often spoke to her. It galled him to cover up their love, to lie about it, even by omission. The guilt it brought him galled him. “She didn’t have an enemy in the world. I don’t know anyone who’d want to harm her.”

“Don’t sweat it, Padre,” Ralph Pleasant said. “We got the guy. Joker named Deedle. We found him with the drugs and money he took off the cook.”

Father Squid was stunned. He had been so certain that the killings were the work of Peter Nance. Drugs? Was that what it was all about? Deedle was such a silly name, even for a joker. “Deedle,” he repeated, in a dull monotone. Deedle killed Lizzie, and our child. “Who … who is this Deedle?”

“Just another stupid joker skel,” Pleasant said. “Thanks for all your help, Padre.” He took a card out of his jacket pocket and laid it carefully on the desk. “Here’s my card. Call me if you remember anything else about the dago.”

Father Squid nodded wearily. The police have the killer, he told himself. Justice will be done. Perhaps that should have made him feel better, but the hollow feeling inside him still remained. Deedle would pay for his crime, but that would not bring back Lizzie, or their unborn child.

When the day of the pageant arrived, Father Squid sat in the office of the community center, gazing at the Santa suit that Lizzie had made him. At the end of the pageant he was supposed to come forth and distribute gifts to the children in the audience. He didn’t know if he could do it. He climbed into the suit and his sensitive olfactory nerves could detect her scent on the fabric—

Someone knocked, rapping hurriedly on his office door. It was probably Wilde. The joker poet had quietly taken complete charge of the pageant. He probably had some last-minute concerns. Father Squid was tempted to tell him to go away, but before he could say anything the door flew open and someone came in, shutting the door after him.

He was tall, skinny, and shaking. He was a joker, covered in coarse reddish hair. He wore a cheap plastic hawk mask and had a rough bandage on one hand that was caked with dried blood. “Sanctuary!” he cried in a desperate voice. “Father, I didn’t do it! I’m innocent, I tell you! You have to help me, hide me…”

“Calm down,” the priest said. “What are you talking about?”

“The killings! The Rathole! I never killed no one. I copped the car and Hash’s, uh, stuff, but they was already dead when I got there, Father, I swear it.” He held up his bandaged hand in a grim mockery of a Boy Scout salute.

“Deedle,” Father Squid said.

The joker nodded and took off his mask. His young face was unremarkable, if exceedingly ugly. His pained, grim, hunted expression didn’t help. “I busted out. I had to. They’re going to burn me, Father, and I’m innocent. You’ve gotta help me, please, I’m innocent.”

Father Squid nodded. “Calm down, my son. Let me think.”

“You have to hide me. Sanctuary, I claim sanctuary…”

“Sanctuary, yes.” Was Deedle lying? Father Squid knew that he was a career criminal. He had no illusions as to the truthfulness of such. “Yes,” he repeated. He grabbed Deedle’s arm, to stop him from shaking, but it didn’t work. “The church. Go to St. Andrew’s—you know it? The door to the back alley is kept unlocked. Go there. Wait for me. I have this … this pageant to attend to. I’ll come by when it’s over.”

“Thank you, Father, thank you.”

“Yes.” The priest’s mind was still awhirl. “Go, quickly, before you’re spotted.”

“Yes—”

And he was gone.

DECEMBER, 2010

“You know where she’s buried?” Ramshead asked.

Father Squid looked up. The detective was gazing at him with speculation in his eyes. Does he know? the priest wondered. Can he see the guilt in my eyes?

“You know where Lizzie’s tomb is?” Storgman repeated. “The quicker we find her, the quicker the circus is over.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Of course. I will take you to her. This way.”

They went down the narrow hall, Father Squid leading the procession like a cowled demon guiding a troop of sinners to hell. The only noise they made were their shuffling footsteps and the squeakily creaking wheels of the corpse cart. Father Squid glanced over his shoulder, his features barely visible in the uncertain light.

“Watch the stairs down to the crypt,” he said, “they’re stone and rather narrow. I’m afraid you’ll have to carry the cart, and also down the ladder to the catacombs.”

“Catacombs?” said one of the guys from the coroner’s office. “That means, like, no digging?”

“No digging,” Father Squid agreed.

“I’m cool with that,” the flunky said.

“Here we are,” Father Squid announced after they had made their descent. “I’m afraid that our crypt is more of a storage facility than a proper crypt.” It was a large and dark room, its recesses barely illuminated by the light Father Squid had flipped on at the top of the winding staircase that led down into it. “Careful now,” he warned as they went down the stairs. He gestured about him as they reached the large stone chamber that had various boxes, crates, and chests scattered about seemingly randomly. “As you see we use it for rather mundane storage rather than as a strongbox for treasure or a vault for bodies. The church has no treasure.” Father Squid paused for a moment as he went to a trapdoor set into the floor and yanked it open. “And all the bodies are down here.”

The group gathered around the open trapdoor, looking at each other uncertainly and glancing down into the yawning pit that lay at their feet. “I’ll go first,” Father Squid said. “I’m used to the ladder. Don’t start down until I turn the light on.”

“Uh-huh,” Bugeye said, in total agreement with the priest.

Father Squid disappeared into the darkness. A few moments later an uncertain light flickered on, and he called out, “All right, come on down.”

The cops and coroner’s men looked at each other.

“You first,” Bugeye said to the coroner’s crew.

“Oh, for Chrissakes,” Leo said. “What are you afraid of?”

“There could be stuff down there,” one of the coroner’s men said. “You know. Spiders. Rats. Snakes. Alligators.”

“Christ,” Storgman said, and went down the ladder. “Hurry up,” he called back up.

They all looked at each other, and the joker cop followed him down.

By the time they’d all reached the floor of the catacombs, passing the cart down clumsily, Father Squid had lit a half-dozen votive candles and said a brief prayer.

They looked around at the ossuary. “Geez,” Bugeye said in a low voice. “Will you look at all them bones?”

“The ones you want are this way,” Father Squid said, heading off through the catacombs. As they followed him into the darkness Miranda and Bugeye both took out their flashlights and shone them all about. The coroner’s crew followed at the rear, their cart trundling over the slightly uneven brick floor, squeaking like a squadron of demon rats.

Father Squid stopped at Lizzie’s tomb. “Here it is.”

They shone their flashlights on the nameplate, illuminating Lizzie’s name and dates. So young, Father Squid thought, so young and sweet to die so hard.

The coroner’s team took charge. They put on their plastic gloves and covered their mouths and noses with face masks. “Been down here a while,” one of them observed. “Probably won’t stink too much. But you never can tell with these oddball burials. Sometimes—”

“Spare us your experiences,” Storgman said, watching Father Squid, who had turned away as they pulled the nameplate from the wall.

There was a small wooden coffin inside the wall niche. The coroner’s men levered it out and placed it on the floor. It didn’t seem heavy. They used battery-powered drills to unscrew the lid’s fasteners, and the coffin’s cover came off easily. They peered inside, the uniformed cops glancing over their shoulders with interest.

“Not much left,” one said. “We’d better take the coffin if we want to make sure to get it all.” He looked at the uniforms. “Want to give us a hand?”

Michaelson and Bronkowski looked at each other.

Leo Storgman gestured impatiently. “Sooner we get out of here, the better. Everyone grab a handle. Lift. Slowly. Yeah.” Father Squid watched them put the plain pine box on the cart and zip the body bag up over it. “Strap it up and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“This boneyard gives me the creeps,” said Bugeye.

Father Squid had never thought that of the catacombs. It was sad, yes, but a place of peace and repose. But now, with her gone, it would be a colder, darker place.

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

Hope We Die Before We Get Old

Part 3.

THEY’D LIVED IN JOKERTOWN for over thirty-five years. They’d moved to J-Town in 1974, perhaps six months after that day in mid-May, 1973, when the three of them had awakened in their bed no longer three individuals, but a single tormented one. Manhattan no longer wanted them after that: didn’t want John practicing law in their courts, was no longer dazzled by Evan’s art, and the city agency that employed Patty as a social worker decided her services were no longer needed. Their old life had vanished for them, and so they had gone to where all those disfigured by the wild card virus went: to Jokertown, where they were just another sight, where their pain was mirrored by that of the people around them.

And when they’d found their calling as the “Protector of Jokertown,” as they came to be named, they couldn’t even stay in that first apartment they’d taken, nor in Dutton’s museum, which had been their next refuge. No, they’d needed to have a private, hidden place: where they could be alone with themselves, where they could be away from the requests and the prying eyes and the world.

They’d found this lost location.

Before Jetboy’s spectacular failure, before the world changed forever, this area had been the Bowery, and during the Prohibition era, the mob had run liquor to the various speakeasies through underground tunnels. After liquor was again legal, most of those tunnels had been filled in or forgotten, but portions of them still remained, accessed by locked and innocent-looking doors from various buildings. Oddity had come across the tunnels by the late seventies, around the time of the Rathole murders, and they had become their permanent residence, their hiding place where they could howl their misery and pain and bother no one.

Their “residence” was a network of tunnels and rooms; they’d barred off the tunnels and erected steel doors so that the joker gangs who sometimes prowled belowground couldn’t enter. Those few who did were warned away, sometimes physically. There were signs spray-painted on many of the doors; since no one ever bothered them, Oddity assumed that the marks were warnings by the gangs to steer clear. Inside, there was some comfort: electricity stolen from the buildings above, an old TV from the eighties that still had a beta VCR attached to it (it was tuned to the news: “… attacks on jokers over the last three nights near Bleecker,” an announcer was intoning), bookcases (many filled with John’s old law books), carpets on the stone floors, furniture they’d cobbled together from their old apartments. Evan had plumbed them into the city’s sewage system.

It was sparse, it was spare, but it was the nearest thing they had to a home. They were, after all, never alone.

After the debacle of the Dime Museum, Pretorius had managed to get them released on their own recognizance, with a hearing delayed (at their request) until after the first of the new year. Charles Dutton had declined to press charges, either for his injuries or for the damage caused to the Dime Museum—now being repaired through donations from Jokertown’s citizens—but the D.A. was still charging them with assault on the officers from Fort Freak. They’d stayed in Pretorius’s office for almost a week, growing larger each day after Sergeant Squinch’s initial shrinking; when they were a few feet high, they’d left without saying anything to Pretorius, coming down here to stay as they continued to grow back to their normal size. Patty and Evan had alternated taking Dominant for the rest of the month, keeping John penned up in Passive. That was becoming increasingly more difficult, and both of them were again at the point of exhaustion.

They couldn’t hold John down forever. They knew that his paranoia was growing ever stronger and that the chance of John being as he once had been when he gained Dominant again were small.

