Lowball

by George R. R. Martin

  And these clowns were kidnapping jokers. Why? Potential suicide bombers, maybe? People who could be blackmailed into doing bad things? Jamal fumed. This was important information—

  —but not necessarily to SCARE, not yet. Especially with the team so concentrated on candidate protection … and the dismaying results of the search for Wheels so unrelated to terrorism. And tomorrow he’d be going back on Holy Roller detail.

  He dialed Franny at Fort Freak.

  Galahad in Blue

  Part Four

  IT WAS GOING TO suck to tell Father Squid that the precinct had closed the case on the missing jokers. Especially since Franny wasn’t sure he was a good enough actor to cover his own misgivings about that decision. But it had to be done. The priest deserved that much respect. Franny also wanted to talk to the priest about Croyd. Maybe enlist his help. If anyone could get through to the paranoid ace it might be the man who embodied, at least in Franny’s mind, the conscience of Jokertown.

  He also figured a morning spent at mass wouldn’t be amiss—he’d certainly been afflicted by impure thoughts about both Apsara and Abby, and a corrosive anger toward his fellow officers and his captain. He promised himself he’d go to confess on Saturday, but for now he could try to find some peace among the polished wood and the smell of incense. He still found it hard to look at the joker Jesus crucified on a DNA helix, but he’d never been all that comfortable with the nat Jesus on his cross.

  He turned the corner and was startled to see a crowd spilling out of the church doors onto the sidewalk. He mentally reviewed the liturgical calendar, but couldn’t think of any particular saint days or holidays that would have caused the crush. Some people spotted him and reacted.

  “Oh thank God!”

  “The police.”

  “Now we’ll get some answers.”

  Franny pushed through the people. From inside he heard Quasiman’s voice stretched with anxiety. “No Father! No Father!”

  The hunchback stood in the center aisle twisting his fingers together and shaking his head so violently that the trail of drool that perpetually ran down his chin flew onto nearby people.

  “What’s going on?” Franny asked.

  “Oh thank heavens.” It was Mrs. Flannery, an energetic joker woman in her fifties who ran the altar guild with ruthless efficiency, and made certain the altar was always decorated with appropriate flowers. She was clutching a bouquet to her chest right now with her misshappen hands. “Officer Black, we can’t find Father Squid. Poor Quasi is so upset, and he has a hard time talking at the best of times. I know Father thinks he’s getting better but—”

  “Mrs. Flannery, you need to focus. What do you mean you can’t find Father Squid?”

  “No bed. No sleep. No eat. No Father,” Quasiman burst out. As Franny watched a portion of the joker/ace’s left arm phased out and disappeared. He seemed unaware of the loss.

  A gnawing pain settled into the pit of his stomach. “Show me,” he ordered.

  The entire crowd lurched into motion. Franny held up his hands. “No, if there’s evidence we have to preserve it. Quasi, take me to the rectory. The rest of you stay here, and figure out when you saw Father Squid last.”

  Quasi lurched off with Franny following close behind. The priest’s bedroom was spare and very orderly. Franny remembered that the man had been a soldier in Vietnam, and the room reflected that military background. It didn’t take long to search and produced nothing. Father Squid’s office showed the same organization. There were multiple versions of the Bible on the shelves and works by great religious teachers. The desk’s surface held only a blotter, a notepad, and a pen holder. The notepad held a few notes that seemed to pertain to an upcoming sermon.

  “Quasi, when did you last see Father Squid?” The joker stared at him and drooled, the saliva dripping onto the front of his T-shirt and forming a dark patch. Franny considered the last time Father Squid had come to the precinct. He had been with IBT. “Quasi, do you know where I can find IBT?” Drool. “Marcus.” Drool. “Infamous Black Tongue?” Drool. “The big snake?”

  There was a flicker of comprehension in the dull eyes. “With Father.”

  “Okay, when was that?”

  But Quasi was gone. The office held only Franny and questions. As he walked back into the church Franny wondered if Quasi had gone to wherever his arm currently resided. Another time, another dimension, another galaxy … who knew? The hunchback, maybe, but he wasn’t saying.

