Wild Cards: Death Draws Five (10 page)

“The Kiss,” he said, “is only the first lesson I’m going to teach you, slut.” Desperately she brought up her knee, trying to smash his groin, but it struck his massive thigh and rebounded. “Every time you strike me,” he said in a curiously tender voice, “I’ll strike you twice. Then I’ll take you, whether you’re conscious or not.”

The Angel clenched her teeth and hit at him again and again with her knee, but he only laughed. She writhed in his grasp like an animal caught in a trap. She’d gnaw her own leg off to escape him, but there was no such easy remedy to her awful situation. She’d been in his embrace for only seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.

“Christ, Witness, score on your own time. Right now we’ve got a bloody job to do.”

The Witness looked up, frowning. It was the jolly little chubby man whom the Angel had also seen in the Waldorf’s underground garage. He frowned himself a little, and suddenly he didn’t seem so jolly.

“Ah, Dagon,” the Witness said sulkily, then when the jolly little man’s expression turned even less jolly, he quickly released the Angel. He looked back at her scowling ferociously. “All right. But I’m not done with you, slut. I’ll see you again, and then I’ll give you what you deserve for tempting a Godly man.”

“Butcher Dagon.” It was the voice that had called out moments before, warning the Angel when she’d been in the Witness’s grasp. Now she recognized it. The three of them turned to see Billy Ray brushing futilely at the bloodstains that had utterly ruined his impeccable suit. “What brings you to these parts?”

The little man was looking jolly again, like everyone’s favorite uncle. He smiled. “You recognize me?”

“Sure,” Ray said. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper a few times. Usually above the caption ‘Crazed Killer Strikes.’”

Dagon laughed. It was a jolly sound, but out of place in the auditorium’s chaotic atmosphere filled with wailing and crying and screaming. “I don’t recognize you, but I think I can identify you by the way you went through our spear-carriers. Billy Ray, isn’t it?”

Ray nodded.

“So,” Dagon said thoughtfully, “somehow the government has become involved. Interesting. Still, you are outnumbered and outgunned.”

“Yet, we’re kicking your asses.”

Billy Ray grinned a mad grin, and Butcher Dagon shook his head and changed.

The thing facing Billy no longer looked chubby or jolly or even remotely human. It stood upright on two thick legs. It had arms encased in slab-like muscle, a bullet head set directly on broad shoulders, and a prehensile tail as long as its body. Dagon’s clothes had vanished along with his human form, either destroyed during his instantaneous transformation or somehow absorbed into his new, thickly pelted body. The Angel couldn’t tell which. She had little experience with shape-shifters.

Dagon’s new body had brindled black and brown fur covering it from head to toe, beady, wild-looking eyes, a long snout full of sharp, gleaming teeth, and keen-looking claws sprouting from his finger and toe tips. His tail whipped back and forth like an angry snake and copious amounts of saliva drooled from his wicked jaws.

“Je-sus,” Ray said emphatically, and Dagon charged.

They collided like smashing meteors, and the ensuing battle was so fast, so frantic, that the Angel could barely discern who was who most of the time and was certainly unsure which one had the upper hand. They tore at each other like enraged wolverines on amphetamines for twelve or fourteen seconds and then broke as suddenly as Dagon’s initial attack.

The transformed ace leaped back six or eight feet and the combatants stood staring at each other, panting and bloody. It was hard for the Angel to say who was worse off. Ray was down to his shoes and underwear and a few shreds of clothing. He was bleeding from too many places to count. While some of the shallow bites and scratches healed right before the Angel’s astonished eyes, a big flap of skin and flesh hung on Ray’s muscled chest and his upper right arm bled profusely from where Dagon had mangled it with his jaws.

Dagon didn’t look much better. One eye was swollen shut and his right arm was dangling uselessly, the shaft of his broken forearm sticking out jaggedly through his torn flesh. The Angel realized that at least some of the blood dripping from Dagon’s slavering jaws was his own, not Ray’s, as the hairy ace spit out some broken fangs.

Ray smiled crazily, and at that moment the Angel wasn’t sure which of the two combatants she feared the most.

“Round two?” Ray asked.