[… give Oddity to me I know I can handle it please give it to me there’s so much we need to do have to protect those who can’t protect themselves …]

Patty was spiraling into depression. She could feel it. Evan, she suspected, was the same. She looked at the bed—the same bed the three of them had shared in their Upper Manhattan apartment. She imagined the three of them there fondling each other, engaged in long slow lovemaking, laughing and smiling at each other’s ecstasy.

That memory was harder and harder to hold on to.

In one corner, next to the television, Patty had placed a small Christmas tree on which were hung a few desultory ornaments and a triple strand of blinking white lights. There was a single gift under the sparse branches: a small wooden box tied with a bow of blue satin ribbon. Patty had put it together. They bent down (groaning as the movement caused something to grate against their rib cage and send waves of momentary agony lancing through them) and picked up the package, tucking it into a pocket of their trademark black, heavy cloak.

[You’re sure about this, Patty?] Evan asked. [This is what you want?]

She nodded Oddity’s head. [Yes,] she told him, told John. [I think so, anyway.]

[… no no no this is wrong it’s wrong we’re as strong as we ever were it’s our job our task not anyone else’s …]

The fencing mask was sitting on the top of the television set; they switched off the TV and they put on the fencing mask, then lifted the cloak’s cowl over that. They looked at themselves in a mirror: Oddity, as the world saw them.

[Let’s go,] Evan said to Patty. [It’s getting late.] They nodded and left the rooms, walking through the echoing tunnel and sewers and climbing toward the waiting night.

They walked through familiar streets, streets they’d walked a thousand times over the decades, watching for anything that was wrong or suspicious, for any joker in trouble they might help. They considered them their streets, their people: the poor souls who had been reshaped and reimagined through the wild card virus, those the rest of the world rejected. John had been the first to voice that resolution, decades in the past: “The wild card has done something horrible to us, yes, but it has also given us a strength we didn’t have before, and it’s kept us together. Let’s use what we have to protect those to whom the virus gave nothing but pain, misery, and mockery.”

They walked openly through the streets, feeling the stares of the jokers and nats that they passed, responding to the occasional greeting. On the corner of Hester Street and Bowery, they saw Jube’s newspaper stand, a set of twinkling Christmas lights outlining the stand. Jube, as ever, was there behind the counter, his porkpie hat askew on his blue-black skull, wearing a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt in garish blue and gold despite the cold. “Oddity,” he called out as they approached. His breath smelled of old theaters and buttered popcorn. “Best of the season to you. Hey, I heard a good one the other day. There’s this college professor giving her students a test on Monday after the big weekend game. She tells them that she didn’t want to hear any excuses about how they did poorly on the test because they’d been out drinking. One student in the back raises his hand. ‘What if I’ve been up all night having sex?’ he asks her, grinning. The students all laugh, but the teacher just shrugs. ‘Then I’d advise you to write your essay with your other hand,’ she tells him.”

Jube chuckled, his mouth curling around the walrus tusks at the corners. “Pretty good, huh?”

“You keep trying, Jube,” Patty told him as he laughed. She gestured at the papers on their racks. “Can we have a copy of the latest Cry?”

Jube was still chortling at his own joke as they paid and left. The headline was about the Infamous Black Tongue, cleared of all charges. Below the fold, there was an article about the attacks around Bleecker. They put the Cry on a bench at the nearest bus stop. The pages rustled in the wind.

They stopped again at a vacant lot a few blocks away, a dark place like an empty socket in the mouth of Jokertown, made even darker by the holiday lights on the buildings around it. Once, this had been the place to go in Jokertown. [… where is it what happened to it…?] John fretted, his voice ceaseless. He tried to rise up to Sub-Dominant and Evan cast him back down again, groaning with the effort.

[The Crystal Palace burned down long ago, John,] he said. [Don’t you remember?]

[I remember,] Patty answered. [I remember how vibrant the place was, and poor Chrysalis …] Oddity moaned into the darkness, into the empty space where once the Palace had stood, bright and full of life. They could imagine the laughter floating out, and the music …

They walked on.

[Where to now?] John asked. [Or is it time?]

[I want to check on Dutton,] Patty said. [Just to make sure he’s all right …]

Outside a nondescript brownstone with a wreath twinkling on the door, they slipped into a side yard and went up to a window shedding yellow light onto the house next door. As they approached the window, they could hear faint voices inside. Peering through the window, they could see Dutton, one arm in a cast and sling, his death’s-head face staring down at cards held in his other hand. Three other people were at the table with him; the middle of the table was piled with chips. They saw Dutton toss another chip into the pot as they stepped back.

They continued walking. They didn’t move into the side streets and alleyways until they reached Bleecker Street, where they suddenly turned. They heard, from farther down Bleecker, a faint scream, followed by laughter. Those on the sidewalks of the street looked around, clutching packages tightly to them. [Evan? What do you think?]

[Let’s check it out.] They limped down Bleecker, groaning quietly, jokers moving aside for them. They heard the commotion coming from an alley near the intersection of Mott Street, and Oddity smiled momentarily under the mask, but it was not Patty who moved their lips.

[… get the bastards beat the crap out of ’em …]

Oddity turned into the alley, stopping to let their eyes adjust to the dimness there. They could see movement, could hear someone pleading in a strained and breathy voice with three kids in masks, none of them with any apparent deformities, gathered around someone on the ground, punching and kicking. “No, please don’t … don’t hit me again. Oh, God … Please…”

“Hey!” Oddity said.

The kids turned. “Fuck!” one of them said. He was a nat, wearing a Joker Plague T-shirt, his mask hanging from a cheap elastic string around his neck. “That’s Oddity.”

[… let me have them let me show them …] Patty could feel John rising, pushing upward. Inside, she heard Evan wail as John clawed at him, tearing him from Sub-Dominant and taking his place. Now his voice was clearer, and she could feel him trying to assert control of Oddity’s body. [They’re mine. I’ll beat the little fuckers so hard they’ll never think of coming to Jokertown again.]

Oddity growled in response to John’s rage, a low warning that got all the kids’ attention. “We’re three against one old asshole,” one of the kids said. “Let’s kick some more joker ass.” He was holding a length of steel pipe. He took a step toward Oddity, pulling the weapon back to swing, but Oddity slid forward and grabbed the hand before it could strike. Patty wasn’t sure if it was her or John who had moved Oddity. The crack of bone was loud in the alleyway; the sudden scream of the kid was even louder, as was the clatter of the pipe on the ground. Oddity started to reach down to pick up the length of steel—Patty fighting the motion. Their hand closed around it as she and John fought for control of Oddity. [I’ll show them! I’ll show them what it feels like! Let me go, Patty!] The kids took off as Oddity seemed frozen in position, their leader cradling his broken arm, shepherded away by his masked friends. “Come on, man, let’s get the hell out of here.…”

Patty struggled with John, and now she could feel Evan rising to help her. Together, they managed to throw John back down into the prison of Passive, though it left them both exhausted. [… kill the fuckers next time kill all of them that would hurt jokers …]

A moan brought their attention back. The joker huddled against the wall wasn’t moving. They went over to the battered body; the face was a mask of blood—scaled skin hadn’t protected the joker. What might once have been sails of flesh running from arms to the body hung in red-hued tatters around him. One leg was broken, canted out at an impossible angle, and his left arm had a compound fracture of the forearm, bone protruding from the skin. Oddity crouched down alongside the joker.

“They’re gone,” they said. “We’ll get you help. Just hang on a little longer.…”

One thing had changed over the years. In the past, they would have gone to find someone. Now they pulled a cell phone from underneath their cloak and hit a stored number.

“Nine-one-one operator. What’s your emergency?”

They gave their location to the operator, told her an ambulance was needed. They knelt by the joker and patted him. “They’re coming,” Oddity husked.

[It’s time,] Evan whispered. [We can’t do this anymore.]

Oddity nodded.

They rose, groaning their eternal pain to the night, and padded away as they heard sirens approaching.

♣

The neon sign had expired a long time ago: UN LE CHOW ERS C AM B R, the unlit remnants proclaimed, and the broken and empty neon tubes hinted at the mollusk with a top hat and cane that had once danced there during the night. To the right of the sign for the ground-floor tavern, a steel railing protected the concrete steps leading down to a basement door, a wooden sign dangling on the unpainted metal by a rusted loop of chain, with a six-fingered hand pointing down and SQUISHER’S BASEMENT painted underneath the hand in crude lettering.

[Looks as good as it ever did,] Patty commented. Evan only grunted inwardly. Oddity shuffled down the grimy, trash-littered steps and opened the battered steel door there.

The miasma of stale beer, vomit, and decades of cigarette smoke hit them like a physical blow; Oddity sniffed hard behind the fencing mask against the assault. In the dim, smoke-filtered light of the bar, the heads of patrons—all of them jokers—swiveled to look at the door and the roar of conversation over a track from Joker Plague’s latest album dropped to a whisper. Oddity saw several of them nod in recognition before turning back to their drinks and conversation.

Squisher’s tank sat behind the bar and the rows of grimy and water-spotted bottles. The water in the aquarium roiled as Squisher’s head emerged and vented water from a hole in the top of his fish-head face. Squisher nodded. “Oddity,” he said. “Been a while. You guys doin’ okay?”

“Well enough,” Patty lied.

“Have a drink? On the house?”

Patty shook their head. “Thanks for the offer but not tonight. Seen Ears?”

The grotesque fish’s head jerked toward the rear of the bar; Squisher leered with pointed piranha teeth. “Back room.”

“Thanks,” Patty told the joker. Squisher vented water again and dropped back into his tank.

In the back room, a shuffleboard game was going on between a woman holding the stick with her prehensile tail and a man with an entirely featureless face who was maneuvering the pucks with his mind, while a knot of jokers were betting on the outcome. In a dark rear corner, a mass of tentacles were wrapped around bodies so tightly that Oddity couldn’t tell how many people were there, but from the ecstatic moans, they were enjoying themselves.

Ears was sitting in a booth to one side, alone, though the monstrous elephantine flaps on either side of his head were directed toward the tryst in the corner. Oddity sidled up next to him. “You always were a voyeur,” Patty said.

Ears tried to jump up and hit his thin legs against the underside of the booth’s table. The massive ears fluttered like Dumbo trying to take flight as he rubbed at his shins. “Shit, Oddity,” he said. “You nearly scared the piss out of me.” He shivered all over, causing the ears—nearly as long as Ears’s entire body—to flap again. “What brings you here?”

