The kids were all jokers. Some, like the slag-faced hulking giant who stood behind the speaker, were severely marked. Others, like the speaker himself, whose only visible abnormality was a rather attractive pair of feathery antennae that sprouted where his eyebrows should have been, were only touched by what was still regarded as the taint of the wild card, even after all these years.
Fortunato looked at them tolerantly. They were his people. He could have been one of them, if he hadn’t been inhumanly lucky in the cosmic crapshoot. Their expressions, as they looked back at him, ranged from totally blank to utterly hostile.
“I’m just standing here,” Fortunato said, finally answering the spokesman’s question.
The spokesman snorted. “You on our corner, man.”
Fortunato’s eyebrows rose. This was the old game that had been played on the streets for generations. He himself had played it, before he’d gone on to bigger games.
“Your corner?” he asked.
“Yah,” the kid replied. “We’re the Jokka Bruddas, dig, and like I spoke, you taking up space on our corner. You owe us, man.”
“Owe you?” the anger in Fortunato’s gut flared at the gangbanger’s insouciance. “I owned this corner, this street, and all those around it before you were born, boy. You’d best believe that.”
There was no fear in the boy’s eyes. “Yeah? Who are you supposed to be, old man?”
“I’m Fortunato,” he said.
There was a moment’s silence as they all stared at him, then the kid started to laugh and all his followers joined in. “Fortunato!” He shook his head. “You ain’t nothing but a crazy old man. Fortunato, he dead, old man. Been dead many a year. Everybody knows.”
“Knows what?” Fortunato said through clenched teeth, his gut roiling as the anger threatened to explode all bonds.
“He died years ago, before I was born. He flew up into the sky and fought the Devil. They fought all night, throwing lightning and thunder at each other. My daddy told me. He saw it. Fortunato was strong, but the Devil, he stronger. Fortunato fell from the sky like a stone and burned all up and the Devil took his soul to Hell because he was a pimp and a whore-runner.”
“They weren’t whores,” Fortunato ground out, “they were geishas.”
The boy shrugged. “You Fortunato? Go ahead, hit me with a lightning bolt. Fly. They said you could even stop time. Go ahead, old man. Do it. You better have more’n your mouth because we’re going to cap your ass and take everything you have.”
Fortunato’s anger called on the power, but nothing responded. He had shut it away for too long. He had turned his back on it, and now when he needed it, it wouldn’t respond. And Fortunato knew, suddenly and desperately, that he really needed it. The giant whose face was a lava field of pitted sores grinned horrifically, and stepped forward. Fortunato tensed.
“Are you all right, my son?” a deep, concerned voice asked. Suddenly, all around them, was the smell of the sea.
They all turned to see a man in priest’s robes who was not as tall as Fortunato, and more than twice as wide. His skin was a shiny, glabrous gray. His round face had nictating membranes over his eyes instead of normal lids, and a fall of short, constantly twitching tentacles where his nose should have been. His hands, folded over his comfortable paunch, were large, with long attenuated fingers that twitched bonelessly. Vestigial suckers lined his palms. He smelled like the ocean on a pleasant summer day.
“Father Squid,” Fortunato said.
“My son,” the priest of the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, acknowledged with a bow and a smile, “or should I call you ‘my brother’?”
“Whatever you call me, Father, it’s good to see you.”
Though not a touchy-feely person, Fortunato, accepted the priest’s embrace gratefully. Held against his broad chest, the smell reminded Fortunato of boyhood summer days spent at the beach. They hugged for a long moment, then Fortunato backed away.
Father Squid looked at him critically. “You look tired, my son.”
“I’ve been on a long journey.”
Father Squid nodded. “I’m glad to be here to welcome you home.” He gestured benevolently at the bangers standing all around them. “I’m glad that some of my flock has already welcomed you.” There was shuffling of feet and almost inaudible murmurs. “But it might be best if you were to come down the street to my church, and rest for awhile. We can catch up on the happenings of the last fifteen years.”