Dagon said something. The Angel couldn’t understand his words, either because of his injuries or perhaps his transformed vocal cords. But whatever he said was angry and vicious.

They hurled themselves again at each other. Ray managed to grab Dagon’s broken arm. He yanked at it and the transformed ace screamed in a disturbingly inhuman, high-pitched whine. The crazed smile was now fixed on Ray’s face like a horror mask as they strove breast to breast, Dagon’s tail whipping around as if it had a mind of its own. It finally struck Ray’s neck, clung, and wrapped around, pulling tight. The Angel could see it sink into Ray’s flesh like a garrote. Ray clenched his teeth and the tendons and muscles in his neck jumped out like granite ridges.

Dagon tried to rake Ray’s stomach with a clawed foot, but the angle between them was wrong. Ray whipped his head back and forth, but Dagon’s tail was tight as a constrictor around his neck. Ray’s face started to turn red, the vein’s bulging out on his neck and forehead. Ray grabbed Dagon’s tail with both hands and Dagon howled with what sounded to the Angel like fiendish glee.

Ray looked horrible. His face was turning even darker. He frantically tried to pry the strangling tail from around his neck, but it was stronger than nylon rope. The Angel started to go to them, but the Witness, who had also been watching with an approving smile on his handsome face, blocked her path and shook his head.

The Angel clenched her fists as Ray stopped prying at Dagon’s tail, grabbed it with both hands and brought it up to his mouth. He lowered his head and bit down, hard, grinding his teeth like a starving dog trying to crush a bone for its marrow.

Dagon screamed again and tried to pull away. Ray continued to gnaw at his opponent’s tail while yanking at it with all his strength. It suddenly parted with an audible snap and Ray catapulted backward, past the Witness. The Angel caught him, staggered, and went to the floor with him on top.

Dagon hopped about like his feet were on fire. His tail whipped like a decapitated snake, spattering gobs of stinking ichor all over. The Angel helped Ray pull the coil of tail away from his throat as Ray gasped greedily for air.

Dagon frothed at the mouth, wildly screaming words that were mostly unintelligible, but which seemed to contain the phrase “Kill you, fucker,” in various combinations throughout. The Angel blushed.

Ray rose to his feet, staggering unsteadily, as if drunk. “Watch out,” he muttered to the Angel, pushing her aside. “The weasel’s coming back for more.”

The Angel couldn’t believe that Ray had strength left in reserve. He met Dagon in mid-charge, but before they could collide Ray launched himself feet first, face up and back parallel to the floor, as if he were a soccer player attempting a bicycle kick and Dagon’s genitalia were the ball.

Dagon screamed as he connected. The force of Ray’s kick propelled him right at the Angel, who wound up and hit him with everything she had on the point of his jaw.

Pain jumped through her hand, ran up her arm, and jangled through her shoulder. Her hand went numb, which was actually something of a relief, as Dagon changed direction again. He flew back towards Ray, hit the floor, rolled at Ray’s feet, and lay there bleeding.

Ray looked at the Angel crazily. “Hey, we’re a team,” he said, but his smile suddenly turned to an even more frightening frown. “But let me tell you something. The next time you pull that blazing pig-sticker out of the sky, I want you to gut that fucking blonde asshole before you put it away again. All right?”

The Angel smiled feebly and nodded.

“Where is that scumbag, anyway?” Ray asked, looking all around.

Before either of them could spot the Witness, every light in the auditorium suddenly cut out. The room turned pitch black. Ray swore, blundering about in the dark. The Angel stood where she was, counting a slow twenty before the lights on the stage went back on. A handful of seconds went by before the Angel and Ray realized that John Fortune was missing, as was the Witness, and some of the gunmen who had still been conscious when the lights went off.

The taste of failure was a bitter gall in the Angel’s mouth.

J
erry had been in tough situations in the past where lives were on the line, but this was almost overwhelmingly desperate. If Ray hadn’t charged onto the stage he might have hesitated for a long time, but when the government ace had leaped into action something in Jerry made him follow Ray into the heart of danger.

