The nurse’s face looked relatively human but for the brightly patterned scales that covered it in lieu of normal skin. Her arms were oddly sinuous, almost boneless, and she had too many fingers. She looked at Fortunato curiously, but was professional enough to simply say, “This way, sir.”
As Fortunato followed her out of Finn’s office he could hear the ever-optimistic Digger Downs say, “Now, Dr. Finn, about this spaceship you took back to Earth, I heard that you stopped at many planets along the way—” He heard Finn sigh as if he realized he couldn’t escape Downs’ relentless interrogation, and then they were out of earshot.
The corridor was clean, quiet, and dimly lit. It smelled like a hospital. Not even the burning pungency of strong antiseptic could wipe out the odors of fear and pain and death and, somewhere underneath it all, hope. The nurse opened the door to Peregrine’s private room, one of the few in the clinic, and shut it softly after Fortunato slipped quietly inside.
The room was darker than the hallway outside, and Fortunato’s hypersensitive senses rebelled against the hurt and pain he could discern, not all of which emanated from the bandaged form on the bed attached to a raft of tubes and machines monitoring her heart, lungs, and brain.
A man sat in a chair by the side of the bed. He looked up as Fortunato entered, fear and pain in his eyes. He looked ordinary enough, fairly handsome with blonde hair and a darker beard. He nodded at Fortunato, and stood.
“I’m Josh McCoy.”
Fortunato nodded. He had never seen the man but he knew the name. “I know. I’m—”
“Fortunato.” McCoy said. “I know.”
Fortunato moved to the foot of the bed. “How’s she doing?”
“Sleeping, now. Trying to get some strength back...” McCoy’s voice trailed off as he looked at Peregrine’s quiescent form.
Somehow, seeing her lying there made Fortunato feel inadequate and inept. Like somehow he’d failed her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with her,” he said, surprising himself as he realized the truth of his statement.
“Not your fault,” McCoy said. “I just wish I’d been there myself.”
Fortunato shrugged. “Probably nothing you could have done, except get hurt. Or killed, maybe.”
McCoy looked at him. “But at least I would have been with her. For her.”
Fortunato frowned. He shouldn’t have to defend himself, he thought, or the decisions he’d made about his life. Not to this man. Not to any man. He was about to reply to McCoy’s veiled accusation when the sounds of movement under crisp sheets came to his ears, and both of the men turned to look at Peregrine.
She’d opened her eyes. They were drugged with pain and morphine, but it seemed she recognize them both. She held up a hand taped to a board with tubes running up to an intravenous drip that Finn had ratcheted up in potency to work with Peregrine’s souped-up metabolism. McCoy sat down in the chair next to her bed and took her hand and put it against his cheek.
“How you doing, darling?” he asked in a low voice.
A ghost of a smile passed over Peregrine’s drawn and tired face where, Fortunato thought, her beauty waited patiently to reveal itself like the sun eclipsed by dark shadows. “Been better,” she whispered. Her eyes wandered across the room and took in Fortunato.
“You’re here,” she said.
“I’m here.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
She glanced back at McCoy. “John?” she asked.
“He’s—he’s missing, but okay, as far as we know.”
Peregrine made a supreme effort and nodded. She looked again at Fortunato. “What’s this all about?”
That helpless feeling crawled around like a snake, biting Fortunato in the gut. “I don’t know,” he said. “What’s it ever all about? Some nut probably. Some fucking nut. You take care of one. Another takes his place. There’s no shortage of nuts—” Fortunato caught himself. He took a deep breath.
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” Peregrine whispered in words so low and slow that Fortunato could barely hear her. “But find him. Find him and bring him back safe.”
The snake coiled in Fortunato’s gut and clamped down on his intestines with its sharp fangs. He was being sucked into it all again, after almost sixteen years away. But how could he say no to his son’s mother? How could he not go find his son?
McCoy released Peregrine’s hand and stood up. “I’m coming with you.”
