Kafka’s exoskeleton rasped as he turned away and went back down the hall. Kim Toy and Red watched him go, neither of them caring to break the silence by so much as letting out a breath.
“He was watching the monitors when she came in,” Roman said, straightening his expensive, tasteful tweed jacket. “Pity. I mean, the man obviously wouldn’t mind getting next to such a nice female but the way he is…”
“How’s your wife, Roman?” Red asked suddenly.
Roman froze in the middle of brushing an imaginary piece of lint off his sleeve. There was a long pause. One of the incongruous overhead fluorescents began to hum.
“Fine,” Roman said at last, slowly lowering his arm. “I’ll tell her you asked after her.”
Kim Toy elbowed her husband in the ribs as Roman went into the office. “What the hell did you have to do that for? What was the point?”
Red shrugged. “Roman’s a bastard.”
“Kafka’s a bastard! They’re all bastards! And you’re a fool. Next time you want to hit that man, get up and break his nose. Ellie Roman never did anything to you.”
“First you’re telling me how you want to own the world—excuse me, a piece of it—and then you’re chewing me out for throwing Roman’s wife up to him. Wife o’ mine, you’re a real Chinese puzzle sometimes.”
Kim Toy frowned up at the buzzing light, which was now flickering as well. “It’s a Chinese-puzzle world, husband o’ mine.”
Red groaned. “Samurai bullshit.”
“State your name, please. In full.”
He was arguably the best-looking man she had ever met in person. “Jane Lillian Dow,” she said. In the big cities, they had everything, including handsome men to interrogate you. I heart New York, she thought, and suppressed the hysteria that wanted to come bubbling up as laughter.
“And how old are you, Ms. Dow?”
“Twenty-one. Born April first, 19—”
“I can subtract, thank you. Where were you born?”
She was terrified. What would Sal have thought? Oh, Sal, I wish you could save me now. It was more a prayer than a thought, cast out into the void with the dim hope that perhaps the wild card virus could have affected the afterlife as well as this one and the late Salvatore Carbone might come trucking back from the hereafter like ectoplasmic cavalry. So far, reality still wasn’t taking requests.
She answered all the man’s questions. The office was not especially furnished—bare walls, a few chairs, and the desk with the computer terminal. The man had her records in under a minute, checking the facts against her answers. He had access to her whole life with that computer, one reason why she’d been so reluctant to register with the police after her wild card spore had turned itself out in high school five years before. The law had been enacted in her hometown long before she’d been born, and never taken off the books when the political climate had changed somewhat. But, then, not much had changed in the small Massachusetts town where she’d grown up. “I’ll be licensed and numbered like a dog,” she’d said to Sal. “Maybe even taken to the pound and gassed like a dog too.” Sal had talked her into complying, saying she’d draw less attention to herself if she obeyed their laws. When they could account for you, they left you alone. “Yeah,” she’d said. “I’d noticed how well that kind of thing worked in Nazi Germany.” Sal had just shaken his head and promised that things would work out.
But what about this, Sal? They’re not leaving me alone, it’s not working out. New York was the last place she had expected to be picked up by the police as an ace and, when a break came in the questioning, she said so.
“But we’re not the police,” the handsome man told her pleasantly, making her heart sink even lower.
“Y-you’re not? But that guy showed me a badge.…”
“Who did? Oh, him.” The man—he’d told her to call him Roman—chuckled. “Judas is a cop. But I’m not. And this is hardly a police station. Couldn’t you tell?”
Jane scowled into his slightly incredulous smile. “I’m not from here. And I saw what happened a few months ago on the news. I figured after that the police would just set up anywhere they needed to or had to.” She looked down at her lap where her hands were twisting together like two separate creatures in silent combat. “I wouldn’t have told you about Sal if I’d known you weren’t the police.”
“What difference does that make, Ms. Dow? Or can I call you Jane, since you don’t like to be called Water Lily?”
“Do what you want,” she said unhappily. “You will anyway.”