“Thought you might know where someone was,” Oddity said. “The snake kid,” Patty said. “The one they’re calling IBT now.”

“Thought you didn’t much care for him,” the joker said. One ear had opened again, facing the direction of the group having sex in the corner.

“Turns out we were mistaken,” Patty answered.

“Huh,” Ears commented. “Never known Oddity to be much for apologies.”

[John never was,] Evan said inside. [He was always right, in his own mind.]

[We all have our faults, Evan.] Patty shrugged Oddity’s shoulders. “You gonna tell us or not?” Oddity said. “Or don’t you know?”

Ears shivered again. “I know. Of course I do. I know everything worth knowing around J-Town. That’s why you pay me, right?”

“Yeah. That’s why.” Oddity reached under their cloak. A hand that looked to be mostly Evan’s placed a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

Ears looked at it but didn’t touch it. “I hear he’s staying at those apartments on Mott near Hester,” he said.

Oddity patted Ears on the shoulder. “Thanks,” Patty said. Oddity glanced again at the corner. The tentacles were writhing frantically and the moans were louder. “Enjoy yourself,” she said.

♠

“Get the hell out of here,” the kid said when he glanced through the chained crack of the open door. They could see his sinuous, long body trailing back into the room, the scales glistening.

“We’d like to talk to you,” Oddity told him.

The kid regarded them for a long time. Finally, he opened the door, allowing them to slip inside. “So,” the kid said finally when Oddity said nothing, standing motionlessly on the frayed doormat, “we taking up where we left off?”

“No,” Patty told him. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“Then why?”

“You can’t stay here,” they said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Tell me about it. The place is a shit hole.” He gestured at the room: the gray, peeling wallpaper, the cracks in the walls and across the ceiling, the dingy, worn-out rugs, the ancient and dripping fixtures in the tiny kitchenette. “Not to mention that I keep getting weird people at the door. But right now, even this is more than I can afford. Why are you here, Oddity?”

Oddity laughed. It was a disturbing sound. “It’s almost Christmas. We have a present for you.” Oddity moved a hand and IBT flinched, the tongue flicking out toward them but drawing back. Oddity brought out the wrapped box they’d been carrying all evening. “Merry Christmas. Here.”

They took a ponderous step forward, holding the box. IBT slithered backward, then stopped. “What’s that?”

Oddity underhanded the box to IBT; metal jingled inside as he caught it. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Keys,” Oddity said. “And directions to the doors that use them.”

“Keys? You’re giving me keys? To what?”

Oddity shrugged. “You’ll realize soon enough how much you’ll need them,” Patty said. “Maybe not immediately, but soon if you keep doing what you’re doing—if you keep doing what we used to do. You’ll need a place to hide, a place where people can’t find you and bother you. Those are the keys to what used to be our place.”

“Used to be?”

Oddity nodded ponderously. [… no no you can’t do this no …] They moaned as one of their legs threatened to change and buckle under them, the knee nearly giving way as bones shifted. “We’re … retiring,” Patty told him. “We’ve been doing this for too long. We figure you can be our replacement.”

The IBT’s torso shifted uneasily on his reptilian body. He glanced at the box in his hand. “You don’t know me at all.”

“We don’t,” Oddity admitted. “But from what we’ve heard … look, someone has to do it. Someone has to protect those who can’t protect themselves and punish those who go unpunished. Just…” Oddity’s voice broke, and they moaned. When they could catch their breath again, Patty finished. “Just be certain that those you punish deserve it, because…”

Again, they went silent.

“I don’t get it. Why are you doing this?” the IBT asked.

They didn’t answer. Not directly. “You should retain Pretorius too,” they said. “A vigilante needs a good lawyer.” Oddity half turned, looking at the filthy, smeared window of the apartment. “It’s a beautiful night for endings, don’t you think? We do.”

With that, they nodded to the IBT, shutting the door against his protests and leaving his apartment, moving out onto Mott Street again. They walked back to Bowery, then turned north again. They nodded to all the jokers they passed, as if they were greeting old friends.

[It’s time,] Patty told Evan, told John. Oddity lifted their head, and lamps glittered like stars through the grille of their fencing mask.

♦

“You’re certain, Patty?” Father Squid asked. “Truly and absolutely certain? There’s no turning back, once…”

“We’re certain,” Patty told him. “All of us are. Father, we’re so tired.”

[Yes,] Evan echoed in Sub-Dominant. From John in Passive, there was only a nearly wordless, angry mumbling.

Father Squid nodded to Dr. Finn—Patty had asked Father Squid to be there if Last Rites needed to be administered. Hooves moved heavily over the tiles as Finn left the room, returning a few minutes later with a syringe and a vial, and Troll in his clinic uniform.

“Patty,” Finn said. “I’d like you to take off the fencing mask and the cloak. Since we don’t know what’s going to happen or how your body’s going to react, I’m also going to secure you to the bed here; I promise you that we’ll release you if we need to. I just don’t want, well…”

“I know,” Patty said. “It’s okay.” Oddity slid the cowl back and took the fencing mask from their misshapen skull, handing it to Troll, who set it aside. They unclasped the cloak and let it fall. The air in the room was cold and dry. They went to the hospital bed and lay down, letting Finn and Troll strap their muscular arms and legs to the rails. Finn stuck an IV into their arm, taping it down. He filled the syringe from the vial he’d brought in. Father Squid leaned over the bed. He anointed their face with holy water; if he felt any revulsion at what he saw, he showed none of it.

“If there’s anything you want to say, Patty, Evan, John, if you want God’s forgiveness and blessing…”

[Yes,] Evan said. [Patty, tell him.]

[… no no it wasn’t true never true don’t tell him …]

“Deedle,” Patty said. “We killed Deedle, Father. We were told that the evidence against him was solid and incontrovertible; we were told where we could find him, we were told we could give him what he deserved for killing poor Lizzie and the others.”

“Patty,” Father Squid whispered, leaning close to them. His tentacles quivered. “Who told you?” In his eyes, there was fear. They could see it.

“Ralph Pleasant,” they said. “He told us. And you, Father, you need to tell Ramshead. Tell Leo we killed Deedle, please. He should know.”

Father Squid’s eyes closed. Strangely, to Patty, a tear slid from under one of the lids, and his hand, trembling, went to his mouth. He leaned down toward them again, his lips close to their ear. “May God forgive all of us,” he said.

He gave a sigh that sounded oddly like a sob as he straightened; Oddity tried to reach to touch him, but their hand only lifted slightly, straining against the straps. “You can’t blame yourself for what we did, Father. That was our decision. Ours alone.”

Father Squid gave a small smile at that, wiping at the tears in his eyes. “There are few decisions that belong to one person alone,” he said.

Dr. Finn approached the bed. “Are you ready?”

[Evan, do you want to take Dominant, or do you want me to stay here? Maybe it will only affect Dominant.]

[No none knows what it’s going to do. It doesn’t matter, Patty. I don’t care. Stay where you are.]

“Patty? Evan?”

“Go ahead, Doc,” they said. “We’re ready.”

Finn lifted the blue plastic of the IV tip and plunged the needle of the syringe through the rubber membrane. He pressed down, and they felt a coldness in their arm that spread rapidly to their chest and head. [Patty?]

[I love you, Evan. I love you, John. Whatever happens, I love you both.…]

It was her last coherent thought. They had felt pain before, but they had never experienced anything resembling the blinding agony that struck them at that moment. Oddity arched their back, screaming, trying to tear their body loose of the straps. It felt as if giant hands were tearing into their body, grabbing and pulling at whatever they found. They heard Finn shouting orders, but they couldn’t see anything. The world was a jumble of bloodred and darkness, shot through with wild pulses of color.

Their scream was a sickly yellow-green, weaving through the inferno of the pain. “Troll, cut them loose!” Patty heard Finn say from somewhere in the nightmare. “Now! Help me pull…” Someone was raking a set of knives down their—her?—body, gouging deep into the flesh. Her—their?—arm was bending at a nearly impossible angle, followed by a pop of release. The air was frigid around them. Something was squeezing their calf like a ligature, tightening until she screamed again.

She screamed. It was her voice. Her throat aching and raw. Hers alone.

The pain was receding. She gasped at its memory. Her vision was red and smeared, and she pawed backhanded at her eyes, feeling slick blood. Someone’s hands were around her, and she realized she was standing on the clinic floor. She looked down at her body. Streaked with blood, naked, thin: her body. She blinked against the blood. [John? Evan?] she thought, but there was no answer.

There was no one there with her.

She felt someone place a white lab coat over her shoulders, over her nakedness. She ignored it.

The bed was a mess of sickeningly bright and thick blood and Oddity was nearly unrecognizable on it. Their—its—form lay there, the body torn open and parts of it dripping down the sides or strewn sickeningly on the floor. Patty could see white bone among the red, and the bones were still moving disturbingly. Oddity’s head turned toward her: it was mostly John’s, with some of Evan. There was nothing of her in the body at all. The lips moved.

“Patty?” It was John’s voice, as she remembered it from decades ago. The eyes were staring at her: one John’s, one Evan’s. “Where are we? I was sleeping, and I felt you get up. I have to get to the office early. Is the coffee ready?” The eyes blinked again. “Are you okay, Patty? You look awfully strange.”

“Yes, John,” she told him. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” he husked. “Just let me rest a few minutes…” The eyes closed and Oddity groaned. She saw muscles and bone shift in the face, watched darker skin rise to the surface like a continent lifting from a red seabed. Then, with a shuddering gasp, the eyes opened again. They squinted hard, as if they were having difficulty seeing, but she saw their gaze sweep over and past her. “Patty? I can’t … can’t see, but I felt you leave us. Are you…?”

“I’m here, Evan,” she told him. She took their hand, pressed it. “I’m outside.”

“Good,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to…” Oddity moaned again; the whole body shifted. Red fountained in the abdominal cavity, and Finn rushed forward. He plunged his hands into the gaping wound. The front of his lab coat looked like a scarlet Rorschach painting.

“I need a surgical kit!” he barked. “Packing! Blood! Move!” Troll began to lumber from the room, but Patty shook her head. She went to the front of the bed. She cradled Oddity’s head, bending down to kiss the mottled forehead and brush her hand over the strange mixture of hair: the thin gray wisps of John, the tight curls of Evan.

“I love you both,” she whispered into their ear. “I love you, John. I love you, Evan. I’m going to miss you both so much, so…” She couldn’t say more. Tears stung her eyes and her voice broke. “I’m sorry,” she managed to say through the sobs. “I wish it had been one of you who got out.”

