Wild Cards: Death Draws Five (18 page)

The purported Anti-Christ now occupied a cell in the oubliette, probably next to Cameo, under close guard. Security was at an unprecedented peak. The old asylum hadn’t been as tightly locked down since ‘57 when an ace-powered psychopath had escaped the oubliette and slaughtered thirty-seven patients in the dormitory before being over-powered by a mysterious patient from the second floor who’d been catatonic for almost a decade before suddenly waking and stopping the carnage by seemingly draining the psychopath’s mind. The cryptic ace/patient had then escaped St. Dympna’s in a manner unknown to the rumormongers who delighted in telling such horror stories about the history of the old sanitarium.

Nighthawk could well imagine the torments a sensitive like Cameo was suffering while being locked in a cell that had housed generations of drooling psychotics, but there was nothing he could do except bed down in his tiny room on the third floor, wait awhile, and hope that something would break for the better in the coming hours.

He needed the rest, anyway. He wasn’t as young as he once was, though he was younger than he used to be.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Las Vegas: The Mirage

It was late afternoon by the time Ray and Angel got back to Vegas and had dinner at an all you can eat buffet. At first he tried to keep up with her, plate for plate, but gave it up after the fourth helping. She could eat like a bastard. It was a good thing, he thought, that she was so frigging active, otherwise she’d look like a balloon.

After dinner they’d gone down to the police station and tried to get an interview with Dagon, but the local donut chokers went coy on them. They wanted an order from Ray’s superior, and since Ray didn’t particularly want them to know who his current superior actually was, they left the station saying they’d come back. But they didn’t.

They didn’t know where the kid would be for at least a day, so the only constructive thing Ray could think of was to try to get Angel into the sack, but it would have been easier to break into maximum security to interview Dagon.

Ray lay in his bed in the Mirage alone, trying hard not to think of Angel on the other side of the connecting door. It had been a long, not very productive couple of days. Sure, he’d gotten to kick some ass, but those frigging Allumbrados had managed to get away with the kid, Peregrine was laying in a hospital somewhere with tubes stuck into her arms, and as yet he hadn’t even managed to get a chuckle out of Angel, let alone a civil word.

That Witness, though...

Ray added his name to the list of jerks whose ass he’d like to kick. He didn’t like the way Angel had looked at him when they’d first come face to face. He especially didn’t like the way the pretty boy had treated her. It’s one thing to best someone in combat. It’s another thing to humiliate them. Ray hated bullies, and it was clear that this Witness was one.

But maybe Angel had learned a lesson. She’d done okay after initially putting herself in a hole by letting the Witness get the upper hand. Ray had thought about stepping in to even things up a bit, but he knew how he’d feel if someone had done that to him. It wouldn’t have made him happy.

And speaking of being not happy, Ray thought. He leaned over to the phone, suppressing a groan as his still unknit ribs scraped against each other, and got an outside line. He dialed a number he knew well, and it was picked up on the second ring.

“President Leo Barnett’s office.”

“Alejandro?” Ray asked. Of course it was the kid. Who else would answer in that irritatingly perky manner? “Gimme Barnett.”

There was a brief silence. “Uh, sorry, mis—uh, Billy. No can do. He’s in closed conference with Sally Lou.”

Ray was about to ask, At this time of night? but instead grinned sourly at the phone. “Is that what they’re calling it now?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Ray said. “Listen, you been following events here?”

“Yes, sir,” the kid said. “President Barnett’s not real happy.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve smiled more in my life,” Ray said. “What’s the latest news?”

“There’s not much in the way of recent developments. It’s not general knowledge, but we found out that Peregrine’s husband had her flown out of Vegas on a medivac Lear, back to New York. Thought they could do a better job for her at the Jokertown Clinic than in the Vegas hospital. John Fortune’s still missing. So’s his bodyguard.”

“His bodyguard’s a shapeshifter,” Ray informed the kid. At least, it seemed likely from the info he’d gleaned from Osiris’s tale. “So I figure he impersonated Butcher Dagon—who’s in a Vegas lockup —and took off with the kid.” Ray frowned into the phone. He had to keep his kids straight.

“Well, that’s something,” his kid said. “What happened to Dagon?”

“I kicked his hairy ass,” Ray said. “Angel helped,” he added, to be fair.

“Boy, she’s something,” the kid said.

“You got that. Listen. Tell Barnett that me and Angel are taking the first flight tomorrow morning to Tomlin.”

“How come?” the kid asked.

“We have a line on Fortune,” Ray said. “Something that weird old fart Osiris told me. He’s not sure where Fortune is right now. He thinks he may be in New York City—which at least narrows it down a little. But soon the kid—Fortune, that is, is gonna show up in some summer camp in a whistle-stop called New Hampton, just north of the city. Angel and I will be there to meet him.”

“Okay,” the kid said. “You got it, Billy. Gee, I wish I could be with you and the Angel doing something useful instead of sitting around here in the office while President Barnett takes meetings.”

Ray shook his head. “No you don’t, kid,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. Besides, I’m not really sure we could use your talents. Yet.”

“Ah, it’ll all work out fine, Billy. You’ll see.”

“Yeah.”

“But you and the Angel be careful, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Say Hello to the Angel for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good ni—”

“Good night, kid,” Ray said, and hung up. He still had things to do, and he didn’t want to spend twenty minutes getting off the phone. He called the airport and got reservations for two on the first plane in the morning headed east. It was an early flight which didn’t leave much time for sleep. He sighed, called the desk for a five o’clock wake up call for him and Angel both, and settled back down on the bed. He wasted most of the night thinking about Angel in the room next to his, while his body went about the business of repairing itself, muscle, bone, sinew, and nerve.

