Gods of Manhattan (25 page)

America's Greatest Hero.

A few people figured that deserved a round of applause.

The sound rippled through the crowd, commuters and breakers, hot dog vendors and police, even the tourists, all of them stopping where they stood and putting their hands together for the man who'd saved them all. The sound built, echoing off the ceiling, bouncing from one pillar to another, escaping onto the platforms where the arriving passengers wondered what all the fuss was about.

Up on his perch in the high darkness, the Blood-Spider listened to it all and waited for his moment to fire.

Doc blinked, surprised and a little embarrassed despite himself. It wasn't the first time he'd been greeted like that, but every time was a shock. He smiled, raising a hand. "Thank you. Thank you all, very much. It means a lot." And it did.

Then his expression grew more serious. "But... I'm going to have to ask you to clear the concourse. I have reason to believe there's someone here who wants me dead, and he's not going to worry about collateral damage. If you could all clear the station in an orderly manner - thank you, that's great..."

The cheers and applause changed slowly to worried murmurs, as the crowd began to break at the edges, some moving onto the platforms, most filing out through the main exits. Within a few minutes, the concourse was completely empty.

"Alone at last," Doc smiled, seemingly to nobody in particular.

Above, the Blood-Spider waited. Did he have police outside? Had he come here alone? Was it too late to get out without being seen? So many variables. He was safe up in the darkness, he knew. So long as he remained hidden, he had a choice.

"The newspaper announcement just didn't ring true, I'm afraid. Last time I saw 'my friend in the red mask', I smashed his face in with my forehead, although that was after he'd threatened to stab me through the eye. Not too friendly, really. Oh, and
sustantivo...
that's not the Spanish for thunder." Doc smiled. "It actually means 'noun'. I take it you used a dictionary for that one?" He paused for a moment, listening. "Not telling? Well, if it is you, my 'friend' in the mask, I'll apologise and accept the title of 'Mister Noun' without a murmur. Just step out and let me get a good look at you."

He turned, looking up at the ceiling. For a moment, the Blood-Spider froze. Thunder was looking right at him - no, he couldn't be. The shadows up here were pitch black. Just stay still...

"No? Well, I suppose there's only one other person it can be, then. I don't think we've actually met, but I've been following your career with interest. A good friend of mine - Easton West? - was hoping I'd find you eventually. You killed a young gang member in Japantown a few days ago, I don't know if you remember..." An edge crept into his voice. "You kill so many."

The Blood-Spider narrowed his eyes, behind his strange mask with its eight glittering lenses. Below him, Thunder reached into his pocket, taking out a small business card. He read the inscription slowly:

Where all inhuman

Devils revel in their sins -

The Blood-Spider spins!

"That's very good. That's a haiku, isn't it? I'm sure Hisoka's family appreciated that little touch of home." He slipped the card back in his pocket. "His name was Hisoka. The boy you murdered. Inspector West wanted you to know his name."

Up in the thick darkness above, the Blood-Spider's hand was shaking.
He knows.
His finger was sweaty inside the black glove.
He knows. Fire. Kill him.

Why couldn't he fire?

"I ran into him at the hospital, actually - while I was looking in on Monk. He's still not out of his coma. Still, it could have been a lot worse. If I hadn't got there in time..." He shook his head. "A close-run thing. Anyway, the Inspector told me that the bullets they dug out of his body matched the ones they dug out of Hisoka. Same calibre, same manufacturer... and guns leave marks. Every gun leaves its own personal signature on the bullets it fires. So it strikes me that you might want to use a different gun for pleasure than the one you use for business..."

The Blood-Spider's hands shook.
Fire! Kill him!

He knows!

He tried to will himself to pull the trigger, but his finger wouldn't move.
Every gun leaves a signature.
But not on inexorium, surely? But what if it did? And the calibre would be the same... It would be the end of the Blood-Spider for all time. Could he risk that?

Could he still get away?

Outside, Marlene drummed her fingers impatiently on the wheel. She'd seen the crowds coming from the station. Something was happening there, something that wasn't included in the plan. She frowned, worrying her lip. More than ever, it was vital the Spider had a quick getaway from whatever he intended to do in there.

She had a nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong.

She wished she had a way of signalling him. He needed to know about the masked man. What had he been doing there, any -

- her eyes were suddenly drawn to the dials.

There was an array of dials on the dashboard; temperature of the internal furnace, water pressure for the hydraulics, steam pressure, and of course the speedometer. They were all over the place. The temperature of the internal furnace was way over normal, water pressure was at zero. And the pressure of the steam on the internal turbines was getting very-

- there was a grinding noise, and she felt the whirr of the turbines stop. Her heart froze in her chest. The Silver Ghost never stalled. Other autos stalled, all the time, but the Silver Ghost was special. The maze of fine hydraulic tubes underneath the car meant that there was always...

Oh God!

Heart thundering, she opened the driver's side door and stepped out - and the high heels of her black pumps splashed into a huge puddle of water, spreading slowly out from underneath the car. Wincing, she got down on her hands and knees, her cap tumbling off her head and splashing into the growing pool as she peered underneath the machine.

The Silver Ghost was armoured so well that a machine-gun couldn't scratch it.

But only from the top. Underneath, it seemed, it was very vulnerable indeed.

Before he even made himself known to her, the masked man had crawled under her auto, without being seen, and used that sword to disconnect every pipe he could find. Since then, all the water had been draining out of the machine, until now there was nothing left for steam. And without steam, the auto wouldn't move a single inch.

The Silver Ghost was dead.

