Busted Flush

Double Helix

I WILL TREAD THEM IN MINE ANGER, AND TRAMPLE THEM IN MY FURY

Melinda M. Snodgrass

I FLIPPED THROUGH THE Times and finally checked my pagers. The headlines were all about the imminent collapse of the Nigerian forces. Not even the addition of Royal Marines had apparently helped. It felt strangely removed from me and my situation. Just as the six calls from Flint, twelve from Siraj, and seventeen from Fortune didn’t seem to much matter.

My manager had only called once to tell me tearfully that I was killing him here. He was going broke. His children would starve. His wife would be forced to shop at Wal-Mart. I didn’t call him back.

I also blew off Fortune. In his case the number of calls did not indicate urgency, merely hysteria.

Flint wanted to know if my father was all right. That rather touched me. But lest I think he was going soft when I called him back he told me to do my damn job. He wanted a report from Mecca now. What was the status on the search for the living bomb?

“I’ll get on it, sir. Who do I talk to in Nigeria?” “Forget Nigeria. It’s pretty self-evident what’s going to happen there.” And he hung up.

After checking in on Dad, I changed clothes and made the transition to Bahir. Niobe came in as I was settling the black rope Igal over the ghutra. She stepped back and I realized she had only seen Lilith.

“Oh, sorry, this is the day avatar. Bahir at your ser vice.” I sweep her a bow. “Hell of a fellow, isn’t he? Much more virile than that effete Englishman.”

Now she’s smiling and she comes into my arms. “I prefer the Englishman.”

“What about the elegant Euro-trash?”

“I am not that broad-minded.” I laugh at her expression and she tugs hard on the edge of my mustache.

“Ouch.”

“You won’t be gone long?” she asks. Anxiety clouds her green eyes like emotional cataracts.

“No.”

It speaks of such insecurity, but she often hugs herself tightly. She’s doing it now. “I just get afraid when you’re gone.”

Since all I’ve done is go to the market once since we’ve been here I decide not to tell her I’m going to Mecca. “You’ll be fine.”

“You’ll tell the kiddos good-bye?”

“Of course.”

Gabriel, Delia, and Iolante are in the backyard. Gabriel is turning the flower beds into riots of blossoming flowers. The clashing perfumes are almost overwhelming. Iolante flits about half dancing, half flying. Delia is surrounded by rabbits, squirrels, dogs, a few mice, a mole, a pony, and God help me, a milk cow who lies in the grass contentedly chewing her cud.

“You have to put them back from wherever you summoned them,” I say sternly as I kiss the top of her head.

“Finders keepers,” she says.

“I will not be known as a horse thief and a cattle rustler,” I say.

“Have fun,” says Gabriel with an off-handed wave.

“Be careful,” says my princess.

Bethany is in the kitchen with Drake. They are making tea. Whatever Bethany is creating out of the ingredients on the counter smells wonderful. I dip a finger into the batter and get my hand slapped.

“No, Daddy, not ’til it’s cooked.”

“You’re in charge,” I tell Drake and then I can put it off no longer. I picture Siraj’s hotel room and make the jump.

He’s behind the desk twining a pen between his fingers. Siraj is not a restless man and anxiety goes shivering down my spine. Perhaps it’s because of the way he trapped me in my Noel form back in Cairo, but I allow my soft peripheral vision to take over and I catch a sense of movement behind a connecting door of the suite.

I’m teleporting even as a blinding flare of pain rips through my side. I need to concentrate before I jump. Think about where I’m going. Visualize the place. This time it’s purely unconscious. I hit the ground amid the piping screams of children. I’m lying on my back half in and half out of the sandbox at the local playground in Cambridge. My father had taken me there to play when I was a kid.

My left hand is slick and sticky with blood as I press it hard at the point of my agony. I’m six blocks from home. But I can’t go home like this. Niobe will freak. I roll over and manage to get to my knees. The swings on the tall steel swing set are swaying lightly in the breeze, the chains squeaking. I realize that blackness seems to be closing in from either side, narrowing my focus. I need a doctor. Now!

