He sneered at Bruckner. “Think you can handle finding the right kind of vehicle, toots?”
“If you think I’m going into that place, you’re even more insane than that little slit,” Bruckner replied.
Michelle knocked him off his chair with a hard, fast, softball-sized bubble. “Color me indifferent to what you want or don’t want. You’re taking us into Talas, and none of us care about your feelings about that.” Another bubble formed in her hand, but Billy Ray grabbed her arm. She let it pop.
“You’re getting a truck. You’re going into Talas,” Billy Ray snarled. “Or I’ll let Hoodoo Mama have some fun with you.
“Now where was I? Secondly,” he continued. “Obviously, Michelle and I are going. We’re the strongest ones here. We should be able to protect Mollie, Bruckner, and Black.”
“Why the fuck would you need Black?” Joey asked. There was a baffled expression on her face.
“He’s the only one who’s actually been in the hospital. He knows what Horrorshow looks like, and he can help guide us once we’re inside.”
“He’s not going to go back in there,” Joey interjected.
Billy Ray’s mouth set into a grim line. “I don’t really give a shit what that candy-ass does or doesn’t want.”
Michelle stared up at the ceiling. Someone had sprayed grey insulation in the rafters. It’s so bad in Talas, she thought. What if what we do doesn’t make any difference? What if I can’t make a difference. I’m the Amazing Bubbles. I’m supposed to make things different. It felt like a lie. But since she’d killed Aero, her life was going to feel like a lie anyway. Whatever was left of it.
There had never been any question in Michelle’s mind that she was going back into Talas. It was the only way to even have a chance of saving Adesina. Where things ended up afterward didn’t really matter.
“I’m going, too,” Hoodoo Mama said.
“No, you’re not,” Michelle said flatly. She stood up and went over to Joey, then took her by the shoulders. “You’re just not strong enough.”
Joey looked like she’d happily strangle Michelle. “There’s nothing but fucking dead people in there! I’d have an army!” She smacked Michelle’s arms away.
“And you’d go batshit crazy, and then we’d be dealing with an army of toe tags,” Michelle replied tersely.
“Mollie could hold a pinpoint portal open for me like she did before. Then I could control a few meat sacks. Enough to help without losing it.”
Oh, yeah, Michelle thought. I can totally see this happening. “Are you sure, sweetie?” she asked. Having some of Joey’s zombies would be an advantage. Dead people didn’t go crazy.
“That’d work!” Joey said. “It’d work like a fucking charm. That’s how we got you out, Bubbles. God, you cocksucking bitch.” She glared at Michelle. Michelle stared back with dismay.
She grabbed Joey’s arm and pulled her to a corner of the room. “You don’t get it,” Michelle whispered intently. “I don’t want you anywhere near this mission. Odds are we’re all going to die. And then who will take care of Adesina?”
Suddenly, Joey reached up and put her good hand on Michelle’s cheek. Michelle almost jerked back. This wasn’t like Joey at all.
“I know why you don’t want me to go,” Joey said, softly stroking Michelle’s cheek. “I know. But if this is the last fucking stand, then I want it to be here with you. And if we don’t come through, it won’t matter because everyone will be dead anyway.”
A horrible lump formed in Michelle’s throat. Joey was right. If they didn’t succeed, her daughter was dead.
They walked back to the others. Bruckner’s mouth was pulled into a grim line. Billy Ray’s expression was unreadable, and Michelle suspected that was because he was already in command mode.
“Okay,” Billy Ray said. “It’s go time. We get Bruckner his truck, get Franny back here, and then we go. No screwing around. We need to be moving as soon as possible.”
For one long moment, they all just stood there looking at each other. Even Bruckner managed to shut the fuck up.
Then Billy Ray said, “Michelle, go get Mollie, get us Black. Bruckner, get a truck. And Hoodoo Mama,” Billy Ray turned toward Joey. “Go get some good corpses.”
The trailer floor creaked under a light footstep. Mollie cracked one eye open.
Michelle stood in the doorway, mostly back to her supermodel figure. “Oh. I expected you to be napping.”
