But it wasn't a palace. It wasn't even livable. At least Blaise didn't think so. They had led him through the darkness to the main immigration center, and now they stood in one of the side rooms. There were, a couple of cots, and twenty or thirty sleeping bags. Some were rolled like somnolent caterpillars against the walls, others were spread out on the stained and buckled tile floor. Candy wrappers, crumpled snack-chip sacks, empty Vienna sausage cans littered the room and formed junk drifts in the corners.
Gray-green paint peeled like a bad sunburn from the wooden walls. High overhead, filthy windows barely indicated the presence of a waxing moon. Some were broken, the shattered glass like jagged fangs embedded in petrified jaws.
"Pick a place," said Molly with a broad, gracious sweep of the arm.
"Do I get a sleeping bag?" asked Blaise.
"You can share mine," offered Kelly as she sidled up next to hirn. "Until we can get one for you," she hastened to add, wilting a bit under his cold stare.
"Better rest, Blaisy Daisy," said Molly. "You're gonna need it."
Blaise pivoted slowly to face her. "Don't… ever… call me that
… again."
Arms militantly akimbo, Molly sneered in a singsong tone, "Or what?"
"I'll kill you."
The matter-of-fact tone left the girl gaping. She suddenly recalled herself. The watching jumpers, eyes bright like a hunting rat pack, eagerly waiting for the fight. Molly tossed her head and laughed.
"You'can try, Blai-" The word cut off and she whirled and exited.
"She's a quick learner. I like that in a slit."
The boys laughed. The girls shifted uncomfortably and exchanged glances.
Yes, Blaise decided. This was fun.
The lights made interesting effects on her face. At times it seemed as still as a white marble effigy. At others it was soft and vulnerable.
Tach hugged his briefcase to his chest. Winced as a bus released its air brakes with a sound like a dying pig. "This was not necessary. Riggs could have driven me."
"I wanted to," said Cody.
She drove as smoothly as she did everything else. No wasted movement, hands lightly gripping the wheel, the tiniest wrist movements as she wove through the beltway traffic.
" I wanted to make sure you got on that plane," she continued, and Tach forced himself back from a rapt contemplation of her hands.
"I'm not going to collapse from a broken nose."
"It's not your health that concerns me."
"Thank you." A little ironic and she caught it. She cocked her head to get a better look at him out of her one eye. "Should you be driving?" Tachyon suddenly asked.
"Little late to worry now. And as for the plane. I was afraid you'd take it into your head to go looking for Blaise, and frankly, funding the clinic is a hell of a lot more important."
"You can be very cold."
"No, I just know when to cut my losses."
The cars up ahead suddenly braked and the red flare of their taillights punctuated and underscored Tach's sharp reply. "I don't think he's a loss!"
"Then you're a delusional fool."
Tachyon dropped his head briefly into his hand. "All right, I don't want to think that."
Cody spun the wheel and they shot up the ramp and under a sign marked DEPARTING PASSENGERS.
"Better. God damn it, Tachyon, in maybe twenty or thirty years I'll have you past the guilt, out of the wallow of self-pity, and you'll have figured out when to shut up."
"Thank heaven I'm a big enough man to listen to this catalog of my flaws."
Cody's eye raked his diminutive form. "Well, your ego is big enough to handle it."
"I'm also highly encouraged."
"By what?"
"That you are willing to devote your life to the reclamation of my mind, body, and spirit."
The seat belt nearly cut Tach in half as Cody slammed on the brakes in front of the terminal.
"I don't think my original statement went quite that way."
"It was implicit."
Tach closed the prosthetic hand around the handle and pushed open the door. Cody moved to the trunk and pulled out his two big suitcases.
"How long are you going to be gone?" she asked. "Three days."
"You've got enough here for a round-the-world cruise."
"But, my dear, one must dress."
He was smiling bravely up at her, but inside he suddenly felt like he was filled with broken glass. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he muttered a curse.
Cody laid her hands on his shoulders. "What is it? You look stricken."
"I don't know. Nothing." Tach shook his head. "I am suddenly just so very, very unhappy."