It certainly wasn’t his brain. If he’d thought about it at all, he’d have run away from the flying bullets. Whatever it was that made him accompany Ray was something deeper in his make-up. His heart. Perhaps his gut. His reaction was more instinctive than rational. Jerry would have sighed to himself if he’d had the time. He’d always considered himself a smart guy, and this was just crazy.

Ray executed a sharp right and hurled himself into the off-stage darkness. Sudden sounds of fists hitting flesh and bone, the cracking of those bones, and screams of pain, quickly followed. Jerry didn’t follow Ray. Realizing that people on the stage needed help, Jerry passed by Siegfried and Ralph, who were petrified by fear but otherwise unharmed, and headed for Kitty O’Leary’s desk where the hysterical anchorwoman was covered in blood.

“Get your tigers out of here before something terrible happens,” he said to the entertainers as he went by. “Again.”

They glanced at each other and then took his advice and ran, their leashed cats roaring wildly as they bounded after them. Jerry dropped down to one knee when he reached O’Leary’s desk and checked the body propped up against it. It was the male half of the pair of floating Living Gods. Jerry didn’t know his name. Blood pumped sluggishly from a series of horrific puncture wounds in his torso. As Jerry grabbed his wrist to feel for a pulse, the injured man suddenly focused his large, beautiful eyes on Jerry’s face, and said something in Arabic. Jerry looked on helplessly as he vomited a gout of blood and died.

Jerry stood, suppressing a sigh. He didn’t have time for pity. He examined O’Leary quickly for wounds and discovered that none of the blood splashed on her chest and face seemed to be hers.

“Shut up,” he said, and “get down.”

She just kept screaming, so he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. When that didn’t catch her attention, he slapped her, adrenaline making his open-palmed blow a little harder than he’d intended. She shut her mouth and looked at him in amazement and anger flared in her eyes. Jerry was suddenly glad that he looked like tough guy Alan Ladd. It made it all the easier to act the part.

“I said, shut up,” he repeated, putting his hand on the top of her head, “and get the Hell down.”

He shoved hard enough to push her to the floor and she crawled under the stage furniture. That was the safest place for her. He turned away, hoping she’d stay put. He couldn’t waste any more time on her.

More sounds of gunfire and terror came from the auditorium. Ray, and Angel, Jerry supposed, were keeping the bad guys off the stage. At least for the moment. Jerry went swiftly to the overturned sofa where Peregrine huddled over the bloody, unmoving body of her son. He vaulted over the divan and went down to one knee beside her. Her teeth were clenched. She was panting like a hyperventilating dog, or a woman trying to give birth.

“He’s all right,” she gasped out. “Not hurt. Hit his head when the sofa went over. Just knocked out. Be... all... right...”

Her voice started to fade. Jerry took her arm and half lifted her off the boy, wincing at what he saw. A line of slugs stitched sideways across Peregrine’s body from her loins, across her abdomen and chest to her right wing where feathers had been shot away and delicate bones shattered.

“Christ,” he said in a low voice.

It didn’t look good. He stripped his off shirt, ripped it to rags and applied pressure bandages as best he could to what seemed to be Peregrine’s worst wounds. Her only response was to moan feebly. There wasn’t anything else he could do for her, and he realized that Peregrine didn’t have much time left if she didn’t receive immediate medical attention. He turned his attention to John Fortune, thinking that Peregrine really needed his new-found ace abilities. But the kid was still out cold.

What a time to get knocked senseless, Jerry thought. He tried to revive the boy, but the best he could get from him was an unintelligible groan. He could feel a knot on the back of the kid’s skull the size of a golf ball. He must have really slammed his head hard on the floor when the sofa had tipped over on them.

Jerry felt as useless as Rock Hudson in the opening scenes of one of his screwball comedies. He didn’t want to mess around with the kid, in case he had a real head injury. And Peregrine needed expert attention, fast. Someone would have to help. Angel, he thought. Or Ray...

Jerry stood and went swiftly to the edge of the stage, shielded his eyes from the light and looked out just in time to see Ray go mano a mano with a chubby little guy who looked like someone’s favorite older uncle until the guy suddenly turned into something that wasn’t so avuncular. Jerry recognized the transformed man. He was the British killer ace called Butcher Dagon.