Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty Read online

  Stigmata’s face twisted. He spat out the words as if they burned his tongue, almost screaming them. “He’s a nat. You’re a nat. You’re not wanted here. We hate you.”

  His accusations caused Misha’s masked frustrations to boil over. A cold fury claimed her, and she drew herself up, pointing at the joker. “You’re the outcasts,” she shouted back at Stigmata, at Jokertown itself. She might have been back in Syria, lecturing the jokers begging at the gates of Damascus. “God hates you. Repent of your sins and maybe you’ll be forgiven. But don’t waste your poison on me.”

  In the midst of her tirade there was suddenly a whirling, familiar disorientation. “No,” Misha cried against the onslaught of the vision, and then, because she knew there was no escape from hikma, divine wisdom: “In sha’Allah.” Allah would come as He wished, when He wished.

  The room and Stigmata wavered in her sight. Allah’s hand touched her. Her eyes became His. A waking nightmare burst upon her, melting away the gritty reality of Jokertown, her filthy room, and Stigmata’s threats.

  She was in Badiyat Ash-sham again, the desert. She stood in her brother’s mosque.

  The Nur al-Allah stood in front of her, the emerald glow of his skin lost beneath impossibly thick streams of blood that trailed down the front of his djellaba. His trembling hand pointed at her accusingly; his chin lifted to show the gaping, puckered, bone-white edges of the wound across his throat. He tried to speak, and his voice, which had once been compelling and resonant, was now all gravel and dust, choked. She could understand nothing but the hatred in his eyes.

  Misha gasped under that baleful, accusing gaze.

  “It wasn’t me!” she sobbed, falling to her knees before him in supplication. “Satan’s hand moved mine. He used my hatred and my jealousy. Please…”

  She tried to explain her innocence to her brother, but when she looked up, it was no longer Nur al-Allah standing before her but Hartmann.

  And he laughed.

  “I’m the beast who rips away the veils of the mind,” he said. His hand lashed out, clawing for her as she recoiled belatedly. Like talons his nails dug into her eyesockets, slashed the soft skin of her face. Blinded, she screamed, her head arced back in torment, writhing but unable to get away from Hartmann as his fingers tore and gouged.

  “We don’t wear veils here. We don’t wear masks. Let me show the truth underneath. Let me show you the color of the joker below.” He clenched harder, ripping and tearing. Ribbons of flesh peeled away as he clawed at her, and she felt hot blood pouring down her ruined features. She moaned, sobbing, her hands trying to beat him away as he raked again and again, shearing flesh from muscle and muscle from bone.

  “Your face will be naked,” Hartmann said. “And they will run in horror from you. Look, look at the colors inside your head—you’re just a joker, a sinner like the rest. I can see your mind, I can taste it. You’re the same as the rest. You’re the same.”

  Through the streaming blood she looked up. Though the apparition was still Hartmann, he now had the face of a young man, and the whine of a thousand angry wasps seemed to surround him. Yet in the midst of her torment, Misha felt a comforting hand on her shoulder and turned to see Sara Morgenstern beside her. “I’m sorry,” Sara told her. “It’s my fault. Let me send him away.”

  And then Allah’s vision withdrew, leaving her gasping on the floor. Trembling, sweating, she raised her hands to her face. Marveling, she touched the unbroken flesh there.

  Stigmata stared at the woman sobbing on the splintery pine boards.

  “You ain’t no damn nat,” he said, and his voice was touched with a grudging sympathy. “You’re just one of us.” He sighed. Slow droplets of blood welled, fell. “It’s still my room and I want it,” he added, but the bitter edge was gone from his voice. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait.”

  He walked softly to the door. “One of us,” he said again, shaking his gory, swaddled head, and went out.

  Friday, 6:10 P.M.

  “So all the rumors are true. You are back again.”

  The voice came from behind him, in the shadow of an overflowing trash container. Gimli whirled, scowling. His feet kicked up oil-filmed water pooled in the alleyway, the remnants of the afternoon’s showers. “Who the fuck are you?” The dwarf’s left hand was fisted at his side; his right stayed very close to the open flap of the windbreaker he wore despite the warm night, where the weight of a silenced .38 hung. “You’ve got about two seconds before you become gossip yourself.”