For a long moment she looked at him, then bending down, she placed a soft feather-light kiss at the corner of his mouth. Tachyon stared at her in amazement.
"Smile for me, kid," she said, a crooked smile curving her own lips.
Tachyon burst out, "Cody, come with me to Washington."
"What? You're crazy. I've got no ticket, I don't have any luggage, what about my kid-" She paused for breath. "And who's going to run the clinic?"
People were shouldering past them as the couple blocked the automatic doors into the terminal.
"Please, I am frightened for you."
"I'll holler if I need you."
"It will be too far to come."
"You're hysterical. It's the pain pills talking."
"Cody, he means to harm us."
"Do you or don't you want me to call the police and have them search for Blaise?"
"No." Tach stared seriously up at her. "For if he's found, I shall surely have to kill him."
When you're stark naked and dressed only in a scarlet robe that had obviously been ripped off from some local Episcopalian church choir, you can feel like a real dork.
Add to that the fact that nerves were giving Blaise the most amazing hard-on it had ever been his pleasure to experience. Or maybe he just got off on big black candles and a droning tape of Tibetan monastery chants, he thought ironically as Molly led him into the dark, echoing room. Molly glanced down at his penis thrusting aggressively from between the folds of his gown, and grinned. "You're gonna do just fine," she muttered as if to herself, but intending for Blaise to hear.
He didn't respond. This and anything that followed could be endured. The ultimate prize was too great to blow it with a fit of temper now.
Jumpers lined the walls. Blaise did a quick head count. Forty-two. But many of those weren't jumpers. You couldn't jump until you'd been initiated. Most, like Kelly, were still waiting. Blaise noted that two-thirds were boys. Why? Did it whatever it was-affect males more strongly than females? How did one make a jumper?
A lurid green pentagram had been painted on the stained tile floor. On the walls were painted other occult symbols. The swastika, a leering goat's head, 666. The enormous room was lit by a score of black candles, but they did little more than chase the shadows into the corners of the roof where they hung like brooding bats.
In the center of the pentagram was a low table. It was an odd height if it was meant to serve as an altar. And the three red satin pillows tossed on its polished black surface really ruined any hope of suggesting blood sacrifices.
Molly closed her fingers around Blaise's left wrist and led him three times around the pentagram. At the eastern point they stepped into the figure, and the jumpers let out a weird, undulating cry. Blaise had to bite back a laugh. Then from the darkness a man's voice asked, "Who comes to be made?"
"Only one, Prime," called Molly. "Is he worthy?"
"He is brave. He is trustful."
"Will he serve?"
Molly nudged Blaise.
"I'll serve," the boy replied. Apparently it was the right answer.
Molly signaled and Kent hurried forward to pull off the choir robe. They were all staring at him. Kelly especially. Blaise ran a hand across his chest. Noticed that he was starting to grow hair. He had become a man. He could pinpoi
nt the moment. He had gone into that morgue a child. Emerged a man.
"Lie down on the table," whispered Molly. "With your stomach on the pillows."
For a moment he bridled at the undignified positionhis bare ass thrust aggressively skyward.
Patience. Patience.
Tachyon vomiting his life out across the hood of his limo. No, even better across Cody's lap.
Paper-dry hands cupped his rump, and Blaise almost lost it.
Didn't take a genius to figure out what was coming. Parted his buttocks.
Oh, I'm gonna get you for this, Grandpa! Tearing pain as the man thrust deep within him.
A lifetime later and it was over. Blaise rose stiffly from the table. There was blood on his ass and legs.
The man gestured a broad sweeping motion that set the hanging sleeve of his gown to swaying. "Reach out. Seize one of them. Trade with them. For you it should be child's play."
Yeah, snarled Blaise internally, and he reached out for the man.
Nothing happened. Behind the mask the man's eyes glittered. The mouth twisted stiffly into a smile.
"You beautiful bastard," the Prime said. "You would try to fuck with me. Forget it, I can't be jumped."
"Can you be killed?" Blaise asked sweetly. From behind him he heard Molly gasp.
