High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel Read online

  “Look, Marcus,” Olena whispered.

  He opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. Olena’s face swam before his. He lifted an arm to touch her cheek. She clasped his hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. Her eyes looked wet with tears as she turned and pointed. “Look, Marcus. I told you this was a place for us.”

  With effort, he turned. There, on the street a little ways away, shapes moved. They were strange shapes, and at first he didn’t understand them. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Then they came closer, and he saw what they were.

  Jokers. That’s what the shapes were. A man who limped on legs that weren’t jointed right, that splayed out to either side as he walked. Another with a single horn that curled around his head like a turban. A woman with the face of a toad. Another—man or woman Marcus couldn’t tell—that came on like a hunchbacked, hairy beast of some old horror movie. And still others with mutations small and large. They converged slowly on Marcus and Olena, a silent procession of the virus-twisted.

  Marcus had watched them as his vision blurred, unsure whether what he was seeing was real or imagined. Unsure whether to fear them, or to reach out for them as kin. Instead of doing either he’d lost consciousness. Or most of it. He knew that Olena had talked with the jokers. He knew that they’d worked together to lift and move him. He knew he was inside somewhere warm and smoky, smelling of metal and oil. But all of this seemed far away, like none of it really had anything to do with him, until Olena woke him, for the second time that day, by saying, “Don’t sleep, my hero. Soon you can, but not yet.”

  Opening his eyes, Marcus at first thought they were in a barn, as the rafters and walls were hung with tools. He could feel the rough contours of the floor through the old quilted blanket he lay on. With effort, he rose to his elbow, leaning back heavily on a sack.

  Olena said, “Someone is here to help you.”

  The someone stood just behind her, a villager who looked ill at ease. He was a middle-aged man, short and round-faced and Asian-looking, like many of the people Marcus had seen since escaping the arena. Burlap sacks covered his hands, tied in place at the wrists. Behind him the glow of a furnace lit the room with soft yellow light.

  “This is Jyrgal,” Olena said. “Around here he is called the Handsmith. You understand? Instead of blacksmith. Handsmith. This is his forge.”

  Marcus wondered if the man’s hands were covered because he had burned them. “I don’t need a blacksmith,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  “And this is his son, Nurassyl.”

  Marcus hadn’t noticed the boy. He stood mostly hidden behind his father’s legs. His body was shaped like a child draped in a sheet, like a simple ghost costume. His flesh was gelatinous, glistening with moisture. His arms were chubby and he held his fists tight against his chest. He moved not on feet but on a wriggling platform of little nobules. Marcus couldn’t place what they reminded him of for a moment, and then he did. Anemones. They moved him out from behind his father, a smooth glide accompanied by a squelching sound.

  Despite all the strangeness of his appearance Marcus could see the boy beyond the deformity. The boy that he would’ve been if the wild card hadn’t twisted him was there in the curious sparkle of his eyes, in the way they widened on seeing Marcus, and in the way he clutched at his father’s leg and half hid behind him. Marcus had done that, forever ago when he was the boy that his father still loved. Before everything changed.

  “You brought me to jokers?” Marcus asked.

  Olena nodded. “This place is called a ‘village of the prophet’s abhorred.’” She glanced over her shoulder, as if worried the father and son could understand her. It didn’t look like they could. To Marcus, she continued, “A village of jokers. In Kazakhstan they are not looked on kindly. They group together in secluded places and live quietly. They were nervous about coming out. Sometimes bad people come here and cause trouble. So they were careful until they saw you. I’ve explained everything to them. Jyrgal is here to help you. He will take the bullets out of you. He says that in Islam one does not turn away a man in need, especially when that person is a brother in curse.”

  With deliberate, careful motions, Jyrgal gripped one and then the other of his mittens in his teeth. He pulled them free and let them drop. Where he should have hands he had … flesh. Amorphous stubs that bulged and pulsed, shapeless and yet constantly changing. He picked up a metal bar from beside the forge. A small brick the size of a Snickers. He slipped it into his mouth. He tilted back his head and swallowed. Marcus winced as he watched the bar slip down his throat. The man rolled his head, worked his jaw to different angles.