She heard Oddity take a rattling, gurgling breath. She thought they were going to say something, but she heard only a sigh. Father Squid was praying audibly behind her. She felt Oddity sag and relax. The body was no longer moving, no longer shifting in its slow internal dance. She glanced over at Finn, shaking her head as if begging him to deny what she knew. Finn lifted hands bloody to the elbows.

“I’m sorry, Patty,” he said. He gestured with his head to Troll. “We’re done here for the moment,” he told Troll. “Send in one of the female nurses to help Patty get herself cleaned up, and bring in some scrubs for her. I’ll come back in to check on you in a few minutes, Patty; there are tests we should run, and I’d like to give you a full examination.” He was staring at her as he’d never stared at Oddity. “Father, let’s give her some privacy…”

Numb, sobbing, she watched Finn bring a sheet over the body, watched the blood soak through to stain the white. Father Squid patted her shoulder, then followed Finn from the room. She heard the door click shut behind them.

The room was silent except for the hush of the HVAC system and her sob-wracked breathing. Silence. She realized that since the three of them had been merged, she had never really experienced silence. There had always been the ever-present thoughts, the eternal conversation inside.

[John…? Evan…?]

There was nothing. Even her own thoughts seemed impossibly quiet and hushed.

With a soft knock on the door, a nurse came in: a joker. Patty looked at her body: her face was ridged with blue lines with white peaks; from a few of the peaks oozed a yellow pus that dripped down the cheeks toward the smeared collar. Her hands were too small, and each had only one finger and a thumb. She had washcloths and towels folded over her arm, and she began running water in the room’s sink. The bright splash was incredibly loud in the quiet. She turned, a soap-lathered cloth in her deformed hand.

The woman’s body was not like hers—Patty’s body was that of a nat. Normal. Yet the nurse smiled gently as she looked first at the sheet-covered body, then at Patty. “I’m so sorry,” the nurse said. “Let me help you. Unless you’d prefer to do it alone…”

[What am I going to do now? Please, please tell me.] There was no answer inside. Patty realized that the nurse was still waiting, and she shook her head. “Alone?” she said. “No, I don’t think I want to be alone.”

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

The Rat Race

Part 17.

FORT FREAK WAS CRACKLING with holiday mayhem. Every nut job, madman, and petty crook was getting into the spirit, so December in the precinct was practically a month of full moons. Perps came and went—loud or sullen, protesting or grumbling—cuffed and ushered along the corridors, back and forth from booking to holding. And under the din of it all, Christmas crept up. The coffee station tree was now bedecked with a garland of origami birds made from tiny square napkins and coffee filters, and small wrapped presents cropped up on desks, accompanied by brightly colored envelopes stuffed with cards. Here and there, Hanukkah blue-and-silver glimmered through the red-and-green, but everyone shared and nibbled from the long line of fruitcakes the captain had brought and left outside her office.

By general consensus, they were actually pretty good.

Leo tried to let the festivity get to him and it did, a little. But the imminence of his departure was getting to him more. Melanie had begun to call so frequently that it was as if she was building some horrible momentum, and when the formal day of his retirement rolled around, he still wasn’t sure what he was going to tell her. He loved his daughter, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about Florida and the paved, faux-tropical paradise of fellow jokers. And though Melanie had blown him off for Thanksgiving, turnabout was fair play and he was spending Christmas with Wanda and two of her kids, which ought to be a little weird—but anything with Wanda in it couldn’t be all bad.

“God damn it,” Slim Jim complained loudly as he struggled to shove a large canvas cart down the narrow precinct walkways. When he reached Leo’s desk he bounced off one corner, corrected his course, and swore again. “Son of a bitch.”

“What’ve you got there?” Leo asked.

“Property from the Magpie thefts. That old broad had the stickiest fucking fingers … or … or whatever. She stole a lot of shit, that’s what I’m saying.”

“No kidding.” Leo peered over the rim and saw jewelry, velvet boxes that probably held more expensive baubles, clothes, hats, a couple of power tools, and stacks upon stacks of masks—some of which were probably Tate’s. “Lucas is going to have a merry Christmas,” he muttered. Then he asked, “You on your way to the property room?”

“Yeah. I’ll be typing up catalog descriptions until I retire—” he said flippantly, then caught himself. “I mean, I’m not trying to say…”

“I know,” Leo told him. “Don’t worry about it.”

The detective’s cell phone began to ring, so Slim Jim took off—continuing his shoving, rolling progress, and trailing epithets behind him.

For a moment Leo didn’t answer it; he didn’t even acknowledge it, until the persistent chimes finally broke through his thoughts, and he seized it. “Storgman.”

“Detective,” wheezed an oily voice. “Gordon here. I’ve finished that … ah … that task you assigned me. The results are quite startling. I think you’ll be astonished.”

Leo glanced across the desk at Michael, who was happily rearranging his filing drawers, and he looked quickly away. “I bet I won’t.”

“Please, when you have a moment. We should speak in person.”

“You’ll be down in the dungeon?” He meant the pathology lab.

“Absolutely. At your leisure, Detective,” he said before hanging up.

Leo hung up too, clapping the small phone shut and jamming it into his coat pocket again.

Michael looked up long enough to ask, “Was that the ghoul?”

“Yeah. I asked him to look into something for me. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right back.” As he stood up to walk away from his desk it struck him suddenly that it looked strangely naked, stripped of the stacks of paperwork that usually occupied it—as his cases were either wrapped up or handed off in advance of his departure. It was bare compared to Michael’s. It looked like it’d gone out of business.

Down in the dungeon, Gordon the Ghoul greeted Leo without looking up from his clipboard and a table full of jars. “I hope you know, DNA testing on this scale was … improbable, though the results have proven to be … satisfactory.”

“I knew it was a long shot.”

“Longer than you guessed. The fetal tissues were preserved and available, which was unlikely enough. That successful diagnosis was possible is nothing short of a miracle.” He adjusted his protective eyewear and said, “A speedy miracle.”

“I know you’re doing me a favor, and I appreciate it,” Leo said, because it was true. He’d nagged Gordon to give him a DNA report in weeks, when the results often took months—and sometimes longer.

“And should I assume…” He gazed expectantly at the detective, but when Leo didn’t respond, the pathologist shrugged the sharp points of his shoulders. “That this is, ah, shall we say, off the books?”

“Say whatever you want. I’m trying to solve some murders here. And anyway, as everyone reminds me every damn day, I’m on the way out. What are they going to do, write me up?”

The Ghoul gave a snicker like a full body shudder. “I suppose not,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure how much help this will be—though it’s definitely … interesting. I don’t think it collars a killer.” He snickered again as if he’d made a great joke.

Leo wasn’t in on it. “What are you getting at?”

“The fetus.” He said it slowly. “I compared its DNA with the samples you gave me both from Warlock’s swab and Father Squid’s cup, and we have a match—but I confess, it’s not the match I anticipated.”

The pathologist handed Leo a slip of paper.

When the detective didn’t speak, Gordon urged, “Surprising, isn’t it? I mean.” He waved his long hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was of the understanding that there were rules regarding that sort of thing. But it must have been a great love affair, for them to have risked so much.”

Leo still hadn’t looked up from the paper. Hadn’t spoken.

Otto Gordon dropped his surrendering hands and drained some of the gossip from his voice. “A priest and a waitress? I suppose stranger things have happened. But stranger still if Jokertown’s dear Father was ever a killer.”

This time, the detective murmured a response. “He was a killer. Once.”

“Really? Well, he was almost somebody’s actual father once too. All of it is strange—very strange.”

“So strange,” Leo said, a soft and halfhearted echo. “And I almost don’t believe it. But maybe I have to. Maybe it’s so strange it has to be true.”

“Which part?”

Leo swallowed hard.

“All of it.”

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

Snake on Fire

by David Anthony Durham

STANDING AT THE BAR during the intermission to Natya’s increasingly popular show, Marcus felt his chest swell with pride. Flipper and Ratboy had helped clear him. Officer Grady had confessed and cut a deal: Lu Long had fled; the cops had unapologetically dropped their interest in him. Lucas Tate even wrote a couple of articles exonerating him. Oddity had gifted him with a mission, a purpose. Besides all that, he looked good and knew it. He felt eyes lingering on him, on his chiseled chest and arms—and on the sparkling, ringed length of his tail. Why had he ever been ashamed of it? Life was good, and he was hoping it might just get even better.

He’d been at every one of Natya’s performances that he could make. No matter how many times he watched her the dance was unique, different enough each time that he caught himself holding his breath on more than one occasion. Near the end of the first half of the show tonight, energy fields had congealed into stylized drops of water that splashed down on the stage in percussive perfection. Last night a pod of dolphins swam around her, splashing through astral waves of blue. Another time her shadow dancers became hulking shapes, threatening her, swiping at her instead of caressing her as they usually did. Marcus almost rushed the stage, sure she was in danger.

She wasn’t. She’d ended that evening’s performance like she usually did, with a short speech about some political topics Marcus didn’t really follow. He’d have to get a library card and read up on South Asian politics. Or maybe he’d get his Mac up and running again and get online. He could do that now, couldn’t he? Yeah, once he knew what the hell she was talking about he’d take the next step. Meet her backstage. Natya, I’m a big fan of your show. Feel like getting a cup of coffee? Or … Hey, Natya, how about them Tamils?

Just the thought that her finale tonight was called the bharatanatyam snake dance made him feel funny inside. He had no idea what to expect, but man, it was a snake dance! Maybe she was trying to tell him something.…

“Well, if it’s not Jokertown’s newest vigilante hero!” Lucas Tate appeared beside him, patting him on the shoulder. He wore an expensive-looking tux, perfectly tailored. His mask, tonight, had an Asian flare to it, some sort of stylized canine baring a grin of pure devilish joy. “I didn’t know you were a fan of dance, IBT. Man of culture, huh?”

Marcus swirled the ice cubes in his glass. How quickly Infamous Black Tongue had become IBT. Didn’t matter. Marcus had begun to like both names. “I’m Natya’s number one fan,” he said. “Have been for a while.”

“You’re full of surprises. But I should know that by now, shouldn’t I? IBT, I want you to know how sorry I am. I misjudged you. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Marcus said, liking the way the nonchalance felt.

Tate ordered a gin and tonic from the six-armed bartender, specifying that he needed a straw. He also ordered Marcus a refill. “Listen,” he said, “I saw you come in earlier. Had to think about it, but now I’m sure. I’ve got some information you may be interested in.” He leaned in closer and dropped his voice. “I know where Lu Long is hiding.”

“What?”