He surprised her by getting up and telling the people in the hall to bring in some coffee and something to eat. “It occurs to me we’ve kept you here far too long without refreshment. The police wouldn’t do that for you, Jane. At least, not the New York City police.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sure. Then, I guess I’ll have some coffee and be on my way.”
The man never stopped smiling. “Where have you got to go?”
“I came here—here to New York, I mean—looking for Jumpin’ Jack Flash. I saw him on the news.…”
“Forget it.” The smile was still there but the eyes were cold. “You can’t do anything for each other.”
“But—”
“I said, forget it.”
She looked down at her lap again.
“Come on, Jane.” His voice softened. “I’m just trying to protect you. You need it. I can just imagine what a hot dog like that would do to an innocent little morsel like yourself. Whereas the Astronomer has a use for you.”
She lifted her head again. “A use?”
“A use for your power, I should have said. Forgive me.”
Jane’s laugh was brief and bitter. “A use for my power is a use for me. Maybe I am innocent next to you but I’m not stupid. Sal used to warn me about that.”
“Yes, but Sal wasn’t an ace, was he? He was just a pathetic little swish, one of that very early kind of joker we’ve always had in the world. One of nature’s mistakes.”
“Don’t you talk that way about him!” she flared, moisture suddenly beading on her face and running down her arms and legs. The man stared at her wonderingly.
“Are you doing that on purpose? Or is it just a stress reaction?”
Before she could answer, the red man and the Oriental woman came in with a platter of small, neatly made sandwiches. Jane subsided and watched as the couple laid everything out on the desk, even pouring the coffee.
“Fresh from the Cloisters’ own kitchens,” Roman said, gesturing at the platter. “An ace has to keep her strength up.”
“No, thanks.”
He jerked his head at the couple, who took positions on either side of the door. More water ran down Jane’s face and dripped from the ends of her hair. Her clothes were becoming saturated.
“It’s water pulled out of the air around me,” she said to Roman, who was beginning to look alarmed. “It happens sometimes when I’m under pressure or—or whatever.”
“Fight or flight,” he said. “Adrenaline produces sweat to make you more slippery, harder to hold onto. Probably the same principle at work.”
She looked at him with new respect. Even Sal hadn’t thought of that and he’d been pretty smart, coming up with all those experiments to test the depth and range of her power. It was only because of Sal that she knew her power was effective on things no more than half a mile away from her. He had also figured out that she could cause atoms to combine to make water as well as call already-existing water out of things, and he’d been the one to calculate it would take her forty-eight hours to recharge after exhausting the power, and coached her on how to stretch her energy out so she wouldn’t spend herself all at once. “No good being completely defenseless,” he’d said. “Don’t ever let it happen.” And since that one time back home in Massachusetts, she hadn’t and never would again. Sal had watched over her for those two days when she’d been half afraid and half hopeful that the power was gone for good. But Sal
had been right about its return; she’d been prepared to hand herself over to him completely.
He’d refused her. Once again, she’d offered herself and he’d turned her down. He couldn’t be her lover, he’d said, and he wouldn’t be her father. She would have to be responsible for herself, just like anyone else. And then, as though to drive the point home, he’d gone back to his apartment and drowned in the bathtub.
Like some sadist’s idea of the cruelest joke in the world, Sal Carbone, her one real friend, had fallen and struck his head and breathed soapy water till he died. Only five weeks ago.
“Sal, you’re my soulmate,” she’d told him over and over and he’d allowed it was true. They had a rare friendship, a meeting of minds, hearts, and spirits. Perfect for each other except for the fact that he’d been gay. The second-cruelest joke in the world.
“Water Lily.”
The name snapped her back to the present. “I told you not to call me that. Only Sal called me Water Lily.”
“Sal’s exclusive option expired with him.” The man suddenly softened again. “Never mind, dear. Tell me, just how how much do you know about what’s been happening over the last few months?”
“As much as anybody else.” She reached forward shyly and picked up the cup of coffee nearest her. “I watch the news. I guess I mentioned that.”