  The boy said something and the father responded with a word. He lifted the writhing lumps he had instead of hands. He stared at them and began chanting. A prayer of some sort. Or was it singing? The fleshy lumps flushed red, and then darkened. They took on a metallic sheen and shape. One became a thin sliver of curved metal. A scalpel. The other took longer to settle into shape. It became a sort of pliers, delicately pointed instruments that the man snapped open and closed for a moment, testing them. Jyrgal spoke to his son, gesturing toward Marcus.

  With his wide, kind eyes, the boy slid toward the patient. He spoke and Olena translated.

  “He asks that you trust him. He says that Allah made him as he is. He deformed him, but he also allowed him a way to serve others. He believes that if he gives his gift freely he will be welcomed in heaven one day. He’ll have a normal body there. He’ll be able to run, and chase kites, and play ball. He’ll be uncursed. That will be heaven for him.”

  Olena paused a moment, listening as the father responded. Marcus watched emotion bloom in her eyes. Something like sadness, but not quite. She whispered, “Jyrgal says that his son may be right. But also it may be that in heaven Nurassyl will be exactly as he is here on earth. He may not be able to run after kites or play football, but he will still be just as perfect. Just as loved by his father. That, Jyrgal says, would be heaven for him.”

  The boy smiled. He peeled his hands from his chest and stretched them toward Marcus. Like his father, they were not hands at all. They were a writhing mass of tiny tentacles similar to those that he stood on. Marcus stared at them, transfixed and terrified at the same time. His fear vanished when the tentacles touched his scales. It was the gentlest of caresses, radiant with warmth, a strange, tingling feeling that, above all else, was comforting. It felt like each tentacle sang through him, telling him that everything would be all right.

  “Being as he is,” Olena whispered, close to his ear and translating Jyrgal’s words, “there are many things my son cannot do. But who needs to do other things when he can relieve the pain of others? Because of him, you will feel no more pain.”

  So saying, the Handsmith went to work. And it was as he said. Marcus didn’t feel the scalpel slicing into his flesh or the pliers probing for bullets. He just watched the large-eyed joker boy, awed by his healing touch and by the complete goodness of him.

  The elevator doors opened with a sigh, and Michelle stepped out onto the Committee floor of the UN. There was the low hum of people working. It hadn’t been like that when she’d started. Back then it had been just the eight of them in Jayewardene’s office.

  She didn’t like the way it had blossomed into this bureaucracy. Now there were always new people she didn’t know and people bustling from here to there, looking intent and purposeful.

  The receptionist, Margaret, gave Michelle a winsome smile, and Michelle smiled back. There had been some minor flirting between them, but Michelle tried her best not to flirt back. It wasn’t professional. Still, Margaret was really cute. But now Ink was working as Jayewardene’s assistant, and it might be awkward if she discovered Michelle making sexy eyes at Margaret. Once again, Michelle wondered if getting Ink a job with Jayewardene had been wise. Former girlfriends just muddied the water.

  “I’m supposed to meet up with some of the new kids, Margaret,” Mich
elle said, walking up to the sleek metal and glass desk. Everything on the Committee floor was sleek and modern. It managed to look austere and expensive at the same time. “They still in the big conference room?” She was trying very hard not to be distracted by Margaret’s pretty—and very soft-looking—red hair. It had been a long time since she’d been interested in anyone, much less interested in anyone in a very unprofessional way.

  Except for Joey. Joey was always in the back of her mind. There were layers of complication being involved with Joey. What they might be to each other she didn’t know. Michelle wanted to find out, but she knew it was emotionally dangerous for her. Also, the Ink and Joey thing—well, that was a mess.