  “Well, and as temperamental as ever, aren’t we?” It was a young man’s voice, Gimli decided. Streetlight flowed over a figure beside the trash. “It’s me, Gimli,” the man said. “Croyd. Move that damn hand from the gun. I ain’t no cop.”

  “Croyd?” Gimli squinted. He relaxed slightly, though his squat, muscular body stayed low. “Your ace sure screwed up this time. I’ve never seen you look like that.”

  The man chuckled without mirth. His face and arms were a shocking porcelain white, his pupils dull pink; the tousled dark brown hair only accentuated the pallor of the skin. “Shit, yeah. Gotta stay out of the sun, but then I’ve always been a night person. Dyed the hair and started wearing sunglasses, but I lost the shades. Still got the strength this time, though. It’s a damn good thing too,” he added reflectively.

  Gimli waited. If this guy was Croyd, fine; if he wasn’t, Gimli didn’t intend to give him a chance to do anything. Being in New York again made him edgy. Polyakov wouldn’t meet with them until Monday, when Hartmann was rumored to be making his bid; the fucking Arab woman was a joker-hater who spouted religious nonsense half the time and had “visions” the other; his old JJS people had lost their fire while he’d been in Europe and Russia; and with the Shadow Fist/Mafia wars and Barnett’s rabble-rousing, no one felt safe.

  Yet staying cooped up in the warehouse made him edgy. He had told himself that taking a brief night walk would take some of the edge off.

  Another fucking bad idea.

  Gimli was seeing enemies in every shadow—that was the only way to stay alive and free. It was bad enough that Hartmann had the federal and state authorities digging up the old JJS network and hassling everyone. With the joker-nat underground skirmishes, it seemed like every fucking cop in New York was in Jokertown and Gimli was too recognizable to feel comfortable on the streets, no matter what precautions he took. He wasn’t going to pretend that Hartmann wouldn’t prefer Gimli was shot “resisting arrest” than jailed—he wasn’t that damned stupid.

  Better to be cautious. Better to be furtive. Better to make a mistake and leave someone else dead than to be noticed. “Look, Croyd, I’m just a little paranoid at the moment. I’m real uneasy about people I don’t know seeing me…”

  Croyd took a step closer. Crooked teeth snagged his lower lip—the albino’s gums were a startling bright red. Gimli was reminded of a B-movie zombie. “You got any speed, Gimli? Your connections were always good.”

  “I’ve been away. Things change.”

  “No speed? Shit.”

  Gimli shook his head. That, at least, sounded like Croyd. The man frowned, shuffling from foot to foot.

  “So it goes,” he said. “I’ve got other sources, though they’re drying up or dying on me. Listen, the talk on the streets is that the JJS is reforming. Let me give you some free advice. After Berlin, you should give up on Hartmann; he’s a good guy, anyway, no matter what you think. Take out that s.o.b. Barnett instead. I might have considered it myself, if I’d woken up with the right power. Everyone in Jokertown’d thank you for it.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  The albino laughed again, the same dry cackle. “You don’t believe it’s me, do you?”

  Gimli shrugged. His hand moved significantly back toward the windbreaker; he saw the man watching the movement carefully. “You’re still alive, aren’t you? That’s something.”

  The albino who might or might not be Croyd sidled closer until Gimli could smell his breath. “Yeah,” he sa
id. “And maybe next time around I’ll just pound you a lot closer to the pavement than you already are. Croyd remembers things, Miller.”

  Croyd coughed, sniffed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. With a bloodshot, overdone leer, he moved off. Gimli watched him, wondering if he was making a mistake. If he wasn’t Croyd …

  He let him go. Gimli waited in the alley until he’d turned the corner back onto the street and then headed off again, taking a few extra turns just to see if he was being followed.

  In time he came to the back door of a dilapidated warehouse near the East River.

  Gimli could see Video on the roof. He waved to her and nodded to Shroud, who materialized from the shadows of the entrance. Gimli grimaced. He could hear the argument inside the frame building—twined voices snarling like a rumbling thunderstorm heard just over the horizon. “Fuck, not again,” he muttered.