“Yeah, well. I’m not so good at it these days. When I close my eyes I see, uh, things…”
Michelle nodded. “Uh-huh. I have the nightmares, too.”
“I’d give anything to never again see the things I’ve seen. And I’d give more if it meant I could undo all the fucking awful things I’ve done.”
“Oh, sweetie.”
Michelle sat on the cot and draped an arm over Mollie’s shoulders. Mollie tensed. Michelle and Joey were close.
Mollie whispered, “You know about what I did to Joey, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry about that.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Mollie remembered the sensation of eyebrow bristles stuck between her teeth. She suppressed a gag reflex and said, “Of course it was.”
Her breath came in little gasping sobs. Michelle hugged her until it no longer felt like she was going to hyperventilate. Mollie rested her head on the other woman’s shoulder, wincing when her bandage tugged at the stitches on her cheek.
“Let me guess. You came to find me because you guys just realized your plan won’t work without Franny. You need him to get into the hospital.”
A look of surprise flashed across the other woman’s face, but the corners of her mouth twitched up in a faint smile. “Yeah, actually.”
It was confirmation and a question. Mollie shrugged.
“This ace I can barely control anymore? There’s a little part in the back of my mind—or there used to be, back when I wasn’t three-quarters batshit—constantly thinking about stuff like this. How to get from A to B, do I know where B is, on and on and on.”
“It’s second nature to you. Not to the rest of us.”
“Hmm.”
Michelle rubbed her hands together. “We’ll probably find him at the precinct house. They’ll know where to find him if he’s not there. I think you’re familiar with the place, yes?” Sometimes Michelle had so much tact it practically dripped out of her ass. But Mollie appreciated how she made no issue of dumping Jamal Norwood’s body, and a handful of mafia thugs, into the center of Fort Freak. “We should go get him now.”
Mollie stood. The aluminum poles in the cot frame were digging into her shins. “No offense, but I think it’s gotta be me and Ray in New York while you keep an eye on Bruckner. I give him shit for flashing that badge around like he gets off on it, but let’s be honest. The director of SCARE is probably the only thing that’ll stop them from arresting me the second I set foot in Fort Freak.” Mollie looked away, her face turning hot as she remembered all the shit Berman made her do for Baba Yaga. Every terrified joker they snatched. She didn’t want Michelle to glimpse the full brunt of her shame. Lamely, she concluded, “I’m not real popular with the NYPD right now.”
“No,” said Michelle. “I suppose you wouldn’t be.”
Franny had pulled the graveyard shift. Franny was at his desk trying to clear the files and waiting to see if he’d catch a murder call. He was also obsessing over Baba Yaga’s certainty she would escape justice.
He grabbed his cup and headed for the coffeemaker when a hole appeared in the center of the bullpen. Through the opening Franny saw daylight, dust, jeeps, trucks, troops, and jokers—in short a scene of frenzied activity.
It was a testament to the unflappable nature of Fort Freak cops that nobody freaked. Or maybe they were just getting used to Mollie opening doorways into the station. The girl wasn’t alone when she walked through. Billy Ray was with her.
He wasn’t dressed in impeccable
Armani. Instead he wore his fighting whites and ceramic insert body armor. There was a pistol at his belt and an assault rifle slung on his back. His expression was grim and determined. Mollie was white-faced and her eyes shadowed and bloodshot. Her hair looked like it’d been combed with a hand mixer. Frank soon saw why. Her fingers writhed through her hair, twisting strands of hair into virtual knots.
“Let me guess. I’m coming with you whether I want to or not,” Franny said.
“You gotta come. You’ve gotta. You gotta make it stop. FUCK OFF!” This was directed at Rikki, who was just walking past.
Rikki started to snap back, but Franny held up a restraining hand. The joker cop moved on after bestowing a glare on Mollie. Mollie drew even closer to Franny. He had to resist the urge to back away. There was so much crazy packed into that small body.
“You can make everything better. I’m trying but I keep making … mistakes.”