  “They were in the big conference room, but most of them left for lunch already,” Margaret replied. “You look especially nice today. Those jeans are perfect on you. And do I smell Chanel No. 5? I love that fragrance.” Margaret gave her a smoldering look, and then gestured toward the sitting area. Why am I thinking about Joey when there’s a perfectly nice girl who obviously wants me? Michelle thought as she began digging through her handbag like she was trying to find something important.

  “One guy came in after they’d all gone to lunch. That’s him over there. His name is Cesar Antonio Clerc. Code name is Aero.”

  Michelle looked over and saw a man somewhat older than her who was sitting in one of the low-slung black leather chairs. He was reading on a tablet.

  “Thanks, Margaret,” she said.

  Michelle walked across the wide waiting room toward him. He looked up at her and his eyes widened.

  “Hello, Cesar,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Michelle Pond.”

  He stood, took her hand, and gave a firm handshake. Not too hard, which was nice. A lot of men gave her the I’m-manly-and-my-handshake-is-super-strong. Those never hurt her—they couldn’t—but it did make her wonder if they did that all the time to people it might hurt.

  “I know who you are, Miss Pond,” he said, releasing her hand. He spoke with a slight Spanish accent. His eyes were jade-colored, and his skin was olive; he was a few inches shorter than she was. “You’ve been in the news a couple of times,” he said dryly.

  Michelle decided she liked him. “It looks like you missed the orientation meeting,” she said. “I’m late, too. How about we go get some lunch and I can answer any questions you have about Committee procedures. And about how much trouble you’ve gotten yourself into by agreeing to this.”

  “Trouble,” he said in an amused voice. “Trouble I’m used to.”

  Machu Picchu now formed a glorious, cinematic backdrop for the press cameras. A large, open-sided tent had been erected on the terrace just outside the Three Windows Temple, protecting the gathering from the sun while leaving the stunning mountainous scenery visible all around. The terraces gleamed in the late morning sun, the polished drystone walls of the buildings around reflected the light, though many of the walls still showed the damage of the fighting that had erupted here two weeks ago, when the UN had first made the decision to send in the Committee to end the burgeoning civil war.

  The two Peruvian sides were already seated under the tent. As Barbara and Klaus approached, they could see Secretary-General Jayewardene waiting for them, and behind him, conspicuously present, the other Committee aces were standing in a cluster. Blue-helmeted soldiers stood posted around the perimeter of the terrace.

  “This will play well in the press.” Klaus leaned in toward Barbara, whispering in her ear as he put an arm around her. She saw him nod in satisfaction. “Das gut.”

  She smiled back at him. “Yes,” she told him. “It’s good.” She patted his hand, then moved it from her shoulder. She ran fingers through her short, dyed hair. “Appearances, love,” she whispered back to him. “And it’s time for yours. I’m already working, you know. And I’m tired—not enough sleep last night.”

  Klaus grinned at that, and Babel forced herself to remain smiling, but most of her attention was on making certain that everyone sitting at the table under the tent would be able to converse with the others; her concentration was there. The ghosts of German, English, Spanish, Sinhala, Quechua, and Aymara words wisped through her head, and she formed them all into a common language that everyone at the table could understand. It was like juggling: hearing the words in each person’s head a moment before they were spoken and reshaping them as they emerged, twisting the sounds that they made in the air and placing a sphere of understanding around everyone in the tent. The task was second nature to her now, but it was still something that required concentration and energy, and which would leave her exhausted afterward.

  This was more difficult than her other skill: that of making speech incomprehensible and communication impossible. That side of her ace was far simpler to handle. Confusion was always easier than understanding. She knew that too well.

  They reached the Secretary-General. As they did, Klaus closed his remaining eye momentarily, encasing himself in the shining, white armor of ghost steel, though he left his head and long blond hair uncovered, displaying the black eye patch surrounded by the facial scars that had left him half blinded. He grounded the blade of his greatsword in the grass below. “Let’s get this done,” he said.