“Yep. He’s still in the city, if my source is worth anything. Long is in a warehouse on X Street. It wears the number 215B. It’s not abandoned, but it looks like it is. Behind the old Penney’s building. The type of place you wouldn’t even know was there, unless you know it’s there.”

Marcus could feel his pulse in his fingertips. He swirled his glass again, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “You take this to the cops?”

“It’s brand-new info. I just took the call as I was walking here.”

“I’d think you’d call the cops with it.”

Tate slipped the straw inside his grinning mask and sipped. “I would’ve, but then I saw you. Got me thinking … This city owes you a break. I owe you. No, I do. I really do. I wrote some hurtful things about you, and I regret it. So here’s what I’m offering. You get first crack at Long. Think of the headlines you’ll make by bringing him in. Your star will be in full shine, my friend. And, of course, the Cry will have the jump on the exclusive. Maybe we’ll do an interview. Full photo spread.” Tate indicated the size of the spread with his arms, a gesture that seemed to reach around the world. “Of course, if you’re not up for it…”

Marcus asked, “What was that number again?”

♥

He found the old warehouse tucked behind several newer structures. Marcus climbed the wall and slipped into an open window a couple stories up. He paused inside, feeling the warm air flow past him into the chill night. Before him stretched rows of desks and tables and sewing machines, lit only by the gray highlights slanting in from outside.

He glided across the room and through an open door. He stood in the stairwell listening. At first he thought the place was silent. The longer he listened the more it seemed to grumble, as if he were in a hungry belly. The furnace in the basement murmured. He slithered carefully up the stairs. His tail still felt a little sluggish with cold, but it was warming. On the third floor some machines hummed in semislumber. On the fourth a clock ticked and rodents scampered through a nearby wall. Below the next landing he paused again. Just across from him a door, cracked ajar, spilled out a yellow glow.

Marcus poked his head through the door. Lu Long stood in the center of the large room, back toward the door as he worked on something laid out on the table before him. Shirtless, the stretch of Long’s scaly back was impressive, as was his thick tail, the tip of which plucked out some tune he must’ve had in his head. A heavy scent floated in the air, like gasoline but different somehow.

Watching the joker, Marcus went through his options. He could back-slither. Call the cops. Let them handle this. He didn’t have any doubt that they’d take. Long down hard, now that everybody knew how crooked he was. He could do that.

But then again he couldn’t. That was the old Marcus thinking; IBT had different ideas. He felt as much in his clenched fists, tasted it in the venom seeping like saliva into his mouth. It wasn’t just cops who Long had hurt. It wasn’t just Twitch. This was for all jokers, for anyone ever exploited by people in power who looked down on them, didn’t see or care about their humanity. This was personal. And it was more than personal. It was for justice, delivered fast and sudden as a snakebite.

“Turn around,” Marcus said loudly. “I want to see your face as you go down.”

Long jerked. His shoulders started to swing around, but then stopped, steadied. “Who’s that talking?”

Marcus slipped closer. His fists tightened into stone mallets. He’d pummel this fucker. Fist, fist, tongue. Pow. Fight’s over. “Turn around and see.”

“You know what?” Long asked, his voice growing contemplative. He seemed to be carrying on with whatever he’d been working with on the table. “I don’t have to turn around. I’m thinking you’re the squirmer they call Black Tongue.”

“That’s Infamous Black Tongue.”

“‘Infamous’? You even know what that means? Nothing to be proud of, kid.”

“I’ll consider it ironic … Puff.”

The joker grasped some sort of metal container in one hand, a tubelike thing. He bent forward for something else.

“Hey,” Marcus snapped, “I said turn around!”

“What’d you ever do to become infamous, anyway?” Long asked, ignoring the rising alarm in Marcus’s voice. “Just got yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time. You got a knack for that. Look here, you’ve done it again. For the last time.”

Long swung around. In addition to the container, he held a monster of a weapon propped on his other arm. Tubes connected the two. The ex-cop hefted the weapon up and pointed it at Marcus. He hit a lever and a tiny flame spurted from the end. Long grinned hideously. “That’s the last time you’ll call me Puff. Get ready to burn, motherfucker!”

Marcus suddenly had a very bad feeling about where he was standing. He launched himself upward with all the coiled energy he could, just as a jet of flame roared out of the weapon, toasting his tail as he hauled it up behind him. The room had a high ceiling, with the metal framework exposed. Marcus grabbed the steel girders and surged through them. Long cackled and howled as Marcus stayed just ahead of the jets of fire.

Each time Marcus thought he might leap down, new eruptions chased him on. He kept moving, but he ran out of room quickly. He slammed into a corner, panting, sweating, his lower scales scorched and painful. Fuck! This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Long came on, shoving his way through the desks and other debris.

Marcus leaped. He plummeted downward and hit the joker with all the force of his falling body. He grappled him. They went over twirling, the flamethrower spouting ribbons of fire. A clawed foot caught him in the abdomen and doubled him over. And then another kick, again and again and again. He had a lot of abdomen, and Long was kicking his way down all of it.

Releasing him, Marcus squirmed away through the tables and chairs. He pushed himself upright and twisted around. A spray of flame scorched just above his head, close enough to catch his nappy hair. His Afro combusted. Long began to swing the heavy weapon back around on him to finish the toasting. Hair aflame, Marcus surged forward. His tongue shot out, tagging Long on his forehead with enough force to snap his head back. He grasped the tubing, yanked it free, and ducked as liquid shot into the air, combusting when a lick of flame touched it.

For a few moments, Long leaped and whirled through a twisting, cursing dance of spurting flame. He was no Natya, but it was quite a show. He tossed the canister in one direction, where it rolled into the legs of a jumble of chairs, igniting them. He dropped the flamethrower itself. He kicked it away with his clawed foot, and then stood brushing ash from his scales. He watched Marcus with deep irritation in his stylized reptilian features. Marcus stared back at him, catching his breath, wiping sweat from his forehead. Around them, the warehouse was quickly becoming an inferno. Flame climbed the walls and smoke blackened the rafters, billowing lower and lower with each passing moment.

“All right,” Long said, flexing his neck and moving into his slightly sideways fighting stance, “let’s do this the old-fashioned way.”

The two collided at full force: Long with his sideways attack, Marcus propelled by the sinuous muscles of his tail. Marcus hammered on Long’s torso, his fists blistering against his scales. Long swatted at him with his claws. Marcus was quicker; Long had more power. He could also spit fire. He pulled back his head, puckered his lips, and phoosh! It was more distracting than damaging, though. The fire extinguished itself as quickly as it appeared, little more than singing Marcus’s eyebrows.

They broke apart and for a few frantic moments they exchanged blows with their tails. Marcus tried to trip the dragon up, but Long planted his feet solidly and came on. He connected with a swing that threw Marcus to the side and sent him rolling. Marcus squirmed back. He’d use his tongue instead. He tagged Long on the forehead, on the shoulder, on the chest. Each thwack of impact was wet with venom, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. His fucking scales! Marcus thought. His venom wasn’t getting through them.

“You ain’t so tough,” Long said. He spat a quick jet of flame, just for effect. “Come on, fucker, stop slithering and fight.”

A beam fell from the ceiling, one side of it crashing down and making a diagonal barrier between the two jokers. It landed almost on top of Long, who backpedaled in response. Marcus used the moment.

He shot forward, grabbed the beam as he slid under it, and snapped his tail forward like a whip. He wrapped the tip around Long’s neck, pinched it tight. He released the beam and used all his torso strength to draw his upper body forward. Once he was poised above Long, anchored to his neck, he battered him with a quick barrage of jabs. Long pulled his head back to spit, but Marcus was expecting that. He slammed a fist through the joker’s puckered lips and into his mouth. He grabbed his tongue and yanked it taut. To the dragon’s obvious horror, Marcus leaned in close and licked the length of it. Intimate, yes. Slobbery, indeed. But mostly … venomous. He released the tongue, which snapped back into Long’s mouth, and sprung away.

Long spat and spat again, quick bursts of flame erupting each time, vanishing just as quickly. His eyes stretched wide and wild, casting about for some rescue, even looking at Marcus beseechingly. Marcus crossed his arms and offered nothing. Long tried to run, but his steps were so unsteady it was all he could do to stay upright. He began to claw at his throat. He dropped to his knees and then, a moment later, reached for the floor as he crashed down face-forward into a sprawling heap.

Marcus didn’t let him rest. He bent over him, twisted his head around. Through his coughs he asked, “Why’d you do it?”

Long just looked at him, his eyes glazed and floating.

“Why’d you off Twitch?” Marcus said, shaking him. “What did he ever do to you?”

“The one and only told me to.” Long sounded out of it, his mouth thick and his words strangely whimsical, as if he were drunk. “The one and only most holy.”

“Who’s the most holy?”

“Squidface.”

“You mean Father Squid? What does he have to do with anything?”

“Take it up with the squid. Take it up with…”

Long’s eyes fell shut. Marcus punched him, but to no effect. And then he punched him again, just for fun.

Then he heard the sirens.

♣

Marcus couldn’t complain about the way things turned out. He had dragged Long to safety before the fire department showed up. Boy were the cops glad to get their hands on him. There were going to be some lingering legal issues, Flipper had said, but considering all the attention Infamous Black Tongue had received recently—and the stink of police corruption around the whole thing—he didn’t expect the cops to pursue any disturbing the peace or destruction of property charges. When Marcus gave Father Squid’s name as a suspect, Flipper promised to use that to his advantage as well.

Reporters swarmed him, suddenly his best friends, all smiles and congratulations and a million questions. Blinking in the harsh camera lights, Marcus wished his hair hadn’t looked so pathetic, singed and showing reddened scalp in spots. Oh, well, it was proof he’d taken Long out the hard way.

With that behind him, Marcus focused on another pressing matter.

Natya’s performance that night was awesome. Her best yet. For a long time she danced on her own, just her body stepping and sliding, her arms sinuous, her face pure beauty, as if her mind was somewhere else entirely, somewhere wonderful. The spectral images joined her later, first just as ribbons of light, and then in birdlike forms that sailed around her, gliding on gusts of music. By the end she’d become a glowing sun, around which a swirling solar system rotated. Marcus had felt the heat of her hot on his face, and in other places as well.

The warmth faded fast once he was outside in the alley behind the playhouse. He stood there shivering in the rear of the alley, half hidden in the shadows, clutching a single flower. Occasional flakes of snow fell. He couldn’t feel the tip of his tail anymore, but he wasn’t gonna let that discourage him. He sported a new wool cap, pulled snug down over his ears. He’d bought it to hide his singed scalp, but was glad for the warmth of it now. Listening to Nat King Cole wafting in the night air, he wondered if they celebrated Christmas in Sri Lanka. Probably not. He should have looked that up when he Googled the place. Regardless, he was going to buy her presents. Lots of presents. He’d get her nice things, or maybe he’d make her something. He’d figure it out. Tonight, though, he’d keep it simple. A single flower.

