High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel

  And as she thought of it, the ground in front of her opened. Ana. That bitch. But she didn’t see Earth Witch. Rotting things began crawling out of the hole. They were covered in the festering syrup of the charnel pit. The stench made her gag. Around her the jungle began closing in. Pushing her closer to the pit.

  Across the pit, she saw Mummy.

  “I just killed you!” she screamed. “I’ve killed you twice!”

  Michelle held her hands, palms up, in front of her. A barrage of lemon-sized bubbles flowed from them. They hit and blew chunks of Mummy into the air. It didn’t matter. The chunks reassembled and she grew larger.

  “No,” Michelle moaned. Terror surged through her. “No, you’re dead.”

  Mummy began walking toward her. The creatures crawling from the pit stopped crawling out, allowing her to walk over them. They lifted their slimy tentacles and she stepped across them, moving inexorably toward Michelle.

  Run, Michelle thought. Run.

  Jayewardene had messaged her that morning. Need you. Great Hall ASAP. Barbara grabbed Ink and took the elevator from their offices down to the main floors.

  Jayewardene motioned to Barbara from the podium stage where he sat in the main hall. She could hear the representative from Uzbekistan declaiming in Russian from the lectern set below the podium. “… great state of Uzbekistan and our neighbor in Kyrgyzstan have little choice. If Kazakhstan cannot control this threat, we must deal with it ourselves before it reaches our border. Surely the member nations and the Security Council can understand this…”

  “Stay here,” Barbara told Ink, then slid past the guard at the foot of the steps and climbed up until she stood behind Jayewardene. She could see the curved rows of representatives and their staff, rising in tiers before her—most of the seats filled, which she gathered was unusual. She crouched down next to him; from his headphone, she could hear the whisper of the translator’s voice. “After him, Kyrgyzstan is speaking. They’re both saying the same thing: if the infection is centered in the city of Talas, then Talas must be destroyed. They’re making the case for taking action.”

  “We can’t let that happen. If what Baba Yaga has said is true, that would allow the door to swing open entirely.”

  “I agree. But the mood is in their favor. They intend to ask for a resolution to be allowed to protect their borders.”

  “You’d let them bomb Talas?”

  “It’s not something I can allow or disallow, Ms. Baden; it’s that I think they will have the votes. Russia will vote in favor, and will drag all their allies to vote with them. Everyone is watching the chaos spreading and worrying about how far it will go. If Kazakhstan’s next-door neighbors are willing to be the first to act, they won’t condemn them for trying. Even the United States and its allies might feel the same way.” Jayewardene stared at her blandly. “Russia will call for a vote, if no one else. Probably soon. Unless I have reason to delay the vote.” He continued to look at her.

  She nodded and rose, walking back down toward Ink. Jayewardene turned back to the papers before him as the representative from Uzbekistan continued to rail and argue his case. “Well?” Ink asked her.

  “I have just one thing to say, then we’ll go back to our office,” Barbara said. “And that’s this: Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!” With that, she released her wild card power, letting it spread over the entire hall.

  For a moment, nothing happened. The Uzbekistan representative was still talking, but now the words echoing through the chamber were nonsense: “Ghar thurka jallaci indum…” he intoned, then closed his mouth, looking puzzled. “Harek ilkad?” he said. Around the hall, representatives were tapping at their earphones, or taking them off to speak to the people around them. The uproar started softly, then grew into a roar. People were standing around the hall, gesticulating and shouting, as if sheer volume could accomplish understanding. At the podium, Jayewardene was hammering his gavel, the sound reverberating. Representatives began to leave the hall, still shouting nonsense.

  There was nothing but chaos in front of Barbara. “I think it’s time for us to go now,” Barbara said to Ink, who was staring at the confusion with wide eyes.

  “Bababadal—what, Mizz B?” Ink asked Barbara as they left the UN hall through one of the back exits. The sound of shouted gibberish still echoed in the hallways. “God, that makes me sound like them,” she added.

  “Finnigan’s Wake,” Barbara answered. “It’s supposed to be the word God thundered out after the Fall of Man. At least that’s what my English professor back in Tel Aviv claimed. It seemed apropos, somehow.”