She yanked hard and a clump of hair came away with her flailing hand. Franny winced. Now that she was so close he could see bare patches dotting her head where other tufts of hair had been pulled out. Blood caked a few of them.
Ray took Mollie by the shoulders and tried to move her aside. She bared her teeth and snapped at his hand. “Don’t touch me, cocksucker!”
“Easy, Mollie,” Franny said gently.
“Like Mollie said, we really need you.” Then to Franny’s surprise Ray added, “But I’m not going to force you. I’m asking for your help.” All around Franny the room had gone silent, everyone listening intently.
“We’re going in. We’ll do our best to find this hospital, but time is running out.” Ray suddenly looked old, old and devastated. “Believe me, I don’t want to do this. My wife is on her way here … well, there … Baikonur … leading an army of monsters. I want to stay and try to pull her back from the madness. Save her. But I know that would only be a temporary fix. If I’m really going to save her I have to go to Talas.”
Isn’t there somebody you love? Somebody you’d risk everything to save? The words were unspoken but implicit. Franny thought about his mother and Abby and his friends and companions at the precinct. He thought about the father he’d never known. A police officer like himself and a man who had died trying to protect New York from madness and destruction.
Franny glanced back at Michael. “Tell the captain not to fire me until I get back.”
“I don’t know what he’s saying? What is he saying? What does he mean?” Mollie implored Ray. Her hands were back in her hair, clawing at her scalp.
“Wait,” Franny said to Ray, whose look of hope died at that single word. Franny ran over to the cabinet where the precinct kept a supply of sedatives. They were there to help the cops deal with any particularly violent or dangerous aces’ powers.
“Mollie, this may help you deal with … things.”
“You’re not going to hurt me?”
“No, you’ve been hurt enough,” he said.
As they walked through the Tesseract opening Franny said to Ray, “Sure hope you’ve got some extra body armor available.”
Like worms the whispers crawled about the underside of the Angel’s skull and insinuated themselves into her brain and she slowly began to understand their meaning. She understood it and was awed. This building in Talas was too small to house the form of her dark lord, as was Talas itself, and even the garbage dump called Kazakhstan. All the world was too small for him, but it would serve as a staging place for his dark majesty to enwrap the solar system, the galaxy, and eventually the entire universe. And she, the Angel, would carry his banner forth and forever glory in his dark realm.
The time for words was over. Words signified nothing. They were ripples on the air without meaning or substance. Only the worship of the dark lord and the devastation wrought in his worship had meaning and she would be the one to lead the vanguard of his unstoppable army.
She stood. Her child gurgled, pawed at her angrily. She knew it was hungry, so she fed it again with blood drawn from her forearm. As she walked down the streets of Talas, the fighting and the killing stopped behind her, and all creatures, great and small, fell into line behind her, she, the tip of the unbreakable spear of her lord’s will.
Follow the light, it spoke silently in her brain, and she did. The shining knight in the bloodred armor did her obeisance as did the Trash Man who guarded the resting place of the lord. Those bound in place, remaining behind as a lesser guard, cried salt tears if they were capable, rent their flesh with their own talons, claws, or teeth, if they were not, weeping and wailing inconsolably to be left behind, but the Angel neither cared nor noticed.
She took half a dozen running steps, following the light, and took to the sky. The others followed as best they could behind her. She had no idea how long it was she flew or how far. The light came closer and closer, brighter and brighter, and for a moment she felt as if she were eaten up, bit by bit, but she had faith in her dark lord, and bit by bit she was put together again and she realized that she was in a different place where by sword and fire she would bring the blessings of her lord. It was, the sudden revelation out of the past she once lived in came to her, Sunday.
Franny held a syringe.
Mollie asked, “So you’re just planning to funnel that shit into my veins?”
“It won’t put you under. It’ll help you stay calm. It’ll take the worst edges off the anxiety.”
“Listen, Boy Scout. Nothing short of a full goddamned frontal-lobe lobotomy is going to make me sanguine about returning to Talas: Noth. Ing.”
“None of us are keen on it,” said Michelle.
“Keen? You’re not keen on it? Well, I’d say you’re doing pretty well, because me, I’m fucking terrified. I’m about one halfhearted ‘boo’ away from peeing myself.”
