John Miller - Death Draws Five

Fortunato looked at him. “I don’t care about your interview,” he said. He paused, frowning. “But I have nowhere to go.”

It was true. He’d turned his back on his own country, his own society, his own identity as the most powerful ace of his time, to make this monastery his home. But the rest of Japan was as foreign as the far side of the moon.

“Go?” Downs asked. He suddenly snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! Come back to America! On me. Well, on Aces! anyway. It’ll be great.” His eyes focused outward as if reading an imaginary headline. “PRODIGAL SON RETURNS. Or something like that. It’ll play great with the kid becoming an ace and all!”

Fortunato frowned. It didn’t exactly sound appealing. Besides, there was as little for him in America as there was in Japan. His mother was dead. His girls were all gone. There was nothing but Peregrine, married to another man these fifteen years or more. And his son...

He looked at Dogen, who smiled his gentle smile.

“Perhaps Mr. Downs is right. You can’t deny that lately you’ve been restless. Perhaps it is time that you walk in the world again, to get a fresh perspective on what you’ve given up and what you have now.”

Fortunato smiled wryly. There was no way to hide anything from Dogen. The old man knew Fortunato’s mind perhaps better than the ace did himself.

“Perhaps you’re right.” Fortunato said.

“Right? Of course he’s right,” Downs said, looking from one to the other and smiling broadly. “Cripes, what a story! I can see it on the cover of Aces!: “Fortunato’s Return to America.”

“Do you think anyone will care?” Fortunato asked thoughtfully.

“They will when I get done with it,” Downs promised.

Fortunato, though, wasn’t so sure.

John Nighthawk waited patiently at the baggage carousel for his luggage to arrive. If there was one thing he’d learned over the years, it was patience. Usher stood to his right, a silent monolith. Magda, dressed in a traditional black and white nun’s habit, a uniform which she habitually wore when they weren’t on a mission, stood to his left as baggage was disgorged onto the meandering belt. They all watched for the black satchel with the faded Vatican coat of arms decal on its side.

“I miss Grubbs already,” Usher complained as the bag they’d been waiting for finally appeared. He reached down and picked it up as it glided by. Toting and carrying had always been Grubbs’ job.

Nighthawk said nothing. Their stop at customs was expedited by their Vatican diplomatic passports. If the customs agent was dubious about the old black man, the bruiser who looked like a heavyweight champion, and the hard-eyed nun traveling under the auspices of the Holy See, it didn’t show on his bored expression. They carried no other luggage besides the diplomatic pouch, which of course went unexamined as they breezed through arrival formalities and exited Tomlin International.

A limo with Vatican diplomatic plates and two occupants was waiting for them at ground transport. The silent driver had the proper degree of unassuming servitude. The man with him was the handsome blonde man Nighthawk knew only as the Witness. He was one of two Witnesses who worked for the Cardinal. They were brothers. Nighthawk differentiated them in his mind as the Asshole and the Bigger Asshole. This one was the Bigger Asshole.

“Any problems?” the Bigger Asshole asked.

“We lost Grubbs,” Nighthawk said.

The Witness shrugged. “I’m sure he’s gone on to his proper reward. But, you got the Mandylion all right? No problems with that?”

Nighthawk shook his head. “No. No problems with that.” He gestured at the bag emblazoned with the Vatican crest.

“Put it in the trunk,” the Witness said.

Usher did, after the driver popped it open from where he sat behind the wheel. Usher slammed the lid and came around to the limo’s back door, but the Bigger Asshole shook his head.

“The help takes taxis,” he said.

Usher looked at Nighthawk, who nodded briefly. The big man sauntered over to the line of taxis at the nearby cab stand, followed by a stoic Magda. The Witness looked at Nighthawk, who looked back. The Bigger Asshole pursed his lips, but said nothing as Nighthawk opened the limo’s door and slid into the seat. The Witness got in, sat next to Nighthawk, and the limo pulled away from the curb.

“Is everyone else in town?” Nighthawk asked, more to pester the Bigger Asshole than because he was really interested.

“Everyone was,” the Witness said briefly. “Dagon and my brother left yesterday on a mission.”

“Where to?”

“Gomorrah,” the Witness smiled, “to fetch the Anti-Christ to cower in chains before the throne of Our Lord.” His smile turned to a frown. “Although there’s talk that others will join them soon via Blood’s tunnel. It seems that the Anti-Christ has his own cadre of aces.”

Nighthawk was startled. Despite the fact that he and his team had been sent to fetch the Mandylion, he hadn’t really believed that after all these years the Cardinal’s plan had finally been set into motion.

“It’s starting then,” Nighthawk said.

“Oh yes,” the Bigger Asshole said with a broad and glittery smile that looked more malevolent than cheerful. “And nothing or no one can stop us now.”

Las Vegas, Nevada: The Mirage

Ray stepped out of the heat of the early June afternoon into the sweet coolness of the Mirage’s air conditioned lobby and stopped for a moment to watch the tourists mill around while he considered his next move. All of a sudden he wasn’t so sure that this trip was such a good idea.

Sure, he had traded the utter boredom of the Peaceable Kingdom for the relative excitement of Las Vegas, but now that he was here, his pulses weren’t exactly pounding. Not yet, anyway. It all seemed... well... tawdry wasn’t a word he often used, but somehow it seemed appropriate. All around him middle-aged, middle class, Mid western tourists were avidly chasing excitement. Had he really joined their ranks?

What’s wrong with me? Ray thought. Am I actually developing some sense of values?

He’d started to notice some unsettling things lately. He’d been getting more tired than he’d ever been before. Pain lingered. It took longer to come back from injuries. Something that would have taken only a couple of hours to heal twenty years ago now took a day, sometimes longer. Everything seemed to hurt worse.

Not that I’m old, he told himself, but I do have a lot of mileage. Maybe the odometer is getting ready to turn over. Maybe it’s even running out. Nothing ever said that I could go on forever, my powers undiminished...

Ray’s uncharacteristic mood of introspection suddenly screeched to a halt as he noticed the woman approaching him from across the Mirage’s lobby. For the first time in a long time, he felt his pulse start to race. At least a little.

He wasn’t sure if she was beautiful, exactly. Her expression was far too gloomy, for one thing. Her features were bold rather than delicate, with a generous mouth, aquiline nose, and large eyes that looked haunted. By guilt, by melancholy, Ray couldn’t tell. Her skin was milk white, almost luminous in its pale perfection, contrasting vividly with her night black hair, which was thick and wavy and though bound in a heavy braid hanging down to the middle of her back seemed to be struggling to escape its bonds. Ray was not overly imaginative, but he could picture it blowing about her face in a gentle wind, or spilling in luxuriant waves over her pale-skinned shoulders.

She was wearing a black leather jumpsuit and black boots that came to her knees. She was built. Really built, with wide hips and large breasts confined as uneasily as her hair and long legs. Her leather jumpsuit clung tightly to her curves, as snug as a second skin.