Wild Cards: Death Draws Five (51 page)

“It’d be best if you just gave up, Billy. I don’t want to see either you or Angel get hurt, and I’m afraid you’re pretty well out-numbered.”

Ray frowned. His pulse beat with sudden anger. “Why you little bastard,” he said. “I always thought that you were too polite.”

Alejandro shrugged. “I’m sorry to hear that. I am a great admirer of yours.”

“Yeah, well, I never liked you.”

“He gave you good advice,” Witness said. “You’d better take it. We have to join the party inside. If you let us pass, we’ll just let you go. If you try to slow us down, we’ll kill you.”

“How’s your knee, you prick?” Ray asked. “Still walking with a limp?”

Witness scowled, but Dagon grabbed his arm and shook his head.

Alejandro shrugged again. “As you will, Billy.”

“Call me ‘Mr. Ray,’ you traitorous shit.”

Alejandro turned and looked over his right shoulder, a frown of concentration on his youthful features.

Angel lifted her arms to the Heavens. “Save my soul from evil, Lord,” she intoned, “and heal this warrior’s heart.” Her sword appeared as always, a roaring flame in her hands. She smiled at him. He was happy to see that her smile was without the taint of fear. “Stand with me, Billy,” she said. “‘One sword at least thy right shall guard.’” she semi-quoted.

Ray grinned crazily. “‘One faithful heart shall praise thee,’” he responded in the same spirit. “With all due respect to Thomas Moore.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Why, Billy. I’d never guess you went in for poetry.”

“Stick around, babe. I’m full of surprises.”

“I believe I will,” she said, nodding.

From the parking lot came the sound of ancient stone groaning.

“Oh, crap,” Ray said.

The statues of the three apostles that stood in front of The Angels’ Bower climbed down creakily from their daises and approached the lobby entrance like arthritic giants.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower

John Fortune could no longer sit on the bed without the sheets smoldering. The glow of his halo was so bright that it made Fortunato’s eyes ache. Downs, at his side, stared at the boy with a gaping mouth. The reporter was so stunned by the unexpected turn of events that he didn’t even ask Fortunato any questions.

John Fortune wore his sneakers to insulate the bottom of his feet so that he wouldn’t leave burn marks on the carpet. A wet towel was wrapped around his waist. Fortunato was afraid that anything else would burn. He had to get a new one every few minutes and exchange it with the one his son was wearing. There was no sign as to how high his temperature would eventually go.

“Maybe,” Fortunato said, “you’d be more comfortable in the bathroom. You could lie down in the tub for awhile. Rest some.”

“I’m okay,” John Fortune said, “but, yeah, you might be right.”

He seemed to realize what Fortunato didn’t want to say. That he was becoming a fire hazard in a hotel room that had so many flammable objects in it.

“I’ll go with you. We can talk for awhile.”

“That’d be nice,” the boy said.

As they headed for the bathroom, the doorbell suddenly rang. Fortunato stopped, looked at Downs. “Digger,” he said. “Go with John. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Downs nodded. “Jeez,” he asked the boy, “does it hurt?”

John Fortune looked more bewildered than frightened. “No. Not really. It’s just... strange. I feel warm, but it’s not uncomfortable. The heat feels soothing. I am hungry, though.”

Fortunato watched them go off together, then went to the door and peered out through the spy hole. He quickly unlocked the door when he realized who was outside. The ace who called himself Creighton came in, accompanied by the enigmatic Mushroom Daddy.

“What happened?” Fortunato asked, then realized there no time for niceties. He read the story from Creighton’s mind. He glanced at Mushroom Daddy, who looked back innocently at him. Fortunato took one stab at his mind, but could not gain access to it. The man clearly was a mystery, a puzzle that would be interesting to solve, but Fortunato had no time for idle past-times. “All right,” he said. “I get it. Alejandro is out of our hands, for now, and there’s no time to retrieve the Trump, anyway. It’s no longer an alternative.”

“Right,” Jerry said.