"Oh, yes, but without me there are no more jumpers. Don't shoot yourself in the foot, Blaise, in a fit of pique." The hem of the gown whispered about his feet as the Prime turned and slunk back into the shadows.
Blaise turned back to his peers. They peered back at him like bright cardinals in their scarlet robes.
"Come on, let's play," said Molly.
And Blaise reached out. Seemed to bounce out of his skin. Shoot like liquid fire. He came to rest in Kent's body. He looked out at the world from new eyes. Glancing down, he studied the overly long thumbnail on the right hand, the callused finger pads. Would the body remember how to play guitar? Blaise wondered. Then he was on to other sensations. Like the fact that Kent smelled funny. Blaise looked across to his body. Molly and Kelly were easing it to the floor. It… he… Kent-damn!-seemed to be conscious, but frozen in some kind of fugue state.
Blaise made the jump back. Shook off Kelly's patting hands. Climbed to his feet. Raucous laughter rang through the rafters, skittered among the shadows. The jumpers stood in shocked silence.
Blaise threw back his head and screamed like a banshee.
"Oh, Tachyon! You're going to wish I had only killed you!"
Nobody's Home by Walton Simons
Kenneth was late. Central Park baked in the August heat. Most of the animals in the zoo were napping. Jerry sat in front of the seventy-five-foot-tall cage that had been his home back when he was a giant ape. A lone pigeon walked up to him, head bobbing. Jerry shooed it away.
He felt a strong hand on his shoulder.
"It's just me," Kenneth said, sitting down beside him. "Sorry I'm late."
"What's up? You sounded pretty mysterious on the phone."
Kenneth nodded. "It's Latham. He's going around the bend, I think. He's involved in more than you can imagine. For years he's been a major figure in the Shadow Fist Society. Which includes everyone from punks like the Immaculate Egrets and Werewolves up to very respectable businessmen. And Latham's in it up to his neck."
"But he's got something on you, too. Right?" Jerry leaned forward. He'd been trying to come up with material on Latham for months, and hadn't turned up anything other than a few interesting reports from his time in Vietnam.
Kenneth looked away. "There are some things I'd rather Beth didn't know about. Other women. We've made such progress since almost getting divorced. I don't want to jeopardize my marriage. Latham has some pretty graphic evidence. One of the women I saw was working for him." He turned back to Jerry. "This isn't to be repeated, you understand."
"Only under torture," Jerry said. "Who's Kien?"
"You're better off not finding out, but it may come to that soon."
"What do you mean?" Jerry wiped his sweaty forehead. "Latham knows I have information on him. He wants to trade it for what he has on me." Kenneth shook his head. "But I've known St. John a long time. He'll hold back something to keep me in line."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Give you my file on Latham, if you'll have it. He's made some threats lately. I wouldn't put it past him to break into the house trying to get them. Beth might get hurt. This way I can let it drop that the papers are no longer in my home. He'll suspect you might have them, of course."
Jerry shrugged. "The day a native New Yorker is scared of some high-class thug from Beantown will never come." Jerry paused. "Well, maybe he does make me a little nervous."
"Good, because he's a very dangerous man." Kenneth looked straight at Jerry. "You're sure you don't mind?"
"Nope. Look over there." Jerry pointed at the chimp cage. One of the apes was high in a tree, throwing its shit at another on the ground. "That's what we'll be doing to Latham soon."
"I'll settle for a return to the established balance of fear," Kenneth said.
"We'll manage," Jerry said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.
"Thanks." Kenneth opened his briefcase. "Now, let's discuss what you're going to do about your appointment with the city officials next week."
"Right." Jerry sighed and stared back at the chimp cage. Sometimes the shit got thrown at you, as well.
Jerry sat on the worn, orange couch, shifting his weight. It was hot outside and his sweaty legs stuck to the cushion through his pants. The waiting room was quiet, except for the male secretary's fingers on the keyboard, muffled voices from inside the offices, and the breathing of the joker woman sharing the couch with Jerry.