  The parishioners had been busy in his absence. They were on cell phones, calling friends and relatives in Jokertown, and there was a small amount of information. A security guard had seen the priest and IBT either last night or the night before, but hadn’t spoken to them, and had no idea where they were headed.

  “Okay, all of you keep checking. And call me if you learn anything or if Father Squid returns.” Franny headed to the precinct.

  Maseryk was on duty so it meant Franny didn’t get to march in, throw the missing joker file dramatically on the desk and announce, “This case is no longer closed!” For one thing he wasn’t pissed at Maseryk the way he was at Mendelberg, and frankly the crew-cut captain intimidated him worse than Mendelberg.

  Franny laid out the situation. Maseryk rubbed a hand wearily across his face. “Damn fool, I told him to back off, leave it to the professionals.”

  “Yeah, and the professionals closed it,” Franny shot back, forgetting to be intimidated.

  “Watch it,” Maseryk warned. Franny folded his lips together. “The case is now active. Get on it. And find him. This is the kind of thing that can be like lighting a match in a tinderbox.”

  Franny returned to his desk. He felt a sense of grim satisfaction. Until he realized that he still was nowhere, no leads, and one of Jokertown’s most revered citizens taken without a trace. Then he noticed Jamal had called. Maybe the SCARE agent would have something.…

  Those About to Die …

  Part Three

  MARCUS OPENED HIS EYES. For a moment he could see nothing but shapes behind a thick Vaseline-like coating. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, trying to clear them.

  “Awake finally,” a voice said. “’Bout time.”

  The voice was strangely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He heard footsteps move away, a chair scrape, and a person exhale as he sat down. Marcus realized the sitting person had touched him. That’s why he’d woken up. But it wasn’t the same person who was speaking.

  “You know you snore, right?” the voice continued. “There’s operations that can fix that. Think about getting one if you ever get out of here. That’s a big if, by the way.”

  Even before he could focus on him, Marcus knew that last line was said through a crooked grin. It didn’t make sense, but he thought he knew who was speaking. “Asmodeus?”

  “You remember me! I’m touched. I remember you too. Last time I saw you you were on the ground in an alley, twitching, drooling, two cops standing over you.”

  Marcus lifted up his T-shirt and scrubbed furiously at his eyes. When he looked up again, the world was oily, but he could see clearly enough. Asmodeus, the philosophizing general of the Demon Princes, paced a few yards away. He moved with the same cocky posture Marcus remembered. There was the crooked grin, the crown of short horns that ringed his head, the profusion of acne on his cheeks. His wardrobe had gone up a few notches. Gone were the pinstriped trousers, suspenders, and undershirt. Instead, he wore a shimmering maroon suit, with black shoes so sharp they looked like dagger points.

  The seated man looked like a nat. He wore a wifebeater undershirt. It was not an attractive look considering his paunch, sagging breasts, and the black hairs bristling from his shoulders. His round face looked deeply bored. His jaw worked in a slow, bovine mastication of a piece of gum. He seemed to be staring at a spot on the wall.

  The room provided no clues to what was going on. Sparse. Small. Simply furnished. He lay on a bed, though his long serpentine section spilled off onto the
floor. He had no idea where he was. Last thing he remembered was … His gaze snapped back to Asmodeus. “Where’s Father Squid?”

  “He’s here. Wasn’t really meant to be. Bit of a fuck-up, if you ask me. Those numbnuts were supposed to pick you up, not Squiddy. Anyway, looks like he’ll be staying. You’ll see him soon. Before anything, though, you gotta sit through the talk.”

  “I’m not sitting through anything,” Marcus said. Venom washed into his mouth like a surge of saliva. He drew himself upright and began to slide toward the door. Asmodeus moved to block him. Marcus snapped, “I’ll take your fucking head of if you don’t get out of my way.”

  “No, you won’t,” Asmodeus said. “Dmitri? Show Snake-boy why he’s gonna sit and be good.”

  The bored man stopped chewing. He didn’t look at Marcus, but his features tensed with concentration.

  Not impressed, Marcus leaned forward, fists balled to knock the grin off Asmodeus’s face. Before he could, he felt something crawl across the back of his neck. Tiny legs, sharp points that moved with the rhythm of a centipede. He tried to swat at it, but his hands wouldn’t move.

