Death Draws Five

“Customers?” Jerry asked with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s right. I’m like, their grocer, man. All organic. All natural. All the best.”

Jerry glanced at Angel, whose frown had deepened. Actually, Jerry thought, it would do her a world of good to get stoned. It’d loosen her up a little. And if she stays around this guy long enough, she’d get high just from the contact. He coughed discreetly. The fumes were already starting to get to him.

Angel stood beside Jerry and stared suspiciously at the newcomer. “Really?” she asked. “Exactly what do you sell?”

The hippie smiled, unfazed by her glowering frown. “Hey, I know you, man. I mean, I seen you before down at Kaleita’s store driving that bitchin’ Cadillac SUV, though, really, man, I don’t much approve of SUV’s because they’re really bad for Gaea and all her children—”

“Answer the question,” Angel said severely.

Beaming, he jumped out of the van. Jerry took one breath and had to turn his head away. He could feel his eyes starting to water.

“I’ll show you, man. Come around and take a look at our mother’s generous bounty.”

Jerry shrugged at Angel, and they followed him to the van’s side where he’d already slung open the door, and stood proudly, gesturing at the baskets within.

Jerry had to admit that everything looked good enough to eat, even the zucchini, but he suspected that he’d been standing a little too close for a little too long to the sixties poster child and was at least a little high from the fumes the guy emitted like some kind of tangible pheromone.

Angel just looked blankly at the baskets of red, vine-ripened tomatoes, the bundles of scallions and red onions, crates of lettuce, the cucumbers and zucchini, and open burlap bags of potatoes that still had clumps of thick, rich soil clinging to them.

“What’s your name?” Jerry asked him.

“They call me Mushroom Daddy,” the horticulturist said, “because I grow the most bitchin’ ‘shrooms in Orange County. Got a special greenhouse for them with all the glass painted black and dirt that’s—“

Jerry nodded, forestalling the horticultural lecture he was sure was about to come. “I’m Creighton,” he said. “This is Angel.”

“Woah,” Mushroom Daddy said. “Angel. Cool. Creighton. Groovy, man. What do you folks want with the snake handlers?”

“Ah, well,” Jerry said, “we’re looking for a kid. A kid who’s been lost in the woods overnight. We hoped they may have seen or heard something.”

“Heavy,” Daddy said. “Why don’t you hop in the ol’ van and I’ll give you a lift. Their commune is about a mile up the hill. They don’t take too good to strangers, but seeing as you’re with the Daddy, they might to help you. They know just about everything that goes on around Snake Hill.”

“Groovy,” Jerry said.

Mushroom Daddy slammed the side door shut and slung back into the driver’s seat.

Jerry smiled at Angel. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll close the gate.”

She went around to the passenger’s side and gingerly got into the van. Mushroom Daddy started it up again. With much tender encouragement and delicate manipulation of the gas pedal, the engine finally caught. Jerry closed the gate and climbed into the front seat after the van inched forward, exchanging smiles with Daddy over a stiff-featured Angel as they chugged up Snake Hill, a Canned Heat tape playing softly on the eight-track.

Jokertown: The Jokertown Clinic

Fortunato woke to darkness and pain. It was odd because he hurt so badly yet he couldn’t feel his body. He tried to lift his right arm and hold his hand in front of his eyes, but couldn’t manage it. He didn’t know if he was lying on a bed or perhaps the floor of the abandoned building, sitting in a chair or floating in a pool of water. Though he didn’t feel wet. All he felt was pain.

Then he thought of opening his eyes. He blinked at what he saw. It was himself. He was lying in a bed, and it didn’t look good. The white sheet hid most of his body, but it was clear that he’d been hurt very badly. His left arm, visible over the sheet, was bandaged from palm to biceps. A drip line ran up from his elbow to a bag of clear fluid hanging from a hook over his head. His nose was bandaged as if it’d been broken. His eyes were swollen nearly shut and horridly blackened. His entire face, in fact, was as bruised and battered as if he’d been in a fight, and lost.

Suddenly he remembered that he had. He remembered the confrontation with the Jokka Bruddas. They’d overwhelmed him almost immediately. He remembered getting a few good licks in, but it seemed pretty clear from his current state that he’d lost the fight. He looked awful.

Suddenly he wondered how he could see his entire body, head to toe, including his face, and the bed he was laying on. He wondered dully if he were dead. Killed, and maybe eaten by a bunch of under-age street punks. That would mark a glorious end to his career. The man Tachyon had once called the most powerful ace on Earth beaten to death by juvenile delinquents.

But he wasn’t dead. He certainly hadn’t been devoured. He was either asleep or unconscious, but he could see his chest rise and fall. The squiggles on the heart monitor over his bed seemed to be spiking in a nicely regular rhythm. He suddenly realized what was going on. He was projecting his astral form, hovering over what clearly was a hospital bed. Somehow his powers—or at least one of them—had come back to him, without the need for the Tantric magick that he’d once practiced to charge his batteries. Tachyon had told him that the rituals were simply a crutch for his conscious mind, but he’d never believed him.

Maybe the space wimp had been right all along.

He couldn’t tell for certain what had done it. Maybe the anger. The sheer impotence of being Fortunato and yet being unable to defend himself from some pissant street thugs, when once he’d defeated the Astronomer over the skies of New York. Maybe it had been the fear he’d felt when he’d realized that he could indeed be beaten to death by those children. Maybe it had been the realization that if that happened he couldn’t help his son.

He looked down at his body. He realized that although it might be dangerous, he had to stay out of it. His body wouldn’t last for long without his spirit to guide and animate it, but he had to take the chance that it would hang on at least for awhile. It was likely that the liberation of his astral form had been the work of his unconscious mind. If he returned to his body, there was no guarantee that he’d be able to leave it again. And his body wasn’t going anywhere for awhile. It looked too broken up.

His astral form was free to travel. To prove it to himself he floated out of his private hospital room and found himself in a familiar corridor. He realized that he was back in the Jokertown Clinic. He sped along the corridor, unseen and untouched by the nurses and patients he passed, though one joker perhaps blessed with a touch of second sight seemed to watch him as he floated by. But the joker said nothing and Fortunato slipped into another of the clinic’s private rooms, and found himself in Peregrine’s presence again.

She was sleeping. Josh McCoy was dozing in the chair by her bedside. Both looked tired and worn, Peregrine more so. Fortunato’s astral body hovered above her. He felt an overwhelming desire to hold her again, but he realized that he’d forfeited that right a long time ago. He reached out and touched her cheek, his incorporeal fingers slipping through skin and the flesh beneath.

He had to find his son, but he had nothing to go on. No clue as to where the boy might be. But Peregrine... she probably knew the latest news of his whereabouts.

He reached out with his mind, then hesitated. Suddenly he couldn’t bear the though of going into her consciousness and discovering her most intimate, most true thoughts. He looked at the sleeping figure of Josh McCoy. He wasn’t wild about this idea either. But he needed the information.

He entered McCoy’s mind. It was as easy as it had always been. He had lost nothing of his power. Nothing of his control. He touched lightly, looking only for information relevant to the search for his son. He didn’t want to pry deeply into McCoy’s private life, either.

Surprising, the first thing he discovered was about himself. About how he had sent out a psychic distress call when he’d been attacked by the Jokka Bruddas. How it’d taken Father Squid and his search team hours to discover his torn and battered body in the rubble of the abandoned building. How they’d found the dismembered corpses of the Bruddas among the wreckage of their headquarters.

Fortunato had no memory of killing them. It must have been his subconscious that had lashed out with the deadliness of a cornered lion turning on a pack of emboldened jackals, teaching them who was still king of beasts.

So be it, Fortunato thought. He took no pleasure in the killing, but neither did it bother him. He killed to live. That was the way.

He delved further into McCoy’s sleeping mind, seeking out information of his son.

The first that came up was his image. It startled him. The boy didn’t look exactly like him, but the resemblance was there, in the eyes, around the mouth. It was startling to see, and breathtaking in an odd, somehow exhilarating way. It was a bit of himself. There was no denying it. He stored the image in his own mind, and went on, finally uncovering McCoy’s memory of a phone call they’d gotten from a detective agency whose job it was to protect the boy.

He was safe, for now, at a camp in upstate New York at a place called New Hampton. His bodyguard was with him. They were sending along reinforcements just in case of another attempt to kidnap him.

He slipped out of McCoy’s mind and looked down at the sleeping Peregrine. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll find him. I’ll protect him. I promise.”

She stirred and sighed. He wondered if somehow she’d heard his unhearable words.

He suddenly felt younger than he’d felt for years. He felt as if the world about him was conquerable again. Like a wraith he rose in the air, through the room’s ceiling, up a floor and through Finn’s office where the young doctor was laying on his specially-constructed bed in a corner of the room, trying to snatch a few hours of rest, and then finally up through the clinic’s roof and into the open sky above.

The sun was still in the morning quarter. From the movement of nearby tree branches he could tell that it was fairly windy, but his astral form could not feel the wind itself. It was peculiar not to feel warm or cold, tired or, rested. To just be. It was, in a way, the perfect Zen state, but Fortunato couldn’t waste time meditating on it. He looked around for some landmarks to orient himself. He found the way north, and headed out over the city.

He flew without sensation, moving over the land without feeling motion on his unseen body. He discovered that he could judge distance, but not time. He did notice that once he’d reached the city line and found the concrete ribbon of the Thruway leading north that the sun had moved in the sky, so time must have passed. Before long—or so, anyway, it seemed—he was gliding over the fields and farms of rural Orange County where New Hampton lay. He knew that he was barely sixty miles north of the city, but he might as well have been in another world, a world of small villages, of dairy farms set among rolling hills, of green pastures, of rich land which grew a multitude of crops, of orchards and pocket forests that had been standing since before the Revolutionary War.

He was not on intimate terms with this part of the state. Like many urbanites he was a city boy through and through, but he was able to call to mind maps he’d seen in the past. He had also burned into his brain—more, burned into his spirit since his brain lay nearly comatose on a hospital bed far away—the image of his son.

He hoped that the boy’s image would lead him to him.

He came upon the camp in a rush while quartering the countryside, thankful that his astral form could see like a hawk. He rushed down, looking for the boy, but could not find him. He dipped into the mind of one of the camp administrators and discovered what had happened the night before, events which even McCoy and Peregrine were unaware of, and fled immediately before his sudden anger could do any damage to the brain he was scanning.

Fortunato burned hot with anger, yet cold with fear. He could feel the sensations run through his astral form because they weren’t physical manifestations, but mental. Fear and anger. Fear of loss. Anger at being afraid. Just what he had fled from, he realized, fifteen years ago. But he couldn’t flee now. His son was out there somewhere. Alone. Afraid. Maybe hurt. He had to find him.

I probably won’t be able to, Fortunato thought. There was too much territory to cover. Besides, the boy would have been spotted by now if he was moving about in the open. He was probably hiding, keeping undercover for fear of the kidnappers who had almost snatched him the night before.

If they haven’t gotten him in the meantime, Fortunato thought, then did his best to dismiss the idea. If they had, he was wasting his time. But he had nothing but time, and the need to fill it with something worthwhile.

Fortunato sank down to the ground and stood in the center of the camp, a ghost among the living. No one saw him. His astral form made no noise for them to hear. They were trying to go about their business as if everything was normal, but of course it wasn’t. There was still speculation as to what had happened the night before, and worries that the bad guys might attack again.

This is useless, he thought. Too much ground to cover. Too many places for the boy to hide. There had to be another way—

There was, Fortunato suddenly realized. If he could do it.

He rose up again into the sky and hung above the camp like an unseen specter. He simply had to try. There was no other recourse.

He had to move his astral body through time as he had through space. It was the only way he could hope to track the movements of John Fortune, and the killers who were after him.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: the woods

Ray batted annoyingly at a flight of gnats that descended upon them as they moved from shadow to sunlight, swarming like a tiny pack of famished wolves on fresh, undefended meat. Ackroyd stood next to him in a clearing in the woods. They had already been to the house where Creighton had spent the night, but his host had already gone out to search for the kid. They’d picked up a guide, a funny little fellow by the name of Kitty Cat, and he’d gone ahead on the trail to try to scope out Yeoman’s current position. That was the name Ackroyd had used when talking about their host.

“So, you know this Yeoman character?” Ray asked. He was a little irritated. It was mid-afternoon, and hot. It wasn’t so bad among the trees, though they tended to block the cooling wind. He’d already resigned himself to the fact that he was going to ruin his suit. He was sweating so profusely that no amount of dry cleaning would get out the perspiration stains, not to mention the various blobs of dirt, muck, and otherwise unidentifiable forest debris. He wished he’d had time to change to proper fighting attire, but even if he had, his clothes were now sitting in an unclaimed suitcase somewhere at Tomlin International.

Ackroyd tried to take a deep breath without sucking in some gnats, and didn’t succeed. “Jesus,” he said, gagging and spitting, “we may have bugs in the city but at least they’re decent-sized roaches that you can chase into a corner and step on. This is all way too, too natural, to be healthy.” He waved ineffectually at the undiminished horde of gnats and took another resigned breath. “But Yeoman—well, you couldn’t say that I actually know the murderous son of a bitch, but I worked with him on some stuff, back, Jesus, was it really thirteen years ago?”

Ray shrugged as Ackroyd’s mind wandered momentarily in the past. “If you mean Chrysalis’s murder, yeah it was that long ago.”

Ackroyd looked at him sharply. “What do you know about that?”

“I’ve read the dossier. If you remember, at the time I was occupied by other things.”

“Oh yeah,” Ackroyd said. “Mackie Messer ripped you from chest to balls on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. Live, on TV.”

“Yeah.” Recalling that still pissed Ray off. “My star turn on television. I had plenty of time to read when I was recovering in the hospital. A lot of stuff connected to that case is pretty unclear. At least officially. You were involved—somehow. So was this vigilante. This guy Yeoman, the papers called the ‘Bow and Arrow Killer.’”

Ackroyd shook his head. “My main interest was catching Chrysalis’s murderer.”

“And Yeoman’s main interest?”

“The same.” Ackroyd said.

From the look on Ackroyd’s face, it seemed to Ray that both men were involved in the case for personal rather than political or financial reasons. Chrysalis had been an important person about Jokertown. Ray had seen her in the flesh once or twice. Though “seen her in the flesh” was something of a misnomer, since her flesh was actually invisible. She was all bone and blood vessels and interior organs covered by ghostly muscle. Kinky. But not really his type. He liked it when they had some meat on them. And you could see it. Kind of like Angel, in fact—

Ray jerked his train of thought back to the present. “Is he an ace?” Ray asked. “The dossier wasn’t clear on that point. Like the compiler wasn’t sure.”

“I’ll tell you,” Ackroyd said, “I’m not sure myself. I’ve seen a lot of wacky powers over the years, but being real good with a bow an arrow just doesn’t seem... likely. And he got in plenty of situations where a little super-strength or super-speed or mind control or some damn thing would have been useful—only he never seemed to use anything like that.”

“What’s he like?”

Ackroyd looked at him. “I told you. He’s a murderous son of a bitch. As soon as put an arrow through your eye as look at you.” Ackroyd paused to hawk up another gnat. “You’ll like him.”

Ray swallowed his retort as a little creature about two feet tall came scurrying through the grass towards them. It was Kitty Cat, the guide they’d picked up at Yeoman’s house. He was completed covered with a calico pelt and had feline-irised eyes. Otherwise, he looked fairly human for a two-foot tall joker. He was talking quietly into a cell phone as he came out of the forest into the small meadow where he’d told Ray and Ackroyd to await his return.

“Okay,” he said. His voice was rather deeper than Ray would have expected from such a tiny frame. “The Boss has a group of guys in his sights. He doesn’t know who they are, but they’re sure as Hell not locals. Care to come up for a look?”

“Sure,” Ackroyd said.

Kitty Cat looked uncertain. “Can you guys can make it through the woods without raising too much of a racket?”

“I majored in sneaking in detective school,” Ackroyd said.

Kitty Cat nodded. “Uh-huh. Well, these guys all got automatic weapons, and they’re as likely to nail my tiny little ass they are yours if they hear something crashing through the woods. So for Christ’s sake, be careful!”

“I’ve managed to sneak past a few trees in my day without tripping over myself,” Ray said.

“Let’s go then.” Kitty Cat hitched up the fanny pack embroidered with “Hello Kitty” that he wore slung over his shoulders like a backpack.

Ray nodded at Ackroyd, and the dick followed the joker back into the woods. Ray had to hand it to him. He was good at sneaking. They could have all been tiny little jokers for all the noise they made. It helped that they followed Kitty’s trail and that he kept them away from fallen leaves and other ground debris. It was cooler inside the trees, and darker. Ray started to feel the excitement start to ratchet up, and he had to concentrate to keep a silly grin off his face. Now, if this Yeoman was as good as he supposed to be, he thought, maybe he’d lead them to some real action.

He came out of nowhere, wearing cameo forest fatigues and a dark, short sleeved shirt. The skin of his face and arms were painted with stripes of green, brown, and black paint, and he was carrying a strung bow with an arrow loosely nocked to the string. He’d drifted out from behind a shield of leafy branches like smoke. No. Ray would have smelled the smoke. Like a shadow of moonlight on a dark, quiet night. Ray smiled to himself. This Yeoman was good.

They stopped. Ackroyd wore a disgusted, jeez what now expression, but he kept his silence as Yeoman faced them with a finger held to his lips. Kitty Cat vanished somewhere into the forest. Yeoman waved them on, his very posture telling them to be quiet and careful.

They crept forward, slipping through the branches from behind which Yeoman had emerged. It was a thick shrub, facing the edge of a small forest glen where five men were sprawled in various attitudes of tired discontent. They watched the men fan themselves and bitch.

“Dammit, Angelo,” one said, “I thought you were bringing the water.”

“Me?” Angelo, young yet vicious-looking, replied with sullen anger. “What am I, your donkey? Lincoln freed the slaves, man.”

“Yeah,” said a third, sprawled out with his back against a tree. His automatic rifle leaned against the tree-trunk as well. “That means nobody gets to drink anything.”

“You could have brought the water,” Angelo riposted.

“All right, all right,” the fourth said. He was the oldest of the group. Dark, Hispanic looking, and very hot and very uncomfortable. Ray was happy to note that his suit was looking a lot worse for wear than Ray’s own, even though the chump had known that they were going to be traipsing through the goddamned woods like a pack of Boy Scouts. He was also the only one of the five who wasn’t armed, though he could have been packing in a shoulder holster or belt rig. “I don’t want to hear any more of this shit. Yeah, we’re thirsty. Yeah, we’re hot. But we got to find this Fortune kid. The sooner we walk our section, the sooner we get back to the car and some cold beer. Tony, how’s it looking?”

Tony was looking at what appeared to be a U.S.G.S. quadrant map. Looking confused.

“Jesus, Jesus,” he pronounced the second ‘Jesus” as “Hay-seuss,”

“it’s hard to figure out where we are with all these trees all around us.”

“We’re in the frigging woods, Tony. There’s going to be a lot of trees.”

The fifth was lying flat on his back, rifle by his side, eyes closed, panting like a horse who’d been run too hard and too long.

It was Angelo, Ray decided. He was the one to watch. He still had his hands on his rifle. He was young. He was annoyed. He’d be the one. Fortunately, he was the closest to the clump of bushes where they were hiding.

Ray, standing between Yeoman and Ackroyd, glanced at them right and left, then gestured towards the clearing. Yeoman gave him a sardonic, be my guest look. Ackroyd looked at him like he was crazy. Ray nodded, knowing he was foolish for relying on a man he didn’t know and a man he didn’t really trust, but he was getting tired himself, and mostly he wanted answers. And there were five walking, talking encyclopedias in the clearing before them. He slithered though the bushes with amazing agility, though truthfully he was more concerned with snagging his suit than making noise.

He stepped into the clearing, smiling. “I’m looking for some scumbags who’re trying to kidnap a kid,” he said conversationally. “Seen any around here?”

The five men looked at Ray as if he were a lunatic escaped from a near-by asylum, and when they started to move Ray was already among them. Angelo, as Ray had suspected, would the first to react, and the fastest. He started to lift his gun and shift into a comfortable firing position, but that was one action too many.

