George Martin - Dead Mans Hand

Brennan entered the room and stared about in dismay. Just as he reached the smashed bed, a bulky figure appeared at the mouth of the walk-in closet where Chrysalis had kept her extensive wardrobe. Its face was feminine and beautiful, but etched with what looked like chronic pain. Her body was grotesque, huge and blocky under her floor-length black cloak. Something was moving under the cloak. Something twisted and writhed across her chest and abdomen like a sack full of snakes. The intruder stopped short and stared at Brennan, who stared back and pointed his gun.

"You're the Oddity," Brennan finally said. "Who are you?"

"No one you know. Call me Yeoman."

There was another silence, then the Oddity said, "We see. What are you doing here?"

"That's my question."

"We're looking for something."

Brennan's lips quirked in a grimace. "Let's not draw this out."

"Or what? Shouldn't a threat be in there somewhere?" Brennan's voice was as cold as glacial ice, the hand holding the gun as steady as a statue's. " I don't threaten. I don't play games. I've found you in my friend's bedroom and I'm inclined to believe you had something to do with her death. If you don't want to tell me anything, fine. I'm not going to turn you over to the police. I'm going to leave you dead."

"We believe you would try," the Oddity said softly. Brennan said nothing.

"All right." She sighed. "We had nothing to do. with Chrysalis's death. When we heard about it, we came looking for something… some information that Chrysalis was blackmailing us with. We just wanted to recover it before the police found it."

Brennan scowled. "Blackmailing you? For money?" The Oddity nodded, then her face suddenly screwed up in an expression of intense pain. She gasped and fell to her knees, her arms crossing over her stomach. She threw back her head, her face a rictus of suffering.

"Christ," Brennan murmured. The Oddity wasn't acting. She was in intense, uncontrollable pain. Brennan didn't know what to do or how to help her. He started to approach the helpless joker, but she held out a hand to ward him off. He stared as her features crawled from her face and slid down the side of her throat. Another set of features, swarthy and masculine, began to move around from the back of her head.

The new eyes stared at Brennan with suspicion. Even before they were properly in place, even before the Oddity finished. moaning, he-as Brennan now thought of the joker stood, grabbed the leg of the end table that stood near the bed, and threw it at Brennan with a flick of his wrist. Brennan ducked and squeezed o$ a shot.

He never knew if the bullet hit home, because the Oddity charged at him like a fullback blasting for the goal line, and when they collided, it felt as if he'd been smashed by a sack full of bricks.

He twisted away and placed a powerful side kick into the squirming mass that was the Oddity's torso. A feminine hand gabbed him, and it was much, much stronger than his. It pulled at him and he followed it without resistance as it whirled him around and slammed him against the wall hard enough to make his teeth clatter and his back ache.

His gun flew away. He hit the floor, rolled, and grabbed a knickknack stand of solid oak. He swung it with all his strength and caught the Oddity in the side. The stand shattered. His arms quivered with shock and he tried unsuccessfully to shake the numbness from his hands. The Oddity hadn't even budged.

He swung at Brennan and Brennan dodged, dodged, and dodged again, dangling his hands at his side, trying to get feeling to return to them. He retreated until he felt a wall against his back and the Oddity loomed before him, scowling with ferocious anger.

He swung again and Brennan ducked, sliding down the wall as the Oddity's fist smashed through it, his arm punching into the wall cavity to the shoulder.

Brennan slipped around to the side and grabbed one of the posts that had supported the canopy of Chrysalis's demolished bed. He swung it like an oversized baseball bat and connected solidly with the Oddity's back, right over the kidneys.

The Oddity howled more in anger than pain. Brennan swung again, splintering the post into kindling.

"Christ," Brennan muttered as the Oddity cursed and wrenched at his trapped arm.

There was no sense, Brennan realized, in trying to fight the berserk joker. He dove out of the room as the Oddity pulled free, and ran down the hallway, gritting his teeth at the pain in his back.

"We'll get you, you bastardl" the Oddity cried. His voice was slurred, as if perhaps two people were fighting for control of it. "We'll get youl"

Brennan took a deep breath as he ran. No bones were broken, but his whole back felt bruised. There was no time to waste moaning. The police could arrive at any moment to investigate the commotion. He went up the stairs and out through the roof, replaying the Oddity's story in his mind. Chrysalis might have extorted favors or information as part of the game she liked to play, but she would never blackmail anyone for money. Brennan knew that wasn't in her.

So why was the Oddity lying? And what was he-they, whatever-really looking for in the closet of Chrysalis's bedroom?

"You've got a reporter named Thomas Downs," Jay said. The receptionist looked at him dubiously. She was a chic little number who looked like she'd been specially bred to sit behind the high-tech chrome-and-glass reception desk. The offices of Aces magazine were a lot classier than Jay had anticipated. If he'd known they had two entire floors at 666 Fifth Avenue, Jay might have stopped for that shine in the subway. Obviously, there was money to be made in stories about Peregrine's love life.

"Digger didn't come in today," the receptionist said. On the wall behind her, the magazine's logo had been burned into a chrome steel plate by Jumpin' Jack Flash. Elsewhere around the reception area, various distinguished ace visitors had transmuted a chrome ashtray into some kind of weird purple glass, twisted steel bars into new and fanciful shapes, and constructed a perpetual-motion machine that had been whirring happily away for four years now. Little brass plaques commemorated each of these feats.

"Where can I find him?" Jay asked. "It's important."

"I'm sorry," the receptionist said. "We don't give out that kind of information."

"Is there someone else I could talk to?" Jay asked. "Not without an appointment," she said.

"I'm an ace," Jay told her.

She tried to suppress a smile, and failed. "I'm sure you are."

Jay looked around the reception area, made the gun shape with his fingers, and pointed at a long chrome-andleather sofa. It vanished with a pop. He'd needed a new couch anyway. "Do I get a little brass plaque?" he asked the receptionist.

"Perhaps Mr. Lowboy could help you," she said, lifting up the phone.

The editorial floor had been partitioned off into a maze of tiny cubicles. Larger private offices, with real walls and doors, lined the outside of the building, leaving the big central space windowless. There were lots of cheerful colors and potted plants, and peppy Muzak kept the well-dressed staff busy at their computer terminals. Everything was very clean and orderly. Jay hated it.

Mr. Lowboy's comer office had no computer terminal, no cheerful colors, and no Muzak. Just a lot of wood and leather, and two huge tinted windows looking out over the Manhattan skyline. Mr. Lowboy wasn't there when they arrived, so Jay wandered around the room looking at the framed photographs on the walls. He was studying a faded black-and-white print of Jetboy shaking hands with a wizened little man who looked like an anemic gnome when Lowboy finally made his entrance.

"That's my grandfather," he said. "He and Jetboy were like that." Lowboy crossed his middle and index fingers. He was a couple of inches shorter than Jay and wore a threepiece white suit with a pastel shirt and a black knit tie.