Spector hadn’t slept. He picked up the amber bottle of pills on the bedside table and dropped them into the trash. He’d have to find something stronger.
The pain was always there, like the smell of stale smoke in a seedy bar. Spector sat up and breathed slowly. The early morning light made his apartment look even grayer than usual.
He’d furnished the efficiency with cheap beat-up junk from pawnshops and secondhand stores.
The phone rang. “Hello.”
“Mr. Spector?” The voice had the refined edge of a Bostonian. Spector didn’t recognize it.
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“My name is unimportant, at least for now.”
“Right.” They were going to play cagey with him, but most people did. “So why are you calling me? What do you want?”
“A mutual acquaintance named Gruber indicated that you have certain unique abilities. A client of mine might wish to employ you, initially on a freelance basis.”
Spector scratched his neck. “I think I see what you’re getting at here. If this is some kind of a setup, you’re a dead man. If you’re legit, its going to cost you.”
“Naturally. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Shadow Fist Society? It could be very profitable for you to work within that organization. However, they are cautious and would require a demonstration first. Would this morning be too soon?”
Word had it that the Shadow Fist Society was run by the city’s anonymous new crime lord. They were leaning hard on the older gang bosses. Spector would feel right at home in the upcoming bloodbath. “I got nothing else to do. Who do you have in mind?”
“That’s really of no importance to us.” He paused. “Mr. Gruber seems to know quite a bit about you, and he’s far from discreet.”
“Fine by me.”
“Be at Times Square at eleven-thirty this morning. If we’re satisfied that you meet our needs you’ll be contacted there.”
“What about money?” Spector heard a buzz at the other end.
“That will be negotiated later. If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Good-bye, Mr. Spector.” Spector dropped the receiver into the cradle. He smiled. Gruber wasn’t one of his favorite people. He never gave anyone a fair price for their goods. Killing a greedy fence would be something of a public service.
He walked naked to the bathroom and stared at the mirror. His stringy brown hair needed washing and his mustache was overgrowing his thin upper lip. Other than that he looked the same as the day he’d died. The day Tachyon had brought him hack. Spector wondered if he might not live forever. At this point, he didn’t really care. He stuck out his tongue. His reflection didn’t. It smiled at him.
“Don’t worry, Demise,” said his face in the mirror. “You can still die.” It laughed.
He backed into the bedroom. The air was cold. There was a loud, crackling sound. Spector ran for the living room. The bedroom door slammed in his face. He smelled ozone.
“Now, now, Demise. I only want to have a little chat.” Spector recognized the voice now. He turned. The Astronomer’s projected self was sitting on the bed. He was wearing a black robe sashed at the waist with a rope of human hair. His crippled body was straighter than usual, which meant his powers were charged up. He was covered in blood.
“What do you want?” Spector was afraid. The Astronomer was one of the few people his power didn’t work on.
“Do you know what today is’?”
“Wild Card Day. Everybody and his dog knows that.” Spector picked a pair of brown corduroy pants of the floor. “Yes. But it’s also something else. Its Judgment Day.” The Astronomer knotted his fingers together.
“Judgment Day?” He pulled his pants on. “What are you talking about?”
“Those bastards who ruined my plan. They intervened with our true destiny. They kept us from ruling the world.” The Astronomer’s eyes gleamed. There was a madness in them that even Spector hadn’t seen before. “But there are other worlds. This one won’t soon forget my parting shot at those fuckers who got in my way.”
“Turtle. Tachyon. Fortunato. You’re going after those guys?” Spector clapped his hands softly. “Good for you.”
“By the end of the day they’ll all be dead. And you, my dear Demise, are going to help me.”
“Bullshit. I did your dirty work before, but not now. You fucking left me hanging out to dry, and I’m not going to give you another chance.”
“I don’t want to kill you, so I’ll give you one chance to change your mind.” A rainbow of colored light began to swirl around the Astronomer.
“Fuck off, man.” Spector shook his fist. “You’re not going to make a fool of me again.”
“No? Then I’m afraid I’ll have to make a corpse of you. Along with all the rest.” The Astronomer shifted into a jackal’s head. It opened its mouth; dark blood flowed steaming onto the carpeted floor. It howled. The building shook with sound. Spector covered his ears and fell to the floor.
Fortunato called Caroline to, come for Veronica. Caroline could take her to his mother’s townhouse, the official business address for the escort agency. Caroline, and half a dozen of the other women, more or less lived there. He hustled Veronica into her clothes and then left her nodding out on the living room couch.
Brennan said, “Is she going to be all right?”
“I doubt it.”
“I know it’s none of my business, but weren’t you maybe a little hard on her?”
“It’s under control,” Fortunato said.
“Sure it is,” Brennan said. “I never said it wasn’t.”
They stood and looked at each other for a few seconds. As Yeoman, Brennan was probably the only one of the costumed vigilantes running loose in New York that Fortunato trusted. Partly because Brennan was still human, unaffected by the wild card virus. Partly because he and Fortunato had been through some serious shit together, inside a monstrous alien that some people called the Swarm.
The Astronomer called it TIAMAT, and he’d used a machine he called the Shakti device to bring it to Earth. Fortunato had smashed the machine himself, but he was too late. The alien had already arrived, and hundreds of thousands around the world had died because of it.
“What about the Astronomer?” Fortunato said.
“You know a guy they call the Walrus? Jube, the newsie?” Fortunato shrugged. “Seen him around, I guess.”
“He saw the Astronomer in Jokertown early this morning. Told Chrysalis about it, she mentioned it to me.”
“What did it cost you?”
“Nothing. I know, it’s out of character. But even Chrysalis is afraid of this guy.”
“Where does this Walrus know the Astronomer from?”
“I don’t know.”
“So we’ve got a secondhand report by an unreliable witness and a cold trail?”
“Back off, man. I tried to phone. The operator told me it was off the hook. This isn’t even my fight. I came here to help you out.”
Fortunato looked at the Mirror of Hathor. It could take him all day to get it purified and get himself focused enough to try it again. Meanwhile, if the Astronomer had come out of his hole, it could be trouble.
“Yeah, okay. Let me take care of this other business and f we’ll go take a look.”
By the time Fortunato had his street clothes on, Caroline had arrived. Even with her hair in short blond tangles, wearing an old sweatshirt and jeans, she made Fortunato want her.
She didn’t look any older than she had seven years ago, when he’d first taken her on. She had a child’s face and a compact, energetic body whose every muscle seemed to be under her voluntary control. Fortunato loved all his women, but Caroline was special. She’d learned everything he could teach her-etiquette, foreign languages, cooking, massage-but her spirit had never cracked. He’d never mastered her, and maybe for that reason she could still give him more pleasure in bed than any of the others.
He kissed her quickly when he let her in. He wished he could take her back into the bedroom and let her give him shot of Tantric power. But there wasn’t time.
“What do you want to do with her?” Caroline said. “Does she have a date tonight?”
“It’s Wild Card Day. Everybody has a date tonight. Mine should be over by midnight, and I may have to go out again if I get home too early.”
“Keep an eye on her. Let her go out if she seems all right. But keep her away from any more junk. I’ll figure out the rest of it later.”
She looked at Yeoman. “Is something up?”
“Nothing to worry about. I’ll call you later.” He kissed her again and watched her take Veronica down to the waiting cab. Then he looked at Brennan and said, “Let’s go.”