Ray was on him, still smiling, as Angelo lifted his rifle, and Ray plucked it from his hand like taking candy from a baby. He threw it back over his shoulder into the woods as Angelo started to stand, muttering, “Loco motherfucker,” and reaching for his back-up piece snugged down in a belt holster in the small of his back. Ray took his arm and he broke it just like that, still smiling, and Angelo howled as Ray swiveled in one continual motion and kicked him in the chest hard enough to lift him off his ass and propel him into a tree across the clearing. In the same motion Ray reached out and snagged the gun from the guy who was lying stretched out on the ground and tossed it into the trees alongside Angelo’s.

The guy opened his eyes and sat up to see Ray standing over him, still smiling, and Ray’s fist came down once and the guy went back down again, no longer interested. The one who had bitched to Angelo about the water was swinging his gun around but an arrow came from out of the bushes, shining like silver as it tore through the sunlight, and pinned him through his shoulder to the tree he’d been leaning against.

Tony looked up with his mouth hanging open, the map still spread across his knees. Then he was gone, an audible “POP” sounding above the wounded man’s screams as air rushed in to fill the vacuum that had been Tony, his map, and a layer of the dirt he’d been sitting on.

That left Jesus, who was smart enough not to draw his weapon as Billy Ray stepped towards him. “Who are you?” Jesus asked. “What are you doing?”

“I told you, Jesus,” Ray said. “We’re looking for some scumbag kidnappers.” Ray got close to him, so close that he stumbled back a step or two. “That just happen to fit your description.”

“You a cop?”

Ray’s smile broadened. “If I was a cop,” he asked, “could I do this?”

He slapped him stingingly, left, right, left. Jesus stumbled back again.

“Come on out,” Ray called. “I think we’ve got it all under control.”

Yeoman and Ackroyd stepped out of the shrubbery. Ray turned his smile to them. He was genuinely happy, if somewhat disappointed in the short duration and easiness of the fight.

“You know, Ackroyd, you were right.” He nodded at Yeoman. “I do like this guy. Good shooting coupled with a nice sense of timing.”

Ackroyd shook his head. “You’re as crazy as he is.”

“Maybe,” Ray said. He looked at the groaning man. “Get rid of him.”

The man looked up, fear in his eyes. “No—no don’t kill me—”

“Wait a minute,” Yeoman said, as if knowing what was going to happen. “Let me retrieve my arrow.”

He strode over to the tree, grabbed the shaft and pulled hard as the man cringed. His victim screamed as it came out of the tree trunk and through his torn flesh. Yeoman looked at the shaft critically, wiped the blood off it on the man’s shirt, and put it back in his quiver.

“Maybe I can salvage it,” he said to no one in particular. He stepped aside. “Okay. Do your stuff.”

The man moaned again. He looked at Ackroyd, pleading in his eyes. “No. Please. Don’t hurt me no more. Please.”

Ackroyd gave him a tight smile. “Sorry.”

He clenched his right hand into a pistol shape, his forefinger pointing at the target, his thumb pointing straight up at the sky. There was another “POP” and he was gone.

“Jesus Christ,” Angelo said, panting for breath as he crouched on the ground clutching his broken arm. “What’d you do to him, man?”

“I sent him to a far better place,” Ackroyd explained. He looked at Ray and Yeoman. “What do you think? Him next?” He indicated Angelo with a gesture of his cocked fist.

Ray knew that Ackroyd had probably popped his first target off to the holding pen at Riker’s Island, or some other similar location. That was how his power worked. He was a projecting teleport who could send anyone, or anything small enough, any place he was familiar with. The gun that he made with his right fist was the mental crutch he leaned on to make his power function. He’d probably sent the second stooge to an emergency room somewhere.

Of course, the stooges who were still their captives didn’t know that.

“Hey man,” Angelo pleaded. “I’m hurt. My arm’s broke and I think you broke a couple of ribs too.” He grimaced convincingly.

“Is that all?” Ray asked in disappointed tones. “I was trying to crush your spleen.”

“My spleen don’t feel too good, either,” Angelo said placatingly.

Ray shrugged. “Waste ‘em.”

Ackroyd turned to him. Angelo tried to scuttle away, but he moved gingerly as if he did have several broken ribs. Ackroyd popped him away without any difficulty, as he did the fourth man, who was still lying unconscious on the forest loam.

Ray, Yeoman, and Ackroyd turned to Jesus. Jesus swallowed, audibly.

“What do you guys want?” he asked.

They advanced on him. “Answers,” Ray said.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: The black dirt

The afternoon heat had come, though in his astral form Fortunato couldn’t tell if it was a delightful seventy-five or a humid ninety. His insubstantial body was beyond all such considerations. He was worried that he’d been gone so long from his physical body that he might have trouble reintegrating with it, but he thrust that worry away as best he could. Other concerns took precedence.

He drifted aloft, keeping a watchful eye on the unfolding landscape as he scudded about like an unseen cloud. After all, he could get lucky and stumble upon the boy by chance, unlikely as that was. He couldn’t afford to ignore that possibility, however slim. He couldn’t afford to ignore any chance, no matter how slight.

The country below him was quiet and peaceful. Houses were dispersed among acres of farmland or forest or clung together in small groups of half a dozen or so on single-lane county roads. He drifted at one point over a hillside that was being eaten away by a gravel pit, which appeared to be the only sign of industrial activity anywhere in his sight. Ironically, right across the road from the pit was a small country church, closed up and silent.

He was within a mile of the camp, but the terrain had changed. It was much more open, with tiny copses of forest stranded on isolated hills. The land generally sloped downwards to form a large, open bowl, like the bottom of a waterless lake. This area was squared off into fields planted with various crops. Fortunato could see corn and tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber, and, mostly, row upon row of onions sprouting from the thick, rich soil that was blacker than his own skin. In the near distance, less than two miles away, the silver ribbon of a small river ran through this rich black dirt.

He could feel the energy entrapped in the soil even from his vantage point thirty or forty feet in the sky. It was opulent, fertile earth, unlike the thin city dirt which supported the concrete and steel environment that he was much more familiar with.

Energy...

He dropped to the Earth like a bullet, coming to rest in a field that was planted half in cucumbers and half in onions. The soil was soft and crumbly, full of brown clods of organic material that also testified to its richness. It radiated energy it had drunk that day from the sun, and ancient, even more potent energy seemed to infest its every particle. Fortunato couldn’t feel the warmth it threw off, but he could see it dissipate into the air like shimmers off a mirage. The older energy seemed an integral part of the soil. Fortunato put his face into the dirt and saw the tiny pellets of power being drawn up the roots growing in it. He could see the dirt nourish the plants as they grew to their full richness.

If this energy feeds crops planted in it, Fortunato thought, it could feed much more as well.

Fortunato sank through the dirt as if it were the sky. He felt no sense of claustrophobia when it closed over him and he was fully interred within it as if the field were his vast grave. He sank lower and lower. Ten feet into the soil, the energy was more abundant, more vibrant, as decades of farming had only leached away bits of it. Twenty feet down it sparked and coruscated like alien-looking sea creatures living in the ocean depths. Thirty feet down Fortunato hit bedrock and stopped.

Floating in the dirt as if it were the sky, he emptied his mind until it was a complete blank. The void of him begged to be filled.

And so it was.

Suddenly he stood on the surface of a great lake whose shores lapped the slopes of what were hillsides in his own time. The land around him was lush and wild. Man had never drunk from this lake or boated upon it or polluted it with his waste and industrial run-off. It was pristine and free. The forests surrounding it were impenetrable, except for the great mammoths and other immense beasts that roamed the lake’s margins and rocky beaches.

Fortunato realized that he was seeing this land as it was thousands of years ago, before the coming of man. The lake seemed as if it would go on forever. But even landscapes change with the millennia. The Earth subsided, twisted, and moved. The climate turned drier, hotter. The lake started to shrink. The forests around it, the plants that grew in it, all died. They surrendered their richness and metamorphosed into thick black dirt that accumulated over the thousands of years it took the lake to die.

But the lake hadn’t really died. It had simply changed. It had transformed from a fluid state to rich black soil. The clumps of organic material in the soil were plants compressed into layers of peat, then broken up thousands of years later by man’s plows.

But Fortunato was down with the energy that had lingered for millennium. For longer than man had been on this continent. In the upper levels of the black earth it had slowly been leached away by farmers for two hundred, two hundred and fifty years. Down where Fortunato lingered, it was still pristine.

And, like most energy, it was begging to be used.

He embraced it. He drank it in. It filled him fuller than the sexual energy of the Tantric rituals ever did. He could feel it coursing through his astral form like lightning contained by the invisible shape of his insubstantial body. When he could drink no more of it he burst out again into the sky.

One moment he was at the bottom of the Pleistocene lake. The next he was in the sky above the camp. He willed to be there the night before, and he was. He heard the commotion and saw his son. He saw the detective protect him from the kidnappers, witnessed their flight into the woods. He followed them as they moved like actors in a tape set in fast forward, burning minutes of time in seconds, hours in minutes. He went with them as they wandered lost in the woods. He saw the detective’s bravery during the brief firefight. Saw the unexpected arrows lance out of the night and thought, My God, it’s Yeoman!, saw his son stumble back into the forest. He followed him dodging and hiding, watching as he discovered the small church and spent a fitful night there. Then he saw him cautiously go out the next day, find the store at the foot of the hill and buy some bread, cold cuts, ice cream and soda which he took back to the church. Fortunato could understand the agony of the boy’s indecision, unsure of which hand might be raised against him, cautiously waiting for help, eventually deciding that he had to go find it himself. He went back to the store to ask to use the phone, and immediately tried to leave when he recognized that the others in the shop were enemies. They went after him. He tried to run but Fortunato knew that they would catch him, and he was in his astral form unable to touch anything upon the corporeal plane. The men were closing around his son and Fortunato knew that his only slim hope was to reach out and touch a receptive mind, to find someone who could understand his pleas and come to help the boy.

Fortunato shouted for help, but he was afraid that no one would hear.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: the woods

Jesus hung tough for awhile, but once they got him talking he wouldn’t shut up. It was Jay’s threat to teleport his gonads to a subway stop somewhere in the Bronx that broke him. Ray didn’t think that Ackroyd could actually do it, and he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t even if he could, but it was Ray’s experience that macho shit bags like Jesus were quite attached and often abnormally concerned about the state and condition of their gonads. Jesus started singing like the Jokertown Boys after Jay’s threat, revealing some items of interest, as well as some things that Ray already knew.

“It’s not like we’re committing a crime or anything,” Jesus confided, splitting his attention between Jay and the razor-sharp broad tip arrow that Yeoman was playing with as he looked on with dark, unrelenting eyes.

“Kidnapping isn’t a crime?” Yeoman asked flatly.

“Well, sure. If we were actually kidnapping someone. That would be a crime, sure. And a sin. But since we’re working for the church, what we’re doing can’t really be a sin, can it?”

“Wait a minute,” Ackroyd said. “The church?”

“Sure,” Jesus said confidently. “I am an obsequentus in the Allumbrados. We take our orders from the Cardinal. Directly.”

“You want to translate, that, please?” Ackroyd said.

Jesus shrugged. “Of course. Obsequentus—an ‘obedient’ in the Order of Allumbrados, The Enlightened Ones. That’s the middle rank in the Order, between credenti and perfecti,” Jesus added helpfully.

“You do this full time?” Yeoman asked in disbelief.

“Well, it’s more of a part-time thing—”

“Between drug sales,” Ray put in dryly. He had seen Jesus’ type often enough. He recognized his probable affiliation with the Colombians like a street-savvy cop could spot a pickpocket working the crowd in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Jesus shrugged. “Hey, a man’s got to eat. But you guys, you ruined my chance. If I found the kid I would have been promoted to perfectus.”

“Enough,” Ackroyd said. “What’s all this about the church? You’re talking about the Catholic Church?”

“I’m not talking about crazy-ass Protestants,” Jesus said. “I’m talking Mother Church. Rome. The Vatican.”

“What do they want with John Fortune?” Ackroyd asked, obviously having a hard time believing all this.

“I’ll tell you,” Jesus said, leaning forwards conspiratorially. “Then maybe you let me go.”

Yeoman snorted. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Jesus made gestures for them all to come closer, and Ray found himself leaning forward as if Jesus were telling ghost stories around the campfire. They all did. “John Fortune ain’t no kid. He’s the Anti-Christ.”

“Anti-Christ?” Ackroyd repeated.

Jesus nodded. “It’s true. He’s the Devil.”

“Jesus Christ,” Yeoman said.

Jesus pointed at him. “Exactly. Jesus Christ is coming. The End Times are upon us. Jesus and Satan will battle for the fate of the Earth. Jesus will win of course, but the Allumbrados have been doing all they can to smooth his way for him.”

“Like... kidnapping... John... Fortune,” Ackroyd said slowly. He and Yeoman exchanged glances as if this was the first time they’d ever agreed on anything.

Ray himself would think the whole thing was nuts if he hadn’t Barnett’s solemn assurance that John Fortune was actually Jesus Christ in his Second Coming. He wasn’t sure that he believed Barnett, but at least he was on the side that was trying to rescue the boy, not the one trying to drag him in front of some inquisition. For now his seemed to be the right side in this crazy affair. For now.

Ackroyd and Yeoman looked at him, and he shrugged. Now was not the time, Ray decided, to open up. “Sounds nuts to me,” he said.

“Got any more questions?” Ackroyd asked, looking from Ray to Yeoman.

“How many teams are out looking for the boy?” Yeoman asked.

“Three others, as far as I know.” Jesus paused. “They’re not all Allumbrados, though. Most of the guys on my team weren’t, though a couple were credenti.”

“Running short on nutcases?” Ackroyd asked.

Jesus looked very badly like he wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Bye-bye,” Ackroyd said, pointed, and popped.

Jesus had time for one startled, betrayed look, then he vanished.

“Where’d you send him?” Ray asked.

“Where he belonged. Bellevue.”

“Probably not a bad choice,” Ray said innocently.

Ackroyd sighed and looked around the forest clearing. “Not what do we do?”

“Pray we find the boy,” Yeoman said, “before these nutcases do.”

Amen, Ray thought, but just nodded.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: The Snake Handlers’ Commune

Jerry and the Angel helped three of the commune members, Josaphat, Josiah, and Jehoram, carry the bushels of produce into the kitchen. It was hard to be so close to so much tempting food, because Jerry had a bad case of the munchies from the contact high he’d gotten off Mushroom Daddy. He didn’t think he could wait for dinner.

Hungry as he was, it was clear that Angel was hungrier. Ravenous, in fact. The boys left them in the capable hands of Hephzibah, an old woman who looked like an extra from The Grapes of Wrath, who ran the commune’s kitchen. When she learned that they were both hungry she put out a supply of leftovers—cold fried chicken, home-baked bread, mashed-potatoes, corn on the cob, green bean casserole, tomato and cucumber salad, and a couple of apple pies—and watched in awe as Angel packed away enough food to feed a platoon. Jerry was getting a little embarrassed by Angel’s gustatory display, but the food was so good and he was so munched out that he really wasn’t all that far behind her in the leftover demolition. To assuage his conscience he slipped Hephzibah a couple of twenties that Ackroyd had given him earlier to cover the cost of their generosity.

Jerry was so taken with the simply prepared, yet unbelievably fresh and tasty fare that he didn’t even think of pumping Hephzibah for information on John Fortune’s whereabouts. Neither did Angel. They were both surprised when the sounds of an electric guitar wafted through the air, penetrating even Jerry’s dazed consciousness that was threatening to slip into a digestive torpor after he’d polished off the last of the potato salad.

“That’s the call to worship,” Hephzibah said. “I hope you’re both satisfied for now.” She looked at Angel, who had glanced up disappointedly from the fragments of the apple pie she’d just devoured. “Supper will be after service. If you’re still hungry.”

A loud belch escaped Angel. “Excuse me. Please.”

At least, Jerry thought, she had the grace to look mortified

Hephzibah waved it away. “That’s all right, honey. Long as you enjoyed everything.”

Angel looked down guiltily at the empty platters and plates and pie tins, as if aware for the first time of the devastation they’d wrought. Jerry wondered if she actually enjoyed anything in life.

“It was great, all of it.” He looked at Angel. “I guess we should mosey on up to the, uh, services. Right, Angel? We have to thank Uzziah”—he was the commune’s leader—“for your generosity to a couple of strangers.”

“Friends of Daddy are friends of ours,” Hephzibah said. “Besides, the generosity you receive is equal to the generosity you give.”

Jerry frowned. “Wasn’t that a Beatles’ song?”

Hephzibah leaned forwards as if revealing a great confidence. “Close. You can learn much from the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney. Almost as much as from the Book itself.”

Jerry nodded. “I’ll remember that.”

Angel seemed sunken even deeper in a digestive stupor than Jerry. Not unlikely, Jerry thought, if this was the first time she’d experienced a marijuana high. Which was probable. First-time users usually didn’t get off much, but Jerry suspected that just as the Daddy’s vegetables were so tasty, his other produce, as it were, was probably as potent in its own particular way. Jerry took her by the arm and helped her step away from the table.

“See you at the service, then,” he said, steering Angel out of the kitchen.

Everyone seemed to be moseying towards a whitewashed structure set on a high point a little bit apart from the scatter of other structures. It was in better shape than most of the other buildings, with a fresh coat of whitewash and a well-maintained wood frame and shingled roof. The sounds of the guitar called to them.

“Say,” Jerry said. “Isn’t that ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Angel said. “It sounds like rock and roll and I know nothing about the Devil’s music.”

“Oh, lighten up for once, would you?”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Angel said. “It will be dangerous for both our bodies and our souls.”

“Yeah, well, we have to check them out. We’ll get a gander at their service. Ask a few questions. Maybe slip Uzziah a couple more twenties to take care of the damage you did to their larder—”

“You ate their food as well!” Angel said, stung.

Jerry sighed. She seemed to be one of those women who didn’t respond well to criticism, no matter how mild. “Let’s not go comparing who did what to the refrigerator, all right?” Jerry said.

Angel was reluctant, but she followed him. As they ambled up the hill to the church, Jerry noticed an oddly-decorated tree standing off by itself. He wasn’t sure what kind of tree it was. It had bottles of all colors, shapes, and sizes tied to its branches by strips of cloth. The bottles hung close enough together that when a wind blew they jangled softly against each other, making an odd, strangely pleasing music that could be heard even above the wailing tones of the electric guitar.

“What is that thing?” he asked, wondering.

“It’s a Spirit Tree,” Angel said.

“Spirit Tree?”

She nodded. “That’s what I said.” They stopped to look at it for a moment. “They’re common down South, but then so are snake cults. I ‘spect these people came up from somewhere near the Appalachians, bringing their snakes and Spirit Trees with them.”

“What’s it supposed to do?” Jerry asked.

Angel reached up and touched a cobalt blue bottle that had once held a stomach tonic, looking at it as if it contained the secrets of the universe. “Oh, the noise they make in the wind is supposed to scare away ghosts. Or maybe catch them if they get too close.” She let go of the bottle and it swung back, tinkling softly as it glanced against one of its fellows. “Anyway, that’s the foolish superstition. Come on,” she said, as if suddenly galvanized. “We’re missing the beginning of the service.”

They went on up to the church where they found seats in one of the back pews. It was already filling up. There were maybe thirty people inside with a dozen or more still filing in. The wooden pews were skillfully handcrafted. The floor was laid wooden planks, polished, and cleanly swept. The church’s interior was whitewashed plaster. The walls were unadorned except for some folksy portraits of Jesus Christ, most of which concentrated on the more gruesome aspects of His life. Christ scourged. Christ crucified. Christ with the crown of thorns. Most of the images made Jerry shudder. They resembled scenes more suitable for horror movies than a church, though he wasn’t really familiar with anything but the staid upper-class Protestant services he’d largely abandoned once he became an adult.