He thought, “Hey, Natya, how you doing?…” No, not like that. I’ll say … “Hey, Natya, great dancing tonight. Loved it. Hey, you ever been to Trincomalee? I hear good things about it. Been thinking about going…”

The door swung open. Natya stepped out. She said something back inside, a few good-byes. A burst of laughter came back out at her. A few more words, and then she let the door click shut. For a few wondrous moments, Marcus felt the world’s possibilities condensed down into two beings separated by only a few steps, a few seconds. Natya exhaled a plume of mist. Marcus thought how wonderful it would be to be that warm air, coming up out of Natya’s lungs, through that throat and mouth and lips. His hands, despite the cold, were sweating where they clutched the flower. Marcus slid toward her.

“Hey, girl!” a female voice called, and then sang, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”

A woman at the street end of the alley. She stood there a minute, waving at Natya, until a toddler ran up beside her and took her hand. Both of them skipped toward Natya, who had come down the steps toward them. He recognized the woman. Minal, the prostitute who once worked for Twitch.

Friends, Marcus thought. Of course she has friends. That’s okay. Doesn’t change anything. I can tell them both what I did for Twitch. Maybe they’ll both …

Then a guy rounded the corner. He took in the three greeting one another for a moment, and then walked toward them, saying something that Marcus didn’t catch. Oh, shit … Marcus had seen this guy before too! In the precinct. A cop, detective or something. He wasn’t in uniform but he’d been there, talking on the phone and drinking coffee. He was black, young, and sort of goofy-looking. He had ears like Will Smith. The guy’s cap didn’t so much sit on his head as ride atop those ears. He also had a body kinda like Will Smith. He was no slouch, which Marcus couldn’t help noticing when Natya slipped her arms around his lean torso and kissed him.

Marcus was so stunned he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He just stood, silent, feeling light-headed. What the fuck just happened? Watching them walk away, Natya with her arm around Minal and the other hand gripped in the toddler’s, Marcus felt the truth slide home like a bullet loading. He was alone. He couldn’t count on anybody. He couldn’t dream his way into a better life. The sooner he stopped thinking he could, the better.

He stretched for the nearest fire escape, grabbed it, and pulled himself free of the ground. He let the flower fall from his grasp. It twirled down to land in the snow.

Forget her, he thought. Just be IBT. Be Infamous Black Tongue. Be a hero.

He went looking for an ass that deserved kicking. That, he knew he could find.

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

Faith

Part 5.

DECEMBER, 2010

THE RED SANTA CLAUS suit, much worn over the years, still fit Father Squid, though barely. It was ragged and much patched, and worn shiny at the elbows and knees, but it still had Lizzie’s familiar, beloved scent. Its warm smoothness still felt like the caress of her fingers.

Father Squid waited in the wings, watching the action on stage as he did every year. He never tired of the pageant. This was his thirtieth. He’d only missed the one, back when he’d gone on the WHO tour around the world, with Chrysalis and Tachyon and Hartmann and good old Xavier Desmond. Could they really all be gone?

This one was as good as most. Old Dorian Wilde, fat and florid, sat in the front row, alternately nodding and clenching at his somewhat less thick head of hair. He updated the script every year, adding the topical reference or two, but the basics stayed the same. Yes, it had its own peculiar Jokertown sensibilities, a touch of sarcasm but never cynicism. Father Squid had seen to that. This was about peace and love, brotherhood and sharing. It was a story that had been told time and time again, and needed to be told time and time again to offer up some hope, however slim and transitory, to an audience who lived lives burdened by hopelessness.

When the end came and Baby Joker Jesus—played this year by the Ramirez twins bundled together in the same swaddling clothes, since thankfully there was currently a dearth of two-headed babies in Jokertown—Father Squid was ready to come forward as Santa and deliver presents to children in the audience.

He hoisted his sack over the shoulder, and stepped onto the stage.

“Ho ho ho,” he began … but stopped when Leo Storgman stepped forward, the owl mask that he had worn in his role as Melchior pulled up to expose his face. He looked grim.

“Leo,” said Father Squid. “What is it?”

“I know the truth,” Ramshead replied.

It was only a matter of time, the priest thought. Sin will out. “Will the truth change anything, Leo? Can the truth raise the dead?”

“No,” Storgman said, “but the guilty should be punished. It’s what I do.”

“It’s not what I do,” Father Squid said. “I’m in the forgiving business.”

“That morning at the Rathole,” said Leo, “the scene was horrific. Blood, gore, bodies everywhere. Yet you remained so … detached as you viewed it.”

Father Squid nodded. “I’d seen bodies before, many times. Some in much worse condition than those in the Rathole. And, as you may note, my face is not terribly expressive.”

“Yes, I suppose. Because of your experiences in Vietnam.”

“In part.”

“I checked around, looking into your past. It took some doing, because … well, no one knows your name, do they?”

“My name is Father Squid.”

“I mean your real name.”

“That is my real name.”

“Is it? Then who is Robert St. Cabrini?”

Father Squid closed his eyes, opened them again.

“There was a Robert St. Cabrini in the Joker Brigade. A joker foundling, originally from Salem, Massachusetts, brought up in the St. Cabrini orphanage. Eventually drafted into the army. Sent to ’Nam. Made sergeant four times. Busted down each time. Wounded in combat twice. When he wasn’t killing Viet Cong and winning medals, he spent half his time drunk and the other half in the stockade. Must have been some career. The records say he was called Sergeant Squidface. Want to see his photo?”

Father Squid shook his head.

“He went MIA. No record of him after that, although apparently someone matching his description joined the Twisted Fists. Joker terrorists. You know about them, of course?”

Too much, thought Father Squid. Forgive me, O my Lord. “That was another life, another man,” he said. “That was before I found God.”

“That was before you found Lizzie Wallace and knocked her up,” said Ramshead. “A bastard child would have destroyed the good Father Squid, so you whistled up Sergeant Squidface one last time, didn’t you? Deedle took the fall for that, and for thirty years you thought you were safe. Then, when it seemed as though someone was about to look into the Rathole again, you panicked and hired Joe Twitch to destroy the records. Only Joe got greedy, tried to blackmail you, so you had to pay Lu Long to silence him, and that blew up in your face when IBT saw the hit go down.”

Father Squid’s throat was dry. He did not answer.

“Robert St. Cabrini,” Leo Storgman intoned, “alias Father Squid, alias Squidface, I arrest you for the murder of Lizzie Wallace and four other persons at the Rathole diner on the night of December 16, 1978.”

The church had grown deathly quiet. Father Squid could feel the blood rush through his ears. For some reason, all he felt was a sudden, great relief.

DECEMBER, 1978

Father Squid sank down into his chair behind his rickety desk.

Deedle, he thought. Deedle did it. He killed Lizzie. He killed our child. He says he is innocent, but they all say that, don’t they?

If he was innocent, then someone else had done it. Perhaps someone who had been pushed into a bloody rage by Father Squid’s own actions, by his pride. That could not bear thinking about.

If he is innocent, he should prove it in a court of law. Father Squid rooted through the top drawer of his desk and came up with a card with a name and a telephone number on it. Deedle was guilty. He was lying. He needed to be back in police custody, to answer for his crimes.

The priest dialed the number. Someone picked it up after the first ring.

“Detective Pleasant,” Father Squid said, reading the name off the card. “I know the whereabouts of someone you may be looking for…”

DECEMBER, 2010

Father Squid could feel everyone’s eyes on him. The silence was unbearable. It had been for decades. He had to end it, now. It was time to come clean.

He looked Leo Storgman in the eye. “Yes. Take me in. There is blood on my hands, Leo. It is past time I confessed.”

The gasps of shock and the cries of amazed horror that burst out all around him were only to be expected. More surprising was the look of astonishment in Leo Storgman’s eyes. Father Squid thought that the detective had probably figured that he’d deny everything. But he couldn’t carry on with his guilt locked inside any longer.

“Sorry, Father,” Leo muttered as he took out a pair of handcuffs and locked them around the priest’s thick wrists. He took Father Squid by the elbow and led him through the crowd that melted away as if he were a leper. Father Squid looked straight ahead and marched in step with the policeman. There were shocked, angry expressions on every face they passed, but it didn’t bother him. Confession, he had discovered, was good for the soul.

A little voice cried out, “Mommy, why are they arresting Santa Claus?”

No one could answer him.

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

The Rat Race

Part 18.

THE CHURCH’S STORAGE ROOM was a jumble of religious holiday supplies and musty choir garb. Crosses abounded, festooned with Easter declarations that “He is Risen!” Stacks of candles with round paper holders were piled in boxes to overflowing. An old set of choir bells gleamed dully in the low light.

And everywhere, hastily stored and not precisely put away, were the remnants of the pageant.

A stable wall leaned against the basement wall, and stray sprigs of hay dusted the counters, the crates, and the floor. A plastic donkey leaned mournfully against its stallmate, a puffy white sheep with a lightbulb up its asshole so it’d glow with the help of City Light and Power, if not holy assistance. Over by the stairwell was a haloed little head hanging out of a box, the infant Jesus himself propped and forgotten for another full year. Against a huge nautical chest was pushed the manger bench, a sturdy thing made by a parishioner out of two-by-fours with an ugly brown stain.

Upon it sat Leo Storgman and a book.

Leo hunkered in the dark, breathing the old smell of paraffin wax and the sharp scents of tinsel and cheap wiring. At his feet was a box, wide but not very deep. The box was full of masks—some of the very masks recovered when the Magpie had finally been cornered and all her wares had been retrieved.

Leo held the mask he’d worn in the play.

It was tattered and rough around the edges. Not just vintage, but handmade when it’d been new. The brown and copper feathers were thin and fraying; and the interior stank of glue gone rancid and somebody else’s sweat.

Maybe that part was just Leo’s imagination.

But he held the mask and he passed it back and forth between his hands as he sat there in the dark beside the book he’d never finished reading, alone except for the plastic animals and choir robes and leftover holiday detritus … waiting.

It wouldn’t be long now.

The festivities had wrapped up. The aftermath of Father Squid’s arrest had died down. The last of the church volunteers had finished stuffing the last scrap of pageantry into the basement, shut the door, and left. The parking lot was empty.

Leo had parked around the block.

He wanted the parking lot to stay empty. He wanted it to lie.

