Hellblazer 1 - War Lord (12 page)

Flickering images, merely. She realized then that Morris didn’t know he was having these thoughts. She was seeing into his unconscious. He didn’t know he wanted to rape her. He didn’t know he wanted to kill her. He thought of himself as a good man making a great sacrifice for the world. He was driven by his makeup, his twisted nature, as if that nature was behind him, shoving him along—it was
behind
his consciousness, which never turned toward it, so he didn’t see it driving him. He didn’t know what his own desires were. He didn’t know the truth about Dyzigi and the whole enterprise he had undertaken . . . If she could just make him see himself, see Dyzigi as he really was, see it all for what it really was . . .

“Morris . . .” she began, her voice hoarse with thirst. “You think he’s one, but . . .”

“She’s reading your mind, you idiot,” Dyzigi said suddenly, stepping in front of Morris.

Instantly the tree of telepathic imagery was snuffed out, and there was just Dyzigi’s face, seeming to hang unsupported in the shadows in front of her, smiling down at her. Then the assault began.

But it wasn’t a physical assault. Dyzigi had his own abilities. He was like John Constantine in a way, but he had aligned himself with the entity that Mercury sometimes called “the thinking darkness.”

She had just time to say to Morris, “You think he’s one but he’s the other . . . you think you’re one but you’re the other . . .”

Then the full force of Dyzigi’s assault hammered down on her, bludgeoning her with visions. She saw a terrible angel, its face radiant with righteous fury, its eyes blue lights, its long streaming white hair merging with lightning as it flew toward her, like a hawk diving for a mouse; it struck and caught her up and carried her into the sky . . .

“Here,”
said the angel,
“we can exalt you. Or we can let go of you, and you will fall into the pit of fire. Look you down below. Look and see the destiny of those who fail to serve the Transfiguration.”

She looked down and saw millions of people writhing in a lake of flame—no ordinary flame, it was a combustion of shame and self-hatred, it was self-induced pain, pain at its purest, a purely mental experience, every person thinking they were being subjected to the pain, to the flame, by something above them, and every single one of them generating their own torment.

“Some truth mingled with great lies, that’s always been your method,”
she told the angel.

The angel looked at her in a moment of shuddering fury and she saw its face wrinkle up like a leaf going brown, crumbling, and underneath was another visage: Dyzigi’s repugnant face, the face of an evil toddler, a sadistic clown. It spoke:

“If you use your abilities to serve us, you will reign afterwards beside us. If you do not, you will suffer as all the others do, and more. And all that you love will be destroyed. Look here!”

She saw her mother, Marj, then, in a tawdry squat somewhere in Scotland. Late-season snow clung to the window and smoke rose from a rooftop chimney beyond the dirty glass. Her mother, Marj, was standing there, swaying, a bottle of whiskey in her hand. She lifted the bottle up and smashed it on the window frame.

“Mama! Ma, don’t!”

But Marj raised the serrated stub of the bottle and used the broken edges to slash her own throat. Blood spurted to run down the windowpane.

“That is your mother’s future if you don’t help us . . .”

“Mama!”

Mercury consolidated her own psychic force in a single desperate act of will, and visualized Dyzigi crushed, smashed into the gallon jar with the crooked-eyes thing, the two of them forced ludicrously into the same space, like a cartoon she’d seen as a child, the thing turning to Dyzigi’s screaming face, its gash of a mouth appearing . . .

It was too much for Dyzigi. There was an all-consuming strobic flash and then the image was gone, the assault—and her abortive retaliation—was ended, and she lay panting on the bed, weeping, as Dyzigi stalked over to the jar, cursing her.

“You nasty little bitch, how dare you . . .” He spoke English perfectly, his accent like cobwebs on the words. He put the shopping bag on the little table, reached inside the bag, and took out the severed head—a black man, eyes staring in horror. The top of the head was already loosened, temporarily replaced like the cap on a jack-o’-lantern. Dyzigi used a spoon to flip the bony top of the head off and dig out the brains, unscrewing the top of the jar with his other hand. He began to feed brains to the thing in the jar. It quivered and twitched and consumed the gray tissue as Dyzigi said, “I’ll give you one night to think about it. Then tomorrow, you will be the one united with my friend here. He’s been thinking about the taste of your mind for a long time now . . . Tomorrow he’ll know its taste, you arrogant little cow. You nasty, awful, stupid little animal . . . you empty-headed whore of a sow . . .”