A simple plank altar stood against the rear wall. Before the altar was a wooden podium, hanging on the wall behind it was a nicely executed wooden statue of Christ on the cross. Even from their vantage point in the back, Jerry could see the agony on Christ’s face, the pain in his thin, rope-muscled body as it hung from the nails driven through his mutilated palms. It was a powerful if morbid bit of folk art. It seemed to hit Angel even harder. She stared at it from her knees on the pew’s unpadded rail, her lips moving in mumbled prayer.

The band was to the left of the podium. Daddy was playing the guitar, a shiny red Fender that looked like it would be far more at home in places where they played the Devil’s music that Angel so abjured. He wasn’t bad. Daddy caught Jerry’s eye, smiled, and briefly waved at him. Jerry waved back. He seems like a nice enough guy, Jerry thought. He sure raises some great-tasting vegetables.

The rest of the band was musically less certain. A teenaged boy sat behind a scanty drum set that consisted of a base and a couple of snares. A couple of women beat raggedly on tambourines, and a geezer had a big pair of cymbals that he whacked together at seemingly random intervals. He did seem to be having fun, as did the rest of the congregation. They were singing the lyrics to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

“I told you that’s what the song was,” Jerry whispered to Angel, who had stopped praying, but was still kneeling on the rail, her clasped hands resting on the pew in front of them. She looked around as if she’d found herself suddenly cast into the lion’s den.

Daddy, apparently leading the band, segued into a rocking version of “I Saw The Light,” which the congregation took up without missing a beat.

It was hot inside the little wood structure, and crowded. The pew where Jerry and Angel sat was full, as were most in the small church. The congregation, the men dressed in worn jeans or stiff polyester pants and neatly pressed shirts buttoned up to their necks, the women in ankle-length dresses with lace collars and tiny flower prints and sensible black shoes, were singing and clapping along enthusiastically with the band, when Uzziah made his entrance.

He walked quietly down the center aisle while Daddy led the congregation through one more chorus of “I Saw The Light,” a worn black Bible in one hand and a long, narrow wooden box carried by a leather strap in the other. He reached the podium, put his Bible down, and went to the altar and set the wooden box upon it as the congregation’s sing-a-long ground to a ragged but cheerful halt.

Uzziah looked out upon the congregation, a thoughtfully serious expression on his lined, darkly tanned face. “Ain’t it hot in here?” he asked in a soft voice than nonetheless penetrated to every corner of the suddenly quiet church.

Somehow Jerry didn’t think that he was talking about the weather.

“I said,” Uzziah said again, “ain’t it hot in here?”

This time a chorus of “Yes,” and “Amen” burst out from the congregation. Jerry looked around out of the corner of his eyes. A growing rapture was evident on many of the faces surrounding him as Uzziah opened his Bible and read the first thing his eyes seemed to strike on the page.

“ ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out Devils; they shall speak with new tongues’—”

Uzziah paused briefly and there was a sudden great intake of breath as if everyone knew what was coming next. When he spoke again his voice was raised, was exulted like the roar of a lion, though he seemed to put no more effort into these words than those that had come before.

“—‘THEY SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS’—”

Pandemonium swept through the church like a whirlwind, leaving in its wake shouting, stamping, singing, crying people as Mushroom Daddy led the ragged band through a very up-tempo version of “What A Friend We Have in Jesus.” The energy and power exhibited by the tiny congregation was almost frightening. Jerry had never seen anything like it before. Everything that had previously transpired was the merest warm-up. It damn well was hot in there.

He glanced at Angel, and suddenly froze at the look on her face. Her features were stiff and wooden, as if paralyzed, with her eyes bulging and her teeth clenched and showing in the dead rictus smile of her mouth. A line of spittle ran down her chin. Jerry wondered if she’d had a seizure of some kind, and then she began to speak like a meth freak who’d mixed his speed with acid. Jerry couldn’t understand the rapid-fire words she spit from her mouth. He didn’t even know what language they were in.

Tongues, he thought dazedly. She’s speaking in tongues.

He looked around wildly, wondering what he should do. The others in their pew watched with interest but no special concern, as if this was not a terribly unusual occurrence. Jerry supposed that it wasn’t.

One man marched up and down the aisles like a wind-up toy, loudly proclaiming his love for Jesus while clapping his hands almost in rhythm with the band. Others prayed or testified in loud voices. In front of the congregation, near the simple altar, Uzziah opened the long narrow box and took out a snake.

It was a thick, gray-mottled four foot long serpent that he held fearlessly in his hands, its rattles buzzing with a determined noise that could be heard over the band playing, the congregation singing and praying, and Angel loudly proclaiming in tongues. Uzziah held it behind its head with his right hand and supported the rest of its thick, coiled body with his left, its face so close to his own that its flickering tongue caressed his lips with its questing touch.

Jerry suddenly felt that they should get out of there. He knew that he had to get Angel’s attention. He had read somewhere that it was dangerous to try to wake sleepwalkers. He hoped that the same wasn’t true of tongue-talkers.

He gripped her upper arms and tried to turn her to face him in the pew. “Angel!” Briefly he considered slapping her face, then thought better of it and tried to shake her out of her trance. “Angel! It’s Jerry—” Christ! He had forgotten what name she knew him by. “Jerry Creighton!” he amended swiftly. “Snap out of it! You’ve got—”

Her eyes focused on his, without a hint of recognition in them. Only anger.

“Shit,” Jerry said.

Angel shrugged, easily breaking his grip. He reached out to her and she grabbed his arm, pivoted, and threw him against the wall. She flung out her other arm, caught the pew’s backrest and shattered it into kindling. The people around them scattered as splinters flew among them like shrapnel. The band ground to an uncertain halt.

Apparently, Jerry thought as he crouched on the polished wooden floor, this was an unusual occurrence, even by their standards. He took a deep breath. Nothing was broken, though he’d hit the wall with the impact of a multi-story fall onto concrete. Fortunately, due to his wild card power, his bones were rather flexible.

He looked up to see Angel panting and staring at him. In other circumstances it might have been arousing. But her stare was fixed and it seemed that she was panting with anger, not passion. She launched herself at him, and Jerry did the only thing he could think of to possibly ensure his survival.

He curled up on the floor in a ball, his face buried in the crook of his elbows, his hands protecting his head, his knees tight against his gut. He felt something go by him like a train in the night and there was a mighty crash as Angel smashed through the church’s wall.

“Jesus Christ,” Jerry whispered, as if he was praying or cursing.

“Hey, man, you all right?” a concerned voice asked.

He didn’t have to turn around to realize who it was as Mushroom Daddy’s clinging aura of essence of marijuana announced his presence.

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “I guess.”

“Let me help you up, man.”

He gripped Daddy’s offered hand and the hippie hauled him to his feet. He clung to him for a moment until his head cleared. They both watched Angel run through the settlement, then stop suddenly and reverse her field.

“She’s coming back,” Jerry said. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

They watched in silence for a moment, then Daddy shouted, “No she’s not, man! She’s stealing my van! She’s stealing my frigging van, man! Man, that’s so not-cool!”

They watched in astonishment as Angel flung the van’s driver side door open and vaulted into the driver’s seat.

“How’d she start it without the key?” Jerry wondered out loud as the engine roared into life.

“The key’s in the ignition, man, where I always leave it.”

Jerry looked at him.

“What?” Daddy said. “We’re in the country man! Nobody steals shit here. Everyone’s, like, all honest and cool, man. Besides, before I thought about keeping it in the ignition I kept forgetting where I’d put it and then I’d have to go all the way to Middletown to have a duplicate made. Oh, man!”

He said the last in a disgusted voice as the chugging motor finally caught and Angel spun the wheel and roared down the unpaved road, kicking up a spray of dirt and gravel like a contrail in her wake.

Jerry sighed deeply. He turned around. Everyone in the congregation was staring at him, even the rattlesnake who was draped around Uzziah’s shoulders like a feather boa. The snake, in fact, had possibly the friendliest expression in the whole group.

“Sorry,” Jerry said with a tentative smile that no one, not even Mushroom Daddy, returned.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: the Snake-Handlers’ Commune

This has been an unsettling experience all around, the Angel thought. She’d felt odd ever since getting out of the hippie’s van, but had turned away the strangeness with vast quantities of the snake-handlers’ unbelievably excellent food. She felt better after eating, but now she realized that she should have resisted Creighton’s notion to attend the ophiolatrists’ services. She wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with what went on in their places of worship. He mother had taken her along when she’d attended several such churches during her quest for spiritual enlightenment. They had also frightened her. The loud music. The crazed testifying. Tonight, for some reason, she felt herself terribly susceptible to their call.

She prayed to the Lord for strength to remain calm. But for some reason he chose to deny her prayer. Part of her watched in horror as some strange spirit rose up in her and she heard herself confessing her sins, her wanton desires, fortunately speaking in no language of Earth. Which, when she thought about it, frightened her even more.

Then she heard the Voice.

The Angel was terrified at the sound of it in her head. She had never really experienced anything like that before. Clearly, she was in the grip of the Holy Spirit and it frightened her. She knew that she was not worthy.

“John Fortune is at Kaleita’s Groceries—he’s being taken by a group of armed men. Someone has to rescue him! Someone out there who can hear this—please! Help!”

The voice of the Holy Ghost was deep and masculine. It spoke to her alone. At least no one else acted as if they heard it. It spoke with great urgency, telling her that the boy was in danger, telling her that she had to reach him, fast. It was clear that if she didn’t he’d fall into the hands of their enemies and The Hand’s plans would come to nothing. The Millennium would be denied and Jesus Christ would not take his place as God’s Regent upon the Earth. It was up to her and her alone, unworthy as she was, to rescue him.

She ran almost blindly from the church. The man called Creighton—useless as he’d been throughout this entire affair—stood in her way. She removed him. She had no time to find the door. She went through the wall.

As she ran down the hill the Spirit Tree cheered her on, the bottles tied to its branches clanking musically in the wind. She remembered the store on the county road, about two miles from where she stood. It would take her about seven or eight minutes to get there on foot, maybe less if she ignored the roads and cut cross country.

Too long, she thought. Too, too long. The boy’s kidnappers would be gone by then and the Holy Ghost’s warning would have been wasted.

Then she remembered the van sitting before the ramshackle barn and hope sprang into her breast. If only, she prayed. If only...

She ran to it, flung open the driver’s side door so hard that it rebounded and slammed against her backside as she leaned into the cab. Praise the Lord, she silently prayed. The idiot left his keys in the ignition.

She vaulted into the seat and turned the key, gunning the gas pedal. The engine groaned like a feeble old man with a hangover. Gently, she told herself. Be gentle and patient. For once... take your time...

She eased up on the gas and the engine sputtered to life. She engaged the clutch and winced as it sounded like she ground a few pounds of the transmission into metal filings. The van bucked and humped like an unruly mustang, but slipped into gear. The Angel shot backwards, scattering the chickens who’d been peacefully pecking their day’s ration of feed, ground another month’s worth of life out of the transmission, finally found first and headed on down the road.

It was twisty and not exactly well-banked, so she couldn’t get it much over forty. She skidded through the last turn, suddenly remembering the wooden gate that stood as a barrier between the sect’s private lane and Lower Road. It hadn’t looked too sturdy, she thought hopefully.

It turned out that it wasn’t. She crashed though it like she’d crashed the wall of the church, braking into a power turn and skidding momentarily on the van’s two right tires, her right hand flying off the steering wheel and hitting the eight track’s volume knob, blasting the Canned Heat tape up to full volume.

“Going Up The Country” wailed out her window, which she’d cranked down to reduce the smell of Mushroom Daddy’s peculiar incense which actually wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic as she slewed onto Lower Road, her heart hammering in her chest. She wasted a couple of seconds searching for the right gear as the van lurched crazily up the road, finally found the right sequence, and took it to high as fast as she could. It roared and clattered like a metallic behemoth that should have been extinct long ago, but it responded gamely to her urging and the Angel got it up to over seventy.

The left-hand turn off Lower Road was tricky, but she negotiated the down-shifting with only minor grinding of the gears. The last stretch of road was a long glide up a steep hill, then down again. The grocery store was on the left, at the base. Mere moments had passed since the Holy Ghost had delivered His message, but would she be in time?

The van lurched over the crest of the hill like a prancing mustang, its front tires well off the road. It hit hard and slewed sideways. The Angel bounced up off the driver’s seat, bashed her head on the roof and lost control. Her hands flew off the steering wheel, her feet off the gas pedal. The van spun downhill as the Angel shook her head, trying to clear the stars out of her eyes.

God is with me again, she thought, as she realized that the on-coming lane was clear of traffic. She gamely fought the van for mastery, and through sheer strength managed to haul it back into the right hand lane. But it was facing the wrong direction halfway down the steep hill and in imminent danger of stalling. She clenched her teeth and slammed it into reverse. Gravity did the rest.

The Angel looked at the mirror mounted outside the driver’s side window. Her right foot found the gas pedal again and she stomped it. The van shot backwards down the hill, weaving dangerously as it approached the grocery store’s rutted parking lot. Two cars, were both big black boats of some unfamiliar make and model, were already in the lot. A handful of men stood around watching as two others tried to stuff a wiggling and fighting boy in the back seat of one of the cars.

It was John Fortune. She was, thanks be to God, in time.

She roared into the parking lot backwards, the wheels throwing pebbles like bullets. More through luck than any sort of skill managed to screech into the narrow slot between her enemies’ cars. She stood on the brake with both feet, hitting her head again against the van’s roof and ignoring the pain as the VW slammed to a halt an inch from jumping the curb and crashing into the storefront behind it. She was out of the van before the amazed on-lookers stopped flinching from the shower of pebbles thrown by its squealing tires.

“Release the boy!” she cried in a voice like the ringing of a great iron bell.

There was a moment of silence as everyone, John Fortune included, stood stock still and stared at her, her chest heaving, eyes wild, hair streaming back like a valkryie just come down from Valhalla.

The Angel broke the silence. She growled like a she-wolf, driven to inarticulate fury by their failure to respond to her command, and reached both hands high above her head while saying aloud her short prayer, and called down the fiery sword. She struck one of the cars, hitting the roof dead on center, slicing all the way through to the pavement. The blade threw off coruscating sparks that sent half the on-lookers diving away, screaming and batting at the cinders burning their hands and faces and setting their clothes on fire.

She took a step forward, swinging her sword in a great arc and bringing it down again on the car’s roof with all her strength, cutting through roof and side-panels and neatly bisecting the vehicle. It collapsed in the parking lot with a groan of tortured metal.

“Jesus Christ!” one of the men said.

She turned and back-handed him, sending him flying over the wreckage. “Don’t blaspheme!” she said, and moved around the front of the van which was still chugging in place, pointing her sword at the two men who were still holding John Fortune. “Release the boy,” she repeated, this time in a voice low and hard and full of undefined menace.

They did, but only to reach for guns holstered at shoulder and belt.

The Angel moved faster than seemed humanly possible. She pulled her hands apart and the sword vanished. She slapped one of the men down before he could pull out his gun. The other drew, fired hastily, and his shot spit harmlessly over her shoulder. She closed on him before he could fire again. She grabbed his gun hand, twisted, and heard things break. Some were parts of the gun, some were parts of his hand.

He went down screaming. There were two other men at the front of the car. One had a pistol out, the other was reaching into the car’s front seat for a rifle. The Angel hunched over and scooped John Fortune up with one hand. She reached with the other and snagged the bottom of the car’s driver side rear panel, right by the tire. She grunted with effort and stood, veins pulsing on her neck and forehead, throbbing as if they were going to burst. The muscles in her legs, buttocks, back, and right arm cracking with strain, she heaved.

The car flipped up into the air.

The man reaching for the rifle was thrown to one side. The man with the pistol said, “Oh, shit.” He dove aside but the car came down roof first, mostly on him. He screamed like a cockroach meeting an inescapable size twelve shoe bottom.

The Angel whirled and tossed John Fortune into the van’s passenger side seat as gently as she could, leaped into the van herself, ground a bit more of the transmission to dust, whirled out of the parking lot, and sped off down the county road, across a bridge over a little river and out into open rolling country bordered by lettuce fields and occasional farm houses, going in the direction opposite the camp, away from the useless Creighton, from the useless Billy Ray, and from the blasphemous and scary, if generous, snake handlers. She hoped they wouldn’t think too unkindly of her. She took a deep breath and for the first time took a second to turn off the Canned Heat tape. Enough of that, she thought.

She glanced at John Fortune, who was staring at her like she was some kind of figment from an awful dream. She calmed her breathing, ran a hand through her wild hair.

“Hello, John,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage. “How are you?”

“I-I’m all right,” he said in a small voice. “Who are you?”

She smiled kindly. “I am your friend. You can call me the Midnight Angel.”

He looked her over carefully. “Are you taking me to my mother?”

Here, she thought, it gets difficult. She could not lie to him.

“No, John.” She looked back out through the windshield. It was best that he learned the full truth as soon as possible. “Have you ever been to Branson, Missouri?”

“No.”

“There’s a theme park there,” she said, trying to put the best possible face on it. “With rides.”

There was a momentary silence, and she glanced back at the boy, afraid of what she might see.

John Fortune nodded. “Cool,” he said.

Fortunato watched as the wild-eyed woman with long black hair roared into the parking lot and proceeded to kick major ass. There was no other way to put it. He would have gladly joined her, but his insubstantiality prevented him from being anything more than an invisible cheering section as she rescued the boy from his abductors.

He watched her rattle off down the road with his son safely in the seat next to her while the still-standing kidnappers tried to roll the flipped Lincoln off their screaming compatriot. Once they succeeded the man didn’t stop screaming. He was in bad shape, with crushed legs and probable internal damage. He needed a hospital, fast.

That reminded Fortunato. Even though his body was safe in a hospital bed, he was actually not in great shape. His spirit had been away from it for quite awhile. While he had achieved much, his success wouldn’t be quite as dramatic if his body perished because he’d left it alone for too long. It was time to go back.

The transition wasn’t instantaneous, but it seemed faster than the trip out. For one thing, he knew where he was going. He didn’t hesitate. He just aimed himself south and flew on the unseen, unfelt etheric winds. For another thing, he had far more energy than he’d had in years. The vigor he’d absorbed from the rich black earth was still singing through his system like high-octane fuel. He didn’t know how much was in his tank, but he was determined to utilize it as best he could. He pushed himself hard, and it was a good thing that he did because he arrived at the clinic just in time.

He opened his eyes to see a frantic Dr. Finn standing over him. His hospital gown was torn open, exposing his chest, which had been smeared with some messy goo. Finn was holding two shiny metal paddles that were hooked up by thickly insulated wires to a machine that had been newly wheeled to his bedside.

“Clear!” Finn yelled, and the nurses jammed around Fortunato’s bed stepped backward.

Fortunato opened his eyes and grabbed Finn’s hands before he could slap the defibrillating paddles onto his chest. He was pretty sure that he didn’t need an electric jolt his heart.

“Fortunato!”

Fortunato couldn’t tell if Finn had shouted in fear or relief, or both. The paddles sagged in the doctor’s grip. “I’m all right, doctor,” he said. “Really. I don’t think I need this.”

“What happened?” Finn asked. “We thought we’d lost you. The monitor showed your heart beat slowing down over the last hour or so, until we couldn’t get a reading and we thought it had stopped.”

“I was gone,” Fortunato said. “For a bit, anyway. Now I’m back.”

Finn handed the paddles to the nurse who was hovering anxiously over his shoulder, without taking his eyes off his patient. “Gone—like on a trip? Were you astral projecting?”

Fortunato nodded.

“Then your powers have returned?” Finn asked.

Fortunato nodded again, cautiously. “It seems so. It’s all so new, that I’m not sure.”

“Uh...” Finn cleared his throat. “They’re not... activated... like in the old days?”

“You mean by Tantric magick and the intromission of my sperm?” Fortunato asked. “That was before your time. How’d you know about that?”

“I’ve read your file,” Finn said. “You’re an unusual patient with unusual powers and presumably unusual strengths and weaknesses. Dr. Tachyon kept extensive notes on you, as he did on many aces and jokers—”

Fortunato laughed quietly. “I hope you didn’t believe all the bad stuff he said about me.”

Finn smiled. “Tachyon was—is—highly opinionated.”

