Death Draws Five Read online

  She was sleeping. Josh McCoy was dozing in the chair by her bedside. Both looked tired and worn, Peregrine more so. Fortunato’s astral body hovered above her. He felt an overwhelming desire to hold her again, but he realized that he’d forfeited that right a long time ago. He reached out and touched her cheek, his incorporeal fingers slipping through skin and the flesh beneath.

  He had to find his son, but he had nothing to go on. No clue as to where the boy might be. But Peregrine... she probably knew the latest news of his whereabouts.

  He reached out with his mind, then hesitated. Suddenly he couldn’t bear the though of going into her consciousness and discovering her most intimate, most true thoughts. He looked at the sleeping figure of Josh McCoy. He wasn’t wild about this idea either. But he needed the information.

  He entered McCoy’s mind. It was as easy as it had always been. He had lost nothing of his power. Nothing of his control. He touched lightly, looking only for information relevant to the search for his son. He didn’t want to pry deeply into McCoy’s private life, either.

  Surprising, the first thing he discovered was about himself. About how he had sent out a psychic distress call when he’d been attacked by the Jokka Bruddas. How it’d taken Father Squid and his search team hours to discover his torn and battered body in the rubble of the abandoned building. How they’d found the dismembered corpses of the Bruddas among the wreckage of their headquarters.

  Fortunato had no memory of killing them. It must have been his subconscious that had lashed out with the deadliness of a cornered lion turning on a pack of emboldened jackals, teaching them who was still king of beasts.

  So be it, Fortunato thought. He took no pleasure in the killing, but neither did it bother him. He killed to live. That was the way.

  He delved further into McCoy’s sleeping mind, seeking out information of his son.

  The first that came up was his image. It startled him. The boy didn’t look exactly like him, but the resemblance was there, in the eyes, around the mouth. It was startling to see, and breathtaking in an odd, somehow exhilarating way. It was a bit of himself. There was no denying it. He stored the image in his own mind, and went on, finally uncovering McCoy’s memory of a phone call they’d gotten from a detective agency whose job it was to protect the boy.

  He was safe, for now, at a camp in upstate New York at a place called New Hampton. His bodyguard was with him. They were sending along reinforcements just in case of another attempt to kidnap him.

  He slipped out of McCoy’s mind and looked down at the sleeping Peregrine. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll find him. I’ll protect him. I promise.”

  She stirred and sighed. He wondered if somehow she’d heard his unhearable words.

  He suddenly felt younger than he’d felt for years. He felt as if the world about him was conquerable again. Like a wraith he rose in the air, through the room’s ceiling, up a floor and through Finn’s office where the young doctor was laying on his specially-constructed bed in a corner of the room, trying to snatch a few hours of rest, and then finally up through the clinic’s roof and into the open sky above.

  The sun was still in the morning quarter. From the movement of nearby tree branches he could tell that it was fairly windy, but his astral form could not feel the wind itself. It was peculiar not to feel warm or cold, tired or, rested. To just be. It was, in a way, the perfect Zen state, but Fortunato couldn’t waste time meditating on it. He looked around for some landmarks to orient himself. He found the way north, and headed out over the city.

  He flew without sensation, moving over the land without feeling motion on his unseen body. He discovered that he could judge distance, but not time. He did notice that once he’d reached the city line and found the concrete ribbon of the Thruway leading north that the sun had moved in the sky, so time must have passed. Before long—or so, anyway, it seemed—he was gliding over the fields and farms of rural Orange County where New Hampton lay. He knew that he was barely sixty miles north of the city, but he might as well have been in another world, a world of small villages, of dairy farms set among rolling hills, of green pastures, of rich land which grew a multitude of crops, of orchards and pocket forests that had been standing since before the Revolutionary War.

  He was not on intimate terms with this part of the state. Like many urbanites he was a city boy through and through, but he was able to call to mind maps he’d seen in the past. He had also burned into his brain—more, burned into his spirit since his brain lay nearly comatose on a hospital bed far away—the image of his son.