I concentrate and find myself collapsing among the chairs in the emergency room of Charing Cross Hospital. Their clattering is like the distant sound when a row of punting poles goes tumbling. There is again screaming. I can feel my body morphing and shifting and it hurts like hell where the bullet hit me. The screams start again at higher intensity, then rough hands grip my shoulders and legs, there’s the sound of tearing as my shirt is torn open. They’re trying to drag my hand away from the wound. There’s enough of them so that eventually they succeed.

The first thing I see when I awaken is the puke-colored curtain that has been drawn around my bed. Beyond the cheesy fabric comes the beep and wheeze of medical equipment, the sounds of coughs and moans, and a querulous old voice calling, “nurse, nurse.” My torso is swaddled in a tight bandage from just below my nipples to just above my navel. It hurts to sit up, but I manage and pull back the curtain. Through a window I can see a night sky. Shit, Niobe is going to be so worried.

The next thing I notice is the broad back of a copper. The rattle of the curtain rings has him turning around. Of course. I arrived as an Arab man, and I was armed to the teeth.

“There now, sir, you just settle back down.”

I hold up a hand. “I’m Noel Matthews, ID number 232751. You need to call the office of the Silver Helix.”

We have a pretty decent quality of cop in this country. They don’t argue, they take the obvious step when presented with information—they check it out. After a call to his superior officer, and a call back from said officer, the cop is flapping his hand at me and saying, “You ought to take it easy, sir,” as I am pulling the IV out of the vein in the back of my hand.

“I’ve got to get home.”

Twenty minutes later they’ve brought me clothes, returned my pagers, cell phone, weapons, cash and wallet with Bahir’s information, and the idiot doctor is still remonstrating with me.

There is a text message on my Noel cell phone. Call me, Siraj. My spine seems cold and not just because of the open back of the hospital gown. Flipping open the phone I call him.

“Siraj, dear fellow, haven’t heard from you since I escaped your hospitality in Cairo.” I fill my voice with that insufferable British drawl that makes almost everyone in the world hate us. Particularly if they’ve been crown colonies.

“Yes, and now I have a pretty good idea how you did that.” His tone is equally conversational. “I also understand why Bahir was so quick to kill Abdul and switch allegiance to me.”

“Pity it turned out so badly. How did you figure it out?” I’m actually curious.

“Bahir was a hick from Afghanistan, or Kazakhstan, Baluchistan, or some other fucking stan. But suddenly he begins to show a great deal of sophistication. And then there was the little trick with the cards. Not to mention your stunning failure to locate the boy. You’re too dangerous to be allowed to live, Noel. I will try to have you killed.”

“Well, thanks awfully for the warning.”

“A gesture to our past friendship,” he says.

“You won’t target my family?”

“No,” and I hear fourteen years of British public school and sportsmanship on the cricket pitch echoing in his voice.

“Good of you. I have to go now.”

I hang up, force the doctor, the cop, and the orderly to go the hell away, and pull shut the curtain around my bed. I feel the ban dage slip as my waist narrows as I make the transition to Lilith. I picture the front hall of the house and jump.

Cordite has a distinctive smell. I know it well. I’ve shot a lot of guns over the past seven years. Someone has fired a gun in my parents’ home. I struggle into a shuffling run, cursing Siraj with every breath. “Dad! Niobe!”

I find them in the study. Dad is out of bed. His skin is gray and seems to be drooping off his bones. Dark circles are under his eyes, and there’s a smear of blood on the back of his hand where he’s pulled out his IV. I look down at the scabbed bubble of blood on my hand. He is standing next to the wing-backed chair, using it for support. Niobe is curled up in the chair. Dad’s free hand is softly stroking her shoulder. On the threadbare oriental rug there is a wet smear. I’ve seen it before—on a threadbare spread in a hotel in Texas. I plunge out of the room and find the other three. One in the hall. One in Drake’s bedroom. The other in the kitchen. My children. Dead.

I return to the study and Niobe looks up at me. I seem to be staring into an infinite darkness. Her face is rigid, and tear-stained. “They took Drake,” she says. “A stone giant and a bunch of men with guns. The kids tried to stop them. Protect him.” I hear or at least think I hear the accusation. You weren’t here. You didn’t keep us safe. Why weren’t you here? “They killed them. I felt the bullets.” She lays a hand on her chest. “It hurt so bad. I couldn’t do anything.” Her voice is shaking. It translates into her body. She’s shuddering like a woman lost in a blizzard.