6

SHE FLIES ON STRANGE WINGS

The northeast coast of Carthaga, the Mediterranean

A
n hour past dawn on the shore of another sea. Standing on the Mediterranean shore with Spoink, Constantine watched with relief as the splintery old fiberglass seaplane departed, its engine cutting out and restarting as it went.

“Glad they’re gone,” he told Spoink. “Couldn’t get over the feeling they might cut me throat for tuppence.”

“Dude, I was afraid the plane was gonna go down. ‘Problem is not, problem is not,’ he kept saying, every fucking time the engine stalled.”

“The one with the big mustache said they speak a combination of French and Arabic on this island. That brain you’re borrowing know any language besides Farsi?”

“He’s got a lot of Arabic, too. He was a big mover and shaker in the terrorist sweepstakes, bro. Come on, man . . .”

“Hold fire a minute . . .” Constantine closed his eyes, consolidated his energy field, enabled his receptivity to psychic outreach.

Mercury?

He waited . . . no response. He tried again.

Mercury! It’s John! Where are you?

Nothing.

He shook his head. “Can’t get her. The planetary mind field’s gotten as wobbly as cellphone reception. Don’t know which bloody way to go . . .”

“Road’s up here, man. I think I hear trucks coming! Come on! Up the hill here . . .”

It was still soft and breezy out, but Constantine could tell it was going to be a hot day. The sun seemed to be working itself up—breathing down his neck and about to leap on his back. “Hope there’s a place to get something to eat. Someplace not too well acquainted with dysentery.”

And someplace cheap. He’d had to give the Azerbaijanis most of his money as well as the hijacked cabin cruiser to get here. But then there’d been two refueling stops on the way.

They climbed to the top of the rise and found themselves on a two-lane asphalt road, still black from recent construction, following the shore northward toward Poeni—just in time to meet the military convoy coming down the road.

“Oh lovely, hundreds of goits with big guns . . .” Constantine muttered.

It wasn’t a big convoy; there were just nine dark green trucks and two armored cars.

“Oi, Spoink, a word to the wise,” Constantine muttered, “this would
not
be a good time to do the thizzle dance.”

“Right, got it,” Spoink said. “I’ll be cool.”

The lead driver stared at the blond British-Iooking guy in the trench coat and stuck his hand out the window to signal a stop. The truck pulled up, the whole convoy stopping; the soldier beside the driver leapt out, AK in hand, before the truck had completely stopped. The soldier shouted something in Arabic, pointing the automatic rifle meaningfully at the center of Constantine’s chest.

“Says put up your hands,” Spoink muttered.

“Really? I thought he was asking me if I wanted to dance,” Constantine said dryly, putting his hands up. “Here, mind that bloody Kalashnikov, mate. Keep the safety on, there’s a good man-killer.”

An armored car drew up beside the truck and an officer got out. He was a smartly uniformed Sudanese Arab—if Constantine rightly identified the flag streaming from the radio antenna of the armored car—and he looked like he wanted an excuse to order his men to open fire. On the way here Constantine had heard there was a conflict in Carthaga. At every fuel stop people had told them, “Don’t go there, dangerous now.” If these guys were Sudanese, they were part of an invading army.

“You are CIA?” the officer snapped in English.

Constantine shook his head. “Me? I’m a Brit, ah—” He looked at the bars on the man’s shoulders and took a stab at his rank. “Major?”

“A Britisher? So you are MI6.”

“What’s all this about secret services, then?”

“You have come here very close to a battlefield, and you are from the United Kingdom, and they are not friendly to the Sudan. The tourists have been evacuated from this island, so you are not tourist. British and American businessmen also evacuated. So who else are you? MI6! They are angry about Darfur . . .” He shrugged.

“That’s not a bad guess, actually,” Constantine said, looking the major’s men over. Mostly small arms. No cannon towed along, nothing big. “Except of course it’s all wrong, mate, all arsy-versy. I’m staying out of The Firm’s way, I am. See that plane? You can just make it out, against the clouds there. Almost gone. It’s a seaplane . . .”

“Yes, I see an aircraft,” the Major said, staring out over the sea, shading his eyes. “I cannot see what kind. What of it?”

