Gods and Pawns (22 page)

“Yes. It is,” said Uncle Porfirio.

“Their great mistake was in creating slaves who were smarter than they were,” said Emrys. “And who had miserable, interminable millennia to become wiser as well. Over the ages, many of us began to ask: why not try to actually
do
something about the horror of it all, rather than merely pick up the pieces? Oughtn’t we to turn our astonishing cyborg powers to nobler ends? Think about this, Porfirio. Think of the state the world is in. Think of the poverty and starvation. You could help the mortals!”

“Not the way you want me to,” said Uncle Porfirio.

“You could help them, and you could help yourself,” Emrys insisted. “Do you really believe our masters have that wonderful paradise waiting for us, when our work ends at last? I could show you proof it’s all a lie.”

“I know.”

“And you know, yourself—who better?—that some mortals deserve to die. Have you told her the truth yet, about what happened to that studio bigshot who was dating her mother when Hector came on the scene? The one who took out a contract on Hector’s life, out of jealousy? Funny, the way he drove his car off Santa Monica Pier that very evening.”

“My father didn’t deserve to die,” said Maria, in a thick voice.

“Oh, God, sweetie, you can’t mean that!” Emrys rolled his eyes. “With what he’d been reduced to? Poor old monkey couldn’t even chew his food anymore. If he’d still had enough of a mind to make the choice, I’m sure he’d have begged to be set free. I’m the Angel of Mercy, honey. Didn’t his death make your life easier? To say nothing of letting your ‘uncle’ know what we could do, if we wanted to. Two birds with one stone.”

“You don’t sound much like an angel to me,” said Maria.

“Well, I don’t really care what you think,
pachuca
,” said Emrys, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back. “Your ‘uncle’ knows I’m speaking the truth. We’re the good guys, Porfirio. Wouldn’t you like to work with people who have principles, for a change?”

“Principles, my ass,” said Uncle Porfirio. “You just like to kill mortals.”

“But I’m sublimating it in a higher cause,” Emrys replied. “Do we have to dip back into the Joseph Campbell mumbo-jumbo for you? Listen to that Aztec blood running in your veins! It
knows
that sacrifice is necessary. Blood is the only thing that will wash away this filthy mess in which we’re all stranded.”

“Ah, now that’s just racist. What a stupid stunt.” Uncle Porfirio shook his head in disgust. “And that’s why I have one little problem with all of this. The whole time I was on your trail, I never saw any evidence that you aren’t one guy working alone.

“I don’t think you’re a member of the Plague Club. They’re smooth operators. Never draw attention to themselves. You
like
the attention. You practically carry a neon sign saying ‘Serial Killer.’ That’s why half the LAPD is running around trying to find out who’s copycatting the old Ambrose Muller homicides. And that’s why I don’t especially feel I can trust a word you say, about recruitment or anything else. See?”

Emrys stopped smiling. He brought his arms down slowly.

“Well, excuse me for leaving my membership card in my other pair of pants,” he said. “May I point out that you’re not exactly in a position to demand proof? The nerve! You second-rate thug, do you have any idea how old I am? I’ve traduced
kings!
Maybe you’re not worth the effort. Maybe we don’t want you after all. But you’d better pray that’s not the case.”

He jumped to his feet and began to pace, and his voice rose as he spoke.

“What else do I have to do? How many of your family have to die before you’ll pay attention to me?”

Maria closed her eyes and thought:
Great. What’s worse than an immortal monster in your living room? An
insane
immortal monster in your living room.

“The sensible choice would be Maria,” said Emrys. “Too old to breed, fat, knows too much. But I like Maria. She was almost a challenge. Isabel’s old, too, but she’s a public figure, and anyway, she does produce something worthwhile in her paintings. Not like Tina. Tina, now, I could wring her head off like a flower! And, oh, have I been tempted, listening to her whine about her sad life. What a relief when her weekly hour was up! I was dreading the inevitable seduction, but if that was what it took to get you to step up to the bargaining table—”

Out of the corner of her eye, Maria observed Uncle Porfirio tensing. With a surreal sense of detachment, she noted his right arm bending, clenching in toward his body with the fist bent forward. Was there something glinting there, between the back of his wrist and his sleeve? He shifted his feet, almost imperceptibly, for better purchase when he sprang…Maria prepared to throw herself to the floor.