Fortunato nodded. The only question was what to do now, and Fortunato had no answer for it.

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower, lobby

“Inside,” Ray shouted, and the Angel followed him unhesitatingly.

They went back into the lobby through the tall glass doors, the statues following them ponderously, like twenty-foot high golems.

“How is this possible?” Angel asked.

“It’s that frigging kid,” Ray said. “His power is animation. He can make inanimate objects obey his will. And apparently his will is for them to squash us.”

Glass shattered as the first statue hunkered down and smashed through the doors, showering shards all over the lobby’s interior. To her shame, the Angel was unsure which of the apostles this stature represented, so she thought of it as Peter. Even though it was a holy figure, she screamed an inarticulate battle cry and hurled herself at it, swinging her sword as hard as she could.

“Hamstring the bastard!” Ray shouted.

It was a good idea, but the Angel decided to aim even lower. The bastard couldn’t walk if it didn’t have any feet, she thought, and immediately wondered if Ray was being too great of an influence on her. Her sword skimmed the floor and chopped at Peter’s ankle. It clanged against stone, shivering in her hands. Her arms went numb almost up to her elbows, but she felt her blade bite deep. A sizeable chip flaked off Peter’s ankle, running up into his calf. The force of her blow caused the statue to sway like an oak in a storm. She suddenly wished that she had John Bruckner’s morningstars. With those she could reduce the statue to rubble in a matter of minutes.

One of the other statues, Call him John, the Angel thought, was crowding past Peter. John took a ponderous swipe at the Angel as Ray called out a warning. She ducked and the very tips of John’s fingers brushed against the back of her shoulders, hurling her backwards on the floor. She slid a dozen feet, broken glass scraping her leather jumpsuit, but it held.

Ray darted forward, grimacing in anger. He leaped at Peter, planting one foot on the statue’s injured leg, and swarmed up his chest like a monkey climbing a cliff. He rammed his shoulder under Peter’s chin and heaved. The ponderous sculpture tipped over backwards and fell hard to the lobby floor with all the grace of a drunken sailor.

The Angel levered herself to her feet and bounded after Ray. As Peter reached for Ray with his left hand, The Angel swung her sword and sheared through his wrist. His hand flew off and shattered on the lobby floor.

Ray kept going. He slid between John’s immense, widely-braced thighs. The statue bent forward slowly at the waist and tried to catch him as he went by. He missed and the back of his exposed neck presented a tempting target. The Angel braced herself and brought her sword down like a headsman’s ax. Her first blow bit deeply. Using all her strength, she yanked the blade free desperately, and wound up and swung again as the apostle turned his head and looked at her disapprovingly. She said an apologetic prayer under her breath as her second blow caught him in the side of the throat and John’s head sprang from his neck. Thank God, the Angel thought, that it’s not bleeding. She dodged around the statue’s blinding groping arms, following Ray whose slide took him against the legs the third statue. James, the Angel christened him.

Ray’s hands dragged on the floor, and a smear of blood followed him as glass shards sliced into his palms, but that was the least of his worries. James caught him in his marble hands, and lifted him high. He squeezed, and Ray screamed. Oh, God! the Angel thought.

The statue lifted Ray high over his head and the ace spasmed. The Angel thought that Ray was trying to jerk himself away from the giant’s crushing grip, but there was no way he could escape from the statue’s cruel hands.

But he wasn’t, the Angel suddenly realized, trying to pull himself free. He was throwing something. Something clear and sharp that he’d grabbed off the floor as he slid by.

A nine-inch long, razor sharp glass shard glimmered in the sun as it flew to its target and buried two thirds of itself in Alejandro’s stomach. The Allumbrado cried out and gripped it, cutting his palms deeply as he tried to pull it out of his gut, and failed. He looked at Ray with a stricken, unbelieving expression. The Angel saw their eyes meet for a moment, and then Alejandro slumped to the ground. The statue, holding Ray above his head like a fond father might playfully hold his infant son, kept leaning back, back, back, until it fell backwards against the steps leading into the lobby, shattering into several hundred chunks of rock.