Fortunato shook his head. “No.”
McCoy’s fear and pain turned to sudden anger. “Don’t tell me no! You made him—I raised him. I changed his diapers. I helped him learn how to walk and talk. I helped him to grow into a good kid. Where were you all that time, you, you big hero?” McCoy’s voice rose with his anger. “Where were you?”
“Josh...” Peregrine said, reaching out to him.
Fortunato shook his head. “I just... I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”
“He’s right, Josh,” Peregrine said in her soft, pained voice. “He’s made for this.”
I was, Fortunato thought. But that was a long time ago. Now, I just don’t know...
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Fortunato took his leave, but they had already seemed to have forgotten him. McCoy sat next to her, his head against the mattress by her side. Her hand rested on it, so weak it was barely able to stir the strands of his hair. McCoy had earned that place by her side through sixteen years of ceaseless loyalty. Fortunato had tossed it aside.
He left the room, went down the corridor and took a side staircase down to the lobby. He didn’t want to see Finn again. He sure as Hell didn’t want to see Downs. He didn’t really want to be alone either, but he didn’t have much of a choice with that.
He looked out at the street. It was fairly quiet this time at night, but there were still occasional cars, a taxi or two, trucks off on their delivery rounds. Pedestrians went by singly or in groups, without a glance his way. No one knew who he was. Why should they?
His son was out there. He didn’t have a clue where. He didn’t have a clue as to who took him or why they took him or what his condition was. In the old days he might have gone to Chrysalis. She knew everything that happened in this city, most things of import that happened in the world of wild carders. But she was dead. Once he might have gone out of his body and searched for clues himself, but those days, like his powers, were gone. He had thrown them away, just like he’d tossed Peregrine aside. And for what?
“Hey, old man.”
The voice that startled Fortunato out of his reverie was that of Carlos, spokesman for the Jokka Bruddas. He was accompanied by the behemoth with the pustule-ridden face whom Father Squid had called Ricky.
“Where’s the rest of the crowd?” Fortunato asked.
Carlos shrugged. “Don’ worry about them. It’s your skinny old ass that’s in trouble.”
If Fortunato hadn’t recently been hammered by the double emotional blows of Peregrine’s wounding and his son’s kidnapping, he would have been amused. Now he was just angry at these kids for wasting his time.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Carlos shrugged again. “Don’ get snappy with me, dog, when I’m doin’ you a favor. Father Squid sent us to get you. He didn’t say what the problem was, but he said to get you and bring your ass back to the church andale, baby.”
Fortunato couldn’t imagine what the priest wanted, but knew that it must be important. “All right, let’s go.”
He started down the street, but Carlos grabbed his sleeve.
“This way, esse. We got a drive waiting.”
Following Carlos down the street, he turned left into the alley running alongside a wing of the Clinic, and suddenly thought, Where’s Ricky? He turned around to see the hulk behind him, grinning like a melting wax dummy as his fist descended in a blur.
Fortunato’s last thoughts were, Christ, I am getting too old, and darkness dropped on him like a falling cliff.
The Ang
el moaned softly as the Witness’s clenched fist opened and caressed her cheek, down along her jaw line. She had always been sensitive there. But she didn’t want him to touch her. Did she?
He stared dreamily into her eyes and said, “Knock, knock. Time to hit the road, Angel.”
She woke up, startled and confused. Billy Ray was standing in the open doorway between their connecting rooms. She realized that she must have left it unlocked when she’d collapsed into bed... how long ago, exactly?
She sat up, pulling the sheet up to her shoulders.
“What time is it?” she mumbled.
“Ten thirty two,” Ray announced crisply.
“I—it was already later then that—”
“In the A.M., sweet cheeks.”
She blinked at the realization that she’d slept so late, and blinked again when she realized that she was naked under the sheet, and Ray was staring at her.