“Then there’s the baby,” Emrys ranted. “He really is the ultimate hostage, isn’t he? The last male of your line. If you lose
him
—”

There was a creak from behind him.

Tina was gliding down the stairs, like a snake. Her eyes were fixed on Emrys. Her face was the scariest thing Maria had seen so far that evening.

Uncle Porfirio groaned.

Things happened very quickly then, and only afterward and with great effort was Maria able to reconstruct the exact sequence of events. Emrys turned, saw Tina, and began to laugh, in the same second that Uncle Porfirio launched himself from the couch. Tina moved a split second later, throwing herself at Emrys, screaming in her throat. Maria rose from the couch herself, faster than she would have thought possible, but not in time to come between Tina and Emrys.

She did manage to deflect the blow that would have killed Tina, though it drove her upper arm against Tina’s face and knocked her out cold, and she herself felt a white-hot shock before her arm went numb.

Tina dropped to the floor, limp as a rag. Maria stood there clutching her arm, trying to draw enough breath for a scream of pain, but she just couldn’t seem to; and before her, Uncle Porfirio and Emrys looked like something out of a horror movie. They were grappled together, upright, alternating between blurred kinetic flashes and frozen, locked moments, straining for leverage. Neither one of them looked especially human.

Maria did notice that the claw or needle or spike of bone, whatever it was, had fully extended from Uncle Porfirio’s sleeve and glistened with moisture. Its tip was trembling not an inch from Emrys’s throat. Uncle Porfirio, displaying terrifying bared teeth, was forcing the tip closer, closing the gap…

Emrys kneed him and dove, and the tip of the weapon scored a red line across his cheek but did not go in. He vaulted past Maria and up the stairs, laughing drunkenly. Uncle Porfirio crouched, clutching himself, cursing, suddenly looking a great deal more human.

There was a thunderous crash in Tina’s bedroom, and a grunt of pain.

“That son of a bitch,” gasped Uncle Porfirio. “It’s only slowing him down—”

Maria staggered for the kitchen, thrown off balance by the dead weight of her arm, but as she returned with her gun they heard a window flying open upstairs. There was a thump, a crash on the roof of the porch, and then something landed on the walk with a thud. They heard Emrys guffaw.

“Well, say!” he said, “Look what I found! It’s a li’l brown baby out here. This your baby, Mister Zoo’suit? Say, what was in that needle? I feel
good.
”

They reached the door at the same moment, and flung it wide to see Emrys on the sidewalk, grinning at them. He was holding up Philip, who looked as though he had only just awakened and wasn’t sure what planet he was on.

“You want ’im?” Emrys chortled. “You sure? Just a li’l brown baby. Billions and billions of the li’l bastards in the world. Why does this one matter, huh?”

“Put him down,” said Uncle Porfirio. “You win, okay?’

“You damn right, I win,” said Emrys, tossing Philip up and down as though he were a ball. The little boy drew in his arms, drew up his knees, closed his eyes tight, but he didn’t make a sound.

“They’re allalike as microbes, and about as important. Mean
nothing
in the big picture, nothing more than a fly. Speck of dust. But suppose I bounce this one off a wall, so his li’l head splits open. That’ll make you flinch, huh? That’ll tear you up inside. An’
that’s
my power over you. I
know
he doesn’t matter.”

“Come on, man, you don’t need to do this,” said Porfirio, venturing painfully down the steps. Maria followed him like a shadow. “Give Maria the kid. Then we’ll go off, just you and me, and we’ll talk to your friends. Okay?”

“Nope,” said Emrys, catching Philip on his next descent. “Price just went up. Don’ know what I want yet, but I cern’ly got some leverage, haven’ I? Ha ha. Byee.”

He turned and ran, unsteady but very fast, and they glimpsed Philip’s little face over his shoulder, rapidly vanishing in the night.

“The car!” gasped Maria, running to the Buick. She dug her keys out and got it started, reaching awkwardly with her left hand as Uncle Porfirio half-fell into the passenger seat, hissing in pain. The Buick lurched away from the curb before he had quite got the door closed. On the dashboard, the Virgin of Guadalupe glowed luridly, like a blacklight painting.

“I don’t care if he’s immortal, if he hurts Philip I swear to God I’m going to take him apart with my two hands,” Maria snarled. “There! There they are at the corner! Roll down the fucking window!”

She hauled up the gun and steered with her left elbow, trying to aim. Uncle Porfirio grabbed the gun from her in consternation.