Fortunato’s laughter turned to a sigh. “I’m sure I gave him cause.”

He stared at the ceiling, hardly believing that this notion had come into his head. What am I thinking? Fortunato thought. I must be tired. Over-wrought from the action of the past couple of days. I am getting old.

“What’s the matter?” Finn asked.

“Nothing,” Fortunato said. “I’m just tired. I need some sleep.”

Finn looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

“All right. Do you need anything for the pain?”

Fortunato lay back on the pillow and took stock of his body. The pain from the beating he’d suffered at the hands of the Jokka Bruddas hadn’t entirely vanished, but it had receded from the forefront of his consciousness, going deep into bone and muscle where it was a dully-throbbing presence. He could stand it. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, surprised. “It’s not too bad.”

“All right,” Finn said. “We’ll leave you then.” He stopped at the doorway after the others had streamed out of the room and looked back at Fortunato, shaking his head. “Aces! You always make the worst patients. No more gallivanting around in your astral form. You need rest. Get some.”

“All right.” Even if the boy was safe for the moment, Fortunato still had to be sure of his eventual rescue. But now he knew how to track him anytime he wanted to. Finn was right. Now he needed rest.

Finn switched off the overhead light as he left the room, leaving Fortunato discommoded by the annoying LED lights and rhythmic blips from the machinery and monitors connected to him. He thought that the distractions would make it difficult to sleep, but he was wrong. He closed his eyes and went out almost instantaneously.

While he slept his unconscious mind shunted energy throughout his body, repairing damage old and new, restoring tissue, strengthening ligaments, and mending tendons worn with use and age.

For the first time in years Fortunato slept, and did not dream.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: the Snake-Handlers’ Commune

“I’m sure there’s some way we can fix all this,” Jerry said.

Uzziah shook his head. “I’ve seen many things happen in this here church over the years. Many strange and awful things.”

“Uh-huh,” someone in the audience said.

“I’ve seen people possessed by the Holy Spirit fall on the floor and shake like the good Lord himself had put His icy hand on their spine.”

“Amen,” some in the audience called, and there were scattered echoes as others took up the cry.

“I’ve seen people prophecy in tongues no longer spoken in this world of woe.”

The response came louder as the parishioners gathered about their preacher.

“I’ve seen people DRINK POISON and TAKE UP SERPENTS with no harm come to them.”

The cries of the audience reverberated in the tiny church, and Jerry found himself inching backwards, slowly and carefully, as he realized that this might be his best opportunity to escape.

“But NEVER. NEVER in all my days have I EVER seen someone so possessed, so consumed, so TAKEN UP by the Holy Spirit that WALLS could not hold them, TONGUES could not tell of them, PRAYER could not contain the energy that DROVE them to their worship, AMEN.”

Someone rattled a tambourine and the band started playing loudly and raggedly. The service, so unexpectedly interrupted, was suddenly whole again.

The dancing and praying and testifying was back up to full speed as Jerry slipped through the hole that Angel had smashed through the wall in her inexplicable frenzy to escape. Outside, the afternoon was turning toward dusk. He had to report to Ackroyd, then they had to go after Angel and the kid and rescue them both from whatever had possessed her so unexpectedly.

Something was wrong, though. It took Jerry a moment to realize that it was the music coming from the church. There was no electric guitar. He stopped, and Mushroom Daddy, following behind, almost walked right into him.

“Hey,” Daddy said, “you’re not splitting, are you man?”

Jerry started walking again. He didn’t have time to waste on hippie burn-outs no matter how nice they seemed to be. “Can’t talk now, uh, Daddy. Got to get after Angel.”

“Groovy. That’s all cool, man,” Daddy said, falling in beside Jerry now that he’d been noticed. “We got to go after Angel. And my van, man. I got to get it back.”

“Sure, Daddy,” Jerry assured him. “We’ll get it back for you. She probably had a good reason to take it. I’m sure she had. Fastest way might be to call it in to the Troopers. You got the license plate and tag number somewhere?”

Jerry hoped that wouldn’t be too much to ask, but by the look on Daddy’s face maybe it was. “Uh, man, I don’t know about that. It’d be a bummer to call the pigs in. I don’t know how they could help us.”

“They can find the van through the plate number,” Jerry said patiently.

“Well, probably not, man, because I made ‘em myself.”

Jerry stopped and looked at him. “You what?”

“Yeah, made ‘em myself, man. In my garage. I’ve always been pretty good with my hands. Saves me over thirty bucks a year, that doesn’t have to go to, like, the state and the military industrial complex.”

Jerry frowned at him. “Even the yearly renewal tag?”

Daddy looked proud. “That’s the easiest part, man. Color Xerox and rubber cement.”

“I don’t suppose you remember the numbers you put on the plate, or wrote them down or something?”

“Why would I, man? They’re just numbers. They don’t mean anything.”

Jerry sighed. “No, I guess they don’t,” he said. We can still call in the Troopers, Jerry thought. There can’t be too many thirty-year-old VW vans on the road. And she couldn’t have gotten far.

They’d reached the dirt parking lot in front of the snake handler’s tumble-down barn. Then he froze as he realized there were far too many cars.

“Hello, boys,” a voice said from inside one of them. “What are you two doing wandering around here?”

I know that voice, Jerry thought. I’ve heard it before. He shaded his eyes, trying to look through the glare of the sun shining off the car’s windshield.

“This chick friend of his stole my van, man,” Daddy chimed in helpfully. “We’re looking for it.”

“That’s funny,” the voice said. “So are we.”

Jerry’s hand dropped to his side. He thought for a moment of going for the gun Ackroyd had given him, which he was carrying snugged in a holster against the small of his back. But he knew that would be suicide. He’d recognized the speaker’s voice, he saw the others emerging from their vehicles.

It was Witness and more armed thugs.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: The woods

Kitty Cat raced into the clearing as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.

“Trouble!” he called out. “There’s trouble at the snake handlers’!”

“What is it?” Yeoman asked.

“Cauliflower called my cell. He’d gone to check out the commune because he heard a lot of noise over there. Got there too late to see all of what had happened, but saw your partner—” he nodded at Ackroyd—“and Mushroom Daddy get taken by a bunch of armed thugs.”

“Mushroom Daddy?” Ackroyd asked.

Yeoman gestured. “A local character. Harmless. He lives on Onion Avenue. He has some kind of weird ace—he grows the best produce in the area.” He turned back to Kitty Cat. “What’s happening now?”

“Cauliflower says they’re beating them up. Daddy and that Creighton guy. Beating them up and asking them questions about the boy, but they can’t answer ‘em.”

Ray looked at Brennan. “How far’s the compound from here?”

“Cross country, a couple of miles.”

“All right,” Ray said. “Let’s move.”

They paused, looked at Ackroyd. “Go ahead,” the private investigator said, “I’ll follow as best I can.”

Yeoman nodded decisively. “Kitty Cat—show him the way.”

“All right,” the tiny joker said.

“Follow me,” Yeoman said, and he and Ray took off through the woods.

They left Ackroyd behind in moments. Yeoman moved fast, Ray thought, but not super-humanly fast. He set a good pace, but Ray held himself back, necessarily following the archer down the thickly-forested hillside. Minutes passed, perhaps four or five, then they burst out of the woods onto the verge of a familiar road that ran along the hillside like an asphalt ribbon.

Yeoman leaned over, breathing heavily. Ray had broken a sweat, but his breath was still normal. “Stick to the road,” Yeoman told him. “You’ll move faster on it than cross country. This is Lower Road—”

“I know,” Ray said. “The compound?”

“Left. Uphill all the way. You’ll see a gated dirt road with a sign. You can’t miss it. I’ll follow as quickly as I can.”

“Do that,” Ray said.

He started down the road at an easy lope. Yeoman kept pace for the first ten or fifteen yards, then Ray started to pull away. He ran like an animal, just for the sheer physical enjoyment of feeling his muscles work like parts of a well-designed machine, without thought of what he would find when he came to the end of his run. Like always when fighting or exercising or screwing, Ray lived in the moment, concentrating on the play of muscle and tendon, of flesh and bone fighting against gravity, of mind and will battling the inevitable depletion of the energy that ran the machine of his body.

The road went uphill at a steady grade. Within moments he was breathing hard, gasping for oxygen that he needed to fuel his system, but Yeoman was a hundred yards back, moving okay for a nat, but beaten badly, Ray thought, just the same. Beaten badly. He looked at the slope looming before him and sucked in a long shuddering breath between clenched teeth. This hill wouldn’t beat him, either.

He leaned into it, pumping his arms harder as he lengthened his stride. The captives might be undergoing unspeakable tortures now at the hands of the kidnapper gang, but that was only part of what drove Ray. Not even the major part of it.

It was the hill under his feet that pushed him on, harder and harder, his breath whistling now like a dying bird as it escaped his throat. The damned hill was trying to slow him down. Trying to beat him. Trying to clip the wings off of his feet. But he wouldn’t let it.

He was in a full sprint when he saw the turnoff, and had to slow down so he wouldn’t get tangled up while he turned onto the dirt path leading into the woods. It went uphill, again. The grade was steep, right up the face of the hill, not rising gently along its edge.

He ran on the left shoulder as the path twisted and banked through the trees. It seemed like a long time before he saw the parking area, but it was probably only a few minutes. The lot was still a hundred yards distant as the meandering path leveled out. Between the intervening trees and the surrounding cars he couldn’t quite make out what was happening. A couple of big, dark sedans were parked in haphazard angles in the open space before some run-down wooden buildings. Barns or something. At least half a dozen men were standing around, watching something that was out of his range of vision.

His head started to swim, so he slowed down a little, realizing that he was on the verge of total system collapse as his muscles burned the last of the energy available to them. Fortunately, he would arrive on the scene in seconds and speed was no longer of the essence. Now silence was.

He took long, deep breaths. He tried to make his steps lighter, as if he were gliding over the ground. As he approached he got a better view of what was happening. He didn’t like what he saw.

He counted fourteen men in the parking lot. He figured this Mushroom Daddy was the hippie-looking guy being held with his arms pinned behind his back by one of the thugs. Two others held Creighton, Ackroyd’s partner, while a third systematically beat him with a truncheon. Eight others stood around watching. Ray grinned. Those were odds that he could enjoy.

No one had seen or heard him yet as he came closer and closer. No one... no one... no one...

Someone finally spotted him and opened his mouth to yell as Ray launched himself into the air. He landed on the hood of a car, catapulted off, bounced back to the ground, and hit the Allumbrado as he went by. He pulled his punch, but only a little.

Seven left.

Two were standing next to each other. Ray went down, his leg shot out in a sweeping arc, and cut them to the ground. Ray rolled forward, once, and was on them. He grabbed one by his jacket collar and head-butted him into unconsciousness. The other tried to crawl away. Ray grabbed his belt and dragged him back, kicking and screaming. He wrapped a hand in his greasy hair, made a disgusted face, and slammed his head, face first, into the packed dirt of the parking lot, smashing his nose flat and stunning him like a steer in a slaughter house hit between the eyes with an ax. Ray left him choking on his own blood.

Five left.

Ray scrambled to his feet and saw that he had run out of luck. The man standing six feet from him had drawn a pistol. Well out of Ray’s reach, he smiled and aimed carefully as Ray launched himself. The gunman squeezed off two shots then lost his smile as he realized that actually he wasn’t well out of Ray’s reach. Ray’s grin turned savage as one of the shots ripped past his ear and the other tore through meat and muscle high on his right shoulder, punching a hole clean through from chest to back. Ray didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He hit the man around the waist, like back in the days before his ace turned and he was playing six-man football in high school in Montana, only now his ace had turned. He was hurt and jazzed with adrenaline and pain and less conscious of his own strength. He felt the man’s ribs crack as he slammed him hard against a car fender and the shooter screamed as internal organs pulped.

Four left.

Two stood side by side, their automatics out. For the first time Ray remembered Yeoman and he wondered how long it would take the bowman to reach the battleground. The two thugs squeezed off shots that whined off the car’s fender, ricocheting into the night. Ray knew he wasn’t strong enough to throw a car at the shooters, so he threw the only thing he had, the body he still held. They ducked, splitting apart, and Ray went in on the heels of the dead man. More shots rang out and he felt the pain of a fiery poker drilling though his left thigh and upper right chest. He drew a deep breath, his smile a death’s mask, relieved when he realized that the bullet had missed his lung. That would have been trouble. Then he was on them. He grabbed a wrist and waltzed one around so that he blocked the other’s shot. He snapped his captive’s forearm and the injured man dropped his gun, screaming. The other, his eyes wide with fear, tried to blast through his comrade. Ray, wearing his captive like a bulletproof vest, rushed the shooter, who fired and back-pedaled as fast as he could. He clicked empty and Ray hadn’t felt any more impacts. Either he was beyond feeling, or his impromptu shield had absorbed all the shots. He tossed the body away and fell on the shooter, who screamed and threw his pistol. The automatic hit Ray in the cheek, the sight slicing it and pissing Ray off even more. Ray’s hand closed on the thug’s flailing arm and he pulled him close and wrenched his shoulder out of its socket. The man screamed. For good measure Ray grabbed his other arm and pulled that one out of its socket as well. The Allumbrado fell to the ground still screaming, and Ray turned.

Two left.

They were standing next to each other, ten feet from Ray. The others, who were holding the hippie and Ackroyd’s partner, had not moved. Two left, and one was unarmed. Ray recognized him. It was the blonde asshole who had abused Angel in Vegas. Ray smiled.

But the other was holding an automatic rifle and pointing it right at Ray’s chest. He realized there was no chance of dodging automatic rifle fire from the distance of ten feet. Fired from that close it could dish out more pain and destruction than he could deal with. It would certainly incapacitate him, and then it would be simple to deliver the coup de grace. Ray had never had to regenerate from a bullet between the eyes, and he didn’t want to try it for the first time so late in his career. He knew his only hope was to keep them talking as long as he could. He leaned over, put his hands on his knees, and took deep breaths.

“Witness,” he said, brushing futilely at the seeping bloodstains that had utterly ruined his suit, “what brings you to these parts?”

The blonde man frowned. “You recognize me?”

“Sure.” Ray took a deep breath to slow down his hammering heart. “I saw you in Vegas, picking on girls.”

Witness laughed. It was not a jolly sound. “Yes. I remember you now. Someone told me your name. Billy Ray, isn’t it?”

Ray nodded.

“So,” Witness said thoughtfully, “the federal government is involved. We weren’t sure, but we thought it might be when your partner made off with the boy.”

“My partner?” Ray asked. Then it struck him. “Oh, Angel.”

“Is that her name?” Witness said. “She’s quite striking. I’ll enjoy it when we meet again. Well.” He thought for a moment, then he glanced at the man who’d kept Ray covered the whole time. “I don’t think he can tell us anything more. Kill him.”

Ray tensed, ready for a desperate jump, knowing it would be useless.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: Snake-Handlers’ Commune

Jerry felt as if he’d gone a couple of rounds with Marciano in his prime or maybe Jake LaMotta, like in Raging Bull. He grimly held on to his consciousness and just as grimly tried not to puke on his shoes as Witness’s man worked him over with a sap loaded with lead pellets, stopping every now and then to ask questions about John Fortune that he couldn’t answer.

The sudden appearance of Billy Ray was like the arrival of an angel on Earth. His captors stopped beating him. Ray was a blur of motion as he charged heedlessly into a fight against impossible odds, but after a moment or two Jerry had the sudden hope that perhaps the odds weren’t all that impossible as Ray cut through his foes like, appropriately enough, an ace through nats.

His hope, however, was short-lived as Witness and the last of his otherwise unoccupied henchmen got the drop on Ray. Everyone was watching the drama, Jerry realized, even the thug who’d been holding him while his pal sapped him down. He went limp, sagging forward with all his weight, and his right arm broke free of his captor’s grip.

“Hey!” the man exclaimed, yanking on Jerry’s left arm and turning him half around.

Jerry concentrated and held his right hand out, rigid as a knife. The additional pain barely registered on his consciousness as the bones of his middle three fingers lengthened and tore through the flesh of his fingertips. He didn’t have time to get fancy. He just punched out with a knife-hand and caught the man in the throat. His fingers penetrated flesh and the man gurgled, released Jerry, and grabbed his throat.

Jerry fell. His fingers slipped out of the man’s throat, and blood spurted from the wound, big time. It looked as if he’d hit the carotid artery. His tormentor collapsed, gagging and choking into the bloodstained dust at his feet. Jerry fought down a wave of nausea as arcing gobbets of blood splattered his shoes. He’d seen death close up before, but it was never easy to take. Death entailed real pain and suffering and even though these guys were assholes who hadn’t thought twice about beating him to a pulp, Jerry wouldn’t, couldn’t, descend to their level. He still felt bad about having to kill.

But only for a moment. He had other things to worry about.

The other thug lifted his sap and took a step toward Jerry. He froze suddenly when an arrow came out of nowhere and bulls-eyed the gunman holding down on Ray. The thug with the sap looked around frantically, but there was no sign of the archer.

I owe him again, Jerry thought, and he kicked the thug in the knee. There was a satisfyingly loud crack, and he went down screaming. Jerry turned towards Mushroom Daddy with the thought of freeing him, as there was a mad scramble for the fallen rifle. Witness grabbed it.

“Hold it,” he screamed, waving it from Ray to Jerry to Mushroom Daddy and the man restraining him. “Come out of the woods, you murdering bastard! Come out or they all get it! Now!”

“You even look like you’re going to start shooting,” a calm voice said from the forest, “and I’ll put you down like a mad dog.”

“I’m an ace!” Witness screamed. “A frigging ace! A fucking arrow can’t take me out! I’ll hang on long enough to hose down all your friends. Depend on it!”

Yeoman came into the clearing without making a sound, an arrow strung to his bow, the string pulled back to his cheek.

Witness laughed. “What we have here is the classic Mexican stand-off.”

“We can take him, Yeoman,” Ray panted, bleeding from at least four wounds that Jerry could see.

The man holding Daddy’s arms looked worried. He let the hippie go, and started to move backward. Witness glanced at him. Jerry could see that his eyes were crazed with fear.

“Don’t move! Any of you!”

“I’m on your side,” the man said.

“I SAID NOBODY MOVE!” Witness screamed.

Mushroom Daddy looked at his captor. “That’s what happens when you side with fascists. Bummer for you, man.”

“Shut up,” Witness shouted. “Let me think.”

“Why don’t you just back up, get in one of those cars, and get out of here,” Jerry suggested.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Witness sneered. “Then your pal could shoot me in the back.”

“Why don’t we put all the weapons down,” Ray offered, “and go hand to hand? Me and you. Mano a mano.”

“You think I’m stupid?” Witness asked. “You think I don’t know that you’d all jump on me? You think—“

Spittle flew from Witness’s mouth as he raged on, and Jerry was about to shout “Look out!” when there was a strange popping noise in the air, near Witness. Jerry heard a familiar voice mutter, “Shit!”

Ackroyd was at the edge of the parking lot, carrying Kitty Cat piggyback, the joker’s tiny arms entwined around his neck. Ackroyd was heaving great shuddering breaths, like he’d just run a marathon, which was close enough to the truth. His right hand was pointing towards Witness, but it was shaking with Ackroyd’s effort to control his fatigue. Suddenly, simultaneously, Witness vanished as in-rushing air made another “POP!” as he disappeared, and another, louder noise exploded as one of the thugs nailed Ackroyd with a slug from his automatic.

Ackroyd whirled, spilling Kitty Cat, and fell heavily over a log marking the parking lot’s boundary. Jerry spied the shooter, who was kneeling and still aiming at Ackroyd. No one was near him. Jerry shouted “NO!” as the thug started to squeeze off another shot at his helpless target, but the gun went off harmlessly into the air as Yeoman’s arrow hit him squarely in the chest and knocked him right on his ass. Jerry ran toward Ackroyd. Ray reached his side first and kneeled down by him.

“Ah, Jesus,” Ackroyd panted. “M-missed the bastard,” he paused to take a deep breath. “Missed him with my first try.”

“You okay?” Jerry asked anxiously.

“Bullet wound doesn’t look too bad,” Ray said. “Just a flesh wound to the thigh.”