He closed his eyes and squeezed the mask, holding it by the edges and feeling the brittle papier-mâché between his fingertips. And at the edge of his hearing, he caught the soft rumble of a car’s purring engine … then the gritty crunch of its tires as it turned into the poorly paved lot, and ground its way into a parking space.

For a long moment he heard nothing. He stopped rubbing his thumb along the inside ridge of the owl’s beak and opened his eyes. He pulled out his cell phone and composed a fast text message, and pressed SEND. His phone thought about it, gave him a status bar, and declared “OK!” Right on its heels he sent another one. He put the phone away.

Out in the lot the car door opened slowly, accompanied by the pinging chime of a warning alarm—signaling that the lights were still on, or the keys remained in the ignition.

The door closed quietly and the chime stopped.

Footsteps followed.

Leo held the mask again, tracing its interior contours like there was something inside, written in Braille.

Outside the church he heard the feet find the stairs that led down to the exterior basement entrance. The footsteps faltered at the top two steps; there was no light at all, except a streetlamp half a block away. Leo knew how dark it was. He’d climbed down the damn things himself, and jimmied the door.

The newcomer didn’t seem to notice the compromised door. Hands fumbled with the knob, and with the lock. The breached piece of hardware gave way. With a tiny push, the door swung open.

Though the light outside was negligible, the light within was all but nonexistent. Leo watched a hand reach inside and pat down the wall beside the door. Feeling nothing, an arm followed the hand, swatting at a larger and larger space. Still finding no handy switch to flip, a man’s full silhouette rounded the frame and flailed until grazing a long string, hanging from the ceiling.

The hand seized the string, gave it a testing tug, and then firmly gripped it. The string tightened and popped.

A dim yellow forty-watt fluttered to life, revealing the cluttered room, the pageant leftovers, and Leo Storgman sitting with his knees apart and the mask in his hand. He sighed heavily. “Hello, Lucas.”

Lucas Tate wore a suit that cost more than Leo’s car, and a black satin mask that was molded to his features—or to someone’s, somewhere. It covered his face down to his chin. Only his eyes were visible, and they were startled into hugeness—without lids or lashes. He replied, “Hello, Ramsey,” because the moment seemed to require it. Then he added, “What are … Jesus, man. It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting for you.” Leo held up the mask so its front faced forward, the empty owl gazing blankly at the newspaper editor—whose fingers still clutched the light’s pull chain, as if he might need it at any moment. “And you, you’re looking for this.”

“That’s true, yes. My masks. The ones that batty old thief took—I recognized some of them, when people were wearing them in the pageant.” He said it with the speed of the guilty who is trying to look innocent.

“That’s right.” Leo looked down at the box. “They’re all yours, aren’t they?”

“Yes. It’s all my property. I can come and get it if I want to.”

“Sure you can. Anytime.”

“Day or night.”

The detective said, “Whatever.” And then with a shake of his head he said, “Goddamn, I can’t believe you kept this thing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

Lucas stepped forward, his shape not quite hulking, but given a hulking look by the harsh shadows and the feeble sway of the bulb. “That’s mine. I’ll be taking it with me, now.”

“To hide it again, I assume. Somewhere better this time.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy?” Leo made no move to hand over the mask. He only met Tate’s eyes when he said, “You’re the asshole here at two in the morning, trying to break into a church.”

“I didn’t break in. It was open.” Suddenly he realized, “You opened it.”

“You got me there,” the man who was still just barely a cop admitted. “I knew you’d show up eventually. You had to. Tomorrow, all this stuff goes back to the station—back into the lion’s den, picked up and recorded by all kinds of cop hands, and cop paperwork. This was the last of the haul, the last stuff to be filed.”

Lucas Tate shifted his weight back and forth, like he couldn’t figure out whether to stand his ground or come any closer. He said, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Leo. If this is some kind of joke—you’re … you’re just desperate to wrap up one stupid old case before they turn you out like Wednesday’s trash!”

“Yet you knew exactly which case. I didn’t even have to say it.”

“Of course not!” Tate babbled. “You’ve been going on about the Rathole for months.”

Still calm. Still seated. Still holding the mask, Leo said, “You were there.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “You killed a restaurant full of people, and you buried it. You buried it a real long time—and I don’t know if you got dumber with age or maybe just more paranoid. But if you hadn’t gotten so nervous, it might’ve stayed buried.”

Tate leaned back, just enough to take half a step away from the cop and the mask. “You’ve lost it, Ramsey. They’re right to retire you.”

“I’ve seen it before. Guys who committed crimes they should’ve left in the past. But they get old. And scared. And then they make mistakes.”

“Is that how it works?” He struggled to sound sardonic.

Leo told him, “More often than not. People do stupid shit.” He shook his head. “You did stupid shit. You freaked out when you heard that the Rathole files were coming up for air. You’ve known Dr. Pretorius as long as I have. You know what kind of lawyer he is, and you can guess the kind of teacher he’s become. A room full of law students, eager to examine cases for extra credit—that’s the last thing you wanted. So you asked around and you found out Twitch would do anything for a buck. You paid him to start the fire in the courthouse.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Lucas mumbled.

“Only Twitch started looking like a bad bet. He was a loudmouth and a loser, and I don’t know—maybe he tried to blackmail you. Maybe you heard him mouthing off around town. So you went to Puff and you had Twitch taken care of.”

Lucas said, “No.” More firmly, he repeated himself. “No, that’s not true. None of it’s true. It was Father Squid, you said so yourself. That’s what Puff said. That’s what everybody said, and that’s why you took Squid off to jail, isn’t it? You’ve already got your killer. I’m sorry you don’t like it but—”

“Don’t.” Leo stopped him short. He shook his head. “You’re right. I didn’t like arresting Squid. I’ve trusted him with my life and worse. That’s the last man alive I wanted to cuff and book, much less on my way out the precinct door.”

“Well, that’s why you’re a good cop. You make the tough calls because they’re right.”

“Flattery won’t get you anyplace, Tate. I took Squid to make you think this was all over. So you’d figure it was safe to come for this.” He held up the mask again. “You were wearing this, the night you shot up the Rathole.” The detective looked down at the mask and noticed something in the dim light that he hadn’t seen before. No maker’s marks, no brand. No label. He guessed, “She made it for you, before she died.”

Tate’s voice was almost a squeak now. “She?”

“Ramona Holt, the joker girl who got creamed by Contarini’s car.”

“Contarini’s…?”

“It’s funny,” Leo continued. “Everything I ever learned about the Rathole came back to that damned car. The Sleeper cinched it for me, when I caught up to him. He said that the shooter had come inside, demanding to know who was driving it.”

“Oh, what the fuck would Croyd know, anyway?”

“He was there. He was hiding—he’d just woke up, and the joker-ace trait of the moment made him a human chameleon. He vanished when the kid with the gun joined the party. The kid in this mask.”

Tate shook his head violently. “All this is news to me, Ramsey.”

The detective shrugged. “It must’ve looked like you were free and clear for a while there. They picked up that poor little scavenger shit—another dumb kid, one who stumbled across an open register and a bloody restaurant. Then he got loose, Squid fingered him, and the Oddity pounded him to a pulp, and the whole thing looked shut. In thirty years, nothing new happened in the case. Until you hired Twitch to start a fire at the courthouse, and then I gave it another look.”

“You wasted your time. And now you’re wasting mine.”

“Nope. I’ve wasted some of Squid’s time, and for that I owe him an apology. But you’re the one who set him up, wearing that tentacle mask when you talked to Puff and Angel. I found it in the property room—a real expensive number, looked like one of Lovecraft’s wet dreams. You must’ve worn it, and put another mask over it. The effect would’ve been close enough to draw conclusions. I don’t know how you knew I was looking at Squid, but I know you keep your ears to the ground. And God knows Squid was making himself look guilty as sin.”

“Very funny.”

“Not at all. He was acting guilty about the Rathole because he was feeling guilty about the Rathole. He’d been in love with Lizzie, the counter girl there. She was carrying his little joker baby, and there’s no telling what it would’ve looked like, or if it would’ve lived, but it was his—and I’ve got the DNA paperwork to prove it. Poor guy. All these years he kept it to himself, and no one even guessed it because she died. So he was guilty of something, yes. But not guilty of killing her. I think he would’ve killed to protect her, if it’d come to that. Just like you would’ve killed to protect Ramona.”

Tate stood beneath the bulb. He was sweating now, and the shaky light made him look all the more unsettled. “Stop it.”

“I wish I could. Ramona Holt had been hanging out with the Demon Princes, same as you. She was about your age, hanging in your circle, and I think you fell for her. And when Contarini killed her—in that careless, offhanded hit-and-run—you lost it. Maybe you were there when it happened. Maybe it was your fault, or all this time you’ve felt like it was your fault. Maybe you saw the car, and caught a little bit of the license plate. And maybe, when you were running around a couple weeks later, you saw that car sitting in front of a diner, and you went inside.”

Leo paused.

Tate was so motionless that he might have stopped breathing. “No.”

“Tell me about Ramona, Tate.”

“No.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“No. Yes. I didn’t know her.”

“You did know her, Tate. You killed for her. Had you been drinking? Shooting up? In your book, you were pretty frank about that stuff. You had a problem with it, when you were on the streets.”

“No. Yes. Sometimes, I guess. I had a problem.”

“You must’ve been higher than Denver when you saw that car, and when you went inside that diner. You were wearing this mask,” Leo said again. “Croyd thought it was a hawk mask, at first. But later he told me it was an owl instead. He was right on his second guess.”

“No.”

“Yes, he was.”

Tate mustered enough indignation to say, “I can’t believe you’d take his word over mine.”

The detective said, “I don’t have to take his word. I have your mask.”

“But it doesn’t mean anything!”

“On the contrary. So thirty years go by and you set fire to a courthouse, and have a man killed to cover it,” he said. “And when I got interested in the Rathole again, you pointed me at Esposito. You might not have known him then, but you know him now, and you know a little something about him. He could’ve looked good for it. A button man for Gambione, and somebody who handled a lot of drugs, coming and going—and he even had a tie to two of the victims.”

“I gave you Esposito because I thought it would help! And why … okay. If any of this is true, and it sure as hell isn’t—but if any of it’s true, why would I call you when I got robbed? Why would I ask you, personally—the man who’s on the trail of the Rathole murderer—to go and find my masks? Why would I alert you that way, huh?”

“Good point. But by all reports the shooter was wearing a hawk mask—and you knew good and well that you didn’t have any hawk masks. Come to think of it, for all your fucking epic mask collection, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hawk.”

