“Knock off the horseshit, already,” Ray said. “Angel is right.”
“Yes,” the Angel chimed in. “Our job is to find the boy. Sparring with each other isn’t helping.”
Ackroyd sighed. “Wisdom from the mouth of babes.” He held up a hand to forestall another outburst from Ray or the Angel, or both. “But, you’re right. Both of you. What do you propose?”
The Angel felt Ray’s eyes on her. They were calculating. Though lust lay behind the calculation, he did seem to be focusing somewhat at least upon their job. “Well,” Ray said, “there’s two of us, and two of you. Why don’t we split our teams?”
“Good idea,” Ackroyd said. “I’ll go with Angel—”
“Uh, no,” Ray interrupted, shaking his head. “You and me, Popinjay. We’re a team. Like the old days.”
Ackroyd frowned. “Only if you knock off the ‘Popinjay’ crap.”
“All right,” Ray said.
“All right.” Ackroyd turned to Creighton. “I should talk things over with your little helper from last night.”
“Right.” Creighton spoke for the first time. His voice, the Angel thought, was the same as before, as deep and soft as his eyes. He seemed a gentle soul, unsuited for his profession. “There are some other things we should check out. Brennan told me about another settlement up the road that John Fortune might have stumbled into last the night. Or Dagon’s men, for that matter.”
“Right,” Ackroyd said crisply. “Check it out. Be careful.” He fished in his inside jacket pocket and tossed a cell phone to Creighton. Ackroyd frowned. “Too bad the kid wasn’t carrying one of these. All this tramping around the countryside wouldn’t be necessary. Anyway, be careful. Watch out for cows and other wild animals. And if you spot any of Dagon’s men—call immediately.”
“That’s right,” Ray said. “And we’ll come kick their asses.”
“Let’s hope,” Ackroyd said. “Come on. I’ll catch you up on all our ‘clues.’”
The Angel could hear the quotation marks Ackroyd’s sarcastic tones put around the word as he and Ray went off down the road together. She looked at Creighton. He returned her gaze. Lust was lurking in the depths of his sad eyes. Men, she thought.
“The commune is down the road apiece,” he said, “We can walk to it.” He gestured towards the ridge with the summer camp nestled at its base. “This area is called Snake Hill. Used to be known for all the rattlesnakes around here, sixty, seventy years ago. Don’t worry. They’re all gone now.” He frowned. “At least, supposedly most of ‘em are. Anyway, their presence attracted a, a religious community, I’d guess you’d call it.”
“Ophiolatrists!” the Angel hissed.
“Huh?”
“I hate ophiolatrists!” the Angel said.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New York City: Saint Dympna’s Home For the Mentally Deficient And Criminally Inclined
The Cardinal was furious. He slammed the cell phone down on the oubliette’s floor and it shattered into miscellaneous bits of plastic and unidentifiable electronics. He was in the basement of St. Dympna’s with Usher, Magda, and Nighthawk, and the Witness, examining the damage that the big break out had caused when the call came from upstate. The old pile of stones was pretty much intact, though the same could not be said for the credenti who had been manning it. Some of the released prisoners had chosen to take revenge and they’d come out of the oubliette mad and armed with looted weaponry. Such a copious amount of blood had not been spilled in the old asylum in over fifty years. Then came the phone call from the younger Witness relaying the news from upstate. It wasn’t good.
“The reception is terrible!” the Cardinal swore furiously. “How do they expect me to even hear, let alone condone their whining excuses?”
Nighthawk only shrugged. He knew better than to interrupt the Cardinal in mid-rant. The Witness—the Asshole, as Nighthawk thought of him—tried to catch Nighthawk’s eye, but he refused to look at him.
“How many of those morons does it take to capture one boy?” Contarini asked rhetorically. “Even if he is the Anti-Christ?” He turned his gaze directly on Nighthawk. “It took only you to capture a girl after the idiots here let her escape. Just you! How many men do they have with them?”
“Twenty-six,” the Asshole answered.
Ass-kisser, Nighthawk thought. The man would sell out his own brother to gain favor with the Cardinal.
