Gods of Manhattan (30 page)

Lomax watched him go, and then turned back to Doc, squirming underneath the sole of his foot. "Looks like you just can't get the help these days. So, Thunder, who's coming to save you next? Maya? I'd hate to burst her head like a melon, but I can't have her beat me at chess again. Monk Olsen? Oh, wait, he's in that coma, my bad. I'll drop by the hospital later for some intensive chiropractics, fold him into an origami bird or something, how's that? Who does that leave... your cook? Easton West, everybody's favourite tough cop? The man rides a bike and smokes, sometimes both at once! I'm shaking - ooh, wait! Jack Scorpio, agent of S.T.E.A.M.! God, I've wanted to take care of that old blowhard for
years!"

From behind, there was the thunder of hooves; a policeman on horseback, alerted by the commotion. At the sight of what Lomax had become, he drew his .38 and opened fire, to no avail. The bullets bounced harmlessly off Lomax's back as if they were raindrops. Snarling, the monstrosity turned around, reaching out and grabbing hold of the horse's neck. Then - with the terrible crack of fracturing vertebrae - he swung the beast upwards, killing it instantly and sending the rider tumbling off its back and onto the glass-covered tarmac. Laughing monstrously, Lomax swung the dead beast around his head, then brought it down, using it like a bludgeon on the stunned policeman. Horse and rider smashed together, the creature bursting open, sending a tide of blood and horse-offal spilling out into the road. The cop, crushed and suffocated beneath the weight of his own dead animal, managed to stay conscious for a few moments before surrendering to oblivion.

Doc felt the pressure of Lomax's foot ease for a micro-second as he swung the beast through the air, and he took his chance, Pressing his flat palms against the concrete of the sidewalk with all his strength, he managed to lift himself up just enough to squirm out from underneath, rolling clear before the man-monster could grab hold of him again.

"I don't need anybody else to fight my battles, Lomax," he muttered as he staggered to his feet, a stream of blood coursing from a broken nose. "I don't care what you've done to yourself. You've committed too many crimes to be allowed to walk free." His eyes narrowed. "It ends here."

Lomax raised one massive, shaggy eyebrow, then looked at the horse, still shuddering in its final convulsions, the policeman having already gone still. "Cruelty to animals. That always was one of your buttons." He chuckled, raising his fists, the spurs of bone at his knuckles jutting out toward Thunder like stone-age knives. "You realise no prison on the planet is going to hold me now, don't you? I mean, I was hard enough to keep locked away before. But now, they couldn't even keep me in custody for an hour. Not for a minute, not a
second!"
His brutal, inhuman laugh roared out under the night sky. "So are you going to kill me this time? Is the great Doc Thunder, the man who wants to save everybody in the whole wide world, going to get his hands a little bloody?"

Doc looked Lomax right in his eye, the blue piercing gaze duelling with eyes more at home in hell. "If I have to. I'm not proud of it, and I'm not happy about it, and if there's a way to contain and cure you, I'm going to find it. But a lot of people have died because of you and me, because I always underestimate just how wrong you are in that head of yours. And I can't stomach any more."

Lomax stared back at him. "It was a trick question, dummy. You're not going to kill me, and it's not because of any principles or moral imperatives or compassion or any of your usual high-minded bullcrap. It's because you physically can't do it. You
can't
kill me." He grinned, showing his teeth. "But I can kill you. And I'm going to make it
slow."

Then he charged.

Sword raised, El Sombra crept into the tiny cell that had, for almost three years, been the home of the man calling himself Timothy Larson. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. The place stank.

It stank of the noxious chemicals that had spilled from the dozens of ruined beakers and shattered test tubes that lay among the debris of the furniture. It stank of the fresh piss of the man who still sat trembling in one corner. It stank of the sweat that clung to the never-changed sheets on the filthy mattress. It stank faintly of opium, smoked late at night, half to keep up the illusion and half to alleviate the boredom that came with waiting endlessly for a chance that never came.

