Jack Yeovil - Krokodil Tears

"Balloon juice, gentlemen. I won't hear any of this."

"But, Mr President, there is every possibility of some cataclysmic force being unleashed…"

"That is abject nonsense, and you are aware of it. I believe it might be time to relieve you of your command, General."

"Mr President…"

"I'll hear no more of this. Mr Fenin, good day. General Pendarves, you will report to this office tomorrow for reassignment. The issue is closed. Ghosts…pah!"

Dr Ottokar Proctor saw the Indian cutting the woman's hair, and kept out of their way. Afterwards, he went into the cell, and gathered up the hair. It was soft, and smelled sweet. He wanted it.

Inside his mind, a crate from Tasmania shook. Nails came loose.

His eyes focused properly. His knife slipped as he was working on Bugs' teeth, and he cut himself.

Licking his finger, he tasted blood.

"Your holiness, we believe the ground zero will be in Southern Arizona, near the Mexican border. In the Gila Desert."

Pope Georgi I looked at the mapscreen. Father O'Shaughnessy amplified the projection and narrowed down the area.

"Somewhere about here." He tapped the screen with his pointer.

"What's this name?"

"Santa de Nogueira. It's an old monastery."

"Ours?"

"It was, but it's been empty for over a century and a half. We still own the ground, but only through a Spanish land grant that probably has no legal status."

"Is anybody there?"

"Somebody must be, or the demon wouldn't be on its way."

"Who?" .

O'Shaugnessy lit his pipe. "There, Holy Father, you have me. Cardinal Mapache is scouting the area…"

"The prophet?"

"He's an esper, Holiness."

"Indeed."

"He is trying to divine any presences in the monastery."

"Results?"

O'Shaugnessy exhaled smoke. "Mixed. There are at least three people in the building, probably refugees from justice. The deserts are full of criminal factions, juvenile delinquents. But it's not the people who interest Mapache."

The Pope frowned. "Continue."

"There seems to be a supernatural presence."

"A demon?"

"That's hard to say. It is attached somehow to one of the people, but not in a standard possession. Mapache says they have formed some sort of gestalt."

"Is that orthodox?"

"The Holy Spirit has spoken through human beings before. The son of God took mortal flesh."

"You are flirting with blasphemy."

"Blasphemy and I are just good friends. Holy Father."

The Pope smiled.

"Can we get anyone there in time?"

"Mapache says no. Sister Chantal is busy in Kamchatka, and Mouier Kazuko Hara is still convalescing. I don't think we have anyone else qualified to handle something like this."

"Your suggestions?"

O'Shaughnessy spread his hands. "Prayer, Holy Father."

Duroc watched the Jibbenainosay disappear into the sky like a Montgolfier balloon, and was relieved to see the thing getting further away from him. It still trailed its corpses like puppets, and had sprouted some non-organic looking appendages that seemed capable of doing plenty of severe damage. He got the impression that even Nguyen Seth wasn't exactly unhappy to see the Dark One off on its way to get Jessamyn Bonney.

Duroc couldn't believe that it had come to this. The Jibbenainosay was something you called up if you wanted to sink Antarctica, not take out an eighteen-year-old girl. Of course, the Manolo and Proctor options hadn't proved effective. Jessamyn—Krokodil, she was calling herself now—was demonstrating an unsuspected resilience. Still, she would have no chance against the Dark One.

Then, Duroc supposed, Seth would have the problem of finding something else to keep the Jibbenainosay occupied.

It didn't rain any more, but sometimes this part of the desert was visited by violent sandstorms. Hawk-That-Settles thought one was coming along. At the height of the afternoon, the wind began to blow gently, and sand drifted against the walls of Santa de Nogueira. He hadn't seen Dr Proctor around all day, but that didn't worry him. It would probably be time to gather the womenfolks indoors, board up the windows and sit tight until it blew over. But he knew Krokodil wasn't going to be be the proper squaw and let him protect her from the elements. She stood on her chapel roof, looking unblinking to the North as the sand blew in her face.

Erich Von Richter, born Ethan Ryker, pulled back the joystick and lifted his Fokker up over the turbulence. He had been with the Red Baron for three years now, giving air cover for the Flying Circus's raids. They only had two planes, but the rest made do with Kustom Kars kitted out with razor-edged biplane wings and machete-blade propellors.

The convoy was down on the road, drawing level with a couple of eighteen-wheelers. He was alone in the skies today, because the Baron had some business with the yaks in Welcome. He was turning over a percentage of the scav for a tankerload of fuel, and an extension of the warranty on the Fokkers.

Von Richter loved flying, but he didn't care for the aerobatics that were the Baron's special thrill. He much preferred laying down a blanket of napalm in front of an interstate wrapper, or opening up with his twin burpguns, kicking up ruts in the road and puncturing the running groundrats.

His old man had sprayed crops for a living, back when there were crops. This was a much better way to use the skies.

"Yo, Rikki," said Heidi in his earchip. She was groundleader for the day. "We have the camels in sight. Are you available?"

"There's some weird whirlwind effect up here."

"If you can't handle it, we'll be okay without you, flyboy."

Heidi was always taunting him, jockeying for his plane. "Nothing I can't breeze through, roadcrawler. Remember, you're talking to an ace."

He dipped the bird's nose into the turbulence and swooped down. It was rougher than he had thought. The stick jarred in his hands, bruising his palms.

The motors cut out and the Fokker fell thirty feet like a deadweight before they cut in again. That shouldn't happen.

"Flyboy, what are you freaking around for? This is combat, here. Squirt some lighter fluid on those trucks and leave it to the Arizona Korps."

He didn't answer Heidi. He was too busy with the stick, trying to regain control of the biplane.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by a cloud. No, there were no clouds in the Big Empty. It must be smoke. It was black and thick, as if night had fallen in an instant. It wasn't like regular air. The instruments weren't responding properly.

Von Richter shivered as the temperature fell. Ice formed inside his goggles, and his sweat crystallized.

The engine stopped, and he tried to scream. A gust froze his throat.

The Fokker didn't fall. It was suspended in the black cloud.

"Rikki, what is that freaking thing up there? Tell me I'm having a GloJo flashback."

Von Richter thumbed his gun controls and the guns chattered, spinning bullets and cartridge casings into the black. They emptied quickly, but he still kept pressing.

This was serious weird shit.

A face ten feet across appeared in the blackness. It was more or less human. Von Richter screamed, and beat his hands against the ribbed canvas.

The face's thick lips opened, and a white beak pushed out, opening three ways. A violet thing shot out of the beak, and latched onto Von Richter's face.

Tiny filaments threaded instantaneously through his entire body, and there was a mighty tug as the black thing turned him inside-out.

The Fokker fell out of the sky, and crashed into the sand, surrounded by chunks of ice. Pieces of Erich Von Richter rained down around the wreckage.

The Jibbenainosay sped onwards, towards the South, thinking less of its latest prey than a desert wanderer does a single grain of sand.