The government ace, dressed in another impeccable suit, looked like he’d just rolled out of bed fresh from an untroubled night’s sleep. The bruises had disappeared from his face and all visible cuts had healed. He came into her room moving apparently without pain, though the Angel noted he moved gingerly when he sat down on the room’s other bed. Any other man she’d ever known would still be in a hospital. He smiled at her as he sat down, with none of the wild ferocity she’d seen when he was in the midst of battle. He had seemed to like the fighting. More than that, he’d reveled in it—
“What’s the matter?” Ray asked, his grin still in place.
“Oh.” The Angel forced herself to focus. “Nothing. What’s the plan?”
“The plan? We can discuss it in the car.” He stood and stretched like a sleek and self-satisfied cat. “You still look pretty beat, but we have things we have to do. Although,” he said with a thoughtful look, “if you want to catch a few more winks —“
The Angel sat up, wrapping the sheet around herself almost angrily.
“You don’t have to coddle me,” she said.
“No, but I’d like to,” Ray said with a leer. She just looked at him, and he shrugged. “Go take a shower. It’ll wake you up.”
That, the Angel thought, was a good idea.
“I could soap your back—” Ray offered as she stood with the sheet firmly wrapped around her. She stepped over the sweaty pile of clothes she’d discarded by the side of the bed, grabbed her duffel bag and headed for the bathroom. She slammed the bathroom door and, finally thinking clearly, locked it. “Anyway,” Ray called out through the door, “you can grab some more zzz’s in the car if you’re still tired.”
Car? The Angel thought. She turned the shower to cold and stepped under it. The icy torrent took her breath away and made her heart beat faster. For a moment she thought that it would be fun to have someone to soap her back. Maybe her front as well. Her hands slid over her flat abdomen, skirting the eight-inch scar that crawled over it like an ugly snake and the touch of it against her fingers banished all impure thoughts. She turned off the water. She dried herself, all but her hair, letting that hang down her back in an unmanageable curly mass. She took her spare underwear and black jumpsuit out of the duffel bag and dressed. When she came back into the bedroom. Ray was lying on the extra bed, legs straight out and crossed at the ankles, hands behind his head, watching some weird movie with masked wrestlers on the Spanish station. He glanced up at her.
“What?” the Angel asked, though she knew the look on his face meant that there was lust in his heart.
“Nothing,” Ray said. “That was fast. All right. Let’s go.”
“Where exactly are we going? If you don’t mind telling me?”
“Not at all.” Ray grinned. When he smiled like that he looked years younger, and just about as dangerous as a pussycat. “We’re going to take a trip outside of town and drop in on the Living Gods. One of them, Osiris, is a precog, and may have some insight as to what the Hell is going to happen next. Maybe even where they took the kid.”
The Angel dropped her duffel bag on her bed, thinking that somehow Ray had managed to wrest all control of this mission out of her hands. She didn’t like that. Also, she was hungry. “Well—”
“What?” Ray asked as her voice trailed off.
“Do we have time for breakfast?”
Ray made a show of checking his watch. “It’d be more like brunch, but, sure, why not?”
That’s something, at least, the Angel thought.
They paused in the corridor as they left the room; the Angel making sure her door was really locked. She didn’t trust those credit card-like keys.
“I hope he wasn’t the one who got greased,” Ray said.
She looked at him as they went down the hotel corridor. “Greased? You mean one of them was killed?”
“So the cops told me yesterday when I went down to the station.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you finally reported to the police?” the Angel asked. “Or bring me along?”
Ray shrugged. “What, let them bother you too? It was bad enough that I had to deal with them.”
“Did you tell them about The Hand?” the Angel asked anxiously.
He just looked at her. “You think that I was going to tell them that we’re here in Vegas to rescue Jesus Christ from a bunch of crazed Catholic cultists?”
The Angel breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t believed Ray capable of such subtlety. It was good to see that he had unexpected depths. “What about the Living Gods?” she asked as they made their way through the lobby to the coffee shop. Too bad, the Angel thought, they didn’t have a buffet.