“Yeah,” Ackroyd said, “but I think I broke my ankle when I fell over that damn log.”

Jerry looked at Ackroyd’s leg, and nodded. It was an easy diagnosis to confirm. A jagged splinter of bone was sticking out through Ackroyd’s sock.

Ray nodded. “It’s broke all right. Though,” he added as Yeoman joined them, “could have been worse. The shooter was about to pump another slug into you before our pal here bullseyed him.”

“Thanks,” Ackroyd said through clenched teeth.

Yeoman smiled thinly. “You’re welcome. I appreciate the effort that took.”

Ackroyd grunted. “I’m out of my head with pain.”

“Where’d you send Witness?” Jerry asked him.

“Top of the Statue of Liberty,” Ackroyd said.

Jerry frowned. “That’s closed for repairs, isn’t it?”

Ackroyd nodded. “It’s the only place I could think to send him where he couldn’t shoot any innocent bystanders.”

“Hope he falls down the stairs and breaks his frigging neck,” Ray said.

Jerry looked up and glanced around the parking lot. It resembled a bloody war zone with wounded men lying all around. Back up the hill, a semi-circle of stunned snake-handlers looked on. A couple of the thugs had gotten back on their feet and were edging off into the woods.

“Freeze, you dirty rats,” Jerry said in his best Cagney imitation.

And they did.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New Hampton: Snake Handlers’ Commune

Ray slumped wearily on the ground, momentarily breathing deeply of the gathering dusk, and wondered if he could stand again without collapsing. Better try it now, he told himself. It’s not going to get any easier. Somehow he pushed himself to his feet, swaying a bit until his head stopped swimming.

“You look like Hell, Ray,” Jerry said.

“Thanks.” He took a deep breath and almost toppled over. “I’ll be fine after I pass out for awhile.”

“Save the repartee,” Yeoman said. “You need medical attention, along with Ackroyd.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Only if we get the bleeding stopped,” Yeoman said. “You can’t have much left running though your veins.”

“Hey, guys,” Mushroom Daddy said, “I’ll go get one of the first aid kits from the snake handlers. They’ve got some really fine ones in case of accidents while playing their rattlers and shit.”

Yeoman looked around at the body-littered ground. “Some of these guys could use attention, too. I’ve seen fewer bodies on battlefields.”

So have I, Ray thought. Maybe too many battlefields. God, I’m tired. To Hell with standing up. He stretched out on the ground, and was asleep before Mushroom Daddy returned with the first aid kit.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Pennsylvania: Somewhere on the road

After a couple of hours the Angel figure it was time to pull over at a gas station to hit the bathroom, take on supplies, and make some phone calls. They stopped in a God-forsaken coal-mining town in Pennsylvania where the slag piles glowed redly like the pits of Hell and the stench of brimstone, or something very like it, smothered the air they were trying to breath.

The gas station, pumps, and even the parking lot was covered by a powdery gray dust that clung to everything like iron filings to a magnet. The Angel swiped her fingers across the gas pump, and they came away greasy with a fine-particled ash that was invisible in the air, but so pervasive that it had settled seemingly everywhere. She could imagine what the locals’ lungs looked like, and decided that the sooner they left this area, the better.

She put the nozzle into the van’s gas tank, and started pumping as John Fortune came out of the bathroom.

“Now that we have a chance,” he said, “I should probably call my Mom to let her know that I’m okay and not to worry.”

The Angel nodded. “That would be a good idea.”

“Should I tell her we’re going to Branson?” he asked.

“I don’t know about that. We don’t want the Allumbrados to discover where we’re going. The fewer who know our destination, the better.”

John Fortune nodded, considering. “You’re probably right. So, you know who the kidnappers are? Those Allumbrados?”

“They’re Papists,” the Angel said.

“Papists?”

“Catholics,” she explained.

“I thought they were criminals. What do the Catholics want me for?”

“They think...” She paused. She couldn’t lie to him and couldn’t think of a plausible evasion. “Well, you see, they think you’re the Anti-Christ.”

“The Anti-Christ?” John Fortune repeated, unbelievingly.

“The Devil,” she said. “Satan.”

“I know who the Anti-Christ is,” he said with some annoyance. “I saw The Omen. But—why? Why do they think I’m the Devil? And what are they planning on doing with me?”

“They’re bad men, John,” the Angel said. “I don’t know what they’re planning to do,” she finished lamely, and wished she hadn’t lied, even if only by omission, when he nodded skeptically. She ignored his question as to why they thought he was the Anti-Christ, hoping it would just go away, and was relieved when it did. At least for now.

“Okay. Then why exactly are we going to Branson?”

Here was a question she could answer. At least partially. “You’ll be safe there. There’s someone there who can protect you.”

“Jerry from the detective agency was protecting me—”

“And doing a fine job,” the Angel said scornfully.

“Well, yeah. There’s that,” John Fortune admitted.

“Look,” the Angel said. “I’m just an operative. The Hand—my boss in Branson has all the answers. He’ll be able to tell you everything. I promise.”

“Well—”

The Angel put her hand on his, feeling the warmth of his flesh. He was a handsome boy, thoughtful, it seemed, and good-natured. But either he was a consummate actor, or he really had no knowledge of who he was. She could admit no other possibility, except that maybe he was testing her. She already felt closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone. Even her mother. She would do anything for him, sacrifice everything, to protect him.

“You must trust me,” she told him, all her heart in her words. “You must never doubt me. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. You must believe that.”

John Fortune looked at her for a long, solemn moment, then he nodded. “I believe you.”

“All right,” the Angel said. “I will not fail your trust.”

“Cool,” John Fortune said. “Let’s go pay for the gas and lay in some supplies, and I’ll call Mom.”

“Right,” the Angel said.

They picked up a couple of six packs of Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew, candy bars, cupcakes, chips, and some sandwiches that looked reasonably fresh. The Angel paid with The Hand’s credit card. She could see now why Ray had insisted on taking it with him.

Since they were in a sheltered mountain valley and their cells didn’t work very well, they used the Angel’s pre-paid phone card to make a couple of calls. She let John Fortune call home first. He didn’t realize that his mother had been badly injured in the Las Vegas battle, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him about it. As she’d expected, nobody was home when he called, so he left a message on the answering machine. The Angel hoped Peregrine was still alive. She told John Fortune that she and Josh McCoy were probably out coordinating the search for him. She was sure, she added, that they’d get his message soon.

As John Fortune hauled their supplies to the van, she called The Hand. It rang several times before a bright voice answered, “President Barnett’s office.”

She recognized the young Secret Service agent who was always so polite and helpful.

“Hello, Alejandro,” she said. “It’s the Midnight Angel. Let me speak to the President.”

“Angel! Where are you? Do you have the John Fortune with you? All heck has broken out and President Barnett is really worried about you all.”

“We’re fine,” the Angel assured him. “We’re somewhere in Pennsylvania right now, but I’m bringing him in.”

“Is Billy with you?”

“No.” The Angel paused. “We had to leave him behind. Let me speak to the President.”

“Well, okay. Hang on while I transfer the call.”

There was static filled silence for a moment, then Barnett’s booming voice came on the line.

“Yes, Angel, is that you?”

“Yes. I have him. We’re coming in.”

“By plane?”

She could hear the excitement in his voice.

“No, sir. We’re driving. Someone may be on our trail. At least, I’m assuming it’s a possibility. We’ll stick to the secondary roads, so expect us late tomorrow, probably.”

“Excellent,” The Hand said. “What about Ray. Is he with you?”

“No.” She frowned. “I had to leave him behind.”

“Oh. All right. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Disappointing, though. I’ll have to talk to him—Sally Lou, not while I’m on the phone.”

Coldness suddenly clutched the Angel’s heart. Disappointing, the Angel thought. Yes, very.

“All right,” The Hand said. “Good plan. Listen. Call in only if there’s an emergency. The less said on the airwaves, the better, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, sir.” The Angel could only imagine what was going on with The Hand and Sally Lou. Actually, she realized, she couldn’t, but it had to be sinful. She heard a giggle in the background, hung up, and got out of the booth.

“Can I drive for awhile?” asked John Fortune, who’d been waiting outside the booth with one last sack of junk food.

The Angel rummaged in the bag and picked out a package of little glazed chocolate donuts.

“Do you have a license?”

“Well...”

“Better not then.”

They went together to the old van, the Angel marveling not only at the fact that she was traveling cross-country with her Lord and Savior, but that he was also accepting her orders so meekly and graciously. She didn’t know if this was the Jesus she wanted facing Satan and his spawn in the final confrontation, but for now she was happy that he seemed so amiable and willing to go along with the program. It certainly made her job easier. She could sort out the theological implications later, when they were safe and sound in the bosom of The Hand.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Jokertown: The Jokertown Clinic

Fortunato woke if not a new man, at least feeling like one. He didn’t know how long he had slept. It felt like days, but it couldn’t have been. He sat up and removed the drip line from inside his right elbow and stripped the other tubes and wires from his arms and chest. He swung his feet over the side of the hospital bed and put them on the linoleum floor. Like all hospital floors everywhere, no matter what time of the year, it was cold on the bare bottoms of his feet.

He was still sitting on the side of the bed, considering this koan-like factoid, when Dr. Finn came flying into the room at a gallop, followed by a pair of nurses wheeling in the heart starter.

They all came to a skidding halt, Fortunato watching curiously as Finn leaned against the metal railing at the foot of Fortunato’s bed, breathing heavily. The doctor didn’t look happy.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “you scared the crap out of us. Again. Why did you disconnect your heart monitor?”

“Oh.” Fortunato turned and looked at the machine hanging above the bed, which was showing a disconcerting flatline. “My apologies, doctor. I wasn’t thinking. About my own condition, anyway.”

Finn sighed. “Tachyon always told me that dealing with aces drove him nuts. Now I know why.” His gaze suddenly narrowed. “Wait a minute. Let me look at you.”

“I feel fine, doctor.”

“Yeah, and you shouldn’t. That’s why I want to look at you.” Finn clattered around the bedside and tilted Fortunato’s head so that he could see the right side of his face better. “Amazing. Not only is the swelling gone, but the bruising has disappeared as well.” He unwrapped the bandage around Fortunato’s forehead. “The cuts and abrasions have all healed.” He looked thoughtfully at Fortunato and prodded him in the abdomen with stiffened fingers. “Does this hurt?”

Fortunato shook his head. “No.”

“Well, it should. Your spleen was bruised.”

“Was, doctor,” Fortunato said. He stood and stretched. Everything felt fine. He rotated his shoulders experimentally. Even the knots of pain that had been in his shoulder blades for months had vanished. “It seems as if my powers have—”

He never finished the sentence. The window of his private room suddenly blew inward, showering Fortunato, Finn, and the joker nurses in a storm of sharp glass shards. One of the nurses was clipped on the back of the head by the blind’s valence and fell to the floor with the blinds draped over his unconscious body. Finn reared in sudden fear, nearly slipping on the tile floor despite the little booties he wore over his hooves.

Fortunato stood, cognizant of the glass shards that littered the floor like sharp-edged diamonds, and looked out the window. A smirking figure, floating in the sky outside, spoke. “You can run and hide, spawn of the Devil, but your evil cannot escape my righteous wrath.”

Fortunato grinned without humor, his lips peeling away from his gleaming white teeth. “You speak in clichés,” he said. “Whoever you are.” He stepped forward, elevating himself off the floor to avoid the scattered slivers of window glass. “Stupid ones, at that.”

“I am the Witness to the Revelation,” the Witness said. “My truth overshadows your lies, demon-bred.”

“Whatever.” Fortunato drifted towards the shattered window. “I’m betting you have something to do with my son’s kidnapping. I’m glad you tracked me down. We have some business to attend to.”

Finn, stooping over the unconscious nurse, looked up to see Fortunato, dressed in his white hospital gown, glide out of the clinic through the shattered window into the dusk. The ace waiting outside had an eager, welcoming expression bordering on the ecstatic.

Fortunato drifted out into the night, forty feet above the Jokertown street. The Witness glowed like an incandescent bulb, already attracting the attention of passers-by. A crowd formed on the street below, their faces turned up to the night. People pointed, eagerly waiting for whatever weirdness was about to happen.

It was just another summer evening in Jokertown.

Fortunato wondered if any one of them remembered the last time two men had faced each other over Manhattan in wild card combat. Not the strange stories that had become part of the fabric of Jokertown life, but the real facts concerning the confrontation between him and the Astronomer in the sky over the city.

He settled into the lotus position while the Witness looked on, sneering. It was a lot more comfortable sitting on air than it was on the hard floor of the meditation hall, even if his ass was hanging out of the back of his hospital gown. But that was all right. Fortunato wasn’t modest in regards to his body. He rested his forearms on his crossed legs and looked at his opponent across the street.

“Comfy?” the Witness asked.

“Yes,” Fortunato replied calmly.

“Then die, Hell-spawn,” the Witness said through clenched teeth. His eyes glowed green and he brought his hands down, parted them, then brought them up again in a circular motion, starting the gesture to release his spasm of destructive force.

Fortunato remembered the lesson he had learned from his battle with the Astronomer. When that combat had started he’d put up multiple layers of protective shielding which the Astronomer had burnt away with fireballs he’d pulled out of his crazed mind. When it had been time for his own offensive thrust, Fortunato had chanced all on one blow. He’d gathered nearly all the energy he possessed in a single pellet that he concentrated to a pinpoint behind his navel. When he’d released it, it had blown through the Astronomer’s body like a high-powered rifle slug, but it hadn’t killed him or even injured him. It had barely inconvenienced him.

He’d only defeated the Astronomer by becoming a void. By becoming a vacuum that accepted everything the Astronomer threw at him, which he’d let pass through like a meteor flashing harmlessly through the sky.

Now his sixteen years of Zen training enabled him to become that much more empty. That much more of a waiting target, expression composed, eyes closed, and utterly unhittable.

If the Witness was surprised at Fortunato’s passivity, he didn’t show it. He hurled a massive bolt of power at the indifferent ace. It struck Fortunato and passed through him without ruffling his white robe, and spattered on the stone wall of the Jokertown Clinic behind, punching in windows and dislodging casements from the first to the upper floor.

And sucked in by the awful vortex of power that he created, the Witness was pulled towards Fortunato like iron filings to a magnet. Fortunato opened his eyes right before they collided. He reached out and grabbed the Witness by the lapels of his cheap suit and said, “Fall.”

And they did.

They plummeted thirty-five feet, Fortunato atop the screaming Witness. The spectators on the street below saw them coming and scattered. The two aces hit the ground like sacks of cement and Fortunato felt the Witnesses’ body burst like a water balloon dropped from a three-story building

He stood and looked at the Witness’s wrecked and leaking body. The ace was either smiling or grimacing. It was all the same to Fortunato. The Witness managed to make a come closer gesture with his right hand, and Fortunato kneeled down and put his ear close to his foe’s bleeding mouth.

“There are two... Witnesses in Revelation,” the ace gasped, his chest laboring to bring air into his punctured lungs. “I have... a brother.”

Fortunato nodded serenely. It was not welcome news, but not totally unexpected. He knew that this affair was far from over. His astral form had lingered at the chaotic rescue at the country store long enough to know that the strange woman who called herself the Angel was, for whatever reason, taking the boy to Branson, Missouri. He was certain he could find them there easily enough. Just as he was sure there would be more minions of the Witness who would try to stop him. The only way to save the boy was to do what he’d done to the Astronomer’s conspiracy. Take off its head. It wasn’t a prospect that he relished, or even anticipated, but he was committed. There was no other way to save his son.

Fortunato stood looking down at the Witness, and watched him die. It didn’t take long. When he was sure that the Witness was no longer breathing, he looked up at the crowd that had assembled around them. All kinds of people had gathered in the mob. Young, old, Jokers, a few nats. White, Hispanic, Asian, and one old black man who wore a glove on his left hand, perhaps, Fortunato thought, hiding a joker deformity.

“Tell your children,” he said to them, “tell your family, your friends, your loved ones, and those evil ones you fear, that Fortunato is back from the dead.”

They all watched as, clad in his white robe, he ascended silently into the Heavens.

New York City: the Waldorf-Astoria

The Cardinal had had enough of St. Dympna’s, but neither could he force himself to enter the room of his Waldorf suite where the Cameo fiasco had occurred. Fortunately, the suite contained other rooms suitable for a war council, and Contarini had gathered Dagon and the Witness to hear Nighthawk’s report on the attack on the Jokertown Clinic.

Everyone had already heard a garbled account of events on the television, so they were prepared for the bad news that Nighthawk bought.

“And you could do nothing about it?” the Cardinal asked when he’d finished his report. Contarini used his iciest voice, which had reduced more than one bishop to helplessness over the years. Nighthawk, who had heard similar tones from the mouths of over-seers and slave owners, was used to it.

He shrugged. “The Witness chose to attack him thirty feet above the ground. I wasn’t in any position to help him. When they finally crashed to the sidewalk, the crowd was too thick to get through. By the time we I did, Fortunato had already ascended into the Heavens.”

The Cardinal made a bitter-lemon face at Nighthawk’s choice of words. “Why did he choose that tactic?” Contarini asked quietly, almost to himself.

Because he was vain and stupid, Nighthawk thought. He said aloud, “Because he craved glory, wanting it all for himself.”

Contarini fixed him with a killing stare. “We are not in this for self-glory.”

Nighthawk bowed his head, mainly to hide the smile that threatened to break out. “As you say, Cardinal,” he murmured.

Contarini continued to look as if he were sucking bitter lemons. “Well, no matter. We know where the Devil and his bitch is. We know that his powers have returned and that she is going nowhere for now. I’ll have them watched.” He steepled his fingers, tapping the tips together in rhythmic order. “We also know where their spawn is. Or at least where he’s going. For now he is out of our reach.”

Nighthawk turned, and gestured to Usher. The big man came forward carrying an old duffel bag.

“Earlier today I sent Usher upstate to look around,” Nighthawk said. “And he found a couple of interesting items.”

The Cardinal perked up, at least momentarily. “Such as?”

“Such as Blood, and his brother, skulking in the forest, afraid to come out. Fortunately hunger drove them into the open.”

“Where are they now?” Contarini asked in a voice that showed he was eager to mete out suitable punishment.

“Usher took them to St. Dympna’s, to await your pleasure.”

The Cardinal nodded.

“But before you punish them too severely,” Nighthawk said, interrupting Contarini before he could issue any foolish orders, “consider this.”

Usher passed over the old duffel bag and Nighthawk offered it to Contarini as if it contained jewels precious beyond number. The Cardinal sniffed dubiously.

“Yes, an old bag of clothes.”

Nighthawk nodded. “Clothes belonging to the one who calls herself The Angel.”

“Barnett’s whore?”

Nighthawk nodded again. The Allumbrados had been spying on Barnett and his organization for a long time. Sometimes Nighthawk thought that they knew more about what was happening in the Peaceable Kingdom than Barnett did.

The Cardinal smiled. Like most of the expressions that wormed their way across his patrician features, it was sinister.

“I begin to see the possibilities,” he said. “All we need is for her to stay in one place for awhile for Blood to track her down.”

Nighthawk nodded. “He’ll have a wide area to search. We know what roads she’ll probably take to Branson, but still, it will take some doing.”

“Yes.” Contarini thought for awhile. “But this time I’m taking no chances. Nighthawk, you and your team will await her at their final destination. Just in case they to elude my Allumbrados once again.” Contarini looked at Butcher Dagon and the Witness, who had the grace to look mildly abashed. “But that’s not going to happen this time, is it?”

Nighthawk watched Dagon and the Witness shake their heads vigorously, while Magda looked on stoically and Usher coughed to hide his smirk.

“And just to ensure our success,” the Cardinal said, “I’ll attend to this personally.”

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

West Virginia: Somewhere on the Road

The Angel was driving somewhere on a dark highway in the middle of West Virginia when fatigue hit her like a brick between the eyes. She was falling asleep at the wheel despite a massive intake of caffeine and sugar from her constant inhalation of Dr. Pepper and candy bars. She didn’t know if Jesus Christ could actually be killed in a car wreck, but she didn’t want to put it to a test. She saw a sign posted for a rest stop in twelve miles, and glanced at John Fortune, who was catching a little shut-eye in the passenger seat.