  “And you memorized it?”

  “It was college. You wouldn’t believe how many drinks I cadged being able to recite that.”

  Ink nodded. “I guess,” she said. She inclined her head toward the continuing clamor. “Will that help, you think?”

  “It’ll give us some hours at least, and gives Jayewardene an excuse to be slow reconvening the session. Maybe he can even hold them off until tomorrow. In the meantime, we can decide what we have to do.”

  “You’ll get Klaus and the others back, Mizz B,” Ink said. “I know you will.”

  Barbara managed a weary smile at that. “Thanks. I hope you’re right. Let’s get back to the office. We have a lot of work to do. I need you to get on the phone to the White House…”

  The leaves of the shrubs and trees smacked her in the face. Creepers grabbed at her feet and tripped her. It didn’t matter. Michelle kept going. Every time she looked back, she could see Mummy behind her.

  Occasionally, she’d let a bubble fly, but all it did was blow off a chunk of Mummy, which was then reabsorbed and made her larger. After a couple of futile bubbles, Michelle gave up and ran as fast as she could now that she’d lost a chunk of her weight. She was still fat, though.

  Sweat, dank and smelling of fear, rolled off her. Her thighs chafed as she ran. Fuck, she thought, hating her fat for the first time. It was slowing her down.

  She stopped abruptly and turned. This time she didn’t aim at Mummy, but at the jungle floor in front of Mummy. Michelle blew up a chunk of earth, making a huge hole. Mummy didn’t have time to stop, and she tumbled into it. Then Michelle let another round of bubbles go as dense and heavy as she could make them, and they piled into the pit on top of Mummy.

  Michelle was significantly lighter now. “Get out of that, you bitch,” she panted. Then she ran.

  She ran blindly until her sides ached and her legs burned. A mindless terror possessed her. The jungle wasn’t just a jungle anymore. It was changing, turning to some nightmarish landscape. Sometimes she slipped in bloody pools, landing hard on her hands and knees.

  She saw a small boy hanging from a tree, pinned there by an enormous knife through his chest. A few yards later, she came across a woman in a filthy and torn flowered dress, systematically cutting off pieces of herself. She’d taken most of her left thigh and was working her way through her bicep.

  “Want to help?” she asked, holding the knife out to Michelle. It dripped crimson blood. Michelle stopped and reached for the blade. Sounds like fun, she thought. Knives aren’t my thing, but I could help.

  Then Michelle heard something behind her. She made an impulsive choice. She let a bubble go, and it caught the cutting woman in the chest. A scarlet flower of blood bloomed there. Then, despite her fear of Mummy, Michelle laughed hysterically. She’d solved the whole help-me-with-the-knife problem.

  She began running again. Grotesque scenes of self-mutilation went past as she ran. A man was peeling the skin off his body. The bluish muscles gleamed in the low light. He looked up at her quizzically, but immediately went back to his work. She heard him letting out little shrieks. Pain or hysteria—she couldn’t tell.

  She came upon two women holding a third down. They were scalping her. They bared their yellow teeth at Michelle, but she let three bubbles fly and neatly ripped all their heads off. No point in
saving someone who might as well be dead. Nor two who deserve to be.

  Now her lungs were nothing but pain and fire. Each breath was like breathing in a hot poker. And then, abruptly, the jungle vanished altogether.

  Michelle found herself once again on the devastated streets of Talas. The miasma blurred her surroundings until she couldn’t see beyond a few feet. Unspeakable things moved just far enough ahead that she couldn’t quite make out what they were, and she hoped never to see them clearly.

  A thudding invaded her mind again. It was like a section of timpani had taken up residence in her head and was playing the entire catalog of Joker Plague turned up to eleven.

  She grabbed her head. The pounding wouldn’t stop. It was so loud it made her want to vomit. And she did.

  “Hello, Michelle.”

  She looked up. In front of her was Earth Witch. But it wasn’t Ana. It was some shape-changer who was wearing an Ana meat-suit.

  Michelle frowned and narrowed her eyes. “You’re not Ana,” she said. Bubbles were already forming in her hands. She let them fly. Or she would have if the earth hadn’t opened up and swallowed her whole.