And underneath it all, it stank of madness.

El Sombra knew what it was to hate, to hate so hard and so long that you knew nothing else, to hate so strongly that it crossed that line into something beyond reason. He knew what it was to try to bring a government to its knees, to plan the end of a nation at the hands of a single man. He recognised something in Lars Lomax, some twisted reflection of his own feelings. If Doc Thunder had been a child of the Ultimate Reich - and El Sombra had an idea of how close Thunder had come to being just that - El Sombra would never have rested until he was dead, no matter what it took. He wondered what had happened to Lomax to make him what he was. Was it similar to that apocalyptic day of fire and nightmare and eternal shame that had created him? One massive explosion that had fractured his personality for good? Or had it been a constant drip, drip, drip of a thousand tiny incidents, eroding the rock of his sanity until finally it wore down to nothing?

El Sombra shook his head. It didn't matter. Perhaps Lomax had spared his life through some recognition of their similarities, but El Sombra wasn't about to make the same mistake. El Sombra had never deliberately killed anyone who wasn't a Nazi before, but there were exceptions to every rule. And speaking of which-

Crane made a whimpering sound in the depths of his throat as the masked man turned to face him. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he clutched his legs, rocking gently in place. "Please." He sniffed, shaking his head. "Please don't let him find me."

El Sombra raised an eyebrow. "I guess you saw him turn into that thing, hey? One minute he's that skinny guy with the beard, and then he turns into that giant
diablo
monster... right before your eyes..." Crane shook his head, screwing his eyes tight shut and gritting his teeth. A low moan of torment came from between them. El Sombra sighed. "You were already pretty crazy, getting crazier, but now... you're gone, aren't you, amigo? Gone for good."

He lifted his sword, resting the blade in his palm for a moment, considering. Crane only stared, weeping and making his soft, mad noises. El Sombra sighed, shaking his head. "You know, I don't know if I can kill a guy who's already dead. Even if he is one of the bastards."

He lowered his sword, looking around the wrecked laboratory, eyes narrowing. "Hey, you got any glue here?"

Lomax charged, barrelling towards Doc Thunder like a freight train. Doc stood his ground, eyes narrowed. He knew a punch from Lomax's fists could take a normal man's head right off at the neck - what it would do to him, he didn't know, but it wasn't likely to be anything good.

He was used to using his strength, and that wouldn't work here. For one thing, he was too used to holding back, to measuring and rationing his great power for fear of turning every fight into a bloody execution. For another, even if he did manage to overcome his phobia of his own power and attack with all of it, would it actually work? Could he actually put Lomax down for good? Could he even injure him? What if he swung with all his strength and only succeeded in making him angry?

No, strength wasn't going to be the answer on its own. Doc had one advantage as far as he could see. Lomax was so enamoured of his new physical power, that he'd forgotten where he'd got it from. He'd forgotten that the greatest weapon in his arsenal had always been his mind.

It wasn't possible to out-punch him. But it was possible - more possible now than it had ever been before - to out-
think
him.

Doc waited. He waited until the last possible moment, when Lomax was almost on top of him, when he was swinging those bony knuckles back, his teeth already bared in a grin of sheer, animal triumph.

Then he threw himself flat on the floor.

Lomax's feet slammed into Thunder's prone body, sending him flying forward, unable to correct himself. The man-monster slammed hard into the tarmac, his face grinding up big chunks of roadway and gravel, leaving a trench behind him.

Doc rolled to his feet. Hitting Lomax wasn't going to work. He could kick him in the head with enough force to flatten a wrecking ball into a metal pancake, and all it was likely to do was break his foot. He could aim a cobra strike directly to the man's testes hard enough to create an imprint of them in what was left of the concrete and the absolute best it would do would be to make him angry. He was under no illusions about his ability to play Lars Lomax at his own game.