“Well, it isn’t over. In the next month, this town—this country, the entire world—will see something that made what happened a few months ago look like a Bible-class picnic. Only the people we recruit stand a chance of ending up on the right side of the graveyard.”
More water appeared on her face. “If you’re not the police, who are you?”
The man smiled approvingly as she sipped at her coffee. “What do you know about the Masons, Jane?”
“Masons? Masons?” In spite of everything, she burst into laughter. “My father’s a Mason!” She forced her giggles to subside before they became hysterics. “What do Masons have to do with anything?”
“Scottish rite.”
“Pardon?” Jane’s laughter wound down and faded away. The flat cold quality was back in the man’s smile.
“Your father’s affiliation was probably Scottish-rite. We’re Egyptian. Egyptian is quite different.”
Her giggles threatened to come back. “That’s funny, you don’t look Egyptian.”
“Don’t get nervy, it doesn’t become you.”
She glanced at the man and woman by the door. “You’re the one who knows everything. I just got here.” More moisture sprang out on her face and ran down her neck. “And I can’t leave, can I?”
“We need you, Jane.” He sounded almost kind now. She pulled a napkin off the desk and blotted her face with it. “We need you very badly. Your power could make all the difference.”
“My power,” she echoed thoughtfully, remembering the boy in the cafeteria five years before, tears pouring from his eyes while he screamed. He hadn’t cried a bit at the news of Debbie’s suicide (exsanguination from self-inflicted lacerations—medicalese for she slashed her wrists and bled to death—and, oh, yes, victim had been thirteen weeks pregnant). She’d always wondered what Debbie would have thought about what she’d done to her faithless boyfriend. Debbie had been her best friend before Sal but she never prayed to Debbie the way she prayed to Sal, as though Debbie belonged to some other universe. Maybe that was so. And maybe there was still another universe where Debbie hadn’t taken her own life when the father of her baby had rejected her, and so no need for Jane to have forced the tears out of the boy’s eyes, no wild card virus to have shown itself. And then maybe there was even another universe where Sal hadn’t had to drown in his own bathtub, leaving her alone and so in need of someone, anyone, to trust. Maybe …
She looked at the man sitting in front of her. Maybe if pigs had wings, they could soar like eagles. “We need you,” he’d said. Whoever we were. Egyptian Masons, whatever. How good it would be to give herself over to someone’s care and know that she’d be looked after and protected.
Can you understand that, Sal? she thought at the great void. Can you understand what it’s like to be completely alone with a power too big for you? They need me, Sal, that’s what they say. I don’t like them—and you’d hate them—but they’ll look after me and I need someone to do that right now. I’m all alone, Sal, no matter where I am, and I’ve come here by lost ways and there’s nowhere else to go. You know, Sal?
There was no answer from the great void. She found herself nodding at the handsome man. “All right. I’ll stay. I mean, I know you won’t let me go but I’ll stay willingly.”
His answering smile almost soothed her heart. “We understand the difference. Red and Kim Toy will take you to your room.” He stood up and reached across the desk to take her hand. “Welcome, Jane. You’re one of us now.”
She drew back, putting both hands up as though she were at gunpoint. “No, I’m not,” she said firmly. “I’m staying here of my own will but that’s all. I’m not one of you.”
That frightening coldness returned to his eyes. He let his hand drop. “All right. You’re staying but you’re not one of us. We understand the difference there too.”
The room they gave her was the corner of some larger area of dismal, cold stone converted into a warren of smaller rooms with prefab, plasterboard walls. Thoughtfully, they fetched her few worldly goods from the tiny efficiency she’d rented and, also thoughtfully, they provided her with a television as well as a bed. She watched the news, looking for more footage of Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Otherwise, she occupied herself by producing small droplets of water from her fingertips and watching them distend and fall.
“Is she pretty?” asked the Astronomer, sitting in his wheelchair by the tomb of Jean d’Alluye. There was still some blood on the stone figure; the Astronomer had lately felt the need to recharge his power.