  The clinic smelled like antiseptic. As soon as the odor hit her nose Mollie realized it had been hours since she’d checked with the hospital in Idaho. Were Jim and Troy out of surgery yet? Were Mick and Brent recovering? Had they found the rest of Dad’s ear? They probably thought she’d abandoned them again and that she didn’t even care. They all thought so little of her.

  Ffodor had been different.

  Billy Ray flashed his SCARE badge as they passed the nurses’ station outside the isolation ward.

  Mollie said, “You really get off on that, don’t you? Seriously, it’s like a sexual compulsion or something.”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he took her by the elbow and directed her down one corridor and around a corner. Mollie’s step faltered a bit when she saw the no-neck crew flanking the door to Baba Yaga’s room. She didn’t recognize their faces or tattoos, but she certainly recognized the type. Typical. Even here, halfway around the world, Baba Yaga managed to scrounge up a troop of fine upstanding citizens to attend her every kneecap-shattering whim. The goons let them pass with a nod after glancing at Ray’s badge. (“Wank, wank, wank,” Mollie whispered.)

  Baba Yaga lay unmoving, as expressive as an ice sculpture in her hospital bed. And—holy shit!—one of her arms ended at the elbow. Somebody had done a real number on the hag. Good. But there was color in her cheeks and the machines connected to her emitted a steady series of beeps. Mollie felt conflicted about that. She wanted the old woman to die, though not before Mollie had a chance to apply her leverage.

  Baba Yaga wasn’t alone, Mollie realized. She noticed the man sitting next to the hospital bed and flinched.

  “Shit,” she said.

  Franny looked up from his phone. “Surprised to see me?”

  She’d last seen him several days ago, when he was embroiled in a firefight in the Talas casino. She’d taken advantage of the distraction to pick the lock on his cuffs and open a doorway to Paris.

  Mollie tried to toss a bored shrug, but it came off a little shaky. So did her raspy voice. “Nah. I figured you’d be fine once you didn’t have to drag me everywhere.”

  “Oh, well, when you put it that way, thanks so much for that. You’re just a forward-thinking humanitarian.”

  “I don’t see why you’re bitching,” she said. “It obviously turned out okay.”

  Franny stood, cleared his throat. Baba Yaga cracked one eye open. Mollie took a step back and bumped into Ray. So much for the tough front.

  “Ah,” said the witch. “The little thief returns.”

  “Cram it up your vodka-pickled twat, you bitch.”

  “Guttersnipe.”

  Ray muttered, “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  “Hey! How dare you—”

  “How dare I? How dare you!”

  Baba Yaga’s jaw muscles twitched, as though she were conjuring up a big gob of saliva. Franny yanked Mollie aside and planted himself with arms raised between her and the woman in the hospital bed. Baba Yaga turned away and swallowed rather than letting spit fly at the detective.

  Interesting. What was that all about? It was usually spit-first-and-ask-questions-never with her. She’d thought Ray had been kidding when he claimed Franny and Baba Yaga were tight. They must have had one hell of a trip back from Talas if he’d earned her respect. Insofar as she respected anyone.

  “Ladies! Truce, okay? We’re all on the same side.”

  Mollie crossed her arms. Baba Yaga poked the tip of her tongue into one cheek, bulging it. A moment passed while they glared at one another.

  The Russian woman broke the silence. “The situation has been explained to you.” It wasn’t a question, but Mollie nodded. The other woman studied her face through narrowed eyes. Mollie wanted to squirm under the scrutiny. She looked away. Still staring at Mollie, Baba Yaga said, “She has been touched by it. I see she carries the taint of one who has been exposed to Horrorshow. It’s in her eyes. It leaves a mark. Nobody is quite the same after that.”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen it.” Mollie hugged herself.

  “Aha. Was it when you returned to rob my casino?”

  Mollie glared at Billy Ray. “You asshole.”

  He screwed his deformed face into something that approximated indignation. “Why do you assume I told her? We’re not idiots, you know. And you do have a record of predictable behavior. The Committee and Interpol have been taking an interest in you for quite a while. You’re real popular with the NYPD now, too.”