Kenneth had shown him what to sign and told him what to say. He'd even offered to come along as legal representation. Jerry said no. It was time he started taking care of a few things on his own. Still, the back of his throat was dry. Several trips to the water cooler hadn't helped. City officials could do that to you. Especially in New York.
He turned to the joker, who was normal except for her grotesquely overmuscled jaws and mouth. "Did you sign them?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Do I have a choice?" Her voice was soft. Talking seemed awkward for her.
"Always." He straightened his shoulders. "I'm not going to."
The joker nodded, but didn't seem impressed. "You an ace?"
"I was once, but not anymore." The lie needed all the practice Jerry could give it. "You remember the big ape in Central Park?"
"Yeah. They took it away to make a movie or something. Right?"
"Right. That was me." Jerry felt a chill crawl halfway up his spine. "Dr. Tachyon cured me, but my power doesn't work anymore."
"Too bad," she said.
"Not really," Jerry said. "It'll keep the government goons off my back. Why are they interested in you?" The woman smiled, revealing two rows of large teeth like polished marble. "I'm what's classified as a type-two joker."
"What's that?"
"Any joker who's something other than just ugly, I guess. My teeth and jaws are pretty strong. I can bite through almost anything." The joker looked around, presumably for something to demonstrate on.
"That's okay, I believe you." Jerry unstuck his legs from the couch. "What do they call you?"
"Susan," she said. "How about you?"
"A long time ago I used to be called the Projectionist," Jerry said. She looked at him with polite blankness. "That was before your time, I'd imagine. Now I'm nobody. People just call me Jerry"
"Regular names are best, anyway," Susan said.
The office door opened across the room. A man in a suit showed a visibly shaken six-legged joker out. "Mr. Strauss?"
Jerry nodded and stood.
The man let him go inside first. He was middle-aged and slightly overweight. His hair was thin and gray. His eyes brown. He took Jerry's hand. Jerry shook it and squeezed hard. The man squeezed even harder.
"Sit down
, Mr. Strauss. I'm William Karnes."
Jerry sat. Karnes eased into his chair behind the well-ordered desk. He put a finger to his mouth and opened a file. "I see you failed to sign forms fifteen and seventeen-a. Why is that Mr. Strauss?"
"Well, I'm no longer an active wild card," Jerry said, "so I don't see why I should be subject to conscription in the event of a national emergency. And I believe the other one said I was to notify your office if I were to take any kind of extended vacation. It just seems unnecessary" Karnes rubbed the end of his bulbous nose. "The government has its reasons, Mr. Strauss. Failure to cooperate now may mean some very serious inconveniences for you later on. You're aware of the rumblings in Congress about reinstating some of the old Exotic Powers laws."
Jerry took a deep breath. He didn't want to let Karnes get under his skin. That had been Kenneth's advice. "Yes. I do keep up with current events. But, as I say, I'm no longer a wild card, except in the most technical sense. I believe you have a medical report from my physician to that effect."
Karnes stared at Jerry. "From Dr. Tachyon. We can hardly give that much credence. If you want to undergo testing by some of our staff I might agree to that. But we don't pay much attention to alien quacks."
Jerry could feel the blood hammering inside him. "I don't think I have anything else to say to you, Mr. Karnes." He stood.
"Sit down, sir." Karnes pointed to the chair. "I can make more trouble for you than you can imagine. I have a job to do, and none of your kind is going to stop me."
Jerry felt something go hard inside him. "Really? Well, let me clarify something for you, Mr. Karnes. You're a low-level bureaucrat with a stick up his ass. I'm a multimillionaire with lots of very powerful friends. If I were you, I'd be extremely careful who I threatened. If you're lucky, I'll only come after you with lawyers. Do you feel lucky, punk?" Jerry quoted a cop movie he'd just seen. Karnes opened his mouth. Shut it.
"Stay out of my hair, then." Jerry left the office, shutting the door loudly. He walked over to Susan, who was still sitting miserably on the couch. "He's an asshole. Don't trust him."
"I don't trust any nats," Susan said. "Not anymore. It's just that I can't find a way around them."
Jerry patted her on the hand. "Right. Well, good luck, then."
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