  “Excellent,” Jayewardene answered. “I had a dream last night that this went well, so the omens are good. Though other things, elsewhere…” He frowned and shook his head. “Well, that’s for later, on the flight back. As you said, let’s finish this.”

  The trio strode under the tent’s shadow, Klaus ducking his head to get under the flap. The round table—as it had in the mythical time of King Arthur—promised that no person was more important than any other, but everyone here knew that for the farce it was. Barbara glanced around as the furious, muting clicking of cameras from the press section began.

  Babel thought Curare, one of the two Shining Path leaders, more deuce than ace—his frog-like, thin body was clad only in ridiculous red- and yellow-striped spandex swimming trunks that clashed badly with his black-spotted, eye-searing blue skin. He sat on his haunches on a wooden platform made specially for him since normal chairs couldn’t accommodate his body. His huge golden eyes shifted as he glanced from Cocomama, seated next to him, to the last arrivals to the table.

  Cocomama was a young woman dressed in traditional Andean clothing with an intricately beaded and feathered headdress over long, raven-black hair just beginning to be touched with premature grey around the temples. At Secretary-General Jayewardene’s insistence, she wore cotton gloves, even in the heat: her cocaine-laced touch was able to drug a person into submission.

  Barbara smiled at the two as Jayewardene, Lohengrin, and she took their seats. Curare and Cocomama, from her observations and the intelligence on them that they’d been given, had a complicated relationship. The twin heads of the New Shining Path rebels were lovers, and their organization was funded by the seemingly unlimited resource of the cocaine Cocomama’s ace could provide. Over the last decade and a half, they had shepherded the New Shining Path from a minor, fading annoyance to a full-fledged danger to the stability of Peru. In the Andes region, especially, the New Shining Path now controlled the roads and main towns.

  Curare was the titular leader and spokesperson, but Barbara suspected that it was Cocomama who was the true head of the organization, that it was her will that dominated the group’s decisions, and she had advised Jayewardene accordingly. Then there was the mysterious Messenger In Black, and no one knew his role with the New Shining Path at all. However, there were dark-winged moths flitting all around the terrace and under the tent’s fabric: whoever the Messenger was, he would know what happened here.

  Barbara wondered if the New Shining Path’s leaders realized that their complicated, three-legged relationship mirrored that of the aces before them: Secretary-General Jayewardene, Lohengrin, and herself. Jayewardene had the legal authority, but it was the shining, ghost steel–clad Lohengrin who, in the eyes of the public, was the leader of the Comm
ittee that underlaid and supported the UN’s power. As for herself … to most, she was a secondary figure, but with both men she often felt like the only adult in the room. Klaus, despite her love for him, had only one tactic: go striding in with sword blazing and dangerous aces arrayed behind him; Jayewardene was Klaus’s opposite, bound tightly by rules and regulations and trying desperately to placate the agendas of all the countries and all the powers that had put him where he was, and as a result—at least in Barbara’s opinion—often moving too slowly and too timidly.

  It was Barbara who often had to hold Klaus back when he wanted nothing more than to jump into blind action; it was Barbara who had to prod and poke Jayewardene to move when the man wanted to sit and wait and ponder.

  As Barbara and Klaus sat, flanking Jayewardene, her gaze moved across the table from Cocomama and Curare to President Fujimori, General Ramos of the Peruvian army, and the assorted high-ranking officers who sat with them. The Secretary-General remained standing. He tugged at his suit jacket as he took a long, slow breath, and one brown hand reached out to rest on the thick document placed on the tablecloth in front of him.

  “I congratulate you, President Fujimori, and you, Curare and Cocomama,” he said. With Babel’s ability, each of them heard Jayewardene speaking in whatever passed for their own native language. “What we have accomplished here is nothing less than historic, and when this agreement is signed, Peru will be well on its way back to stability and prosperity, for everyone in your great country.”