Franny pointed at the syringe case. “These should help with the wanting to pee yourself.”
“I don’t care how mild it is. I’m going to be doped to the gills if you pump all of that into me.”
He shook his head. “I thought it might be a good idea if we all take a dose before we depart.” He zipped the case. “We’ll have spare doses, too. For, well, the rest of it.”
Michelle looked directly at Mollie. The eye contact actually made her feel a little better. It was as if Michelle was looking to her for confirmation, or as though in this particular thing she saw Mollie as a peer. And perhaps they were because Mollie knew exactly what she was thinking.
“I dunno,” said Michelle. “My experience in the, what did you call it again, sweetie?”
“The Psycho Cannibal Flashmob Evil Insanity Zone.”
“Yes. My experience inside the PCFEIZ makes me doubtful that anything could ward off the madness.” She shrugged. “But what the hell. I’ll give it a shot. Even if it only helps a little, or for just a few minutes…”
Baikonur was like a stirred anthill. Jokers, nats, soldiers, aces, and zombies, fucking zombies, were moving in every direction. Franny hoped there was some order to their peripatetic movements and they didn’t signify just random panic. The day was hot and dry and off in the distance a large cloud of dust was rising marking the approach of the monster army. Ray stood gazing toward a distant flying figure. Franny turned away, not wishing to impose even by a look on the man’s naked grief, worry, and longing.
While he was being supplied with weapons and body armor Franny had learned that IBT had made it to Baikonur. That was one small piece of guilt removed from his conscience. Even though Baba Yaga’s information had been critical it had still eaten at Franny that he had abandoned the kid. Fortunately IBT was part of the effort to defend the Cosmodrome so Franny wasn’t likely to run into him until this was all over … one way or the other. If they failed it wouldn’t matter. And if they succeeded … well, Franny could only hope an apology would keep IBT from laying that poisoned tongue on him.
Bubbles was in a huddle with the angry-faced young black woman who had glared at him when they were introduced, turned her back,
and snapped at Bubbles, “So, bitch, you’re taking this motherfucking pasty white boy and not me?”
“Yeah, because he fuckin’ knows where this hospital might be and what this cocksucker looks like,” Bubbles had shot back. Bubbles had then shaken his hand and introduced herself. Despite the seriousness of the situation Franny couldn’t help but be thrilled that he had now met three of the most kickass ladies of American Hero.
Right now Bubbles and Joey were flanked by three walking corpses. Apparently Joey’s “zombies” would accompany them to Talas. Franny was not happy about that even though the skinny young ace Bugsy had said cheerfully that “at least they were fresh.” Somehow it seemed disrespectful if not down right blasphemous to Franny.
Franny spotted Mollie standing next to the battered and clearly vintage military truck. It had a canvas cover over the truck bed, four doors, handholds on the front hood and sides, and running boards. It had once been desert camouflage. Now it just looked leprous. Bruckner, the heavyset older Brit who apparently had the power to drive through other dimensions, was circling the vehicle and literally kicking the tires.
Mollie was standing stock-still, hands clenched at her sides. It had been only a little over a week since he’d been handcuffed to the girl, but the ensuing days had taken their toll. On all of them, Franny thought as he touched his side. He walked over to her.
“Hey,” he said softly as he laid a hand on her shoulder. She shied violently away, then seemed to focus and actually see him. “Easy, easy, You need another hit?”
“No. Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.” The green eyes were raised to his. “We’re never coming out. One-way trip,” she whispered and she no longer seemed to be talking to him. She didn’t even notice when he injected the other half of the first syringe.
“Okay, let’s saddle up,” Ray called as he turned his back on the approaching army and his wife and walked to the truck.
The zombies did a decent job shoring up the hangar. It wasn’t pretty—and the villagers watched the undead with alarm more than gratitude—but they made up for craft with the pure bulk of beams set in place, crates stacked and abandoned bits of hardware and containers shoved up against the crumbling walls. By the time Joey called them off the hangar was half hidden within a mound of debris.