  Shroud adjusted the strap of his machine pistol and shrugged. “We need some entertainment,” he said. “It’s almost as good as Berlin.”

  Gimli shoved open the door. Muffled words coalesced into intelligibility.

  File was shouting at Misha, who stood with arms folded and a righteous expression on her face as Peanut tried to hold back the rasp-skinned joker. File waved a fist at Misha, shoving at Peanut. “… your self-centered, blind fanaticism! You and the Nur are just Barnetts in Arabian drag. You have the identical hatred in your pompous souls. Let me show you hatred, bitch! Let me show you what it feels like.”

  As the rusty hinges of the door screeched, Peanut glanced over, his arms still wrapped around File. Peanut was scraped from the effort of holding the joker, his forearms scored with long, bloody scratches. A nat’s skin would have been scoured entirely off, but Peanut’s chitinous flesh was more durable. “Gimli,” he said pleadingly.

  File spun in Peanut’s grip, tearing a pained screech from Peanut. He pointed at Misha as he glanced at the dwarf. “Get rid of her!” he shouted. “I won’t put up with this crap much longer.” Twisting, he tore himself away from Peanut, who let him go this time.

  “Just what the fuck’s going on?” Gimli slammed the door shut behind him and glared. “I could hear you people halfway down the alley.”

  “I won’t tolerate any more insults.” File stalked toward Misha threateningly, and Gimli planted himself between the two.

  “She said Father Squid’s going to hell when he dies,” Peanut added, dabbing at his cuts with a handkerchief. “I told File she just don’t understand, but—”

  “I told the truth.” Misha sounded bewildered, as if she failed to believe their lack of comprehension. Her head shook, her hands were spread wide as if to absolve herself of guilt. “God showed His displeasure with the priest when He made him a joker. Yes, this Father Squid might be sent to hell, but Allah is infinitely merciful.”

  “See?” Peanut smiled at File tentatively. “It’s okay, huh?”

  “Yeah, and I’m a joker and Gimli and you are jokers and we’re all being punished too. Right? Well, that’s bullshit and I’m not gonna listen to it. Screw you, cunt.” File flipped a finger in Misha’s direction and spun on the balls of his feet.

  The slamming of the door reverberated for several seconds after his exit.

  Gimli looked over his shoulder at Misha. To him she was quite remarkably good-looking out of the frigging black funeral dress, but she never seemed at ease in Western clothing. Her mysticism and bluntness unsettled his people. File, Shroud, Marigold, and Video absolutely loathed her, while Peanut—oddly enough—seemed utterly infatuated even though she gave the half-witted joker nothing but scorn.

  Gimli had already decided he hated her. He regretted the impulse that had led him to meet with her after the Berlin fiasco; he wished he’d never steered her toward Polyakov. If it weren’t for the evidence she claimed to have against Hartmann and the fact that they were still waiting for the Russian’s information, the Justice Department would have received an anonymous tip. He’d like to see what fucking Hartmann would have them do with her.

  She was a damn ace. Aces only cared about themselves. Aces were worse than nats.

  “You got remarkable tact, you know that?” he said.

  “He asked. I only told him what Allah told me. How can truth be wrong?”

  “You want to live very much longer in Jokertown, you’d better learn when to keep your fucking mouth shut. And that is the truth.”

  “I’m not afraid to be a martyr for Allah,” she answered haughtily, her accent blurring the hard consonants. “I would welcome it. I’m tired of this waiting; I would rather attack the beast Hartmann openly.”

  “Hartmann’s done a lot for the jokers…” Peanut began, but Gimli cut him off.

  “It’ll be soon enough. I talked to Jube tonight, and the word is Hartmann’s going to speak at the rally in Roosevelt Park on Monday. Everyone thinks he’ll make his announcement then. Polyakov said he’d contact us as soon as Hartmann made things official. We’ll move then.”

  “We must contact Sara Morgenstern. The visions—”

  “—don’t mean anything,” Gimli interrupted. “We’ll make plans when Polyakov’s finally here.”

  “I will go to this park, then. I want to see Hartmann again. I want to hear him.” Her face was dark and savage, almost comically fierce.

  “You’ll stay away, goddammit,” Gimli said loudly. “With all the shit going down in this city, the place’ll be crawling with security.”

