The Egrets looked at each other uncertainly and Brennan looked at Jennifer.
“What the hell?” he asked, and kicked the nearest Egret in the stomach. The Egret went down and two others leaped at Brennan and tried, unsuccessfully, to grapple him.
Billy Ray, to the astonishment of Jennifer, the onlookers, and most especially the huge joker who had struck him down, was already getting to his feet.
“Sucker,” Ray said through clenched teeth. “I’m going to kick your ass.”
The giant growled something inarticulate as Jennifer watched Brennan take out the two Egrets who had come at him. The hack leaped out of his taxi and screamed at the man who was driving the limo as one of the Egrets got by Brennan and grabbed at Jennifer. She smiled at him and ghosted and he tried over and over again to grapple her while she shimmered insubstantially on the sidewalk. Tiring of his attentions, Jennifer grabbed a lid from one of the garbage cans by the curb, solidified, and brought the lid down hard on his head. He stared at her with hurt indignation for a moment, then his legs went rubbery and he slipped, unconscious, to the sidewalk. Some of the onlookers applauded.
The giant spoke, his voice drawing Jennifer’s attention back to him and Ray. “Fuck off, asshole.” His voice was a monstrous rasping that sounded barely human. He was awesomely intimidating, but Ray smiled back at him. Jennifer thought he looked genuinely happy.
“You’re under arrest for assaulting a federal agent.”
The big joker growled and swung his deformed right fist, but Ray had already moved. He ducked under the punch and came up throwing one of his own that caught the giant in his hard, bulging gut. All the air whooshed out of his lungs and he stumbled and went down. But he wasn’t out. He reached up as Ray tried to step by him, grabbed Ray’s leg, and yanked. Ray went down again and the giant joker rolled over him like a tsunami, pinning him to the sidewalk. He struck before Ray could move, crushing Ray’s jaw and mouth with his hammering right fist. Blood splattered everywhere. Jennifer, feeling faint, backed away, and felt herself bump into someone. Hands grabbed her waist and she whirled and found herself staring into a pair of pretty blue eyes. Eyes, and nothing else, except for tendrils that might have been nerve endings trailing off them. She suppressed an urge to scream and swung the garbage-can lid with all her strength. There was a satisfying loud thunk and the metal lid bent in her hands. The eyes disappeared, as if rolled up behind invisible eyelids; the invisible hands released her. After a moment a tall, lanky form blinked into sight, crumpled on the sidewalk. Jennifer dropped the bent garbage-can lid and backpedaled.
Three of the thugs who’d arrived in the limo with Wyrm started toward her while two others tried to help Wyrm to his feet and the other one rolled around on the street punching at and cursing out the driver of the cab that’d rear-ended them.
Out of the corner of her eye Jennifer saw the joker draw back to strike Ray again, but somehow, while spitting blood and fragments of teeth, Ray reached up and caught the joker’s arm with one hand while raking across his masked face with the other. The mask came off, exposing a face that looked like a bombed-out battlefield. The man’s scar-encumbered mouth was wide open and sucking for air.
“You’re one ugly son of a bitch,” Ray mumbled through mashed lips and broken teeth. A merry light danced strangely in his eyes. He twisted like an eel, jerked his leg upward, and caught the joker in the groin.
A stream of spittle ran down the joker’s chin and he howled. Ray flipped him over, straddled his chest, and pummeled the joker’s face until his fist was splashed with the joker’s blood. The joker went limp, and Ray laughed lightly and stood up. His eyes, gleaming with an uncanny light, fastened on Jennifer. She glanced at Brennan, but he was busy with the Egrets. Ray started toward her, fastidiously wiping away the blood that dripped from his smashed jaw before it could fall on his uniform, as the three thugs from the limo approached from the other side.
“You’re coming with me,” Ray said. Jennifer could barely understand his mumbled words, but she let him take her arm.
“Hey, bug off, man. The chick’s ours,” one of the thugs said, and Jennifer let him take her other arm.