Contarini took a deep breath, struggling to control his fury. “Can those fools do nothing right? Must I handle everything, personally?” He glanced at Nighthawk. “Cameo was not as you promised, but at least you took care of her.”
Nighthawk kept silent, and only nodded, half to himself. He had taken care of her. He had given her sixty thousand dollars in cash and personally escorted her to the station where he put her on a train headed west. He had told her to go somewhere, anywhere. To get out of the city and stay out until she saw from the news that it was safe to return. She was a sensible girl. She took his advice.
She even gave him the silk choker from around her neck without hesitation when he asked for it. After he saw her off safely, he searched a couple of pawn shops until he found a cameo that was quite similar to the one that she’d worn, mounted it on her choker, stained the silk with some blood he’d gotten off a juicy beefsteak he’d purchased at a grocery store, and presented it to the Cardinal as proof that he’d handled the Cameo problem.
Contarini, if not delighted, had at least been mollified.
That was all right with Nighthawk. The Cardinal was never going to treat him like family. It wasn’t, Nighthawk realized, so much that he was black, though that was probably part of it. More like he was an American and, worse, a wild carder. But again, that was all right. He had gotten what he wanted out of this crazy affair. He felt better than he had in years, as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off his soul. He felt truly young again, without guilt or worry. His ultimate goal now was to extricate himself from this fiasco with a whole skin. It would not be easy. Things were not going the way Cardinal Contarini wanted, and when that happened bad things tended to happen to those around him.
“It’s occurred to me,” Contarini said icily, “that we can weaken the position of the Anti-Christ by destroying those close to him. I’ve learned that both the black-skinned Satan and his doxy, the Whore of Babylon, are patients in the Jokertown Clinic. Both have been severely wounded. Both are just clinging to life. Perhaps one of you can handle them, now.” He fixed the Witness and Nighthawk with his hard stare. “Perhaps two of you. Who wants the job?”
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New Hampton: Snake Hill
Jerry looked at his new found partner dubiously. “Ophiolatrists?” he asked. “What’s that?”
“Snake worshipers,” Angel said briefly, her face set a frown that seemed habitual. She was quite good-looking, Jerry thought, despite her dourness. Her leather jumpsuit accentuated the lushness of her figure and her gloomy expression couldn’t eclipse the strong, handsome lines of her features. She wasn’t really beautiful because she lacked any hint of delicacy, but she had other qualities in sufficient quantity to more than make up for that.
They walked down the road in silence for several minutes. It was pretty obvious to Jerry that if there was going to be any conversation, he’d have to initiate it. It was in his experience pretty much always a good idea to talk to attractive women, because all good things started with talking.
“So,” Jerry said, conversationally as they sauntered together down the country road, shaded by the thickly-forested slope that came down to the verge, “how long have you worked for the government, Angel?”
“My name’s not Angel,” she said.
Jerry frowned. “Sorry. I thought Ray said—”
“I am the Midnight Angel,” she informed him. “Named after the hour of my Lord’s Passion in the Garden of Getheseme.”
“I—see,” Jerry said, thinking, Why are all the great-looking ones such nuts?
&n
bsp; “This must be it,” she said, her full lips grimacing in distaste as they halted in front of a gated dirt road that led up into the heart of Snake Hill.
Jerry peered over her shoulder to read the hand-lettered sign nailed to the wooden gate.
PRIVATE PROPERTY
POSTED
CHURCH OF THE SERPENT REDEEMED
NO TAX COLLECTORS, POLICE OFFICERS,
OR GOVERNMENT MEN
THIS MEANS YOU!!!!!
The periods at the tips of the exclamation points were represented by slightly off-centered bullet holes punched through the wooden sign. The free-hand letters were actually well formed and on the edge of artistic. The spelling was surprisingly literate.
“Well, none of that fits us,” Jerry said. “I mean, you may work for the government, but you’re not a man—”
She turned and stared at him.
“I mean obviously. Not. So... I guess we can go in.”