  He hoped that the boy’s image would lead him to him.

  He came upon the camp in a rush while quartering the countryside, thankful that his astral form could see like a hawk. He rushed down, looking for the boy, but could not find him. He dipped into the mind of one of the camp administrators and discovered what had happened the night before, events which even McCoy and Peregrine were unaware of, and fled immediately before his sudden anger could do any damage to the brain he was scanning.

  Fortunato burned hot with anger, yet cold with fear. He could feel the sensations run through his astral form because they weren’t physical manifestations, but mental. Fear and anger. Fear of loss. Anger at being afraid. Just what he had fled from, he realized, fifteen years ago. But he couldn’t flee now. His son was out there somewhere. Alone. Afraid. Maybe hurt. He had to find him.

  I probably won’t be able to, Fortunato thought. There was too much territory to cover. Besides, the boy would have been spotted by now if he was moving about in the open. He was probably hiding, keeping undercover for fear of the kidnappers who had almost snatched him the night before.

  If they haven’t gotten him in the meantime, Fortunato thought, then did his best to dismiss the idea. If they had, he was wasting his time. But he had nothing but time, and the need to fill it with something worthwhile.

  Fortunato sank down to the ground and stood in the center of the camp, a ghost among the living. No one saw him. His astral form made no noise for them to hear. They were trying to go about their business as if everything was normal, but of course it wasn’t. There was still speculation as to what had happened the night before, and worries that the bad guys might attack again.

  This is useless, he thought. Too much ground to cover. Too many places for the boy to hide. There had to be another way—

  There was, Fortunato suddenly realized. If he could do it.

  He rose up again into the sky and hung above the camp like an unseen specter. He simply had to try. There was no other recourse.

  He had to move his astral body through time as he had through space. It was the only way he could hope to track the movements of John Fortune, and the killers who were after him.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  New Hampton: the woods

  Ray batted annoyingly at a flight of gnats that descended upon them as they moved from shadow to sunlight, swarming like a tiny pack of famished wolves on fresh, undefended meat. Ackroyd stood next to him in a clearing in the woods. They had already been to the house where Creighton had spent the night, but his host had already gone out to search for the kid. They’d picked up a guide, a funny little fellow by the name of Kitty Cat, and he’d gone ahead on the trail to try to scope out Yeoman’s current position. That was the name Ackroyd had used when talking about their host.

  “So, you know this Yeoman character?” Ray asked. He was a little irritated. It was mid-afternoon, and hot. It wasn’t so bad among the trees, though they tended to block the cooling wind. He’d already resigned himself to the fact that he was going to ruin his suit. He was sweating so profusely that no amount of dry cleaning would get out the perspiration stains, not to mention the various blobs of dirt, muck, and otherwise unidentifiable forest debris. He wished he’d had time to change to proper fighting attire, but even if he had, his clothes were now sitting in an unclaimed suitcase somewhere at Tomlin International.

  Ackroyd tried to take a deep breath without suc
king in some gnats, and didn’t succeed. “Jesus,” he said, gagging and spitting, “we may have bugs in the city but at least they’re decent-sized roaches that you can chase into a corner and step on. This is all way too, too natural, to be healthy.” He waved ineffectually at the undiminished horde of gnats and took another resigned breath. “But Yeoman—well, you couldn’t say that I actually know the murderous son of a bitch, but I worked with him on some stuff, back, Jesus, was it really thirteen years ago?”

  Ray shrugged as Ackroyd’s mind wandered momentarily in the past. “If you mean Chrysalis’s murder, yeah it was that long ago.”

  Ackroyd looked at him sharply. “What do you know about that?”

  “I’ve read the dossier. If you remember, at the time I was occupied by other things.”

  “Oh yeah,” Ackroyd said. “Mackie Messer ripped you from chest to balls on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. Live, on TV.”