“There’s a rest stop up ahead, John,” she told him.

“I’m okay,” he said sleepily.

They’d been stopping every now and then for the Angel to hit the bathroom because of all the Dr. Pepper she’d been drinking. “You may be okay, but I need a few hours of sleep. We’ll rest until dawn, then push on.”

John seemed to wake up a little. “Hey, I can drive while you’re resting. Let me. I’ve almost got my license. I’m a pretty good driver.”

The Angel considered the idea. A couple extra hours on the road would put them that much closer to Branson. But in the end she shook her head. Maybe if he had his license. Without one, they were taking too great a risk. Besides, she didn’t really think she should trust someone who “almost” had his license on dark mountain highways.

“We can both use the rest,” she told him.

It was comfortable in the back of the van. It smelled vaguely of rich earth, vegetables, and herbs. There was room enough for both of them to stretch out. It felt odd lying down next to the boy who was Jesus Christ, the Angel thought, but his presence was both a comfort and a reminder of her awesome responsibilities. His divinity burned warmly like the sun-like halo that glowed around his head.

As she lay down, she tracked the next day’s route in her head. Branson lay in south Missouri, almost on the Arkansas border, about fifty miles east of Oklahoma. They had to traverse the rest of West Virginia, then cross Kentucky and most of Missouri. It didn’t seem like much. And it wouldn’t add much if she took the detour that had been on her mind the last couple of hours.

Dipping down into Mississippi wouldn’t be the most direct route to Branson, but it felt somehow safer to her. Somehow less traceable. And something was calling her. She felt a strong pull to home. A need to visit her origins again. Perhaps, something quietly told her, for one last time.

It wasn’t exactly a premonition. Nor a vision. Nothing that concrete. Just a calling through the dark southern night pulling her gently, like her mother crying in the gathering dusk for her to come home to dinner.

The Midnight Angel fell asleep with her Savior snoring gently at her side, memories of her childhood dancing like lost butterflies through her dreams.

Jerry collapsed, exhausted, into his seat in first class. Billy Ray occupied the seat next to him. Ray looked fresh as a daisy, but Jerry was still weak and in pain from the wounds he’d suffered back at Camp Dez. Not to mention his gunshot wound, and various bruises, scrapes, and cuts he’d suffered while making his way through the forest with John Fortune. His shape-shifting powers didn’t regenerate injuries, though by the very nature of his ace his recuperative powers were superior to those of an ordinary man—not to Ray’s. Despite being shot multiple times, clawed, strangled, and chewed upon over the past couple of days, the government ace looked fresh as a daisy as he sipped chilled orange juice.

“You look like Hell,” Ray said.

“I feel like it. Tell me Ray, are we going to get any more government help on this deal?”

That was the major question to Jerry’s mind. It had gone unasked during the war council they’d held the night before in the offices of Ackroyd and Creighton after coming back to the city. Jerry, Ackroyd, and Billy Ray had been the main participants. Josh McCoy had also sat in, and would report back to Peregrine. She was apparently out of danger, but she wouldn’t get out of the hospital for days yet. Maybe weeks.

They’d briefed McCoy, bringing him up to date on what they knew of John Fortune’s current location. Ray had confirmed that John Fortune was on the way to Branson by checking in with his office. Though he’d been less than forthcoming when it came to revealing what office he was actually currently operating out of.

They could use all the help in recovering Fortune they could get. Though free from the kidnappers, he wasn’t exactly home safe. Jerry had thought McCoy had been hallucinating when he’d told them that Fortunato had turned up to help in the search, but Ackroyd had surprised Jerry by confirming McCoy’s story from subsequent news coverage, even though no one seemed to know Fortunato’s current whereabouts. It seemed that the legendary ace had disappeared after some strange goings-on concerning an unidentified D.O.A. ace.

“Well,” Ray said, “you know I can’t really talk about those things...” He gestured encouragingly, it seemed.

“Sure, sure,” Jerry said. “I get you.”

Plausible deniability, Jerry thought. That was all the government seemed to care about nowadays. Ray’s partner, Angel, had reported, saying that she on the way to Branson, Missouri with the kid, but Ray couldn’t explain why she was taking him there. Maybe, Ray suggested, something John Fortune had revealed to her had made the trip necessary. Jerry couldn’t imagine what that possibly could be, and Ackroyd hadn’t been happy with Ray’s feeble non-explanation. But they had to live with it. Another thing they had to live with that Jerry wasn’t happy about was Brennan’s absence.

“You’re moving out of my backyard,” Yeoman had said after the battle at the ophiolatrists’ compound. “I was happy to help around here, but with the boy gone and the government now involved...” He’d looked thoughtfully at Ray and shook his head.

Ackroyd had been happy to see Yeoman sign off. Jerry hadn’t been, and still wasn’t. The archer had proven his worth more than once during the past couple of days. Jerry was sure that they’d be sorry that Yeoman wasn’t lurking somewhere, shaft nocked to bowstring, watching their backs. But all and all, Yeoman was right. This wasn’t his fight.

They decided to send Sascha to Branson immediately, to scout out the territory and make arrangements for lodging, and Jerry and Ray would follow the next day, as soon as they both had a chance to catch their breaths and rest their battered bodies. Ackroyd was out of it. He’d already disobeyed doctor’s orders by checking out of the hospital. There was no way he could an active part in the rest of the case on his damaged leg. His absence was another great loss to the team, but there was nothing they could do about it.

Once their plane took off, Ray showed that he wasn’t interested in idle chitchat. He reclined his chair, put his feet up, closed his eyes, and immediately fell asleep. He was impeccably neat, even while sleeping, though he snored.

For Jerry the hours crawled like legless elephants. He wished he were like Ray. Tough and untouchable, able to bounce back from any physical ailment, take anything in stride.

Jerry still hurt physically. His body was one big bruise, inside and out. Mentally he still felt guilty for losing John Fortune. The in-flight movie was the sucky Britney Spears remake of the tolerable Desperately Seeking Susan. All he had to occupy his mind were thoughts about his empty personal life. Images of Ray’s partner found their way into his tired brain. Angel. She was a striking woman. He wondered what Ray knew about her, and decided that he’d pump the government agent, subtly, of course, for info about her when he woke up.

“Magazine, sir?”

The steward awoke Jerry out of his introspective haze by holding a selection of magazines before him. Business Week. Harpers. Esquire. A familiar-looking photo on the magazine a top the pile caught his eye. “Fortunato’s Incredible Return to New York,” the headlines blazed. “Famous Ace Seeks Unknown Son. Exclusive Report by Digger Downs.”

“Thanks,” Jerry said. “I’ll take this one.”

He took the brand new issue of Aces! from the pile, and settled back to read about Fortunato’s return to New York, until somewhere over Kentucky when he fell asleep and dreamed an uncomfortable dream in which he and Ray walked the streets of Branson, Missouri, searching for John Fortune, and were in turn stalked by man-sized walking zucchinis.

All Jerry could think was, Why zucchinis?

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

In the air to Branson

Ray woke up soon somewhere over Missouri. He sat carefully unmoving for a few moments, taking stock of the parts of his body that hurt, and the parts that didn’t. Hurt came out ahead, about ten to one.

He sighed and slowly moved his seat to the upright and locked position. Regeneration had never been painless, but lately it was taking more and more out of him. It took longer and hurt harder. He wondered if some day it would take as long for him to heal from a wound as it took an ordinary man. He wondered if someday his face might not repair itself. If his kidneys and liver and heart might not return to full working order. If skin and flesh and muscle and bone might not knit together again into a raveled whole.

He glanced over at Creighton, twitching in his sleep like he was having some sort of delicious dream, slumbering like a baby, without a care or a worry. God, Ray thought, what would it be like to be a simple P.I.? Catch a few criminals, catch a few zzz’s. Compared to his life, it sounded idyllic

Creighton jerked awake a few minutes later. He glanced wildly at Ray, but seemed to calm down almost immediately when he realized where he was. For a moment it looked as if he were going to say something, but then thought better of it and remained silent. Good, Ray thought. I have enough shit of my own to worry about.

Ray sat up straight all the way down to Branson, carefully drinking his orange juice until the steward came by to collect all cups and trash. He wouldn’t have minded a good, stiff drink even if the alcohol interfered with his body’s repair work. It was, however, his iron clad policy not to mix drinking and flying. Booze coupled with unexpected turbulence was a sure recipe for disaster.

As it turned out, this flight was as smooth as a walk in the park, as was the landing. Taxi-ing to the gate was interminable, even though the Branson airport wasn’t exactly Tomlin International. Taxi-ing to the gate always annoyed Ray. He was the first to stand and rescue his carry-on from overhead storage, being careful because of course the baggage could have shifted during flight. He dragged Creighton’s bag down as well, handed it to him, and headed off the plane, Creighton half jogging to keep up.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” the P.I. asked.

Ray wasn’t sure. He was just eager to get it on, to find John Fortune and deliver him to Barnett. To finish with this nonsense and start exploring other options. He wasn’t sure just yet what they might be. Hell, he had no fucking idea. Suddenly he just wanted to finish this while his skin was relatively whole.

Was he, Ray wondered, suddenly developing a sense of caution? And if so, was that a good or bad thing?

My God, Ray thought, not introspection, too.

They stopped as they entered the terminal proper though the covered walkway. A big white banner with big block letters painted in red was strung up near their gate. “WELCOME MAGOG,” it proclaimed.

Underneath, before, and around the banner were scores of women. Women dressed in pantsuits. Women wearing sensible shoes and plain, long dresses. Women with teased hair. Women with bouffant hair. Women whose hair was like the girls’ hair at Ray’s senior prom back in Montana in the 1970’s. All had adhesive tags on their blouses that said: “Hi! My Name Is” in big letters above a white space that had names like Lurleen and Ellen Sue carefully filled in with felt-tip markers. They were all talking and embracing and standing in knots and groups and generally clogging the flow of foot traffic. Ray and Creighton stopped, stood, and stared.

“What the Hell is MAGOG?” Ray asked.

“He was like, a demon in the Bible, man,” a voice said behind them. “Or maybe a giant. I forget which.”

Ray and Creighton turned as one, stared, then looked at each other in wonderment.

“What the Hell are you doing here?” Creighton asked.

Mushroom Daddy smiled brightly. He was freshly bathed and smelled only very, very faintly of cannabis overlain by what must have been a gallon of Old Spice. He was probably wearing his best clothes, which, Ray thought, made him look like a Salvation Army reject only forty years out of date. He had on a purple silk shirt and a paisley tie and vest to match, and suede bell bottoms with vertical red and orange stripes. He made Ray’s eyes hurt.

“Well, man, I had to come to get my van, man. I called Jerry’s office and told them all about how that chick stole my van, and they told me what flight you were taking so I decided I’d better follow you guys and see about, like, getting my van back.” He looked a little hurt. “I couldn’t afford to sit up in first class, though.”

Ray closed his eyes. When he opened them there was a narrow, dangerous cast to them. “Creighton’s office told you what flight we were on?”

“That’s right, man.”

Ray shifted his gaze to the P.I. “Now, Ray—” Creighton protested.

“Hey, man,” Mushroom Daddy interrupted, “are you a P.I., too?” he asked Ray.

“No. I’m with the government,” Ray said.

Daddy pulled away. “Like, the CIA, man?”

Ray laughed. “CIA? Those pussies? They’re afraid of us, man.”

“Oh.” Daddy thought it over. “That’s okay, then.”

Ray and Creighton exchanged another glance, then shrugged.

“All right,” Creighton said. “Well, we’ll see you around... Daddy.”

Mushroom Daddy shook his head. “Uh-huh, man. I’m sticking with you guys until I get the van back.”

“I don’t think—” Creighton began, but Ray took his arm.

“Excuse us a moment,” he said to Daddy, and pulled Creighton away a few feet. “We can’t have this brain dead hippie stumbling along after us, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and probably getting it shot off. I wouldn’t mind that so much, but he’d probably get us shot to Hell and back, too.”

“What are we going to do with him then?” Creighton asked.

Ray stood still, thinking, his lips twitching in distaste. “Bring him along for now. We can always find some pretext to dump him later. Or maybe get his ass thrown in jail for awhile.”

“That wouldn’t be fair,” Creighton said.

“Who gives a shit about being fair?” Ray asked. “I’m talking about survival.”

Creighton looked him in the eye, then glanced away. “All right. I see your point. Anyway, maybe he’ll be useful. Somehow.”

“Yeah,” Ray said. “Like tits on a bull.”

An indeterminately aged woman whose frosted blonde hair was piled atop her head like a plate of onion rings glared at him like he’d farted in church or something. Creighton went off to talk to Daddy as Ray found himself under the woman’s suspicious scrutiny. He tipped an imaginary hat to her and walked away. She harrumphed to herself as he joined Creighton and Daddy, thereby confirming her worst suspicions.

I know, Ray thought, where she’s headed. Along with all the rest of the kooks.

He sighed to himself, realizing that it was his destination, too.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New York: Jokertown Clinic

“The Aces! hot line had thirty-seven calls concerning you last night,” Digger Downs told Fortunato excitedly. “Most reported that you’d come back from the dead, rising out of a manhole in front of the Jokertown Clinic to defend it against a crazed ace who was attacking it for unknown reasons. Most said that you were dressed in a white robe, had a glowing halo, and ascended back into Heaven after crushing this unknown ace with a single blow.”

“Did you bring the clothes?” Fortunato asked. His monk robes had long since gone into the hospital’s incinerator.

“Sure.” Digger paused and handed him a couple of shopping bags. “There were a hundred and seventeen calls this morning,” he went on. “You’ve been spotted all over the city, as far east as Massapequa on Long Island, north to the Catskills, and west to Binghamton.”

Fortunato stripped off his hospital robe unselfconsciously and dressed in the underwear, jeans, socks, and pullover short-sleeved shirt that Digger had bought him. “What have I been doing in all those places?” he asked the reporter.

Digger flopped on Fortunato’s unmade hospital bed and gusted a deep sigh, shaking his head. “You think of it, you did it. You stopped a mugging in Brooklyn. You made a car swerve in Monticello and miss a kitten that had wandered into the road. Your face was seen etched in the dirt of an elementary school window in the Bronx.”

Fortunato glanced at him. “What?”

Digger shrugged. “Like I said, you’ve been a busy guy.”

Fortunato sat down and put on the running shoes Digger had bought. It was the first time in ages he hadn’t worn simple woven-straw sandals. He stood and walked about in a small circle, testing them. They looked garish and bulky, but felt good on his feet.

“I did none of these things,” he said. “Well—I did kill that ace, but I didn’t mean to. Not really.” His eyes narrowed and he spoke half to himself. “There were a couple of questions I’d wanted to ask him.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Digger said. “Mean to, I mean. What we have here is a genuine phenomenon. People want to believe in something, and it looks like you may be it. You’re big news, Fortunato, and you’re only going to get bigger. Maybe the next big thing. Listen, let me interview you on Aces! Corner on Entertainment Tonight. That’ll only be the first step. Within the week, you’ll be on Larry King Live. I guarantee it.”

Fortunato shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t have time for this now. Maybe later, when things have settled down.”

Digger looked disappointed, but after a moment of reflection, nodded. “You’re right. We should let the mystery deepen. The tension build. Let the rumors swirl for awhile. Maybe a few hints in the written media, then, wham! I see a special, maybe on the E! Network.”

“Will that pay for the damage done to the Clinic?” Finn asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway of Fortunato’s room.

Fortunato turned to him. “I’m sorry about that, doctor. I really am. Perhaps I can make it up to you some day, but right now I’m checking out. I have to get going.”

Finn grabbed his arm as he went by. “I should examine you first.”

Fortunato stopped. There was a time when he would have pulled away angrily if someone laid their hands on him like that. But that time had passed. “I’m fine, doctor. You know I am.”

“Well, maybe,” Finn said. “But the police have been asking about you. I’ve been telling them that you’re hurt, under sedation—”

“All the more reason I have to go, before I get tied up in red tape.” He put his own hand on the doctor’s arm, but his touch was friendly. “I know you’ve done a lot for me, Finn. I appreciate that. I’ll do what I can to make it up to you. But right now I have to go after my son. He’s not out of danger yet.”

“Well...” Finn let his hand fall away from Fortunato’s arm. “All right. Where are you headed?”

“Branson, Missouri,” Fortunato said with a look of contemplation. He turned to Digger Downs. “Coming?” he asked.

Digger jumped up from the bed. “Sure. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Good, Fortunato thought. Because I still don’t have any money. He realized that before long he’d have to figure out a way to make some if he was going to remain in the world. He couldn’t depend on the good will of Aces! forever.

Digger joined him at the doorway and preceded Fortunato into the hallway. Fortunato paused for a moment and turned back to Finn.

“How’s Peregrine doing?” he asked.

Finn shrugged. “About as well as can be expected. Maybe even a little better. But she’s still got a long convalescence ahead of her.”

“There is something you can do for me.”

“Say goodbye for you?” Finn asked.

“How’d you know?” Fortunato said after the silence had stretched uncomfortably between them.

Finn shrugged again. “I read Tachyon’s dossier on you, remember?”

Fortunato nodded. “Yeah. I guess that the space wimp did have my number.”

He turned and left the hospital room. Finn watched him go in silence.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Branson, Missouri

Sascha Starfin was waiting for them near the baggage carousel. Jerry saw him immediately once he and Ray and Mushroom Daddy had fought their way past the crowds of women wearing MAGOG buttons.

“Sascha!”

The ace turned his head towards them as Jerry shouted and waved. Sascha’s height was accentuated by his thinness and his long neck. His hair, receding at the temples, was stylishly gelled so that a roguish curl fell over his broad forehead. His teeth were white and straight, his mouth expressive. It was his most expressive feature. He had no eyes, only an unbroken expanse of skin across the sockets that should have housed them.

“Jerry, glad you made it.” He turned to Ray. “Mr. Ray. Good to see you, as well.” His eyeless face turned unerringly to Mushroom Daddy.

“Wow,” Daddy said. “Spooky, man. How’d you know I was here?”

Sascha flashed another smile. “I’m telepathic, for one thing. For another, I can smell you. I didn’t know there was a cannabis-scented variety of Old Spice.”

Ray broke in before Mushroom Daddy could reply. “Did you book rooms in the hotel I mentioned?”

Sascha nodded, though he looked dubious. “Yes. The Manger, at the Peaceable Kingdom. Isn’t that a little way out of town?”

Ray shook his head. “We’re not here to see Boxcar Willie. Believe me, we’ll be close to the action.”

“The Manger?” Jerry said doubtfully. “What kind of hotel is that?”

Ray smiled. “It’s the kind where ‘There’s Always A Room For You, Even If You’re Not The Savior.’”

“Wait a minute,” Jerry said. “The Peaceable Kingdom. Isn’t that Barnett’s religious theme park?”

“Yep,” Ray said, “we’ll discuss it later. I’ve got to check some things out.”

He hustled away through the automatic doors and into afternoon beyond, where he jumped into the first taxi in line. Sascha puckered his lips in a thoughtful moue. “Ray left precipitously, didn’t he?” the eyeless ace said. “That man has secrets.”

They followed Ray outside into the warm summer afternoon on the fringe of the Ozark Mountains. Jerry shrugged as they went up to the cab currently at the head of the line.

“He’s a spook. He probably has more secrets than a madame in a high-class cathouse. But, you’re right. He’s been helpful so far, but really, how far can you trust these government types? Keep an eye on him.”

Sascha grinned, and made an okay sign with thumb and forefinger as Jerry opened the cab door.

“Where to, gents?” the cabby asked as the three slid into the air-conditioned comfort of his back seat.

“Peaceable Kingdom, the Manger,” Jerry said in a resigned voice.

The cabby cleared his throat as he eyed them, especially Mushroom Daddy, in the rear view mirror. “I see that you gentlemen have, uh, sophisticated tastes. If you’re interested in any of the real thrilling sights, stuff the tourists generally don’t get to see, I’m your man. Real joker acts. Some real wild ones, if you know what I mean. Aces, too, sometimes, with powers that’ll blow your mind. Totally unregulated gaming,” he said, glancing in the mirror at Sascha whose wild card nature was rather obvious.