  She stared at him, and her gaze was more intense than he had thought it could be. He blinked. “You are not my father or my brother,” she told him as if speaking to a slow child. “You are not my husband, you are not the Nur. You can’t order me as you do the others.”

  Gimli could feel a blind, useless rage coming. He forced it down. Not much longer. Only a few more days. He stared back at her, each reading the other’s dislike.

  “Hartmann might make a good president…” Peanut’s voice was almost a whisper as he glanced from one to the other. They ignored him. The scratches on his arms oozed blood.

  “I hate this place,” Misha said. “I look forward to leaving.” She shuddered, breaking eye contact with Gimli.

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of fucking people about here who feel the same way.” Misha’s eyes narrowed at that; Gimli smiled innocently.

  “A few more days. Be patient,” Gimli continued. And after that, all bets are off. I’ll let File and the rest do whatever they damn well please with you.

  “Until then, keep your goddamn opinions to yourself,” he added.

  Monday, 2:30 P.M.

  Misha, who had once been known as Kahina, remembered the sermons. Her brother, Nur al-Allah, had been at his most eloquent describing the torment of the afterlife. His compelling, resonant voice hammered the faithful from the minbar while noontime heat swirled in the mosque of Badiyat Ash-sham, and it had seemed that the pits of hell gaped open before them.

  Nur al-Allah’s hell had been full of capering, loathsome jokers, those sinners Allah had cursed with the affliction of the wild card virus. They were an earthly image of the eternal torment that awaited all sinners: the vile underworld was slathered with twisted bodies that were a mockery of the human form; slick with puss oozing from scabrous faces; full of the stench of hatred and revulsion and sin.

  The Nur had not known, but Misha did: Hell was New York. Hell was Jokertown. Hell was Roosevelt Park on a June afternoon. And the Great Satan himself capered there, before all his adoring followers: Hartmann, the devil with strings lacing his fingertips, the phantom who haunted her waking dreams. The one who had with Misha’s own hands destroyed her brother’s voice.

  She’d seen the papers, the headlines praising Hartmann and extolling his coolness in crisis, his compassion, his work to end the sufferings of jokers. She knew that the thousands in the park were there to see him, and she knew what they hoped he would say. She knew that most considered Hartmann to be the one voice of sanity against the pious, hate-filled ravings of Leo Barnett and the
others like him.

  Yet Allah’s dreams had shown her the real Hartmann, and Allah had placed in her very hands the gift that would bring him down. For just a moment the reality of the gathering in the park shimmered and threatened to give way to the nightmare again, and Misha nearly cried out.

  “You okay? You shivered.”

  Peanut touched her on the arm, and Misha felt herself draw away involuntarily from contact with his hornlike, inflexible fingers. She saw hurt in his eyes, nearly lost in the scaly shell of his face.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” she told him. “Gimli said—”

  “It’s all right, Misha,” he whispered. The joker could barely move his lips; the voice was a poor ventriloquist’s rasp. “I hate the way I look too. A lot of us do—like Stigmata, y’know. I understand.”

  Misha turned from the guilty pain that the sympathy in his ruined voice gave her. Her hands ached to pull the veils over her face and hide herself from Peanut. But the chador and veils were locked away in the trunk in her room. Her hair was unbound and loose around her shoulders.

  “When you are in New York, you can’t wear black, not on a summer day. They’ll already suspect that you’re there. If you must go out, at least take care that you blend in if you intend to stay free. Be glad you can at least go walking in daylight; Gimli won’t dare show his face at all.” Polyakov had told her that before she’d left Europe. It seemed small consolation.

  Here in Roosevelt Park, despite what Gimli had said the night before, there was no chance she would be conspicuous. The place was packed and chaotic. Jokertown had spilled its vibrant, strange life onto the grass. It was ’76 again, the masks of Jokertown placed gleefully aside. They walked unashamed of Allah’s curse, flaunting the visible signs of their sins, mixing unchecked with the ones they called nats. They stood shoulder to misshapen shoulder around the stage set at the north end of the park closest to Jokertown, cheering the speakers who preached solidarity and friendship. Misha listened, she watched, and she shivered again, as if the afternoon heat was a chimera, a dream-phantom like the rest.