“Quite pretty.” Roman took a perfunctory sip from the glass of wine and set it aside on the preacher’s table nearby. The Astronomer was always offering him things—booze, drugs, women. He would take a taste out of courtesy and then set whatever it was aside. Exactly how much longer the Astronomer would allow that to go on was anyone’s guess. Sooner or later he was bound to make some bizarre demand involving Roman’s debasement. No one came out of association with the Astronomer unscathed. Roman’s attention wandered to a shadowy area under a brick arch where the skinny blasted ruin called Demise slouched brooding, his bottomless gaze fixed on something no one else could see. In another part of the room, near one of the lantern poles, Kafka was rustling impatiently. He couldn’t help rustling with that damned exoskeleton. It sounded like a multitude of cockroaches going wingcase to wingcase. Roman didn’t bother trying to hide his disgust at Kafka’s appearance. And Demise—well, he was beyond disgusting. Sometimes Roman thought that even the Astronomer was ginger about Demise. But both Demise and Kafka had been through their allotted humiliations courtesy of the wild card virus, while he could only wait and see what the Astronomer had in mind for him. He hoped there’d be enough time to know which way to jump. And then there was Ellie.… The thought of his wife was a fist in his stomach. No, please, no more for Ellie. He looked at the glass of wine and refused for the millionth time to succumb to the desire for anesthesia. If I go down—no, when I go down, I will go down in full possession of my faculties.…
The Astronomer laughed suddenly. “Melodrama becomes you, Roman. It’s your good looks. I could see you in some other life rescuing widows and orphans from blizzards.” The laughter faded, leaving a malicious smile. “Watch yourself around that girl. You could end up a little prematurely as the dust we all are.”
“I could.” Roman’s gaze went to the upper gallery. The Italian wood sculptures were gone now; he couldn’t remember what they’d looked like. “But I won’t.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“She’s a white-hat. A good guy. She’s a twenty-one-year-old innocent, she doesn’t have murder in her soul.” Bel
atedly, he looked at Demise, who was staring at him the way you never wanted Demise to stare at you.
Roman braced himself against a broken-off pedestal. It would be horrible but it wouldn’t last long, not really. The eternity of a few seconds. At least it would put him beyond the Astronomer’s reach for all time. But it also meant he wouldn’t be able to help Ellie either. I’m sorry, darling, he thought, and waited for the darkness.
A quarter of a second later, the Astronomer lifted one finger. Demise sank back into himself and resumed staring at nothing. Roman forced himself not to sigh.
“Twenty-one,” mused the Astronomer, as though one of his people had not just narrowly escaped being killed by his pet murder machine. “Such a fine age. Plenty of life and strength. Not the most level-headed age. An impulsive age. You’re sure you’re not just a little bit afraid of her impulses, Roman?”
Roman couldn’t resist sneaking a glance at Demise, who was no longer paying any attention. “I don’t mind staking my life on someone whose heart is in the right place.”
“Your life.” The Astronomer chuckled. “How about something of value?”
Roman allowed himself an answering smile. “Excuse me, sir, but if my life didn’t have some value to you, you’d have let Demise do me a long time ago.”
The Astronomer burst into surprisingly hearty laughter. “Brains and good looks. They’re what make you so damned useful to all of us. Must be what attracted your wife to you. You think?”
Roman kept smiling. “Very likely.”
Her dreams were full of strange pictures, things she’d never seen before. They troubled her sleep, passing through her head with an urgency that felt directed and reminded her of Roman’s impassioned pleas for her to join them. Whoever they were. Egyptian Masons. Her dreams told her all about them. And the Astronomer.
The Astronomer. A little man, shorter than she was, bone-thin, head too large. What Sal would have called bad-ass eyes while making that sign with his hand, the index and little fingers thrust out like horns, the middle two curled over his palm, some kind of Italian thing. Sal’s face floated through her dreams briefly and was swept away.