“I can only accompany one of you,” Jennifer said, then ghosted and stepped aside. Ray grinned fixedly and advanced on the thugs as Brennan beat down another Egret with a crushing backhanded blow. The two Egrets still on their feet exchanged glances, decided it wasn’t worth it, and beat cheeks down the sidewalk and through the crowd. Brennan turned back toward Jennifer. He wasn’t even breathing hard, although he did look baffled as he watched Ray punch out Wyrm’s thugs. Jennifer glanced at the limousine sitting in the street before them, motor running and door open.
“Come on,” she called to Brennan, and dove through the open door. He followed her into the car, pulled the door shut, and a huge birdlike form hurtled out of the sky and slammed against the windshield. It was a skinny winged joker with a crown of dirty white feathers like the crest of a scraggly cockatoo, ugly purple and red wattles hanging from his jaw. He shook his head, stunned by the impact like a sparrow that’d flown into a plate-glass window, croaked something unintelligible, and slipped off the hood into the street, tripping Ray who had just disposed of his final adversary and was leaping toward the limo. Brennan watched them fall to the pavement in a tangle of limbs. Jennifer gunned the motor as Wyrm stood up groggily. The limo sped off as the reptilian joker looked around in bewilderment.
“What happened?” he asked, but no one could really tell him.
CHAPTER 18
11:00 p.m.
The toilet flushed. Latham paused to wash his hands, dried them on a monogrammed towel, and turned off the light as he emerged from the bathroom.
Hiram held his breath and tried to squirm closer to the ceiling. His fist was clenched very tight, and the slightest motion threatened to send him drifting across the room. He prayed Latham wouldn’t look up. Thank god he hadn’t turned on the ceiling light; a man of Hiram’s girth floating up near the fixture would cast a noticeable shadow. He could thank Popinjay for getting him into this absurd situation.
He’d hoped Latham would head straight back to his computer, but he wasn’t going to be that lucky. The attorney walked to his dresser and began to empty his pockets: money clips, keys, a handful of change. He undid his tie, removed his vest, hung them carefully in a walk-in closet, slipped into a smoking jacket. It was black silk, with a dragon motif worked in gold across the back, and it fit perfectly. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Latham untied his shoes, donned a pair of slippers. No, Hiram thought down at him, don’t lie down, please don’t lie down.
The phone rang.
Go away, Hiram thought wildly, go back to the other room. Loophole glanced at the door, as if he was considering it. Then he lifted the receiver off the bedside extension. “Latham.”
There was a short pause. “You’re not making any sense,” the lawyer said curtly. “Yes, I understand that you’re in pain.” Silence. “He ate your foot?” The tone was incredulous. “No, I’m sorry, Mr. Spector, I don’t believe you. If you’ve lost that much blood, perhaps you’re . . .” A sigh. “All right, describe these books.”
This time the silence was much longer. Hiram couldn’t see Latham’s expression from his vantage point against the ceiling, but when he spoke, his tone had changed. “No, James, don’t read from it. It wouldn’t be healthy. Where are you?” A frown. “Yes, but what dump, where, I don’t . . . They’re all in Times Square, she’s been sighted . . . no, I don’t know how long.” He glanced at the bedside clock. “No. No, I want you here as soon as possible. Take a cab . . . I don’t care how you get one, just do it, do you understand? You know the address.”
Latham hung up the phone, rose thoughtfully from the bed, and then—to Hiram’s immense relief—went directly back to the desk in the other room.
Hiram shuddered, unclenched his hand, and drifted slowly back to the floor. He touched down as lightly as a feather. Spector, he thought. Where
had he heard that name before? What else had Latham called him? James, that was it, James Spector.
Suddenly it fell into place. Dr. Tachyon, that was where he’d heard the name, half a year ago, over a rack of lamb at Aces High. A man who’d escaped from the clinic and left a trail of death behind him, an accountant named James Spector, but he had a new profession now, and on the street they were calling him . . . Demise.
