Turn of the Cards

Chapter Forty-two

Moonchild got a soft-slippered foot into Belew’s gut as she rolled onto her back, pulled him over her and launched him into the night. Then she caught herself, stopped rolling.

She got to all fours. Her arms and legs were shaking so hard, it felt as if she would fly apart. She vomited again.

She heard brush stir. Belew was coming back. She had no idea why he was assaulting her. Perhaps his conservative machismo was driving him to rape. She tried to get up, to fight or flee, but her body would not respond.

Then his arms were around her again. Go away! she wanted to shriek. But she could not produce words.

A whistling of wind, a stinging inrush of debris, and it was Mark huddling in Belew’s arms, shivering violently.

“Now you see what I was up to?” the spy asked softly. “I thought you might still consider that transition a private matter.”

Mark spat to clear his mouth. “What happened, man? The change never hit me that hard before!”

“Moonchild’s having an existential crisis, in a way the Existentialists never dreamed of. Her emotional state made the transition bad. Also —” he shook his head — “it was as if something else was eating her, as if she was listening to something from far away, that was riling her up more.”

Mark tensed, forced himself to relax. He knows too much. He sees too much. Can I trust him?

Do I have any choice?

You always got a choice, bunky, J. J. Flash finished for him. Mark made himself shake his head. “I don’t remember anything about that, man,” he said, “just that she was upset.” As always the lie tasted like copper in his mouth. He’d always hated the taste of lies.

Belew stood up, helped him to his feet. “How are you handling it?”

“I … I don’t know.” That tasted of truth. “I’m gonna have to sort this out”

To the north the sky lit, silhouetting the hunchbacked peak they had just skirted in white. A moment later a rumble reached them, through the ground and cold air. The sound and lights went on and on, pulsing irregularly.

“Air-strike!” Mark cried. He tensed to run.

Belew touched him lightly on the arm. “No. It’s okay. Sov-bloc planes don’t fly at night. It’s artillery.”

He stood for a moment to watch the display. “Our unbiased, impartial media friends ratted us off to the People’s Army. What did I tell you?” He preened his mustache with a thumb.

“I know it’s bad of me…” he said. His teeth were white beneath his well-tended brush. “But is it too much to hope a few of them got caught in the barrage?”

Torches sent strange, misshapen shadows chasing each other between tents and bunkers like imps in a Bosch painting. Jokers swarmed around the two men making their way into the belly of Fort Venceremos, half-naked, sweat-slimed, painted or scarred when they weren’t feathered or scaled or otherwise disfigured by the wild card.

“Aces, aces, let’s get in their faces,” chanted a joker. He brandished a torch in a fist covered all over with short bristles.

“I hear you, man,” another jeered. “Aces are just nats with some spice.”

“Just meat, man.”

“Gimme six.”

“You wave that fucking torch in my face anymore,” said the man in white, “and you’ll fucking eat it.”

He was about medium height, beefy in shoulder and chest. His tight-fitting white suit had the black hood thrown back at the nape. His dark hair was short. His eyes were green, dangerous, and not on the same level. His face seemed to have been assembled from whatever parts were to hand in a bin. He walked with a hitched and swaggering gait.

They came to the parade ground, passing between poles. He tossed a thumb at the white-bleached human skulls that topped them. “I kind of get behind your decor, though.”

His partner just lumbered silently at his side. He was taller by a head. From the mask that hid his face to his pointy-toe cowboy boots he was dressed entirely in black. Except for the white straw cowboy hat with the peacock feather in the band, of course.

A teenaged joker planted himself solidly in their path. He had torches in his outstretched hands and a face whorled like a thumbprint. The skin on his bare chest and arms was normal human skin. As if to counteract that, he had cut vertical gouges in his torso from collarbone to the waist of his jungle-cammie trousers.

“So you’re the mighty aces from back in the World,” he said. “Hear me: we don’t like aces. And we aren’t part of your fucking world anymore. We got our own New World Order, here. It looks like you just don’t belong.”

“Oh, no?” the man in white said. “We’ll see about that, asshole.”

The tall man took off his cowboy hat and handed it to him. Then he grabbed his mask by the crown and pulled it off.

The joker screamed.

The crowd surged back. Someone turned and vomited. The whorl-faced joker dropped his torches and ran.

The man in black had half a face. From the onlookers’ point of view it was unfortunate he had any. What remained looked like hamburger that had been left on the counter for three-four days and then set afire with charcoal starter.

“Now that we got that out of the way,” the white-clad man said, handing back the hat, “we got an appointment with your boss. Now, do you let us get to it, or do we start kicking your ugly asses?”

He laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “I’d really hate that,” he said. “It’s not professional to put pleasure before business.”

“Gentlemen.” Colonel Charles Sobel rose from behind his broad, empty desk. The exacting order of the photo-crowded office made it seem an island of sanity in the chaotic sea of Fort Venceremos. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.”

Then he tipped his head to the side, and his noble Doug MacArthur profile took on some wrinkles. “What’s that smell?”

The man in white jerked a thumb at the one in black. “Him. He’s dead. Or didn’t you know that?”

Sobel rubbed his chin, nodded slowly. “I’ve read your dossiers, of course, Mr. Ray.”

“Call me Carnifex. Sir.”

Sobel paused, nodded again. “Very well, And you are Bobby Joe Puckett.”

The man in black nodded.

“Also known as Crypt Kicker,” Billy Ray said. “He’s a ball of laughs.”

“Please be seated,” the Colonel said.

“I’m fine,” Carnifex said.

“The dead don’t need to sit,” Crypt Kicker said.

Sobel raised a brow at him, as if surprised he could speak. “Initial reports indicated you were lost in the last assault on the Rox, Mr., ah, Kicker.”

“He was fried by a dragon, he got left below the bottom of the Hudson River when the Rox disappeared, he went boiling up to the surface in the giant air bubble that got left behind, and then he got hit by the Turtle’s tidal wave,” Carnifex said. “They found his dead ass wrapped around a light pole on Staten Island.”

“It sounds as if you had a trying day.”

“He told Baffle he didn’t need to shower before we hit the Rox,” Carnifex said, “because he knew he’d wash up on shore.”

“Mr. Baffle, yes,” the Colonel said. “I’m very grateful to your superior for providing us with your services. You are badly needed.”

“Yeah, I’m so happy I could puke that he sent me out here among all these damned monsters of yours, Colonel. And stuck me with the biggest monster of all for a partner.”

He leaned forward and put his black-gauntleted knuckles on the desk. “I still don’t get it, Colonel. You’re out here playing butt-boy for about the last pack of commies left on Earth. Just what the hell is the CIA doing, looking out for that particular endangered species?”

The smooth, tanned skin of Sobel’s face writhed briefly, as if it had live mice beneath it. Then it firmed. “Believe it or not, Mr. Battle does possess a social conscience. If you knew him as I do, you’d understand.”

He folded his hands. “I realize you are confused and resentful at the unexpected turns of events that brought you here. I hope you’re not going to have any problems working with us.”

Carnifex straightened. “I do my goddam job. I’m the very best.” He dipped his head right, raised it again. “Nobody said I had to like it.”

“What Mr. Battle says, I do,” Crypt Kicker said. “He said obey you.”

“If I get to kick some butt, I’ll do fine, Colonel,” Carnifex said.

Sobel smiled. He picked some invisible lint from his immaculate uniform sleeve. “I think I can promise you that, Mr. Ray.”

He leaned forward. “Our situation is grave here, gentlemen. The rebels have been having everything their own way. They still don’t have any military strength to speak of — some support among urban capitalists greedy for a chance to exploit their fellow men, some sympathy from primitive minorities who resent the modernizing influences of social reform. A number of soldiers of the People’s Army have deserted to them, it’s true, but they’re all cowards and weaklings, of course.

“But psychologically” — he shook his magnificent head — “they’re picking us apart. Not just the standard assassinations, sabotage, and other acts of terrorism. You would not believe the reports we’re getting: beautiful, bulletproof women who walk through shadows. Burning men who fly through the air and shoot down jet aircraft with fireballs from their hands. Sea monsters attacking river-patrol craft. The site of that press conference the traitors gave last week, the mining camp — it was abandoned after the workers and security detachment reported one of the big ore shovels came to life and began attacking them. Even the administrators and technicians claimed it was true, and they were Russians.”

He shook his head. “Someone — or some thing impersonated a high official of the Socialist Republic’s security apparatus, a dedicated, loyal officer well known to me personally, and helped a major leader of the rebels to escape government custody.” He leaned back. “Our people are strong, gentlemen; they are righteous, as we in the New Joker Brigade are righteous. But they’re starting to lose heart. They’re afraid. They feel they’re up against some supernatural enemy.”

Billy Ray looked at Crypt Kicker and cracked his knuckles. “Naw,” he said with a nasty, lopsided grin. “You’re just suffering what we call your severe ace infestation.”

The grin went wide and feral. “Fortunately, Colonel, you just called on Ace Exterminators.”