But Lomax was too overconfident in his new body. Just because he was stronger and more resilient, he assumed there was no way for Doc Thunder to defeat him in a fight. Just as in their previous battles, he'd assumed that he would win because he was smarter and had fewer morals. Doc Thunder almost smiled. As always, Lomax's complex, intricate, almost Rube Goldbergian plots fell down because he'd missed something simple. Something as simple as the weak plaster in a Parisian ceiling.

As simple as a wrestling hold.

Doc didn't know that much in the way of judo - an omission he was cursing himself for - but he knew some basics, and had to hope that Lomax, who'd rarely if ever fought hand to hand before now, knew even less. Quickly, he grabbed hold of Lomax's wrists, forcing them up behind his back in a double nelson before he could lock his arms, while at the same time pinning Lomax's legs at the backs of the knees with his own. Lomax struggled, but so long as Doc could keep a tight hold on him, he could keep him in this position for quite some time. The next step would be to put him down for good.

Another policeman would be on the scene soon, carrying a .38, or maybe even a shotgun. At which point, Doc would instruct him to shoot Lomax through the eye at point blank range, maybe more than once. At the very least, that would cause a massive brain hemorrhage. He wasn't happy about the necessity, but he was out of options, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Lomax would heal from even that injury in time.

He had a sneaking suspicion that Lars Lomax would never die. But if he could only hold him a little longer-

- suddenly, Lomax relaxed.

"Oh, why fight it? When you've gotta go, you've gotta go. You win again, Thunder. I'll go quietly to my cell, like a good little felon. I'll rehabilitate. I'll prop up the status quo for you. I'll be a hero too and have a shirt just like yours! Yes sirree, you've shown me the error of my ways!"

He was laughing. Doc frowned, keeping his grip tight. He couldn't let himself be suckered now.

Why was he laughing?

And then the tail wrapped around his throat and squeezed.

"
Psyche!"
Lomax bellowed, and suddenly Doc realised that this time he was the one who'd forgotten the simple thing. The tail. It wasn't an affectation, it was something Lomax had designed into the serum because he saw exactly this scenario coming. And now he was choking Doc to death with it, and the only way out was -

- let go of one of Lomax's wrists.

Doc tore at the clutching tail with one hand, and that one hand was the undoing of him. Lomax grabbed hold of a fistful of tarmac, tearing it right up from the road and slamming it with all his strength into the side of Doc's head, knocking him sideways. Then Lomax was back up on his feet as though nothing had happened, moving straight into a kick at Thunder's belly that sent him up like a football, followed by a two-handed blow to the rising body that knocked him right back down and made another crater in the ruined road.

It had all happened so fast that Doc Thunder barely even knew where he was. He reached up and touched his mouth, and the finger came away bloody.
Dear God,
thought Doc,
he's actually hurting me. He's strong enough to take me apart with his bare hands.

I'm going to die.

And in that moment, he was glad that El Sombra had run away.

Crane had been no help. All he did was whine and moan and occasionally scratch his face and neck, drawing blood. El Sombra didn't know what the final straw had been, but any sanity he'd once had was long gone now.

Fortunately, El Sombra had found what he was looking for. A tube of fast-acting rubber cement, left by the sink after some long-forgotten bit of mending. Carefully, El Sombra spread the cement over the very tip of the sword, then took the thing he'd been saving in his pocket and attached it, holding it in place for long minutes until he was sure the cement had set.

"Don't let him in here." murmured Crane, his eyes wide.

"Shhhh. I won't let him in," smiled El Sombra in response, trying to be reassuring. "You'll never have to face him again. I promise. It's okay, amigo. It's okay."

It was strange. He knew he should feel hate for Parker Crane, or whatever his real name had once been. It was Djego's job to bear things like pity and doubt, to feel sorrow and shame. That was Djego's role in their team of one. El Sombra was there to take never-ending revenge and to laugh and to never look back. But to know that his murder of Heinrich Donner - his righteous kill - had resulted in so much harm coming to so many... and now to see the leader of Untergang, the man he'd come to New York to kill, just an empty, broken madman, a shell of a person...