  “Yeah.” Recalling that still pissed Ray off. “My star turn on television. I had plenty of time to read when I was recovering in the hospital. A lot of stuff connected to that case is pretty unclear. At least officially. You were involved—somehow. So was this vigilante. This guy Yeoman, the papers called the ‘Bow and Arrow Killer.’”

  Ackroyd shook his head. “My main interest was catching Chrysalis’s murderer.”

  “And Yeoman’s main interest?”

  “The same.” Ackroyd said.

  From the look on Ackroyd’s face, it seemed to Ray that both men were involved in the case for personal rather than political or financial reasons. Chrysalis had been an important person about Jokertown. Ray had seen her in the flesh once or twice. Though “seen her in the flesh” was something of a misnomer, since her flesh was actually invisible. She was all bone and blood vessels and interior organs covered by ghostly muscle. Kinky. But not really his type. He liked it when they had some meat on them. And you could see it. Kind of like Angel, in fact—

  Ray jerked his train of thought back to the present. “Is he an ace?” Ray asked. “The dossier wasn’t clear on that point. Like the compiler wasn’t sure.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Ackroyd said, “I’m not sure myself. I’ve seen a lot of wacky powers over the years, but being real good with a bow an arrow just doesn’t seem... likely. And he got in plenty of situations where a little super-strength or super-speed or mind control or some damn thing would have been useful—only he never seemed to use anything like that.”

  “What’s he like?”

  Ackroyd looked at him. “I told you. He’s a murderous son of a bitch. As soon as put an arrow through your eye as look at you.” Ackroyd paused to hawk up another gnat. “You’ll like him.”

  Ray swallowed his retort as a little creature about two feet tall came scurrying through the grass towards them. It was Kitty Cat, the guide they’d picked up at Yeoman’s house. He was completed covered with a calico pelt and had feline-irised eyes. Otherwise, he looked fairly human for a two-foot tall joker. He was talking quietly into a cell phone as he came out of the forest into the small meadow where he’d told Ray and Ackroyd to await his return.

  “Okay,” he said. His voice was rather deeper than Ray would have expected from such a tiny frame. “The Boss has a group of guys in his sights. He doesn’t know who they are, but they’re sure as Hell not locals. Care to come up for a look?”

  “Sure,” Ackroyd said.

  Kitty Cat looked uncertain. “Can you guys can make it through the woods without raising too much of a racket?”

  “I majored in sneaking in detective school,” Ackroyd said.

  Kitty Cat nodded. “Uh-huh. Well, these guys all got automatic weapons, and they’re as likely to nail my tiny little ass they are yours if they hear something crashing through the woods. So for Christ’s sake, be careful!”

  “I’ve managed to sneak past a few trees in my day without tripping over myself,” Ray said.

  “Let’s go then.” Kitty Cat hitched up the fanny pack embroidered with “Hello Kitty” that he wore slung over his shoulders like a backpack.

  Ray nodded at Ackroyd, and the dick followed the joker back into the woods. Ray had to hand it to him. He was good at sneaking. They could have all been tiny little jokers for all the noise they made. It helped that they followed Kitty’s trail and that he kept them away from fallen leaves and other ground debris. It was cooler inside the trees, and darker. Ray started to feel the excitement start to ratchet up, and he had to concentrate to keep a silly grin off his face. Now, if this Yeoman was as good as he supposed to be, he thought, maybe he’d lead them to some real action.

  He came out of nowhere, wearing cameo forest fatigues and a dark, short sleeved shirt. The skin of his face and arms were painted with stripes of green, brown, and black paint, and he was carrying a strung bow with an arrow loosely nocked to the string. He’d drifted out from behind a shield of leafy branches like smoke. No. Ray would have smelled the smoke. Like a shadow of moonlight on a dark, quiet night. Ray smiled to himself. This Yeoman was good.

  They stopped. Ackroyd wore a disgusted, jeez what now expression, but he kept his silence as Yeoman faced them with a finger held to his lips. Kitty Cat vanished somewhere into the forest. Yeoman waved them on, his very posture telling them to be quiet and careful.