That suddenly sounded like a good idea. Father Squid was a well-known, well-beloved figure about Jokertown. Or, Fortunato thought, at least he was the last time he knew anything about Jokertown. But something the joker priest said wasn’t right. Fortunato frowned as he glanced at the street sign on the corner.
“We’re across Jokertown from Our Lady of Perpetual Misery,” Fortunato said. For a moment he wondered if his mind was going. If he was starting to forget details of his previous life. “Aren’t we?”
Father Squid smiled behind his fall of nasal tentacles. “The old Lady of Perpetual Misery,” he explained, “burned down almost a decade ago. We moved our premises here after the fire to a desanctified Roman Catholic Church in an abandoned parish.” He leaned forward to speak in a low voice. The odor of the ocean wafted from his ample form “Frankly, the insurance money didn’t go as far as we thought it would, and the real estate in this part of Jokertown is cheaper.”
Fortunato glanced at the Jokka Bruddas still standing around, some shuffling their feet, some glaring, and nodded.
“Right,” Father Squid said, smiling again. “This way.” He paused for a moment and glanced at the youths, taking them all in with his kindly, but penetrating gaze. “I haven’t seen you boys at confession lately. Or, come to think about it, even Mass. I hope you’ll be there this Sunday.”
“Ah, Father,” said their spokesman.
Father Squid’s gaze turned somewhat less kindly. “Carlos.”
The joker hung his head. “Yes, Father.”
The priest looked at the giant with the terrible face. “Ricky, you make sure Carlos makes it to Mass, won’t you.”
“I will, Father,” the giant said in a curiously high, sweet voice, the words of an angel issuing from a Hellhound’s mouth.
“All right,” Father Squid said with a nod. “We’ll see you boys soon.”
Carlos mumbled something as they walked away. To Fortunato it sounded like a slurred threat, but he ignored their words and their unblinking glares, as he went off down the street with the amiable joker priest.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New York City: To St. Dympna’s
On the way down from the Tower, Cameo, said to Nighthawk, “I don’t think I like the sound of St. Dympna’s.” She paused momentarily. “Whatever it is.”
Nighthawk shook his head. “You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s a charity hospital for crazy folks. It’s been shut down for years, but the Church still holds the deed and Contarini uses it as his sort of unofficial headquarters. It’s where the obsequenti have their barracks and Blood his kennel.”
Cameo frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s an awful place,” Nighthawk agreed.
The elevator came to a stop and Nighthawk politely waited for her to exit, holding the door for her and then following her into the lobby with Usher and Magda still at her side. He paused for a moment to look around. Whenever he stood in the Waldorf-Astoria’s lobby, it made him feel as if seventy years had fallen off the age of the earth. And off him.
She gazed at him.
“So,” she said, “you’re not taking me there. Right?”
Nighthawk looked around the lobby. So many memories. There was a maid he’d loved, lived with, and lost to a younger man who’d been a flashier dresser and had better prospects. She was young then, when he was old, but now she’d be ancient, if she’d somehow managed to survive. Nighthawk suppressed an introspective sigh. The past had been weighing heavily on him lately. He had to rid himself of
it, one way or the other.
He looked at Cameo, wishing he’d gotten some really useful ace ability, like telepathy. But that, he thought, would have just made things too easy. “I have no choice,” his voice said. His eyes pled, Trust me. Just trust me for a little while longer.
“What if I scream?” Cameo asked conversationally.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Usher said.
Magda just smiled.
It was the nun’s smile, Nighthawk thought, that decided her. For now. Her gaze withdrew. Her eyes became hooded. It wasn’t exactly as if she lost all interest in her surroundings, but she acted as if she were preoccupied with something else more important, as if she were conversing with unseen spectres.
Maybe, Nighthawk thought, she was.
Usher went to the parking garage while Nighthawk, Cameo, and Magda waited on the street. It was late, and almost quiet. Cameo looked at Nighthawk, ignoring the silent nun.
“Can’t I go and find some place to go hide until this is all over?” she asked. “Whatever this is.”