“I didn’t know there was any of that in town,” Jerry said.

“Oh, sure,” the cabby said, nearly side-swiping a white stretch limo as he snuck through a red light at the last second, shooting the limo’s driver the finger and Jerry a shark-like smile. “Not in town, of course. The town is strictly for the squares. Lennon Sisters. Pat Boone. Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That yodeling guy. You know, Un a Paloma Blanco.”

“Boxcar Willie?” Daddy asked.

“Slim Pickens?” Sascha asked.

The cabby shook his head. “Nah. That’s not him. Anyway, the real action is outside of town. The road houses. The exotic attractions. Like the river boats out on the lake.”

“River boats on a lake?” Jerry asked.

The cabby shrugged. “Close enough for the tourists. Some places have free access to all kinds of games, even to wild carders, which I hope you don’t mind me saying kind of stand out in this place.”

“I don’t mind,” Daddy said.

“Good,” the cabby nodded. “Roulette. Craps. Slots. You just got know where to look. And know how to not get caught cheating.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Jerry looked out the cab window as they passed through the town. All roads from the airport, it seemed, led through Branson. That was the point of them, after all.

Compared to Vegas, Jerry thought, Branson was kind of... mediocre. There was traffic, but more pick-ups and Winnebagos than limousines. They were lights, but fewer of them, and dimmer. There were hotels and theaters, but smaller, definitely less glittery. They were stolid brick buildings, not phantasmargorical palaces of exotic sin. The names on the marquees were more pleasingly familiar than exotic. There was, Jerry noted, a dearth of topless reviews but plenty of gospel choirs. One constant, though, was common to both tourist Meccas. There were plenty of buffets.

Branson wasn’t as big as Vegas, either. A trip down the strip took less than twenty minutes, and suddenly they were out in the open country of a small peninsula jutting out into Table Rock Lake. From a distance, the Peaceable Kingdom looked pretty much like any other theme park, its skyline dominated by a high Ferris wheel, a twisting roller coaster, and some whirling, whipping, and falling down really fast rides which Jerry never really saw the point of.

The cabby pulled up in front of The Manger, which, yes, did have something of a faux Middle Eastern look about it. “Remember what I told you,” he said as they decamped with their luggage. He zoomed back into the unrelenting traffic.

“Your bag, sir?” someone said. Jerry turned to see a joker in a bellhop uniform—if you could call faux Arabic robes and headgear a uniform—reaching for his suitcase. His third arm, coming right out of the center of his chest, grabbed the bag. Handy, Jerry thought, for a bellboy. The bellboy turned to Sascha and Daddy.

“I’ve already checked in,” Sascha said.

“I’m cool, man,” Daddy said to the bellboy.

“No luggage?” Jerry asked.

“Like, why should I bring clothes, man?” Daddy laughed at the self-evident absurdity of the idea. “If I need more I can always get some.”

If? Jerry thought. Good God, he’s not staying in my room.

They went through the large revolving door and the air conditioning hit Jerry in the face like a blast of frigid wind howling down from the North Pole. The lobby was dark, cold, and crowded. The decor was hotel-lobby modern, with a twist. There was faux marble, thick carpeting, palms and other plants commonly found in that ecological niche, and comfy chairs scattered around. The twist was in the decor.

The ersatz Middle Eastern theme was continued with walls made of pseudo adobe bricks (at least Jerry hoped that they were pseudo; it rained far too often in southern Missouri for adobe to be a viable building material) and wooden beams coming out of the walls acting as false support columns. Jerry half-expected piles of straw (or maybe fake straw) strewn around the simulated flagstone flooring. The hotel staff all wore burnooses, like they were extras from The Ten Commandments. Religious art and iconography was scattered all over the walls, all with a cute, if not kitschy turn.

It was all too much to take in. To avoid having to deal with it all, Jerry went around the knots of chatting guests, many of them women wearing MAGOG welcoming tags, and marched up to the check-in counter, followed by Sascha.

“What are all these middle-aged, Midwestern types doing here?” he asked in a quiet voice as they waited behind the red velvet rope for a clerk to check him in

“This is the Mecca of Midwest tourism,” Sascha said, equally quietly as the white-haired woman ahead of them turned to stare suspiciously, caught a look at Sascha’s face then immediately turned away. “But it’s also MAGOG’s national convention, and, luckily for us, The Manger is one of the convention hotels.”

MAGOG—Mothers Against Gods Or Goddesses—was one of those grassroots organizations that had sprung up over night after some social tragedy or another, in this case a school shooting by some doped-up losers who claimed to be pagans. Jerry wasn’t sure if MAGOG had actually ever accomplished anything over the years of its existence, but they sure knew how to generate noise and publicity.

One of the check-in clerks caught Jerry’s eye and gestured him up to the counter. Sascha and Mushroom Daddy followed. It went pretty much like all big-hotel check-ins, with some fumbling around with the name the reservation had actually been made under. The clerk gave him a key, and Jerry gestured over his shoulder to Mushroom Daddy.

“Better give him one, too,” he said, instantly knowing that somehow, someway, they would regret this.

Kentucky: Somewhere on the Road

The Angel and John Fortune were somewhere on a mountain road half way through Kentucky, singing along to a song on the Canned Heat tape playing in the eight-track.

The Angel wasn’t familiar with much in the way of popular music from the past couple of decades. Her mother had frowned on most of it and wouldn’t let her play it on the radio, and they never had much money for records, though her mother had a couple that she listened to obsessively, especially if she’d been drinking. Most of the people at the churches they attended over the years considered pop music the Devil’s music, and the Angel had been pretty willing to accept their opinion.

But some of the tapes that Daddy had in his van were actually pretty good. The Canned Heat one they were listening to was fun, and oddly appropriate to their current situation. She and John Fortune had listened to “On the Road Again” over and over until they knew the lyrics by heart, at least those they could understand. They just made up their own words for the ones they couldn’t, and sang along with the driving beat. She suddenly realized, almost guiltily, that they were having fun. She tried to stop.

“My dear mother left me when I was quite young,” they sang as the Angel negotiated a sweeping downhill curve. “She said, ‘Lord have mercy upon my wicked son.’”

Appropriate. How appropriate. She could hear her life in this old song. They could have been singing about her. She glanced at John Fortune. He was smiling, enjoying the adventure that his young life had turned into. He has a good heart, the Angel thought, as well as steady courage and compassion. Yet, the passing hours that they had spent together, had shown her that he seemed more of a boy than the Savior of the world. Is it possible, she wondered, that he hasn’t yet realized who he is?

“I ain’t got no woman to call my special friend,” John Fortune sang. He smiled at her, and the Angel felt a sudden warmth on her upper right thigh. She glanced down to see his hand resting there. She could feel the heat it radiated through the leather of her jumpsuit. She looked back up at him.

“You know, Angel,” he said, “you’re really beautiful.”

She could feel herself blushing, but worse, she could feel the curse of her body betraying her again. He was only a boy—even worse, her Savior. How sinful was she if she could tempt her Savior into carnal thought? She shook her head. “I’m just a soldier in the army of My Lord,” she said, looking grimly out the windshield.

John Fortune turned as much as his seat belt allowed, to face her. “I know you’re older than me,” he said, his expression pleading, “but not by all that much. What’s a couple of years?”

“Seven,” she said, concentrating on the winding road before them.

“Seven!” John Fortune said, as if she’d just proved his point. “That’s nothing! Why, my mom’s almost that much older than my dad. And I’m mature for my age. Everyone says so. Besides, we have so much in common—”

The Angel shook her head. “John—”

“We’re aces,” he pointed out reasonably. “Both of us. And, uh, we’re good aces, too. We use our powers to help people—”

“John—”

“Unless...” John Fortune suddenly looked downcast. He frowned at her, then sighed. “You must think I’m pretty stupid to think a hottie like you doesn’t have a boyfriend already.”

The Angel glanced at him, her heart in her throat at the sound of his voice. “No, John, no. I don’t think you’re stupid at all. And... you’re right, actually. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

The recuperative powers of the young put a smile on his face again. “Well, great, then. Can we go out sometime? I promise you’ll have a good time.”

The Angel’s answer was interrupted as the van’s engine suddenly coughed, sputtered, and died right there on the highway. She glanced at John Fortune, and sighed. This was too much to deal with now. Too much.

“We’ll see,” she said, “but first we have to take care of this, this breakdown, whatever it is. Then we have to get to Branson, where you’ll be safe.”

John Fortune nodded confidently. “Sure. First things first. I’m willing to wait. For you. What do you think is wrong with the van?”

They were still on the long downward glide. The Angel took her foot off the brake and let gravity do all the work.

“I have no idea,” she said. “But I hope there’s a town at the bottom of this mountain with a service station in it.”

“Sure there is,” John Fortune said. He leaned forward and punched the Canned Heat tape out of the eight-track. “Let’s listen to this one again.”

He put “Surrealistic Pillow” in the tape machine and “Somebody to Love” blared forth.

“I like this,” John Fortune said. “You know, the chick singing sounds like that one who did that old song. You know?”

The Angel shook her head.

“‘They Built This City On Rock And Roll.’ Think it’s her?” John Fortune asked.

The Angel shook her head again.

“I have no idea,” she said, guiding the van down the mountain like a toboggan down a snowless hillside.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower

Though Ray hadn’t exactly lied to Creighton, he had let him and Ackroyd both make unwarranted assumptions that he didn’t want to explain at this time. With Sascha on the scene, he decided he’d better split before the eyeless ace picked something awkward out of his mind. He had to report to Barnett anyway, and see exactly what the Hell was going on with Angel and the kid.

Ray made his excuses and dashed off, trying to diffuse any probes from Sascha by keeping a picture of Angel foremost in his thoughts. It wasn’t difficult. She had real eye appeal, even when she was being grumpy. Which was almost always. He couldn’t help but wonder what she’d be like in the sack. Wonder what that body looked like under all the leather. Maybe framed, for a change, with lace.

On second thought, Ray thought, screw the lace. He had the feeling that she was a woman who looked best naked. Or maybe wearing only a thin, slippery sheen of sweat.

“We’re here, sir,” the cabby said, interrupting the most pleasant thought Ray had had in months.

Ray tossed the driver a couple of twenties. He slung his bag over his shoulder, jumped out of the cab without waiting for change, and took the steps up and into the lobby. He went straight to the elevator bank and whisked himself up to the penthouse. To the tip of the great glass pyramid that was the headquarters of the huge entertainment complex Barnett had designed to separate the suckers from their money. The elevator came to a smooth stop, chimed softly, and let him out into a corridor that ended in closed double doors guarded by men in nicely tailored suits and dark sunglasses.

He went down the corridor with the jauntiness of a mastiff approaching a couple of Pekinese.

“Billy,” one said, stepping aside. “President Barnett is expecting you.”

He opened the door and Ray entered the antechamber where Sally Lou was playing at receptionist. She looked at Ray with the gleam of a hungry tigress in her eyes. “We heard you got shot,” she said.

“I got better,” Ray said briefly. He still hadn’t forgiven her for her prior treatment, but if she kept on looking at him like that he figured that eventually he’d forgive her for damn near anything. Angel was on his mind, but Sally Lou was definitely in reach. “Barnett—”

“—is waiting for you,” Sally Lou interrupted. “Go right in.”

Ray paused for a moment. “Later?” he asked.

Sally Lou looked at him coyly. “Maybe.”

Ray went by her desk to Barnett’s office door. He didn’t like games. It looked like Sally Lou did. He could put up with it for awhile if the end result was worth it, and it looked like Sally Lou might be. In the meantime, though, there was still a kid somewhere on the loose in the wilds of America in a van with Angel at the wheel.

Leo Barnett didn’t look too concerned about the still-missing John Fortune and the now-missing Angel, but then he rarely looked concerned about anything. He was on the phone when Ray came into his office, sitting behind his big desk of dark wood, cigar in hand, nodding expressively as he talked.

“I know talent is scarce right now, Sammy boy, but I tell you what—” He made some kind of face at Ray that the ace couldn’t interpret and gestured broadly for him to sit in the chair before his desk. Ray did. “You find me some boys who know how to do a job and will keep their mouths shut. Sure. Sure. Of course.” Barnett rolled his eyes. He hung up the phone and looked at Ray, smiling but shaking his head.

“I’ve got to find me some good boys, Ray. Boys like you who know how to take orders and keep their traps shut. Boys who have a little extra juice, you know what I mean?” Ray nodded. “Whatever happened to that Mechanic fellow?”

“Belew?” Ray shook his head. The Mechanic had led the first operation that Ray had ever been on—the failed attempt, through no fault of their own, to extract the American hostages from Iran, way back in the Carter Administration. “We haven’t crossed paths in years.”

“He’s a stud I’d like to have on our side when the Allumbrados come to town. How about that Straight Arrow?”

“Nephi Callendar? He’s a desk jockey now.”

“George Battle? He was just an ordinary joe, but tough as the dickens.”

“Uh.” Ray didn’t really want to get into much detail about Battle’s fate. “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

“Pity.” Barnett looked up to the ceiling. “Oh Lord, see me through these trying times.” He looked back at Ray. “What can I do for you, son?”

Ray remembered something Barnett had just said. “The Allumbrados are coming to town?” he asked. “Contarini’s outfit?”

“Of course, son. Of course. We’ve got the baby Jesus. They’re going to come after him sure as Satan is frying souls in the Fiery Pit right this very minute.”

Ray nodded. That was good. He’d like to get his hands on Butcher Dagon again. This time he’d bite the bastard’s tail off at the root and strangle him with it. Still...“They’ve got a whole cadre of credenti and believers and shit working for them,” Ray said. “Some tough ass mercs. Some aces.”

“Don’t I know that? That’s why I’ve been on the horn all day trying to beef up my forces.”

“Who do you have?” Ray asked.

Barnett looked at him. “Well, there’s you.”

Ray nodded impatiently. “Yes.”

“And Angel, of course.”

Ray pursed his lips. “I don’t know about her.”

Barnett leaned forward, pointing his cigar at Ray. “Well, son, she got the baby Jesus. You got bubkiss. Besides,” he leaned back in his chair, took a deep pull on the cigar and blew smoke towards the Heavens, “she said the same thing about you.”

“What exactly did she say?” Ray asked with narrowed eyes.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, son. I know she can be difficult. But if you handle her right, she’ll eat right out of your hand.”

Ray frowned. “Well, who else do we have?”

Barnett put his cigar in his mouth, his hands behind his head, and his feet on his desk. “Well, there’s Sally Lou. But she’s not much use, unless we want to screw the Allumbrados to death.”

“She can do that?” Ray asked, startled. There was an ace... years ago. But she had disappeared.

“Don’t be so damn literal,” Barnett said. “Maybe she couldn’t really screw those boys to death. But she could tire them out some.”

“Oh,” Ray said. He waited for Barnett to go on, but when he didn’t he finally said, “That’s it, then?”

“Oh, there’s Alejandro. And we got boys with guns. Plenty of those. But so has the Cardinal. And this battle won’t be won with guns, I don’t think. I’ve got some guys on the line who might be useful.”

Ray nodded. He agreed with Barnett. It didn’t seem to be shaping up in Barnett’s favor, but long odds never made Ray run from a fight.

“Well, what about Angel and the boy?” he asked. “Are they okay? Are they almost here?”

Barnett sighed. “She’s out there somewhere with the boy in tow. I expect she’ll be reporting in sometime soon.”

“She’s out there somewhere?” Ray asked. “That’s the best you can do?”

Barnett poured himself a couple of fingers from the decanter that sat on the side of his desk, added some ice, and took a long drink from his tall glass, the ice cubes tinkling merrily against its side. “You’ve seen her. She’s a big, strong girl. She can take care of herself.”

I hope so, Ray thought. I really, really hope so.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Branson, Missouri: The Angels’ Bower

“A suite of our own,” Digger Downs said. “Pretty sweet, huh?”

Fortunato looked around the spacious living area with sofa, loveseat, wide-screen television and mini-bar. It was somewhat more luxurious than the quarters he’d shared with five score monks the past sixteen years or so. The angel decor, though, was not exactly to his taste.

“Does it have to be this... colorful?” he asked.

“Well...”

The room was done in pastel shades of green, blue, and pinkish-red that, despite their muted tones managed to be quite garish when taken together. The bathroom was black, pink, and white faux marble tiles which were laid in swirling patterns that hurt Fortunato’s eyes. He hadn’t been in Digger’s bedroom, but his had a round, bean-bag shaped bed that was enshrouded with gossamer thin fabric that looked like puce colored mosquito netting. Worse yet, there were photos and paintings, and even relics of all sorts all over the damn place

“It’s the best we could do on short notice.” Digger shrugged. “The place is crowded even by their usual standards. There’s some kind of big convention that’s taking a lot of the rooms.”

“Barnett seems to have brought himself a license to print money with this place,” Fortunato said.

Digger shrugged again. “Barnum was right, but we have our own fish to fry. What’s the plan?”

Fortunato roused himself. “Angel was bringing the boy here for some reason. Suppose we poke around a little and find out why?”

“All right,” Digger said, sensing another intriguing story line. “Anything specific we should look for?”

Fortunato shook his head. “I don’t know. You’re the investigative reporter.” Fortunato looked thoughtful. “A talk with the head man himself might be in order.”

“Barnett?” Digger asked. “Yeah. Go straight for the top, I always say.”

“Could you swing it?” Fortunato asked.

“Maybe.”

“One thing, though,” Fortunato said. “ I need to find some way to recharge my batteries.”

“If you’re looking to put hookers on the company charge card—” Digger started.

Fortunato grimaced. “It may come to that. Maybe. But I think I’ve moved beyond that. To something new.”

“Like what?” Digger asked, plainly intrigued.

“It’s all so new,” Fortunato said, “that I’m still not sure about it. But I’ll probably know it when I see it.”

“Probably?” Digger asked.

“Hey, man,” Fortunato said, “that’s the best I can do.”

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Manger

“Is this a non-smoking room?” Mushroom Daddy asked.

Jerry, Mushroom Daddy, and Sascha were in the living room of their suite trying to figure out what to do next. It was furnished in a sort of 1950ish style that Jerry kind of liked, though the Naugahyde sofa was slippery and the orange carpet was a little bright.

Sascha looked at Daddy curiously. “No. You can light up if you want. Do you happen to have some decent cigars on you?”

Daddy shuddered. “Tobacco? Never touch the stuff, man. It’s, like, a killer.” He looked thoughtful. “Except of course for those groovy organic Cuban cigars that teenaged senoritas roll up on their soft, creamy thighs. Those are okay, every now and then.”

Jerry frowned. “What are you talking about, then?” A sudden thought struck him. “Not—”

Daddy nodded. He reached into an inside vest pocket and pulled out a baggie packed with rich green weed.

“Jesus Christ,” Jerry groaned. “You bought that with you on the plane?”

“Sure,” Daddy said. “I always take some weed along when I travel. It’s the best, man. Here, try some. Um, you don’t happen to have a water pipe on you? I couldn’t bring mine ‘cause I didn’t bring any luggage.”

Jerry collapsed on the Naugahyde sofa. I guess its true, he thought. God does take care of drunks, little children, and idiots. Sometimes, at least.

Sascha looked as amused as an eyeless man could. “No. I’m afraid I left my bong at home.”

“Oh, that’s okay, man,” Daddy assured him. “I brought some rolling papers.”

He sat down next to Jerry on the sofa and bent over the glass and chrome coffee table in front of it and dexterously rolled a fat joint.

“Got a light, man?” he asked Jerry.

Jerry shook his head. “No. I don’t smoke.”

“Here,” Sascha said. He tossed him a book of matches.

“Thanks, man.” Daddy carefully lit the joint and took a long toke. “Want some?” he asked, offering the jay to Jerry.

Jerry closed his eyes and shook his head. What the Hell, he asked himself. Why not? He accepted the joint and took a tentative pull. The smoke roiled down his throat and into his lungs. It was warm, but without harshness. Not a cough in the carload, as the old saying went. He looked at Mushroom Daddy in surprise.