"There's one thing that puzzled me. I'm assuming you investigated Donner's murder at the same time Monk did, and he ran into you. But Monk Olsen... well, he's a celebrity in this town. Moreover, he's unique. There's literally no mistaking him for anyone else." Doc frowned.

"Now, the bullet in the kneecap... I can put that down to shock. Maybe the first one in the lung. Even the one that glanced off his skull. I'm a reasonable man." Slowly, he lay his fist in his hand, cracking one massive knuckle. It sounded like a gunshot.

"But."

Another knuckle. Another gunshot.

"He was down. He was no threat. You knew who he was. And then you fired a bullet into his gut - that's a slow death - and then another into his chest. Why? The thrill of the kill? Simple sadism? Just not thinking straight? Or is it something else?"

And another.

"Something occurred to me, a moment ago."

The Blood-Spider kept his gun trained on Doc Thunder's head.
He can't see me. I can still get away. Or...
His hand was shaking so badly he didn't even know if he'd hit his target if he fired. What was the matter with him? Why couldn't he just fire?

"You see, once I knew it was you who tried to kill Monk, I took a look at your other killings. And there's something rather strange about them."

The Blood-Spider felt a chill rush through him.
Does he know?

Doc smiled, humourlessly, his footsteps echoing on the tiled floor of the station, walking slowly around like a teacher in the world's largest classroom.

"There's not a single white, straight person among them. Well, apart from Anton Venger - you were the one who shot Anton Venger, weren't you? - and I'm not even one hundred per cent sure about him. I'm fairly sure he and Lomax were more than just colleagues. But anyway, everyone else you've killed has been... well, there's no other way to say it, is there?"

Doc's smile vanished.

"Non-Aryan."

He turned, looking up into the shadows. "And as I said, something occurred to me. The last piece of the puzzle. The crowd, giving me that little ovation. I'm going to put false modesty aside for a moment here and admit that, yes, I am loved. Perhaps not by everybody, but the people of this city do seem to hold me in very high regard. An outsider - someone who studied at this city without actually living here - would probably say it's because I fight crime. Now, did you see what happened when I asked them to clear the station? Grand Central Station, nine o' clock at night - cleared. No complaints. Not a murmur. Even the police went without a word. In fact, nobody else has come in here, so I'd go as far as to suggest they're outside right now, making themselves useful and spreading the word that I've put the main concourse of Grand Central Station off-limits."

He smiled. "It's a good thing I don't let power go to my head, isn't it?"

The smile vanished, and he turned on his heel, wandering into the dead centre of the concourse.

He's daring me to shoot,
thought the Spider.
To give away my position. Why don't I shoot?
He cursed, silently.
I could drop him like a stone from this position! He'd never even hear the bullet!
But he continued to wait, fingers slick with sweat inside his gloves, trying to control the trembling of his hands. He had to be sure. Absolutely sure. Doc Thunder had just demonstrated that he was, to all intents and purposed, the King of New York City.

And if you shoot at a king, you have to kill him.

"Now!" Doc shouted, turning around again, as if lecturing an invisible audience, "Let's say I walked in here with a big bomb and yelled 'clear the station or I destroy us all'! Complete chaos! Mass panic! Oh, it'd clear the station, probably, after a shoot-out with the cops. But it's such a messy way to achieve my goals." He shrugged. "Or to put it another way; President Bartlet refuses to negotiate with terrorists. But I've got his direct line. At the end of the day, you get more by being loved than by being feared."

"Which brings us to Untergang."

All of a sudden, the Blood-Spider's hand stopped trembling.

"We've stopped hearing from them. Not because I finally beat them, the way I did N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E... they just went away. Vanished into the ether. Right about the time you turned up, in fact. Which makes me wonder... what if there's a new leader of Untergang? What if that leader wanted to try a new tactic? Rebranding the organisation. Making them loved rather than feared. Having them fight crime, or the right kind of crime, at least. What if the Führer agreed to a trial of this new strategy? What if the new leader of Untergang created a persona designed to appeal to the worst in people, to bring the citizens of New York around to his cause, his war on crime, which would, of course, then become a war against 'urban crime'. Or some other little euphemism." Doc smiled. "'Inhuman', for example. Sounds a lot more relatable than
sub
human, doesn't it? Comes to the same thing, though. Anyway, what if there
is
a new leader of Untergang, masquerading as a faceless, fearless crime-killer in order to sway public opinion towards fascism?

"And what if it's you?"

He knows.

The Blood-Spider raised his gun. Suddenly he was completely calm. There were no more choices now, no more chances.
He knows. One bullet, that's all it will take. He has to go.

Doc Thunder must die.

And then Doc Thunder turned around and looked him right in the face.

"People get so worked up about the bulletproof skin and the bending steel that they always forget about my eyes. I can read small print from a hundred feet away. And I can see in the dark." He smiled, and cracked another knuckle.

"Hello, Blood-Spider."

Then he cocked his head, suddenly puzzled. "Wait. You know I'm -"

Under his mask, the Blood-Spider smiled -

- aimed his gun full of magic bullets straight at Doc's heart -

- and fired.

Chapter Fourteen

Doc Thunder Must Die

Doc had spotted the Blood-Spider as soon as he'd walked into the station.

He figured he'd get rid of the civilians before making his move, so the Spider couldn't use them against him. That was when he'd had the revelation about the Blood-Spider's true identity. He was so busy connecting those dots in his mind, he failed to ask the obvious question.

Namely, if nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate Doc Thunder's skin...