Nighthawk nodded approvingly. “That would be the thing to do.” He paused, frowning. “Unfortunately, this will only be over, one, if Contarini dies, or, two, when Jesus Christ again walks this earth. I ain’t saying which is more likely. At this point, I don’t know.”
“Contarini is that determined?”
“He’s a fanatic. Fanatics are usually fairly determined.”
“And you’re not?” Cameo asked him. “A fanatic, I mean?”
Nighthawk laughed. “Not like Contarini. I have faith, but I’m not blinded by it. I have... questions. That’s why I took this job. I’d done some work for Contarini’s Allumbrados in the past—”
A big black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, Usher behind the wheel. Nighthawk opened the rear passenger side door and gestured for Cameo to enter. She got in gracefully and slid across the seat. Magda started to follow her, but Nighthawk took her forearm with his gloved left hand and shook his head.
“In the front,” he said, “with Usher.”
She stared at his gloved hand on her arm, then looked up at Nighthawk as if she were going to dispute his order, but dropped her gaze after a few moments. She pulled her arm away and got into the front passenger seat, obviously perturbed.
Nighthawk got in the back and toggled the dark glass panel into place between front and rear seats. Magda twisted backward to glare at them as the panel slid into place. Usher pulled away from the curb, melding easily with the light stream of traffic.
“She doesn’t like you,” Cameo observed.
“No,” Nighthawk said. “But, even better, she fears me.”
Cameo looked him over coolly. “Why?”
Nighthawk smiled. “Pray you never find out, missy.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded.
”All right,” she said. “You mentioned ‘Allumbrados,’ what does that mean? Who exactly are they?”
“It means ‘the Enlightened Ones.’ They’re an ancient brotherhood within the Church. Cardinal Contarini is their current leader, but they’ve been around since medieval times. Some say back to the time of the Inquisition, to which they had tight ties.”
“Contarini’s a Cardinal?” she repeated, half to herself, as if not totally surprised. “I’m not totally surprised,” she said. “The stink of sanctimony clings to him like cheap aftershave.”
Nighthawk smiled. That was a pretty fair assessment.
“But these Allumbrados, what exactly do they believe in?”
“They believe in the Millennium,” Nighthawk said. “They believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth. That after casting Satan and his minions into the pit He’ll establish a Kingdom of Peace and reign for a thousand years. Then He’ll fight the Devil one last time, and in this final confrontation will be victorious. Then the world will end and the righteous will go to Heaven to spend eternity praising God.”
“Literally?”
“Oh, yes. They believe this to be the pre-ordained fate of the universe. They believe that they can help this process along and hasten the coming of Parousia.”
“Parousia?”
“Sorry,” Nighthawk said. “You hang around these people enough and you forget how to talk like ordinary folk. Parousia is just a fancy word for Jesus’ Kingdom on Earth.”
“So, they hired you to help them?”
“I got them the Shroud, didn’t I?” Nighthawk asked with some indignation. “I found you to channel Jesus’ spirit so the Cardinal could discover how exactly they could help bring about Jesus’ return. Is it my fault you got Cole Porter instead?”
Cameo had to fight back a smile. “No.”
“Anyway,” Nighthawk said, “that’s only part of the plan.”
“The other part being?”
“The other part being destroying the Anti-Christ, who Contarini believes has already appeared on Earth, as Scripture has predicted.”
“That’s crazy,” Cameo said. “Just who is this supposed Anti-Christ, anyway?”
“The Spawn of the Whore of Babylon and Satan himself.”
Cameo shook her head. “I’m still in the dark.”
Nighthawk sat silently as Usher drove with quiet, sure skill through the empty streets. The Mercedes windows were all blacked out so Cameo could have no clue where they were going. That was part of the reason why he had activated the barrier between the front and back seats. He also didn’t want Usher or Magda to hear their conversation. He slouched back on his seat.