Angel turned without a word and slipped the small wire loop off the gate’s upright post. Jerry didn’t take her utter dismissal personally. It seemed the usual face that she presented to the world. She swung the gate open and Jerry started to follow her onto the winding dirt path leading up Snake Hill when, with a laboring engine smelling of burning oil, an ancient Volkswagen mini-van painted in faded psychedelic designs of exploding stars and dancing mushrooms—with a big peace sign on the front panel—pulled up to the turn-off and chugged to a stop, sounding something like a lawn-mower with a bad choke.
A young man stuck his head out the driver side window. “Can I help you folks?”
Jerry glanced at Angel. She was looking at the newcomer with recognition and active suspicion, but didn’t seem prepared to comment. He stepped towards the van, smiling, ready to take charge.
“Maybe,” he said. “We’re looking—whoa!”
Pungent waves bearing the scent of marijuana wafted out from the open window and hit Jerry in the face with the force of a palpable blow. Suddenly he felt as if he’d been transported into a Cheech and Chong movie. The guy in the VW could have easily been a bit player in Up In Smoke. He was young, maybe in his late twenties—though Jerry was well aware that the wild card virus had transformed the phrase “appearances can be deceiving” from a cliché to an ultimate truth—but his hair style, dress, and general deportment seemed four decades out of phase. Though he was Caucasian, his thick, wiry black hair was fluffed up in a bushy Afro. He had a Fu Manchu mustache and large, sharply delineated sideburns that appeared more often in gay fantasies than in real life. He wore what appeared to be a paisley tie as a cravat, and had tiny, octagonal-shaped granny glasses, tinted purple, on the tip of his long, straight nose. His purple silk shirt had long, puffy sleeves and was patterned in a startling green and crimson orchid print. His ragged jeans were embroidered with, from what Jerry could see, flowers, smiley faces, and peace signs. He seemed to take no notice of the fact that Jerry, a complete stranger, could obviously detect the odor of mary jane wafting off him in waves approaching tidal in size and effect.
“—Uh,” Jerry caught himself. “Are you a member of the Church?”
The living museum-piece shook his head. “No, man. But these righteous dudes are like customers of mine.”
“Customers?” Jerry asked with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s right. I’m like, their grocer, man. All organic. All natural. All the best.”
Jerry glanced at Angel, whose frown had deepened. Actually, Jerry thought, it would do her a world of good to get stoned. It’d loosen her up a little. And if she stays around this guy long enough, she’d get high just from the contact. He coughed discreetly. The fumes were already starting to get to him.
Angel stood beside Jerry and stared suspiciously at the newcomer. “Really?” she asked. “Exactly what do you sell?”
The hippie smiled, unfazed by her glowering frown. “Hey, I know you, man. I mean, I seen you before down at Kaleita’s store driving that bitchin’ Cadillac SUV, though, really, man, I don’t much approve of SUV’s because they’re really bad for Gaea and all her children—”
“Answer the question,” Angel said severely.
Beaming, he jumped out of the van. Jerry took one breath and had to turn his head away. He could feel his eyes starting to water.
“I’ll show you, man. Come around and take a look at our mother’s generous bounty.”
Jerry shrugged at Angel, and they followed him to the van’s side where he’d already slung open the door, and stood proudly, gesturing at the baskets within.
Jerry had to admit that everything looked good enough to eat, even the zucchini, but he suspected that he’d been standing a little too close for a little too long to the sixties poster child and was at least a little high from the fumes the guy emitted like some kind of tangible pheromone.
Angel just looked blankly at the baskets of red, vine-ripened tomatoes, the bundles of scallions and red onions, crates of lettuce, the cucumbers and zucchini, and open burlap bags of potatoes that still had clumps of thick, rich soil clinging to them.
“What’s your name?” Jerry asked him.
“They call me Mushroom Daddy,” the horticulturist said, “because I grow the most bitchin’ ‘shrooms in Orange County. Got a special greenhouse for them with all the glass painted black and dirt that’s—“
Jerry nodded, forestalling the horticultural lecture he was sure was about to come. “I’m Creighton,” he said. “This is Angel.”
“Woah,” Mushroom Daddy said. “Angel. Cool. Creighton. Groovy, man. What do you folks want with the snake handlers?”