“They dropped us off, just now. They were supposed to take us to Poeni—where we’re supposed to meet our baggage—but they got wind that you boys were moving against the enemy. Dumped us here and buggered off before they could get caught up in the war. Afraid the Carthagans would take them for one of yours, open fire on them. Worked out, though, didn’t it? I was looking for you lot. Me catalogs are in the baggage, but we can just wing it, see what your needs are . . .”

“What? What are you talking about, this catalog?”

Spoink looked at Constantine as if he’d like to ask the same question.

“Arms and military supplies,” Constantine said nonchalantly. “Where’s me card? . . .” He slapped the pockets of his coat. “Bugger me, they’re all in the briefcase—with the baggage. Not to worry, I’ll get it to you later. My sources tell me you’ve got a crying need for cannon. But here, I’m not introducing myself proper.” Constantine stuck out his hand to shake, smiling like a salesman who senses a big score is just around the bend.
“J. Constantine,
arms sales. We specialize in discounted American weapons and some very nice Israeli and Russian ordnance.”

The major looked at Constantine’s outstretched hand, then peered at the speck that was all that remained of the seaplane. He was clearly reluctant to buy into the story about arms dealers getting dropped off on the beach in the middle of a war. Arms dealings were usually done in high-tone hotels, sometimes at armament conventions, or in the back rooms of embassies. Still—there were known to be some opportunists out there. And this war was a very sudden opportunity. At last he took Constantine’s hand and shook it, once. “I am Major Abbide.”

“I’ve got some beautiful cannon for you, Major. Half regular price.”

“Half? Why?”

“Because . . . we kind of fell into them. They were intended for the Iraqi army but, ah, we’ve got some old chums at Halliburton, steered ’em our way on the QT . . . Need to get them off our hands quick. A little steamy they are, if you catch my meaning.”

“What kind of cannon you say you get me?”

“Ah, what kind . . .” Constantine knew bugger all about weapons. “Oh you know, the big . . . Caramel . . . iz . . . koffs.”

“ ‘Karamelizkoffs’?” Abbide frowned. “I do not know this manufacturer.”

He fairly radiated suspicion. Constantine consolidated his energy, reached out with his psychic field, and gently probed Abbide’s mind by visualizing cannons, stimulating an associative response in Abbide’s unconscious. With any luck the answer would come in English, like most of the catalogs Abbide would’ve seen.

“I do not buy weapons I do not know,” Abbide was saying. Then he blinked, and shivered. Muttered to himself in Arabic.

Constantine almost had it . . .

Spoink decided he had to translate the Arabic muttering. “Says he’s feeling . . .”

“Shut your gob, I’ll tell you when to translate,” Constantine said, as if annoyed with an underling. Wasn’t hard to act that one out, neither.

“If you have nothing familiar to me,” Abbide said, “I must wonder if you are truly—”

“How about a self-propelled howitzer?” Constantine said quickly, reading it out of the telepathic image that he’d harvested from Abbide’s mind. He had a clear-cut catalog-style image of something like a tank but lower to the ground, slower, a portable platform for a cannon. He read aloud the text under the image: “The 155-mm M109 series, self-propelled medium howitzers. Transportable in phase III of airborne operations, don’t you know. They have a cruising range of . . . of 220 miles at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, Major. Combat loaded, why, one of these babies weighs a mere 27.5 tons. More important they’ve got a range of 23,500 meters—98 pound projectile. Part the bastards’ hair with that, eh?”

He turned to Spoink and made a close-your-mouth motion with his hand.

“Mmmm,” Abbide said, rubbing his chin. “Portable howitzer. Twenty-three thousand meters, you say. Very nice. Half price. How could you get them here, though, in time to be of use to us?”

“We have a ship in the area. We can off-load the little beauties by night. Say—ten of them? Tomorrow night?”

“You have so many nearby?”

“I do. But you’ll have to transfer some money by wire—a twenty-five percent deposit.”

“I will speak to my government. Come, bring your man into my transport, we are about to break camp. We will have some breakfast.”

“I’d love a cuppa, Major . . .”

Southeastern Carthaga

A yellow half-moon shone down on an impromptu cemetery as Captain Simpson guided the chopper to a landing near the crossroads. Morris and his new assistant got out of the Blackhawk, ducking under the slowing blades, followed by two black North Africans in ragged caftans and sandals, carrying shovels and looking completely dissatisfied with this gig. Simpson and Burlington waited in the helicopter. All but the men in caftans wore Carthagan uniforms. None were Carthagan.