  “That’s how it starts,” Asmodeus said. “Wait, it gets better.”

  The creature cut into Marcus’s flesh. He felt it saw on his skull, cutting a slice through his cranium from ear to ear. Marcus’s whole being cried out to shout and writhe and fight, but he just stood, trembling. Something slipped fingers into the crease and wrenched the back of his skull away from his brain. Scorching breaths burned his skin as the lips of an unseen mouth pressed close, using the slit in his skull to speak into his head. It spoke a garbled language that made the air curdle. Marcus didn’t understand, and yet he knew the horrors the mouth spoke because he could see them before him. The world melted around him, went dark and sinister. The voice spoke of the unmaking of the world. It spoke of rot and disease and misery. Marcus felt the speaker moving around into his center of vision. He felt the enormous bulk of it, and he knew that whatever he was about to see was horrible beyond imagining. Just seeing it would kill him. Would stop his heart. But the worst part was knowing that even with his heart stopped he would go on, and the horror would use him like a cat plays with her mouse. It would never end.

  And then it did. It stopped. The speaker vanished. The dark, formless world disappeared. Marcus slumped forward, gasping.

  Asmodeus’s tongue played along the line of his teeth. “That’s some fucked-up shit, isn’t it? That little trip was courtesy of Dmitri.” He tilted his head to indicate the other guy, who had resumed working on his gum, eyes vacant again. “That’s what he does. He fucks with people’s heads. Now that he’s been in yours, he can visit you anytime he wants to. Doesn’t even have to be in the same room as you. You step out of line, Dmitri here steps into your cranium and escorts you to hell.”

  Marcus slithered back onto his bed, leaned against the wall, eyes snapping between Asmodeus and Dmitri.

  “Now, let’s try it again,” Asmodeus said. “Here’s what you need to know. Listen carefully because I’m not gonna say it twice. You may be wondering where you are, and how and why you’re here. The where part is irrelevant. You just are. Deal with it. Don’t worry about how you are either. The why is a bit more of a thing. You’re here because Baba Yaga wants you to be. This is all her baby. Because of her, you’ve been plucked from the streets of J-Town and offered a chance at fame and riches. All you have to do is beat the shit out of fuckers. That’s all this is about. It’s about tapping into that primal urge for violence. It’s about being a man and proving it in the arena. You’re gonna be a gladiator. Understand?”

  “No,” Marcus said.

  “Don’t worry,” Asmodeus said, moving toward the door, “understanding is coming at you fast. Come on. Take a look at the compound. You better get something to eat, too.” When Marcus glanced at the ace, he added, “Dmitri’s not gonna fuck with you. Unless you act up.”

  As if dismissed by this, Dmitri stood, pulled out his iPhone, and began scrolling through his messages.

  Leaving his room, Marcus’s gaze turned upwards to the arching dome above the open space. Daylight shone through the material, bathing the green, garden-like space so completely that it almost seemed like they were outside. Insects buzzed among the flowering vines that ran up the rafters. Birds flitted about. Birdsong blended with the low, sinuous pipe music that floated on the air, exotic, meant to tempt and entrance. The scent of incense hung in the air.

  It was almost beautiful, until he lowered his eyes and took in the tables and chairs, couches and plush rugs that crowded the main room. Amongst them, a motley collection of jokers lounged. Burly men. Dangerous-looking. Some of them were bandaged and bruised. Some played cards. A few watched baseball on a large flat-screen. Several browsed tables laden with food. One met his gaze, snarled. Judging by the growths all over his face and arms, he answered to the name Wartcake. Father Squid had called him Simon Clarke. They’d wanted to find the vanishing jokers. Now they had.

  “This is the common area. Canteen. Bar. Place to hang out and shoot the shit. We’re pretty much free to do whatever, until a bout.”

  A short-armed bartender mixed drinks at a bar. A small crowd gathered around it, talking, smoking. A gorgeous, nearly naked young nat woman started dancing to the accompaniment of cheers, her body all moving curves and lean arms and legs. Another climbed onto the lap of a grinning joker.