“The Whore of Babylon is a famous television star and documentary film producer who has dared to oppose the Church on pretty much every social issue imaginable. Abortion rights. Ordaining women for the priesthood. Homosexuality. Even the doctrine of papal infallibility which, it turns out, was invented in the nineteenth century. Plus, she’s a wild carder.”
“Peregrine?” Cameo hazarded.
Nighthawk nodded. “That’s right, missy. Now, Satan himself: He’s also a wild carder. He deals in sex, drugs, and violence. Or at least used to. He’s black—”
“Fortunato! But,” Cameo said, “he’s been in that monastery in Japan, what, it seems like forever now.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nighthawk said. “If he doesn’t come out when things start happening, Contarini will send someone after him. And,” Nighthawk added significantly, ”things have definitely started to happen.
“And the Anti-Christ,” Cameo said thoughtfully. “Their son, John Fortune.”
Nighthawk nodded again. “You got that right. The only known offspring from the union of two aces. That’s important to Contarini. Wild carders are equivalent to demons in his theology. He believes we’re all damned from birth. That we’ll all suffer the agonies of Hell for eternity.”
“Yet you work for him,” Cameo said with an edge of disgust in her voice.
Nighthawk shook his head. “I don’t work for him. I take his money. There’s a difference.”
“A vague one,” Cameo said.
“No. An important one. I told you before—I took this job for a reason.”
“The money?” she asked.
Nighthawk shook his head silently. His gaze turned inwards as if he were reliving memories of old, unforgettable, unpleasant events.
“No. I took this job because I wanted to see if you were the real thing, or just some kind of fake.”
“It wasn’t my fault that I got Cole Porter, either—” Cameo began, but Nighthawk interrupted her.
“No, I believe you. You’ve convinced me that you can channel the dead.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Your trust, for now.” He frowned. “We’re probably all right, here, now. If we’re being taped, we’re both dead if the Cardinal ever hears this conversation—”
Cameo snorted. “I thought you weren’t afraid of the Cardinal.”
“I’ve lived a long time, missy,” Nighthawk said, “and I didn’t do it by being stupid. Of course I’m afraid of the Ca
rdinal. If you had any sense, you’d be too. I can’t afford to openly oppose him. I’m one old man. He has the Allumbrados. Aces. Money. More thugs with guns than I could kill in a year.”
“All right,” Cameo said in a small voice. “I believe you.”
“You better,” he said. “St. Dympna’s now, is not a nice place. It will be hard for you there. But you’ll only have to endure it for maybe a day, no more, then I’ll get you out. Trust me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because,” Nighthawk said softly. “I swear on the honor of my immortal soul.”
They looked at each other for a long time, and then Cameo finally nodded.
“All right,” she said in the voice of a little girl.
“Thank you,” Nighthawk said.
She nodded again, and they rode the rest of the way to St. Dympna’s in silence.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Jokertown: Rectory, Our Lady of Perpetual Mystery
Father Squid’s rectory was suffused with the peace of the monastery. Fortunato felt that he’d found an oasis of tranquility after nearly two days of travel and re-immersion in the strangeness of Jokertown. It was a small room in a small cottage attached to a church that had been abandoned by the Catholic diocese sometime in the 1960’s after they’d pulled out of Jokertown without regard for the souls of their vastly changed parishioners. Somehow it felt very much like home.
After enjoying a glass of mellow, surprisingly tasty wine in the rectory, Father Squid took Fortunato on a quick tour of his church, which after several years of reconstruction still wasn’t quite up to snuff.
“We’re doing the best we can,” Father Squid said as if reading Fortunato’s thoughts. He gestured at the scaffolds half-holding up one of the interior walls, the flooring that was partly warped plywood, the mismatched pews that must have come from half a dozen other forgotten churches. “But money is tight. And I hesitate to spend it all on building projects when so much has to be done for the parish poor. Meals for the elderly, or those incapable of taking care of themselves. Money for heating oil in the winter. A small camp we send joker children to in the summer, so they might know what sunshine and forests and clean lake water feels like.” The priest shook his head ponderously. “Never enough time. Never enough money.”