“Smooth, huh?” Daddy said proudly. “It’s my own. I grow it organically. Totally chemically free. Nothing in it but good old Mother Nature’s goodness, man.”

“Let me have a hit of that,” Sascha said, crossing over to the sofa.

“Sure!” Daddy said. “You dudes can split that one while I roll another.”

Jerry took another hit and passed it to Sascha. He held the smoke deep in his lungs, then let it out in a fragrant cloud. It smelled great, Jerry thought. He could already feel himself starting to relax.

Sascha took a long hit. “Not bad,” he said in a choked voice as he held the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible. He finally let it out in a long whoooosh. “In fact, pretty good.”

Daddy was rolling a second joint when someone knocked on the door, and the three looked at each other, trepidation in at least two sets of eyes.

“Sascha, you get the door,” Jerry said. “Daddy, get your shit out of sight. I’ll turn up the air conditioner.”

There was another knock. It sounded loud and impatient. What, Jerry thought, his panic growing unaccountably, if it was the cops? They probably had some mean ass cops in Branson. He didn’t even want to think of what they’d do to someone caught smoking dope in the Peaceable Kingdom.

“Coming,” Sascha called out. He went up to the door and stood before it.

“Who is it?” Jerry asked.

“I don’t know,” Sascha said. “I can’t see.”

“Well,” Daddy said, “ask him.”

“Who is it?” Sascha asked the door.

“It’s me,” a voice called out gruffly. “Billy Ray. Sascha, that you? Open the goddamned door.”

“Dammit,” Jerry said. “The Feds.”

“Oh, man,” Daddy said. “The man. Oh, man.”

“Just a minute,” Sascha said.

“Open the windows—” Jerry said.

“Oh, man,” Daddy said. “Busted, man. Who’s going to take care of all my plants if they send me to the slam?”

“Can’t,” Sascha said. “Hotel windows. Can’t open them.”

The door rattled ominously.

“Are you guys in trouble in there? I’ll break the door down—”

“He will, too,” Sascha said.

Jerry made a helpless gesture with his hands.

“Open it. Open it. Maybe he won’t smell anything.”

Sascha nodded. He took the door off the chain and threw it open. Ray stood out in the hallway, hand up and ready to pound on the door again.

“Hello, Ray,” Sascha said with a smile. “Come on in, Ray.”

Ray entered the room suspiciously. “What the Hell is going on in here?”

“Nothing,” Sascha said.

“Nothing,” Jerry said.

“Nothing, man,” Daddy said, trying to shove the baggy full of weed further between the sofa cushions.

Ray stopped, sniffed the air, and frowned thunderously. “Are you guys smoking pot?”

Sascha, Jerry, and Mushroom Daddy looked at each other.

“Us, uh—” Jerry began.

“You’re holding out on me, you bastards?” Ray said. “I haven’t gotten high since I did some hash with a bunch of Afghani warlords. I had to smoke with them, of course. Had to put them at their ease.”

“Well,” Daddy said, “if you like Afghani hash, you’ll love—”

”Daddy—” Jerry began.

“It’s all right,” Sascha said, as if suddenly remembering that he could read minds. He sank down gratefully into the loveseat across the coffee table from the sofa. “He’s cool.”

“Of course I’m cool,” Ray said, sitting down next to Daddy. “What, you think I’m a narc just because I work for the Feds?”

“Course not,” Jerry said as Daddy produced the baggy of pot and an already rolled joint that he handed to Ray.

“Thanks,” Ray said. He lit up and took a toke. “Of course,” he said in a strangled voice, “if I was my old boss, that tight-ass Nephi Callendar,” he paused to blow smoke and take another hit, “your asses would all be headed for the nearest federal slam, right now. Hey. Very nice.”

Daddy nodded happily. “I grow it myself.”

Ray looked at him. “So, what’s the story, man, are you some kind of burned-out hippie, or are you an ace?”

Daddy shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that I can grow things. They taste good, and they do good things for your body and your head.”

“Maybe,” Jerry suggested, “you should call yourself the Green Thumb.”

Ray frowned, and then started to laugh. Within moments they were all giggling like hopeless fools. It felt good, Jerry thought. Really good. Ray handed Daddy the joint. He took a toke and passed it on to Jerry.

They sat together, smoking, talking, and laughing for the next hour. Ray turned out to be a fount of surprisingly amusing stories about foreign and domestic diplomats. Every now and then Jerry would just say, “Green Thumb,” and they’d all laugh again, though Jerry had the feeling that Mushroom Daddy didn’t see anything particularly funny in the name and was maybe seriously considering it.

They finally polished off their fifth or sixth joint and Ray looked at them all, seriously.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “Room service, or buffet?”

They all thought about it for a moment, and then as one man said, “Buffet!”

Daddy gathered up his paraphernalia, but Ray made him leave it all in the suite. Together they descended in the elevator, to wreak havoc on the first buffet that they could find.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: Loaves and Fishes

Ray was ravenous. He wanted either food or women, vast quantities of either. It didn’t matter which, but he wanted them now. Everyone else seemed fixated on the idea of food, so that was all right with him.

They rode the elevator to the ground floor, passing the hotel restaurants in unspoken accord. They didn’t want to go sit down at a table, wait for a waiter to show up and take their drink order, come back and take their food order, go turn it into the kitchen, and then wait for the kitchen to cook it, wait for the waiter to go pick it up and bring it to their table, and after all that get only a miserly little plate of food and they were all pretty sure that a plate of rolls or a small loaf of wheat bread wouldn’t hold them in check while they waited.

They hit the street with hunger rumbling in their stomachs and anticipation roiling in their brains. Their eyes focused on the building before them. LOAVES AND FISHES!!! Steaks! Chops! Seafood! Salad! Deserts! All You Can Eat! They looked at each other and nodded, even Sascha. They had found their Mecca.

They descended on the restaurant like a swarm of locusts, and after paying their fourteen ninety five apiece at the door (Ray covered for Mushroom Daddy with his personal credit card, bitching that Angel still had Barnett’s.) they tore through the buffet line and salad bar, leaving devastation in their wake like a force five hurricane.

Ray got himself a steak, a couple of pork chops, and a roast chicken, whole. He decided to leave the carving station—turkey, ham, and lamb—for later. He piled on some mashed potatoes, french fries, buttered noodles, and corn on the cob. Dessert was tempting, but he had no more room on his tray. He took a large ice tea, unsweetened, at the drink station. He was pretty thirsty.

He joined Daddy, Sascha, and Creighton at the table where they were already plowing through their food. Sascha had taken the sweet route, going for all the desserts he could grab, including an entire Black Forest cake. Creighton had cleaned out the carving station, and had a couple of made to order omelets, while Mushroom Daddy, apparently a vegetarian, had about half the salad bar in front of him, as well as a selection of hot vegetables.

“This isn’t bad,” he said around a mouthful of potato salad, “but mine is better.”

“Green Thumb,” Sascha said.

No one laughed. Somehow it wasn’t as funny as before. Maybe they weren’t as stoned, or maybe they were all just concentrating on the food.

“Mmmm,” Creighton said, at least acknowledging Daddy’s remark.

Ray just kept on eating. The food was indescribably good. Ray wasn’t sure why. Sure, he was stoned and Daddy’s pot was potent. Powerful yet with a curious mellowing effect, it heightened Ray’s senses, intensifying his sense of smell, taste, and touch. He smiled as he popped a piece of steak in his mouth and chewed slowly and thoughtfully. Too bad Angel wasn’t here, he thought. He’d like to see her smoke a joint of Daddy’s weed. It would really loosen her up.

That was it. He felt really, totally, one hundred per cent relaxed for the first time in weeks. Probably months. He was back in Branson with few prospects, except a return bout with Butcher Dagon and an unknown number of henchmen with unguessable powers and abilities, but that was okay. That was in the future. He would handle it as it came, like he always did. Tonight he was just a guy enjoying a meal. If he wasn’t with friends, he was with comrades, and that was just about as good. He never had many friends in his life, but he’d had comrades plenty and he’d never let them down. He hadn’t won every fight he’d ever been in and over the years he’d lost some of the steadfast men who’d stood at his side. But that was life. At least he knew that he always did the best that he could and he never ran from a fight.

He tore off a chicken leg, and looked around as he bit a chunk out of it. Mushroom Daddy had just said something, he’d missed exactly what, that had set both Creighton and Sascha laughing. Daddy joined them and then he did, too. He laughed aloud at nothing, though apparently, if you believed Barnett, Armageddon was just around the corner and the fate of the world was hanging in the balance.

“Let it hang,” Ray said aloud. The others all looked at him.

“What?” Creighton asked.

Ray shook his head. “Nothing.” He looked around the table at the three, shaking his head. “You are three crazy sons of bitches.” He picked up his ice tea glass and tipped it in their directions. “I salute you all.”

They laughed, grabbed their glasses and returned the toast, and Ray laughed with them, the hardest of all.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Somewhere in Kentucky

It was the carburetor. Fortunately there was a small town at the bottom of the mountain with a service station. It didn’t have the right type of carburetor in stock, though the guy knew a guy with a junkyard that probably had a couple of old hippie vans laying around it somewhere. The Angel told them they were in a rush. She flashed the platinum card and the service station attendant managed to take his eyes off her (he barely seemed to notice that John Fortune was glowing) and he took off to find the part. The Angel checked themselves into the town’s single decrepit motel, figuring that some sleep on a real bed would do them some good. She’d told the mechanic where they’d be, and to come and get them as soon as he was finished.

“You know,” John Fortune said, after they’d checked in, “I’ve never shared a motel room with a girl before.”

The Angel forestalled a grimace. This, she didn’t need. She said the first thing that popped into her mind. “I have to take a shower.”

John Fortune nodded, his eyes wide as if he were considering the possibilities. “Sure,” he finally said. “I’ll just wait for you here.”

The Angel went into the bathroom and quietly locked the door. Maybe, she thought, if she drew this out as long as she could, John Fortune would get distracted by the TV or something. It didn’t seem likely.

The water came out of the showerhead at a trickle. She took as long as she could, but the mildew and fungus stains on the stall wall did not incline her to linger. The towels were paper-thin and didn’t really dry her body as much as blot it kind of fruitlessly. She wrapped a paper-thin towel around her form and stuck her head out of the bathroom, but John Fortune was lying on the room’s single bed, sound asleep, a bright aura shining all around him.

The Angel sighed in relief. He’d been very tired, she supposed. She watched him for a few minutes. His face was angelic, if not exactly God-like. He looked like everybody’s favorite son.

She dried herself as best she could and shrugged into her jumpsuit again. It was tough to put on while she was still damp. She wished that she’d thought to bring her duffel bag along so she could change into one of her spare suits, but it was still sitting in the Escalade back in New Hampton. She hoped that Ray had remembered to return the SUV to the rental agency before the late charges started to pile up. He probably hadn’t, though. He didn’t seem particularly dependable, even if he did seem to have some uses.

She tiptoed into the tine room and sat carefully in the creaky chair next to the bed. Something nagging at the back of her brain made her feel jumpy. It was a sensation that something was breathing on her. Snuffling about her in the dark. She put it down to nervousness about the Allumbrados somehow striking their trail. When someone knocked on their door in the middle of the night, she jumped.

It turned out to be the mechanic. He was finished with the van.

The Angel awoke John Fortune. He seemed groggy and at first was disinclined to get up. She felt his forehead in concern. He was hot, of course. She wondered if he was running a temperature, or if it was his ace metabolism acting up. She knew that it could take some getting used to. When her card had turned ten years ago it took months before she’d gotten used to hers. Her mother never had. She never believed her when she said she was hungry. That she was starving. She just called her a glutton, and said it was a miracle that she wasn’t a fat pig because of all the food she ate. It was hard to be hungry all the time.

She finally got John Fortune up. It was about three o’clock in the morning by her watch. She overpaid the mechanic enormously. She felt guilty about it, but as Ray had said, Barnett could afford it and after all she was doing God’s work.

They hit the road again in the dark. The Angel, even though she knew it would add a couple of hours to their trip, was more determined than ever to take the detour she’d been considering. Something was driving her. Calling her, really. She wondered if it was old ghosts.

Whatever the source, it could not be denied.

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower

It was dark by the time Nighthawk and his group arrived at the Peaceable Kingdom. A limo had been waiting for them at the airport and taken them to the suite reserved for them at The Angels’ Bower. The hotel was quite crowded.

They went up to their suite. Nighthawk thought it was a little kitschy, but kept quiet because Magda was quite taken with it and Nighthawk saw no need to stir up trouble. Usher was satisfied because it was comfortable. That was all he needed. Nighthawk checked in, and they waited. They didn’t have to wait for long.

The doorbell rang within half an hour and Usher answered it. A bellhop and a luggage cart piled high with massive trunks stood in the corridor outside. “Mr. Nighthawk?” the brightly scrubbed young man asked brightly.

“Inside,” Usher said, stepping back.

“Special freight delivery,” the bellboy said, wheeling the cart into the room.

Nighthawk nodded. He gave the boy a twenty. He knew what it was like to be in his position.

“Thanks,” the bellhop said. “Want me to unload the cart?”

“No thanks,” Nighthawk said. “We’ll handle it.”

“Have a nice stay at the Peaceable Kingdom,” the boy said at the door. Usher smiled at him, nodded, and closed and locked it.

“Our agent came through,” Usher said, taking a heavy trunk off the cart as Nighthawk watched.

“Of course,” Nighthawk said. He watched Usher and Magda unload and assemble their equipment for awhile, then suddenly stood and stretched. “I’m going to go for a walk. I want to get the feel of this place.”

“What are you sensing, John?” Usher asked. Magda looked up from assembling an automatic shotgun.

Nighthawk shook his head. “I don’t know, yet.” He nodded at the weapons they were unshipping from their padded trunks. “But we’ll need those before it’s all over.”

Magda grunted wordlessly and went back to assembling weaponry. There was something of satisfaction on her face. If it was in her, Nighthawk thought, she’d be whistling right now.

“Go find some food when you’re done,” Nighthawk said. “Needless to say, room service would not be a good idea.”

Usher shook his head sadly. “Grubbs always loved room service.”

Magda grunted wordlessly again as Nighthawk went out into the corridor and took the elevator to the lobby below.

It wasn’t that late, but the lobby was already quiet. Outside, the night was pleasantly cool. Nighthawk walked around the grounds. He didn’t have much company. The patrons of the Peaceable Kingdom seemed to be part of the early to bed, early to rise crowd, even when on vacation.

He passed by a couple of night walkers like himself, once a knot of two score or so women wearing name tags that proclaimed themselves to be members of MAGOG, whatever that was, probably on the way back to their hotel from some function or another that had just ended. They were chatting animatedly, clearly enjoying themselves.

The Peaceable Kingdom was, Nighthawk admitted, a nice, well-groomed place, sanitary and unthreatening where those who liked their fun safe and predictable could have a good time.

And why not? These people worked hard for their money. If they wanted someplace to come that was a little mysterious, a little exotic, yet catered to what they believed, upheld their view of the world and affirmed their place in it, that was fine by him. One thing that his long life had taught him was that people needed different things from life. The Peaceable Kingdom served the needs of its patrons admirably.

He was a little worried, though, about what might happen here in the next couple of days. Nighthawk hoped that the Cardinal and his team would stop the Angel long before she reached the Peaceable Kingdom with her charge. In Nighthawk’s experience high-powered weaponry and tourists didn’t mix very well.

He could have skipped all this. He could have faded off into the night or taken the train out of town with Cameo. But two things had held him back, one practical, one theoretical. Practically, he didn’t want to cut and run, leaving a pissed off Cardinal wondering what had happened to him. Contarini didn’t take desertion lightly, and Nighthawk didn’t want to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of what still might be a rather long life. Theoretically, his vision to the contrary, what if the Cardinal was right and the boy was the Anti-Christ? Revelations were extraordinarily difficult to interpret, and stranger things had happened in this world. Granted, not many. But the Cardinal, for all his demagoguery, was an educated man. He knew things that Nighthawk could not even begin to guess at. What if he were right, and the boy was the Anti-Christ, or, at least some kind of tool of the Devil. Nighthawk couldn’t walk away from this until he was sure, one way or the other. And his gut told him that it was all coming together. Soon. That all the forces for good and evil were gathering in once place. And that place was not called, this time, the Plains of Meggido, but rather Branson, Missouri, and that it was his fate to be among their number.

He had already traveled far on this holy road, and had learned much. He had to walk the final few miles and see what waited for him at the end of it, no matter how rocky or dangerous the way.

\

As it turned out, Barnett was more than happy to see Fortunato and Digger. Fortunato was in fact surprised at how eager he was to see them, as he invited them up to his headquarters after a simple phone call on Digger’s part. Barnett’s penthouse office was located at the top of the Angels’ Bower, at the end of a short corridor guarded by two men in suits and dark glasses. Fortunato didn’t need special power to tell him that they were cops. He’d seen plenty of their type before he’d left the world. Since Barnett was an ex-President, that meant Secret Service. He scanned their minds as Downs gave them their names. They were nats. Competent enough, but nothing more. They knew nothing other than the fact that Barnett was expecting them. Good to know, Fortunato thought, that we aren’t walking into a trap of some kind.

He was still surprised, and a little suspicious, at Barnett’s eagerness to meet with them.

The antechamber to Barnett’s office was like that of many other business offices. The decor lacked the faux Middle East crap that infested the other parts of the Peaceable Kingdom Fortunato had seen. A very decorative blonde sat at the receptionist’s desk. She looked at Fortunato with almost predatory interest and flashed an inviting smile.

“Mr. Fortunato. President Barnett is waiting for you in his office. Please go right in.”

“Fortunato is fine,” he told her. “For future reference.”

“Fortunato.” Her voice caressed his name. Her look promised more.

“Great,” Digger said. “Let’s go.”

The blonde took on an expression of professional regret. “I’m afraid that President Barnett would like to have a few words with Fortunato in private. I’m sure you understand.”

Digger frowned. “Well. Not really. But if I must wait to see the great man, then I must wait.” He perched casually on the corner of the receptionist’s desk. “Have you ever considered a career in modeling?” he asked as Fortunato knocked on the office door.

Fortunato glanced back to see the blonde regard Digger with polite distaste as Barnett called out, “Come in.”

Fortunato entered his office, closing the door behind him. He took a few steps, then stopped, looking all around.

Is everything fake in this place? He was standing in a replica of the White House’s Oval Office, down to the insignia woven into the carpet, the desk, and the draped flags behind it. Sitting at the desk was a handsome, well-preserved man, perhaps in his fifties. Fortunato recognized Barnett, though he had been out of the country during both terms of his presidency. Before his career had turned to politics, Barnett had been a popular conservative evangelical preacher. Fortunato had never been politically active, though he knew that Barnett’s attitude towards wild carders wasn’t exactly benevolent. He could extrapolate further how Barnett felt about mixed-race wild carders who had once pimped women and dealt drugs and were now Buddhist monks.

In the old days Fortunato would have read his mind without a second thought. Now, after the years in the monastery had leeched him of his arrogance and taught him something about humility, he thought about it first, then jumped into his mind anyway. His son’s life was on the line. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Barnett was involved some way in the attempted kidnapping, and this was a sure way to find out. What he read there, though, surprised him.

“Fortunato!” Barnett said, rising from behind his desk and extending his hand. “It’s a pleasure, a real pleasure, to finally meet you.”

Fortunato came forward and guardedly took Barnett’s hand. His handshake was firm and strong. His smile was sincere, as were his words of greeting. Barnett was genuinely glad to see him. “Sit down,” he said.

Fortunato did.

“Drink?” he indicated the cut glass container in easy reach on his desk. “Oh. Can Buddhist monks drink alcohol?”

“Some more than most men,” Fortunato said. “I don’t, however.”

“Fine, fine.” Barnett sat in his own chair and beamed across the desk. “Well. Glad to see that you’ve turned your life around and become a brother of the cloth. So to speak.”

“Forgive me if I seem impatient,” Fortunato said. “But there are some questions I’d like answered.”

“No doubt,” Barnett smiled back. “But couldn’t you read my mind to get your answers?”