  “We get treated well,” Asmodeus said. “You could get some of that, too. Just bring it in the arena. Win, and get the crowd loving you and you’ll get rewards, too.”

  Marcus caught sight of Father Squid. The priest moved slowly through cots of injured jokers, talking quietly with them as he checked their injuries. “This place can’t hold us,” he said, though his voice didn’t carry the conviction of his words. “We’re not staying long.”

  “Jailbreak, huh?” Asmodeus asked. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Gladiator uprising? Shit, you really are clueless. My first day here a joker named Giles made a fuss. He started ranting, trying to wind us up, saying our power was in our numbers and we could smash this place if we wanted to.”

  “Sounds like the type of shit you used to spout,” Marcus said.

  Asmodeus grinned. “He was all right, but didn’t quite have my gift for oratory. He got folks pumped. Dmitri could’ve taken him to hell, but this time Baba’s thugs appeared. They dropped out of the ceiling all of a sudden. Had Giles strung between three Tasers, jerking and twitching, before anybody knew what was happening. They took him away. When they brought him back he wasn’t Giles anymore. He wasn’t even a man.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He came back as that.” The joker leaned close to Marcus’s shoulder and stretched his slim arm out to point.

  For a moment Marcus didn’t know what he meant. There was nothing where he was pointing but a weird-looking chair. He almost said as much, but the words caught in his throat. Something about the piece of furniture made his skin crawl. It was strangely organic, as if it were all made of one substance, stretched and morphed into shape.

  “That chair is Giles. Don’t ask me to explain how. We all just knew. When it first came…” Asmodeus lowered his voice, speaking with hushed reverence. “… it even looked like him. You could see him in there. He was twisted, changed, but he was still alive. We could see him breathing. We could see his eyes move. Sometimes, at night, I heard him pleading. Not really words, but, just sounds of anguish. He’s dead now, but it was a long time in coming.”

  Marcus tried to think of something flippant, but there was nothing in Asmodeus’s face to indicate he was joking. He looked at the empty chair. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but he could almost see a kneeling man, tilted backwards, arms frozen in a rictus of agony.

  “Baba Yaga’s into some serious shit,” Asmodeus said. “It’s not like what Dmitri does. Some of it’s for real. It’s why you’re gonna fight when she says fight.”

  Once More, f
or Old Times’ Sake

  by Carrie Vaughn

  ANA CORTEZ WAS PLAYING hooky from work. She called in sick—first time ever, not counting the couple of times she’d ended up hospitalized because of work. On the phone with her boss, she sounded as pathetic and self-sacrificing as she could, saying that she couldn’t possibly come in and risk infecting anybody else with whatever twenty-four-hour stomach bug was ravaging her system. She wasn’t sure Lohengrin believed her, but she’d earned enough status over the last few years, he didn’t question her. She deserved to play hooky.

  What would she do with her day off? What any self-respecting New Yorker—transplanted, but still—would do: she went to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Not that she particularly liked baseball, but Kate would be on the field today, and Ana wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

  Except for the local favorites and the one or two who made the news in some scandal or other, Ana didn’t know who any of the players were, didn’t follow baseball at all, but she got caught up in the excitement anyway, cheering and shouting from her seat in the front row off third base.

  The player who won the Home Run Derby, Yankee hitter Robinson Canó, was a local favorite, and the crowd stayed ramped up for the next event. The special charity exhibition was billed as a Pitching Derby—the major league’s top pitchers took to the field, facing home plate and a radar gun, and pitched their fastest. 100 miles per hour. 101. 99. 102. The crowd lost it when Aroldis Chapman pitched 105—it had broken some kind of record, apparently. But the show wasn’t over, and when the last pitcher in the lineup walked onto the field, an anticipatory hush fell.

  The athletic young woman wore the tight-fitting white pants of a baseball uniform and a baby-doll T-shirt, navy blue, with “Curveball” printed on the back. No number, no team affiliation, which was Kate all over these days. Curveball, the famous ace who could blow up buildings with her pitches, who’d quit the first season of American Hero to be a real-life hero, who’d then quit the Committee, because she didn’t need anybody.