It was quite used to that, by now.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New York City: St Dympna’s Home for the Mentally Deficient and Criminally Inclined

It was still some hours before dawn when Nighthawk heard a soft knock on his door. Years of strenuous living had taught him how to awake instantly and fully.

“Yes,” he said, sitting up in bed.

“Phone call for you, Mr. Nighthawk,” a respectful voice said softly.

“I’ll be right with you.”

He was wearing his shorts and tee shirt in lieu of pajamas, so he took a moment to put on pants, shirt, shoes, and jacket and run a brush through his hair. Nighthawk always figured that since he could meet his end at any second, he should always be well dressed when he went out in public. If he was going to end up in Hell, he certainly wanted to look his best. And if he was going to Heaven, he was sure it would be expected. When he opened the door to the corridor an unfamiliar face awaited. Nighthawk figured that he was a recently recruited credenti. The new recruits always got stuck with the jobs nobody else wanted, like nighttime security.

“Yes?” Nighthawk asked.

“It’s Usher. He’s calling from the Waldorf and wants to talk to a perfecti.”

“All right.” He followed the credenti to the office where a couple of Allumbrados were hanging out, supposedly guarding the building but, Nighthawk suspected, actually bullshitting and eating donuts. At least, the open, mostly empty donut boxes and half-filled coffee cups near every hand led him to suspect that that was the case. The three of them, including the message boy they’d sent to get Nighthawk, watched with interest as he took a seat behind the old-fashioned desk.

“Usher,” Nighthawk said into the telephone.

“John,” the big man said with surprise. “Good thing you’re still there.”

“I didn’t feel like coming back into the city after getting Cameo settled.”

“Yeah.” Since Usher and Magda were acting as Contarini’s private bodyguards, they’d returned to the Waldorf right away after escorting Cameo and Nighthawk through Dympna’s wrought iron gates. “Listen. We may have a problem.”

“What else is new,” Nighthawk said, sorting through the leftover donuts on the desk stop. “Ah. Raspberry filled.” He took a bite and chewed softly.

“No time for snacks,” Usher said. “We’ve discovered that Butcher Dagon apparently isn’t really Butcher Dagon.”

“Really?” Nighthawk said. He looked pointedly at the coffee cup that one of the credenti held until the recruit scrambled to his feet and got Nighthawk one for himself.

“Who is he, then?”

“We’re not sure,” Usher said. “It seems the real article is in a Vegas jail cell.”

“Interesting,” Nighthawk said. “I’d better check it out.”

“We can be there in half an hour.”

“You’d better. I don’t have much confidence in the local talent.”

Suddenly the three credenti were looking everywhere in the room but at Nighthawk.

“Okay, John. We’re on the way.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and Magda and the Witness.”

“Which one?”

“The big one.”

“All right,” Nighthawk said. He hung up the phone and stared thoughtfully into space for a moment while he finished his coffee and donut. The Bigger Asshole. He’d better, he decided, move fast.

“What is it?” one of the credenti asked. Nighthawk looked at him steadily until he added, “Sir?”

“Possible security breach,” Nighthawk said, rising from behind the desk.

“Want us to come with you, sir?”

Nighthawk shook his head. If they saw what he was planning to do, he’d have to kill them all, and Nighthawk just wasn’t that bloodthirsty.

“No. Give me the keys to the infirmary.” One of them took a ring of keys off his belt and handed the proper one to Nighthawk, who nodded his thanks and crossed the room in his soft, measured tread. He stopped at the door and added, “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, come after me.” He thought twenty minutes should give him plenty of time, if things went well. If they didn’t... it probably wouldn’t matter. “In the meantime, finish your donuts.”

He closed the office door softly behind him and went down the corridor lit dimly by infrequent night lights. It’s just like the Cardinal, Nighthawk thought, to be stingy with the electricity. You’d think he was paying the bills personally.

The infirmary was a three-room suite with an entrance off the corridor. The key fit the outer door, but, surprisingly, Nighthawk discovered that it was already unlocked. He opened it quietly and slipped into the reception area, which was dark and silent. A closed supply room was attached to the reception area. The infirmary itself, where the sick or injured were bedded, opened off the reception room, and by order was also locked at night when there was no nurse or doctor in attendance. Contarini had a loyal medical staff on call, but they only spent the night if a patient was in danger. In this case, Nighthawk understood that they’d transported a badly wounded credenti to a friendly hospital where there’d be no questions about how he’d gotten hurt.

Nighthawk stopped before the infirmary door. It was ajar. He listened intently, but heard only random rustling movements of sleeping men. Moving as quietly as approaching death, he took the glove off his left hand and then slowly opened the door wide enough for him to look inside. There were four beds. Three were occupied by injured men, now sleeping, none of whom looked like Butcher Dagon. The fourth, with disturbed bedclothes, was empty. Nighthawk glanced at the inside of the door, and frowned. A smear of blood on the lockplate was still dripping sluggishly to the floor. He touched the stain gingerly, then rubbed his fingertips together. The blood was still relatively fresh.

He checked the outer door and discovered that it too had a bloodied lockplate.

“Curious,” Nighthawk said quietly to himself, wiping the blood on his fingers on a tissue he took from the box on the reception desk.

He moved like a ghost into the dimly-lit corridor, swiftly and silently, and went down the stairway that led to the floors below.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

New York City: Jokertown

It must have been a tough day at the monastery, Fortunato thought as he awoke and tried to sit up. I hurt all over. He paused, frowning. And my tatami smells like someone’s pissed on it.

He opened his eyes suddenly remembering a fist the size of a small boulder crashing into the back of his head. He sat up, groaning, and looked around. He was no longer in the alley. It was dark and he couldn’t tell exactly where he was, but it didn’t look good and it smelled worse.