  They crept forward, slipping through the branches from behind which Yeoman had emerged. It was a thick shrub, facing the edge of a small forest glen where five men were sprawled in various attitudes of tired discontent. They watched the men fan themselves and bitch.

  “Dammit, Angelo,” one said, “I thought you were bringing the water.”

  “Me?” Angelo, young yet vicious-looking, replied with sullen anger. “What am I, your donkey? Lincoln freed the slaves, man.”

  “Yeah,” said a third, sprawled out with his back against a tree. His automatic rifle leaned against the tree-trunk as well. “That means nobody gets to drink anything.”

  “You could have brought the water,” Angelo riposted.

  “All right, all right,” the fourth said. He was the oldest of the group. Dark, Hispanic looking, and very hot and very uncomfortable. Ray was happy to note that his suit was looking a lot worse for wear than Ray’s own, even though the chump had known that they were going to be traipsing through the goddamned woods like a pack of Boy Scouts. He was also the only one of the five who wasn’t armed, though he could have been packing in a shoulder holster or belt rig. “I don’t want to hear any more of this shit. Yeah, we’re thirsty. Yeah, we’re hot. But we got to find this Fortune kid. The sooner we walk our section, the sooner we get back to the car and some cold beer. Tony, how’s it looking?”

  Tony was looking at what appeared to be a U.S.G.S. quadrant map. Looking confused.

  “Jesus, Jesus,” he pronounced the second ‘Jesus” as “Hay-seuss,”

  “it’s hard to figure out where we are with all these trees all around us.”

  “We’re in the frigging woods, Tony. There’s going to be a lot of trees.”

  The fifth was lying flat on his back, rifle by his side, eyes closed, panting like a horse who’d been run too hard and too long.

  It was Angelo, Ray decided. He was the one to watch. He still had his hands on his rifle. He was young. He was annoyed. He’d be the one. Fortunately, he was the closest to the clump of bushes where they were hiding.

  Ray, standing between Yeoman and Ackroyd, glanced at them right and left, then gestured towards the clearing. Yeoman gave him a sardonic, be my guest look. Ackroyd looked at him like he was crazy. Ray nodded, knowing he was foolish for relying on a man he didn’t know and a man he didn’t really trust, but he was getting tired himself, and mostly he wanted answers. And there were five walking, talking encyclopedias in the clearing before them. He slithered though the bushes with amazing agility, though truthfully he was more concerned with snagging his suit than making noise.

  He stepped into the clearing, smiling. “I’m looking for some scumbags who’re try
ing to kidnap a kid,” he said conversationally. “Seen any around here?”

  The five men looked at Ray as if he were a lunatic escaped from a near-by asylum, and when they started to move Ray was already among them. Angelo, as Ray had suspected, would the first to react, and the fastest. He started to lift his gun and shift into a comfortable firing position, but that was one action too many.

  Ray was on him, still smiling, as Angelo lifted his rifle, and Ray plucked it from his hand like taking candy from a baby. He threw it back over his shoulder into the woods as Angelo started to stand, muttering, “Loco motherfucker,” and reaching for his back-up piece snugged down in a belt holster in the small of his back. Ray took his arm and he broke it just like that, still smiling, and Angelo howled as Ray swiveled in one continual motion and kicked him in the chest hard enough to lift him off his ass and propel him into a tree across the clearing. In the same motion Ray reached out and snagged the gun from the guy who was lying stretched out on the ground and tossed it into the trees alongside Angelo’s.

  The guy opened his eyes and sat up to see Ray standing over him, still smiling, and Ray’s fist came down once and the guy went back down again, no longer interested. The one who had bitched to Angelo about the water was swinging his gun around but an arrow came from out of the bushes, shining like silver as it tore through the sunlight, and pinned him through his shoulder to the tree he’d been leaning against.

  Tony looked up with his mouth hanging open, the map still spread across his knees. Then he was gone, an audible “POP” sounding above the wounded man’s screams as air rushed in to fill the vacuum that had been Tony, his map, and a layer of the dirt he’d been sitting on.