Ray hit the ground behind it, rolled, and came to his feet. He twisted briefly, as if trying to put a sore back back into place, and the Angel could see the crazy grin on his face. “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” he said to Dagon and the Witness, who were standing ten feet away, and suddenly, like that, he was on them.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower

John Nighthawk stood before the door to Fortunato’s suite. Usher and Magda were pressed against the wall out of sight on one side of the door. Blood and his handler were on the other. He looked at Usher, nodded, and raised his hand to knock, when the thunderbolt of revelation struck him.

Danger was in that room. Danger for the entire world. Nighthawk saw fire consume everything. The land was blackened, the oceans boiled away. Even the very air was aflame. And the boy was the center of all, surrounded by flame but not devoured. Perhaps Contarini was right after all. Perhaps the boy was the Anti-Christ. The warning in Revelations regarding false prophets ran through his mind along with the images of all-devouring flame. He had to think about this, but now was not the time. His hand wavered, then came down on the door to Fortunato’s suite, knocking politely.

After a moment, it opened a crack. A small, neatly dressed man peered out. He cleared his throat. “Yes?” he asked.

“We’re here for the boy,” Nighthawk said.

“Boy?”

Nighthawk smiled. “John Fortune. There’s no sense standing behind the door. We can take it down in an instant, if we have to.”

The man seemed to think for a moment, then opened it all the way. “I’m Digger Downs,” he said as Nighthawk came in. “Reporter for Aces! You’re?”

“Anonymous,” Nighthawk said as he entered the suite.

Downs started to close the door, but Usher, followed by Magda and then Blood and his handler, pushed by. “Hey—“ Downs began, then fell silent when he saw the weapons Usher and Magda carried, and the look on Magda’s face. Nighthawk knew that Downs really wanted to say something when he caught sight of Blood, but he kept his mouth shut.

Nighthawk looked around the room. “Where’s the boy?” he asked.

“He was here—”

Nighthawk looked Downs in the eye. “It’s better you bring the boy out than we go looking for him.”

Magda jacked a round into her automatic shotgun for emphasis.

“Hey,” Downs said, “if it was up to me—ah, Fortunato.”

Nighthawk recognized him as he came out of one of the bedrooms. He was tall, thin, and light-skinned. Energy shimmered the air around him like heat waves in a desert. Blood, who had strange senses of his own, whimpered at the sight of him, and cowered behind his handler’s legs. If I drained him, Nighthawk thought, I could keep going for another century. At least.

“You can’t have him,” Fortunato said flatly. “Unless you go through me.”

Magda brought her shotgun up with a cry of pure rage. Fortunato glanced at her, and she froze, literally, in mid-scream, her mouth open, face contorted, shotgun almost leveled.

“Impressive,” Nighthawk said. “How many minds can you handle at once?”

Nighthawk nodded at Usher.

“Dad—it’s all right.” John Fortune came from the same bedroom Fortunato had. He looked a little disheveled, a little frightened, but basically all right. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me. I’ll go with them.”

Nighthawk smiled at him. “Good boy.”

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Peaceable Kingdom: The Angels’ Bower, courtyard

Ray knew that the only thing that kept him from immediately being blown to shit and back by the Allumbrado gunmen was the fact that they’d blow Witness and Butcher Dagon along with him. He decided to stay nice and close to them.

Ray got in one lick on Dagon before the British ace could transform, an open-handed slap that split his lip and knocked him on his ass. Dagon transformed as he lay on the ground glaring at Ray, but was too wary to attack immediately. He and Witness circled Ray carefully. Out of the corner of his eye Ray could also see the gunmen creeping up and around him, also trying to encircle him. He realized that if they got close enough to aim carefully, he’d be in trouble.

Something the size and general shape of a softball whizzed by and struck one of the gunmen between the shoulder blades, knocking him flat. He didn’t get up. Almost immediately another chunk of stone from the shattered statue struck a second gunman in the chest. Instead of rebounding, it stuck there, squishily