He heard Latham pick up the phone. Hiram glanced toward the front door, but to reach it he would have to cross the living room, in plain view. The window was a better bet. He tiptoed across the room, slid it open slowly and carefully, stuck his head out. It was a long fall, but not nearly as long as the fall from Aces High.
Grimacing with distaste, Hiram Worchester climbed up on the sill and pushed himself through the window. It was a tight fit, and for one horrible second he was afraid that he was stuck. Then he squirmed a little harder, the buttons gave on his jacket, and he popped free and began to fall. He only hoped that he wouldn’t be blown too far off course.
And in fact there was enough power left for Fortunato to find the Rolls. He thought about Peregrine, about her mouth and her breasts and what she would taste like between her legs. Just the thought made him stronger.
He was going to have her. Even though it meant risking both of their lives. The Astronomer was not through with either one of them, and they’d be terribly vulnerable in bed.
But there was time. The Astronomer had to recharge, and so did he. He tried not to think about the Astronomer out there somewhere, maybe even now picking out his victim. Tried not to remember that the time he had was being bought at the cost of somebody else’s life.
He turned a corner and saw the Rolls. Peregrine unlocked the door for him and he got inside.
“Your business?” she asked.
“Taken care of. For now.”
“Good,” she said. “I’d hate for you to be in a hurry.”
Jennifer took a corner with enough speed to wring an angry whine from the limo’s tires and a few angry curses from the pedestrians who had spilled off the crowded sidewalk onto the roadway itself. She glanced quickly to her right and saw Brennan leaning back against the luxurious upholstery, smiling.
“What are you so happy about?” she asked.
“Kien doesn’t have the book.”
“Hmmm?” Jennifer cut across two lanes of traffic and threw a fast left. She glanced into the rearview mirror. She didn’t think they were being followed, but she wanted to make sure. “What makes you say that?”
“Simple,” he said. “Wyrm is still following us. Or you, to be precise. Therefore Kien doesn’t have the book.” He suddenly lost his smile and frowned. “But if it isn’t where you left it . . .” He left the sentence unfinished.
“Someone else must have it. Them.” Jennifer realized that she was getting so caught up in Brennan’s quest that she was forgetting the stockbooks full of stamps. The books that were, or at least should be, important to her. “Why do you want that damn book so much?” she asked suddenly, running through a red light. “What’s your connection with Kien?”
Brennan stared out the window for a long moment.
“You handle this car very well.”
“Come on,” she said, frustrated beyond endurance by his reticence. “Cut the stall and answer my questions. You owe me that much.”
“Maybe I do,” Brennan said reflectively. “All right. Kien and I go a long way back. Back to Vietnam.” Jennifer slowed to a reasonable speed so she could keep one eye on Brennan as he spoke. He was looking out the window distractedly, looking, seemingly, far beyond the street outside the window. “He’s an evil man. Utterly self-absorbed, utterly ruthless. He was a general in the army of South Vietnam, but he worked for anyone who’d pay him. He caused the deaths of a lot of my men. He tried to kill me.” Brennan’s face became expressionless. “He killed my wife.”
They drove on in silence, Jennifer wondering if she had probed too far, if she even wanted to know the rest of the story. After a while, Brennan spoke again.
“I had evidence implicating him in nearly every dirty scheme that was going on in ’Nam, but I . . . lost it. Kien stayed in power. I was almost court-martialed. When Saigon fell I left the army and Kien came to America. I spent a few years in the Orient, finally returning to the States a few years ago. An old comrade of mine spotted Kien a couple of months ago and sent me a letter that brought me to the city.
“I’m convinced that the diary would implicate Kien in countless criminal activities. Maybe it contains enough evidence to put him away for good . . . like he should have been put away by the evidence I’d gathered twelve years ago . . .”
“I don’t know if this diary would be accepted as evidence in court.”