  “It’s true,” said Franny. “You’re what we call a repeat offender.”

  “You don’t have anything on me.”

  Billy Ray said, “Only about thirty counts of kidnapping.”

  “Well la-de-dah. You’ll never make it stick. I mean, hey, the world’s gonna end in a few days, right? So good fucking luck pressing those charges.”

  The SCARE agent massaged his forehead. He turned to Franny. “Where on earth did you find this kid? Because she is a piece of work.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Baba Yaga raised her voice to cut through the muttering and bickering. “These men think you can help. But they say you demanded an audience with me.” She flinched, slightly, as if she’d tried to make a gesture. “So here we are. Have you come to apologize?”

  Apologize? To her? Had everyone gone crazy? Maybe Mollie was still stuck inside the evil insanity bubble and only thought she’d escaped it. “No fucking way. I owe you nothing, you evil hag.”

  “Mollie.” Franny tapped his wristwatch. “We are sort of on the clock here, okay? So if you could speed it along a little bit.”

  “Fine.” A doorway to Idaho opened in the middle of the hospital room. Perhaps because she was too angry to remember to be afraid, this portal didn’t resist her quite as much as the others had over the past day. A cold wind ruffled her hair and set the wires of Baba Yaga’s monitors to swaying. A whiff of manure permeated the room. Baba Yaga twisted her mouth in a moue of distaste.

  “Hey, wait—” Mollie stepped into the barn, grabbed the Louis XIV chair, and popped back to the hospital before Franny could finish his sentence. “—a second.”

  Billy Ray blinked at the chair. “What. The hell. Is that?”

  “This is my condition for helping you. You don’t like it, you can go to hell.”

  But Franny knew. She could see it in his eyes. He looked genuinely sad for her. She didn’t like it. “Was this somebody you cared about?”

  “He is somebody I care about.” Mollie lugged the chair to the side of Baba Yaga’s hospital bed. “Change him back.”

  The Russian woman blinked at her. “This is your condition? You thought I would do this and then you would do your part?”

  The goddamned tears had come back. Everything turned blurry. “Change him back. Make him a person again!”

  The hag shook her wrinkly head.

&nb
sp; “Change him back RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”

  Franny tried to interject. “Mollie—”

  “I can’t,” said the Russian woman.

  “You will. Turn Ffodor back right fucking now or I swear to God I will dump your leathery old ass into the Pacific Ocean a thousand miles from the middle of nowhere.”

  “Mollie.” Franny took her arm. He tried to pull her aside but she wasn’t about to let go of Ffodor. “She didn’t say she wouldn’t. She said she can’t.”

  Mollie rounded on him. “Of course she can. She has to.” She wept openly now. “You have to turn him back.”

  “I can’t.”

  Billy Ray said, “I think she’s telling you it’s one-way, kid.”

  No. No. No.

  Mollie lifted the heavy chair, shook it at Baba Yaga. Sorrow made her strong. “You have to turn him back so that I can apologize to him.”

  Baba Yaga closed her eyes. Shook her head.

  “Ffodor has to hear it.” Somewhere a dam burst, a dam she’d built a long time ago, and now a rushing cataract swept away the last of her self-control. She convulsed, struggling to speak through the wracking sobs. “He has … to hear … my apology. Make him a human again … so he can hear it and … forgive me … and I can stop … I can stop feeling like this. It hurts so much…” She fell to her knees, blinded by tears. Her nose was running and her upper lip tasted like snot.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please turn Ffodor back so I can tell him I’m sorry. The world is ending and I can’t die without his forgiveness.”

  Baba Yaga stated, in a voice like a mausoleum door slamming shut: “Your Ffodor is dead.”

  “No. He needs to know I’m sorry.” Mollie slumped lower on the linoleum floor. Wrapped her arms around the chair legs. Laid her head on the cushion. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

  Snot dribbled from her nose, dripped on the cushion. That made her cry even harder. He deserved so much better. And then she realized she was having a complete breakdown in front of Baba Yaga, whom she hated more than anybody, and that humiliation made her cry harder still. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry Ffodor. Ffodor please forgive me.” She dissolved into a sniffling, sobbing wreck.