“Ah, well,” Jerry said, “we’re looking for a kid. A kid who’s been lost in the woods overnight. We hoped they may have seen or heard something.”
“Heavy,” Daddy said. “Why don’t you hop in the ol’ van and I’ll give you a lift. Their commune is about a mile up the hill. They don’t take too good to strangers, but seeing as you’re with the Daddy, they might to help you. They know just about everything that goes on around Snake Hill.”
“Groovy,” Jerry said.
Mushroom Daddy slammed the side door shut and slung back into the driver’s seat.
Jerry smiled at Angel. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll close the gate.”
She went around to the passenger’s side and gingerly got into the van. Mushroom Daddy started it up again. With much tender encouragement and delicate manipulation of the gas pedal, the engine finally caught. Jerry closed the gate and climbed into the front seat after the van inched forward, exchanging smiles with Daddy over a stiff-featured Angel as they chugged up Snake Hill, a Canned Heat tape playing softly on the eight-track.
Jokertown: The Jokertown Clinic
Fortunato woke to darkness and pain. It was odd because he hurt so badly yet he couldn’t feel his body. He tried to lift his right arm and hold his hand in front of his eyes, but couldn’t manage it. He didn’t know if he was lying on a bed or perhaps the floor of the abandoned building, sitting in a chair or floating in a pool of water. Though he didn’t feel wet. All he felt was pain.
Then he thought of opening his eyes. He blinked at what he saw. It was himself. He was lying in a bed, and it didn’t look good. The white sheet hid most of his body, but it was clear that he’d been hurt very badly. His left arm, visible over the sheet, was bandaged from palm to biceps. A drip line ran up from his elbow to a bag of clear fluid hanging from a hook over his head. His nose was bandaged as if it’d been broken. His eyes were swollen nearly shut and horridly blackened. His entire face, in fact, was as bruised and battered as if he’d been in a fight, and lost.
Suddenly he remembered that he had. He remembered the confrontation with the Jokka Bruddas. They’d overwhelmed him almost immediately. He remembered getting a few good licks in, but it seemed pretty clear from his current state that he’d lost the fight. He looked awful.
Suddenly he wondered how he could see his entire body, head to toe, including his face, and the bed he was laying on. He wondered
dully if he were dead. Killed, and maybe eaten by a bunch of under-age street punks. That would mark a glorious end to his career. The man Tachyon had once called the most powerful ace on Earth beaten to death by juvenile delinquents.
But he wasn’t dead. He certainly hadn’t been devoured. He was either asleep or unconscious, but he could see his chest rise and fall. The squiggles on the heart monitor over his bed seemed to be spiking in a nicely regular rhythm. He suddenly realized what was going on. He was projecting his astral form, hovering over what clearly was a hospital bed. Somehow his powers—or at least one of them—had come back to him, without the need for the Tantric magick that he’d once practiced to charge his batteries. Tachyon had told him that the rituals were simply a crutch for his conscious mind, but he’d never believed him.
Maybe the space wimp had been right all along.
He couldn’t tell for certain what had done it. Maybe the anger. The sheer impotence of being Fortunato and yet being unable to defend himself from some pissant street thugs, when once he’d defeated the Astronomer over the skies of New York. Maybe it had been the fear he’d felt when he’d realized that he could indeed be beaten to death by those children. Maybe it had been the realization that if that happened he couldn’t help his son.
He looked down at his body. He realized that although it might be dangerous, he had to stay out of it. His body wouldn’t last for long without his spirit to guide and animate it, but he had to take the chance that it would hang on at least for awhile. It was likely that the liberation of his astral form had been the work of his unconscious mind. If he returned to his body, there was no guarantee that he’d be able to leave it again. And his body wasn’t going anywhere for awhile. It looked too broken up.
His astral form was free to travel. To prove it to himself he floated out of his private hospital room and found himself in a familiar corridor. He realized that he was back in the Jokertown Clinic. He sped along the corridor, unseen and untouched by the nurses and patients he passed, though one joker perhaps blessed with a touch of second sight seemed to watch him as he floated by. But the joker said nothing and Fortunato slipped into another of the clinic’s private rooms, and found himself in Peregrine’s presence again.