“That’s meaningless.”

“A meaningless omission? I guess it could be, but I don’t think so. It was one more way you could kick sand over your tracks. Writing that book didn’t do it, obviously. Hell, it put you in the scene at the time of the killings, even though you were real careful to leave out any mention of the Rathole—and you told me it’d all gone down after you’d left cover. But that wasn’t true. A glance at a calendar told me that much.”

“I might’ve made a mistake. It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, it was.” Finally now, he set the mask aside and reached for the book that had shared the bench with him all this time. It was Lucas Tate’s book, Paper Demon—the copy Tate had left for the detective downstairs, on a day months ago when he’d been too busy for lunch.

One page was dog-eared. Leo thumbed his way to it.

He read aloud, “For ‘R’… ‘I talk with the moon, said the owl, and the night belongs to me.’” He closed the book and set it on his lap. “Let me ask you something, Tate. Ramona, if she were still alive … is this what she’d want?”

Tate’s shadowed face was dark within the mask, and his eyes were unreadable. But he whispered, “You didn’t know her.”

“No, I didn’t. But you did.”

In a hushed, almost little-boy voice, he broke down. His eyes were wet, and he clutched at his chest like he was trying to keep something in, and failing. He said, “She rolled around in a red wagon; she couldn’t walk very well. I pulled her around the city. She was on the sidewalk.”

“Then what, Tate?”

“You know they called me ‘Nimrod,’ don’t you? It was because I never paid enough attention. She … she got away from me. I let go of the handle, and she rolled. Right into the street. And I didn’t see it, not before this … this black car comes tearing around the corner.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Leo assured him. “Not that part.”

“He hit her. And for a second, he slowed down. And then he just kept driving. The whole thing happened in less than five seconds. I didn’t have time to leave the sidewalk, and it was over. Goddamn.” He put his hands up to his face, trying to rub at his eyes and finding himself blocked by the mask. “Goddamn, it’s been … goddamn.”

“Stop saying that. We’re in a fucking church.”

“Leo, you have to … goddamn. You have to believe me. I don’t … I don’t even remember, hardly, what happened that night. You were right, what you said earlier,” he said, talking faster with every phrase. Catching up to his own story, and seeing where he was caught. “The drugs. I took so many drugs.”

The detective was still seated with the book lying across his knees. He said, “You saw the car and you went inside, asking who it belonged to. You didn’t know it was Contarini’s car. You didn’t know he’d ditched it a week or two before, and then flown back to Rome. You were wearing this mask. You had a gun.”

“I forgot I even had a gun.”

“You had a gun, and you waved it around. And Hash saw you. He thought you were there about the drugs, or to rob them. So he came out with the sawed-off, we know that much.”

Lucas Tate nodded, slower then faster. His mask slid on his face. He pushed it back up with an absent shove of his finger. “It was self-defense. He shot first. He opened fire, and he winged somebody—one of the customers. I panicked.”

“Anybody would have.”

“I panicked!” He said it louder this time, and he came up closer so he was very near, in front of Leo. “Someone was shooting at me, so I started shooting! And people were … they were falling, and screaming. I heard somebody scream.”

“You killed them.”

“No. I didn’t. I wouldn’t have.”

“Lucas, you did. You killed them all, and now”—he sighed, and reached behind his back for a pair of handcuffs—“it’s time you answered for it.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to bring you in. Believe that much for me, will you?” Leo stood and flexed the cuffs. They clicked in his hand, and shimmered in the dull yellow light.

“No,” Tate said. And this time it wasn’t soft or penitent. It wasn’t even defiant. It was a word that had come to a decision. “Please, Leo, Ramsey, man—things are different now, can’t you see? I’ve turned it around—I’m not that miserable shit anymore, I’m a productive member of society, I … I help people! Christ, it was thirty years ago, and putting me away isn’t going to bring them back!”

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“I’ve done good work! I’ve been a voice for the whole joker community—for you, Leo, and for everybody we know, everybody out there who’s messed up just like us. I’ve fought, and lobbied, and—”

“Stop it.”

“Leo, I’m not doing this.”

“Turn around.”

“No.”

Leo knew what the decision was. He hadn’t counted on it, but he’d prepared for it. “You gonna fight me? Is that how this is going to go?”

Lucas Tate swung his head back and forth, seeking a weapon—and that’s when Leo knew he didn’t have one.

There’d been no guarantee he’d come unarmed, but the detective knew there were two kinds of men, and that’s pretty much all: the kind who do their own dirty work, and the kind who avoid it at all costs. Tate was the latter. Upon a split second of reflection, Leo wondered if Tate’s hands-off attitude wasn’t a direct result of the Rathole; just one time he took matters into his own hands … and look how that turned out.

Tate spied, seized, and brandished one of the painted wood poles that had previously held aloft the birthplace of Christ. The stable’s support was rounded and heavy, about half the size and weight of a railroad tie. Tate struggled with it, holding it between himself and the detective—who was listening hard for something outside.

It’d been there, a moment before: a car, drawing slowly into the parking lot outside. Probably pulling into a spot right next to Tate’s vehicle. Leo didn’t hear it now, but he hadn’t heard the door open or any footsteps. He snaked his hand into his jacket, feeling for his gun.

“Don’t!” Tate warned, taking a short swing with the pole.

“Or what?” Leo asked. “You’ll kill me?” His elbow bent with a snap, and the gun was in his hand at exactly the moment Tate’s weapon came whipping up from the right. The detective ducked and the pole clipped his left horn—taking his hat and smacking it against the basement window behind him. But his head and his horns had taken worse before.

Tate swung again, swiping the big piece of wood right to left—struggling to hold it up and aloft.

Leo’s gun hand came up and lost to a lucky blow; Tate knocked it hard enough to strip the knuckles in an instant, and the detective felt warm blood and numbness. It was another full second or two before he realized over the stinging pain that he wasn’t holding the gun. He’d lost it and it’d slid on the floor. Within reach, if he could get down on the ground.

But Tate brought the pole around again and it went wild; his arms were tired from lifting the thing, or maybe it was heavier than it looked. Leo planted his feet back and lowered his head, locking his shoulders and lunging in the old head-butting fashion that’d never failed him yet.

The pole cracked against his head and he saw stars, but he kept moving forward and he nailed Tate in the gut, which confused him. They toppled together, each one shoving the other’s arms out of the way—and each one kicking at the other, elbows clattering into faces and knees ramming against ribs as they clawed and crawled sideways on the ground.

Behind everything, still Leo was listening.

He heard it when the basement door smacked open and Tate heard it too, but he didn’t dare look.

By virtue of being taller than Leo and having longer arms, his fingertips were there first—pricking at the gun’s butt and clawing to drag it back.

“Stop! Police!” shouted Michael, who had arrived in the nick of time like the best of the goddamned cavalry.

Leo gasped, “Hurry!” and used a final surge of strength to grab Tate’s shoulder, using the other man’s weight to haul himself along the cement floor. Tate hammered Leo in the eye with his forearm and Leo wheezed, “My gun!”

Michael had already seen it. “Freeze!” he shouted at them both, which wasn’t going to work—but it was worth the formality. He approached the writhing duo, and being both younger and taller than the detective and the editor, he seized Tate by the back of his pants and heaved him bodily off his partner.

Tate swung around with a desperate kick, trying to sweep Michael’s gun away too … and thinking what? That Leo was slow or winded, and that he wouldn’t retrieve his own weapon in that intervening moment of distraction?

Leo didn’t know, and he didn’t stop to wonder about it.

He flung himself forward, reached his gun, and caught himself on his elbows. By the time he was up in a seated position, holding it out and forward, Tate was crouched on the ground—one hand held out to Leo, one hand held out to Michael.

Michael’s feet were parted and his hands were steady, all professional precision—and this from a man who’d been summoned by a Hail Mary message in the middle of the night. Leo didn’t think he’d ever been half so happy to see any other cop, maybe in his whole career.

Michael looked over Tate’s ragged, fight-mussed head and he gave Leo a nod that said, “I’ve got it now,” and at the same time asked, “Are you all right?”

Leo nodded back his answer to both.

He knew Michael had it now. And he was all right.

He climbed all the way to his feet and sat back onto the bench while Michael performed the details, flattening Tate against a wall and locking him into handcuffs.

Ten minutes later, outside in the parking lot, Harvey Kant was there, and Bugeye Bronkowski too; the spinning red and blue lights of their cars were kicking holes in the wee-morning blackness. And Leo Storgman was sitting on the trunk of the lieutenant’s car when a taxi pulled up to deposit Wanda.

She wasn’t frantic, but you could see it from there. “Leo! I just got your message!” She ran toward him, tripping over the small, tire-churned drifts that crisscrossed the lot and then catching herself just in time to reach him. “Is everything all right?”

He hopped down off the trunk and opened his arms.

“Everything’s going to be great,” he said. Then he gave her the biggest, deepest, most serious kiss he’d ever given anybody in public, and added, “Fuck Florida. You ever seen Paris?”

♣ ♦ ♠ ♥

The Wild Cards Series

Wild Cards

Aces High

Jokers Wild

Aces Abroad

Down and Dirty

Ace in the Hole

Dead Man’s Hand

One-Eyed Jacks

Jokertown Shuffle

Double Solitaire

Dealer’s Choice

Turn of the Cards

Card Sharks

Marked Cards

Black Trump

Deuces Down

Death Draws Five

Inside Straight

Busted Flush

Suicide Kings

Fort Freak

Copyright Acknowledgments

“The Rat Race” copyright © 2011 by Cherie Priest.

“The Rook” copyright © 2011 by Lumina Enterprises, LLC.

“Faith” copyright © 2011 by John Jos. Miller.

“Snake Up Above/Snake in the Hole/Snake on Fire” copyright © 2011 by David Anthony Durham.

“… And All the Sinners Saints” copyright © 2011 by Victor Milán and Ty Franck.

“Sanctuary” copyright © 2011 by Mary Anne Mohanraj.

“Hope We Die Before We Get Old” copyright © 2011 by Stephen Leigh.

“More!” copyright © 2011 by Paul Cornell.

“The Straight Man” copyright © 2011 by Kevin Andrew Murphy.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

FORT FREAK: A WILD CARDS MOSAIC NOVEL

Copyright © 2011 by George R. R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust

All rights reserved.

A Tor^® eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor^® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, George R. R.

Fort Freak / George R.R. Martin.—1st ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN 978-0-7653-2570-9

I. Title.

PS3563.A7239F67 2011

813'.54—dc22

2011011551

First Edition: June 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-7185-0

First Tor eBook Edition: June 2011