“Perhaps not,” Brennan conceded, “but it would contain innumerable clues to his activities, to his associates and underlings.” He looked at Jennifer seriously. “Killing Kien would be simple, but, first, it wouldn’t necessarily bring down the network of corruption that he’s built up here in New York, and, second, it would be too easy on him.” Brennan’s eyes became shadowed with introspection. “I want him to lie awake at night and worry about the slightest noise, the fleetingest shadow that cuts across his dreams. I want him stripped of everything he has, all his wealth, all his power and riches. In the end I want him to have nothing but time, time weighing heavily on his head with nothing to change the endless succession of his dull and eternal days . . . And if he doesn’t end up in a jail cell, I’ll strip him of everything he has and make his life an inescapable hell of grinding poverty and fear. To do it I’ll need the diary.”
Brennan lapsed into silence again. Jennifer licked her lips. Maybe, she thought, it was time to tell him the truth. He should know. But something froze up inside of her at the thought of telling him. She licked her lips again, forced them open.
“Brennan—”
She was interrupted by the sound of a telephone ringing in the back of the limo. Brennan started and looked toward the back seat as she sighed, feeling like a condemned prisoner granted a reprieve.
The dashboard of the limo had more controls than a space shuttle.
“Which switch lowers the window between the seats?” Brennan asked.
Jennifer darted a glance at the dashboard and shrugged. Brennan slammed down a bunch of toggles, turning on the radio, locking the doors, putting up the television antenna and, finally, lowering the tinted glass barrier between the rear and front seats. He dove into the back. Jennifer heard a muffled curse as he banged his knee on the liquor cabinet and bar that faced the rear seat. He picked up the phone, switched on the speaker attachment so Jennifer could hear, and grunted into it.
“Wyrm? Wyrm, is that you? This is Latham.”
Jennifer, glancing at him in the rear mirror, saw a strange expression fall upon his features. He smiled with pleasure, but no humor, as if he recognized the name, as if he were glad to hear the man’s voice.
“Listen carefully. Demise is coming with the book. I repeat. Demise has the book. Call off your search and escort him in. Do you understand?”
Brennan’s smile was savage.
“I do,” he said quietly.
“You’re not Wyrm.”
“No,” Brennan said.
“Who is this?”
“The past, spook. And I’m coming for you.”
He hung up the phone.
The din, as they walked crosstown, was deafening. The crowds were virtually tidal in their power to ebb and flow, carrying most unanchored passersby with them.
“I’m trying,” Bagabond said to Jack, eyes tightly closed as she leaned up against the brick pillar at an alley entrance off 9th Street. “The creatures of the city have never had to deal with this kind of human commotion before. They’re terrified.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jack. The urgency in his voice belied the apology. “Just try. Please try.”
“I am.” She continued to concentrate. “Nothing.
’m sorry.” She opened her eyes and Jack found himself staring into their apparently infinite black depths. “There are eight million humans in this city. Probably there are ten times as many creatures, not even counting the roaches. Be patient.”
Jack impulsively hugged her. “I’m sorry. Do what you can do. Let’s keep heading downtown.” His voice had turned weary now. Bagabond held the embrace a second more than necessary. Jack didn’t object.
Bagabond suddenly cocked her head. “Listen.”
“Are you picking up something?” Jack said.
“I’m hearing someone. Aren’t you?” She started to walk rapidly down the block.
Jack heard it too. The music was familiar, the voice doubly so.
Blood and bones
Take me home
People there I owe
People there gonna go
Down with me to Hell
Down with me to Hell
“I’ll be damned,” said Jack. “It sounds like C. C.”
“It is C. C. Ryder,” Bagabond said. C. C. had been one of Rosemary’s oldest and closest friends in the city. But triggered by acute trauma, her grotesque wild card talent had kept her under close care in Dr. Tachyon’s clinic for more than a decade.
They stopped with several other onlookers, pressed up against the glass front of a Crazy Eddie’s. There were several large video monitors set up in the display window. Overhead speakers piped the music out to the street. On the screens, sharp-edged geometric solids rolled and collided in black and white.
“Is she performing again?” Bagabond said. “Rosemary’s said nothing.”