I kneel next to her, my arms outstretched, hanging in the air an inch or so from her body as if held back by an unseen barrier. She falls against me and Lilith’s long black hair hides us. Rage engulfs me. Rage at all the masks. I will be myself and they will fucking fear me. Niobe gasps a little as she feels my body morph against hers. But then I’m back and she rests her head on my shoulder with the air of a bird settling into its nest. “They’ve taken everything from me,” she says, so quietly that it’s more like puffs of air against my cheek.

“I’ll get him back for you. I swear I will if it’s the last thing I do.”

Her arms close convulsively around me, and she whispers something that I can’t hear.

“What, honey, I didn’t—”

Dad suddenly pitches forward. I jump up, feel the stitches in my side give way and the tickle of blood running down my side, but I manage to catch him before he hits the ground. Niobe is at my side, brushing the tears off her cheeks.

“We need to get him back in bed,” she says.

A clawlike hand seizes my forearm. “They put him in the back of a big truck.” My father’s voice is like stone on a file. “It was bloody strange. It started driving. Very fast. Then it was gone.”

Niobe reads something in my expression. “What? Does that mean something?”

“Yes, darling, it means I know how to find Drake.”

The pub is empty at 3:00 A.M. The truck is parked out front, the streetlights glittering in the raindrops dappling the hood and roof. The silly little bell tinkles madly as I push through the door. Beneath the long leather coat I’m wearing tight leather pants and a laced vest that pushes up my breasts. Bruckner only knows Noel.

He knows I’m an ace. He knows I’m a killer. He doesn’t know my power. That leaves Lilith free to do her job—get me close.

The fat bartender looks up from his washing. A glass hangs in his hand slowly dripping soap suds off the rim. The Highwayman is at his table by the window, but instead of watching his truck, Bruckner’s watching me. His face is slack with lust. I saunter over to him. His eyes follow every undulation of my hips and sway of my hair. I’m reminded of a fakir in India I once saw dancing with his mesmerized snake. I lean down and whisper in Bruckner’s ear, “I hear you’re a man who can give me a ride.”

“Which kind you want, love?” The last word turns into a whistle of pain as I reach into his crotch and close my fist around his balls.

“The kind that takes me to the boy.”

The bartender yanks up a rifle from behind the bar. The silenced Glock coughs once and the bullet takes him between the eyes.

“You crazy bloody bitch!” Bruckner gasps.

“Try bastard,” I say and let my body slide and twist back to myself.

“Jesus!”

“Not to sound like the hero in one of those dreadful American action movies, but you will be seeing him if you don’t answer my question.” I grind the muzzle of the gun into his temple, and tighten my grip on his nads.

“You know I can’t do that, lad.” Pain has him panting between the words, but now that he knows it’s me he seems more relaxed. “Captain’d skin me alive.”

“Actually he wouldn’t. But I would. Where’s the boy? Where did you take him?”

He shakes his head. I release his balls, and pull handcuffs out of my coat pocket. Once he’s secure I get down to business.

For all his bravado and bluster it actually doesn’t take that long. The wood floor is sticky beneath the soles of my high-heeled boots. Bruckner’s blubbering. The wet sounds become words forced between split and swollen lips, “Nigeria. Took him to Nigeria. Dumped him out in front of the PP army. Captain’s orders. Not my fault. Just doing my duty.” He sees something in my face and screams out, “Don’t hurt me anymore! Christ Jesus, no more!”

I put away my knife and draw my pistol. Then I look, really look, at the scene around me. The dead man. The nearly naked old man on the floor in front of me with pieces of skin missing. Blood staining the wood floor. I think about Niobe. How she would see this scene. How she would see me. How she would look at me.

I return the gun to its holster. “Congratulations. You get to retire. Tell Flint to expect my resignation later.”

“He’ll never let you live. Not after this.”

“Yes, I think he will. I’ll be much more talkative after death. It would look so very bad for the Silver Helix and the government. Ta.” And I lock the door behind me as I leave.

I look like an S&M drag queen sashaying down the street. I need to change and make preparations. If Drake can’t control his power I’m going to need protection. As for finding him . . . well, if he’s blown, that won’t be a problem.