“Drive, for Christ’s sake! You let me do the shooting.”

“Then shoot him! Aim for his legs. Or somewhere. He got you good, didn’t he? What was that you stuck him with?” Maria swerved, accelerated as Emrys sprinted across the empty intersection.

“Tranquilizer. The only one that works on us, Theobromidan. But he didn’t get much, and it wears off fast. I’ve got darts, though,” said Porfirio, pulling his own gun from its holster. He slipped the safety off, sighted along the barrel. “If I can get him in the back with one of these—oh, shit.”

Bounding ahead of them up Fountain, Emrys had leaped into the back of a pickup truck full of newspapers that waited at the stoplight. He turned, leering hugely in the Buick’s headlights, brandishing Philip at them. Philip was screaming, tears coursing down his cheeks. Emrys hurled a bundle of newspapers at them, and had seized up another as the truck’s driver—an elderly Asian man—jumped out in protest. Turning, Emrys swung the bundle with such force that the old man was knocked flying. He vaulted out of the back with Philip tucked under one arm, slid into the cab, and drove off.

“Come back here, you bastard!” Maria cried, flooring the accelerator pedal. Uncle Porfirio muttered an oath as they surged forward and followed the truck around a corner.

“
Mi hija
, watch it! You’ll sideswipe somebody.”

“I don’t care,” she said wildly. “Put your stupid dart gun away and use mine! Shoot out his tires!”

“Honey, at this speed, he could flip over—”

“Oh, NO, you SOB, don’t do it! Oh, he’s getting on the 101!”

“God damn,” said Uncle Porfirio, sinking into his seat. “Follow him. How fast can you get this boat to go?”

“We’re going to find out,” said Maria, turning up the on-ramp so sharply that the Virgin of Guadalupe flew off her perch on the dashboard. Uncle Porfirio’s hand shot out and he caught her in midair, stuck her in his coat pocket.

The freeway was nearly empty at this hour, a dark river winding through the heart of Hollywood, and black ivy climbed its banks and waved down from its overpasses. The taillights might have been red eyes in the jungle night. The air even now was hot, dead, heavy, smelling like warm milk. When Uncle Porfirio cranked down his window it pushed into the car with a roar, like a big animal.

The truck ahead of them slowed down, sped up, changed lanes recklessly. Maria followed, grim, steering with her left hand.

“I think he broke my arm,” she said, almost as an aside. Uncle Porfirio turned his head and stared fixedly at her right arm a moment.

“No. But the muscles are torn and you’ve got a hell of a subdural hematoma. You’d better go to a doctor about that,
mi hija.
”

“What, you’ve got x-ray eyes, too?” Maria laughed without humor, showing her teeth. “Hey, what happens if the cops get in on this chase? Does Doctor Angel of Mercy get hauled off to cyborg jail again? Or is there a cyborg looney bin? Or does he just get handed over to the Cyborg Police Department?”

Uncle Porfirio didn’t say anything, watching the truck.

“You’re with the Cyborg Police Department,” Maria guessed.

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Uncle Porfirio. “He’s exiting at Cahuenga. Change lanes!”

Maria cursed, steered the car across three lanes to make the off-ramp, and Uncle Porfirio had to haul on the wheel with her. They came off the ramp in time to see the lights of the truck speeding away over the hill, in the direction of Franklin.

“You miserable bastard,” said Maria, gunning the engine and shooting up the hill like a rocket. As they crested the top and followed the long curve down, she added: “You don’t save things, do you? Not like the other people who work for this Dr. Zeus Company.”

“No,” said Uncle Porfirio, so quietly she could barely hear him over the rush of air from the window. “I solve problems.”

“And that’s why he said he respected you? Christ Jesus, you’re some kind of corporate hit man. Damn! He’s going left on Franklin. Hope we make the turn!”

They careened around the corner on two wheels and zoomed up Franklin, climbing another hill, never managing to close the distance between the pickup and the Buick.

“It was the price I had to pay,
mi hija
,” said Uncle Porfirio. “My special arrangement. I’m the only operative I know of with a mortal family. So the Company made an exception for me. Because of what I do for them.”

“What about that studio executive Mama was dating when she met Papi?” asked Maria. “Was that a Company job, too?”

“That was different,” said Uncle Porfirio, after a pause. “He was a mobster. He was bad for Lupe, and then he threatened Hector.”