“Like I said. One of them bought it during the attack on the Mirage. The cops didn’t know which one. Funny thing, the body’s already been released. Some kind of religious mumbo-jumbo.” He put his hands out as the Angel glared at him. “Not that I have anything against religious mum—ah, religion.”
A shame, the Angel thought, ruminating on the Living Gods. They were pagans, but in their own way they were innocents.
They seated themselves in the coffee shop and the Angel ordered the he-man breakfast from the menu, pancakes, three eggs (sunny side up), hash browns, ham, bacon, and sausage, with toast on the side. Ray, saying he’d eaten earlier, only had coffee.
She watched him watch her as she ate. She thought of ordering another side of ham, or maybe grits, but Ray’s scrutiny was making her feel self-conscious. She didn’t want him to think she was a glutton. Besides, she was all too conscious of the fact that she had no money to pay for the food she was consuming.
Ray didn’t seem to mind, though. He cheerfully slapped down his credit card and then added a way-too-generous tip that bought a smile to the attractive young waitress serving them. The Angel didn’t like that. She didn’t think it was proper for young women to use their physical attributes to gull susceptible men into giving them money. And if there was one thing she knew about Ray, it was that he was susceptible.
They exited the Mirage through the lobby and a valet bought a car up to them as they waited at the curb. The Angel looked it over disapprovingly. She didn’t know what model or year it was, but it was big, shiny, and expensive. “At least it’s not an SUV,” she muttered as she got into the front seat.
“What?” Ray asked.
“Nothing.”
Ray was a fast, yet precise and careful driver. He didn’t speed. Excessively. He didn’t change lanes. Excessively. He drove like he fought. Quickly, instinctually, and seemingly effortlessly. The car responded to his touch like a trained beast. It seemed to purr as it glided down the strip. Its seats were comfortable. The soft whisper of the dual climate control fanned her like sensual tropic breezes.
She ached only slightly from yesterday’s battle, and was still hungry despite her large breakfast. The batteries that drove the awesome engine of her body were still not entirely recharged. She was still tired, more than she realized. Somewhere, after Ray hit the highway beyond the city limits, lulled by her comfortable surroundings and the smoo
th glide of the road beneath their feet, the Angel fell asleep.
She dreamed her interrupted dream again, and thought it true. She and the Witness faced each other, only this time there was love in his eyes, not contempt. They were fully dressed, and then they were naked as they day they’d been born, and the Angel felt no guilt about it. Well, not much anyway.
Any trace of guilt vanished when he touched her. His hands were gentle on her face, caressing her cheek, slipping softly to her throat. It was amazing that such a large and strong-looking hand could be so gentle as it trickled down the column of her neck lightly as the wings of a dove. It went lower and she shivered at the touch of his hand on her right breast. Cupping it gently. Whispering over her stiffening nipple.
She closed her eyes and their lips met in a soft, yet increasingly demanding kiss. The Angel’s breath started to come faster. He eyes opened and she was shocked to see that she was no longer in the Witness’s arms, but was being embraced by Jonah, the only boy she’d ever kissed, ten years ago.
That meant... that meant...
Suddenly her mother burst onto the back porch, screaming at them, saying vile dirty things. She swung a broomstick at them, snapping it across the Angel’s shoulders. She started to cry. Jonah bounded up from the back porch swing and lit out like the hounds of Hell were on his trail, and they may well have been. The Angel put her arms over her face and contracted into a ball as her mother screamed at her, waving the broken stick ferociously.
Only, as she opened her eyes again, it wasn’t her mother standing over her. It was Billy Ray. And it wasn’t a stick he was waving.
The Porsche suddenly swerved and the Angel awoke, startled. She reached out, not sure where she was, and caught in a spasm of sudden terror, grabbed the door handle and ripped it off.