George Martin - Dead Mans Hand

Finally the doorbell rang, and Brennan went to answer it. A Werewolf in a Mae West mask was at the door. He handed Brennan the leather-bound journal and looked at him expectantly.

"That's it," Brennan told him. "You're not a delivery boy. You don't get a tip."

The disappointed Werewolf went down the driveway as Brennan went back into Quinn's bedroom.

"Well, it's been delivered," Fadeout said. "How about letting us go?"

Brennan turned to Quinn. "You have servants?"

"Yeah, man. Sunday's their day off."

"So they'll be back tomorrow?" Quinn nodded.

"They'll let you loose then," he said, and turned to go.

"Okay by me," Quinn said. "Guess I'll cook some acid and meditate on the lessons I learned today."

Fadeout, though, was not so phlegmatic. "Hey, Cowboy!" he called. "Let me loose!"

Brennan shook his head. "Don't push it. You're lucky I'm not leaving you dead."

"Come on!" Fadeout implored, but Brennan just kept walking. "You bastard!" Fadeout yelled, and then he broke into shrill, mocking laughter. "You think you're so damn smart! You'll see what good that stupid book does youl"

Brennan kept walking and left the house, leaving its door open, hoping against all odds that some burglars would come by and empty it. He stopped before Fadeout's brand-new BMW and decided to take it back to the city. He thought about Fadeout's mocking words as he hot-wired the car, and his curiosity compelled him to open the journal.

As he scanned the pages, he realized that in a sense Fadeout was right. There was not a single fact, a single piece of concrete data in the whole book. It was a personal journal where Chrysalis had kept her thoughts, where she wrote in clear, plain, feeling words about her doubts, fears, and anxieties.

Brennan turned to the entry for the day, well over a year and a half ago, when he had offered her his protection and love and she'd turned him down. That was the last day he had seen her alive.

"What," she had written, "am I so afraid of? I'm not afraid to show my hideous deformity to the world every day-in fact I revel in the discomfort my appearance causes, in the revulsion it evokes. I have to live with it every day; so should everyone else."

"I make men make love to my ugliness as the price for the information they seek. Why can't I give myself to one who might love me for myself? Is it fear? Fear that he doesn't really care, that he's using me, that he'll drop me the moment he achieves all he wants?"

"I'm such a coward."

"Good-bye, my archer, I shall miss you. I shall miss what might have been between us."

The journal hung loosely in Brennan's hands. He didn't want to read any more. He hadn't the right. No one had. He only skimmed the last few entries to make sure they contained nothing that could possibly relate to her death. Then he took the cigarette lighter out of Fadeout's brand-new BMW and burned the journal to ashes there on Quinn's thick, green lawn.

"So fresh," Blaise said. "Intense. Exquisite."

He was naked on the mattress, Ezili spread out beneath him, cocoa-colored thighs spread, her legs locked around his waist as he thrust into her heat. She was covered with a fine dew of perspiration, and she screamed every time the boy pushed into her.

"Slowly, my precious one," Blaise commanded, but of course it wasn't him at all, it was the creature that clung to him like a pale white leech, its mouth pressed to his neck, its tiny eyes closed so it might better enjoy the sensations flooding through the boy's body. "This mount has never known a female," it said. "It grows very excited. Slowly, Ezili-je-rouge, slowly."

Obediently, Ezili slowed beneath them. She showed her teeth when she laughed. "I will make it last," she promised. Her fingers reached up and played with the boy's nipples.

Jay turned his face away from the tableau and found Hiram Worchester standing above him. The huge ace looked as anguished and helpless as Jay had ever seen him. "Untie me," Jay whispered. "Now, while they're occupied."

Ezili was screaming again, her voice husky with pleasure. For a long time, Hiram Worchester said nothing. There was only the wet, angry sound of flesh on flesh, and Charm's guttural singing from the next room. Finally Hiram turned away and walked off without saying a word.

"Now!" Ti Malice said in Blaise's voice. The boy's body jerked in orgasm. Ezili's legs tightened around him, and she laughed.

Jennifer was awake when Brennan returned to Father Squid's. She and the priest were playing chess. When she saw him, she stood and threw her arms around him and kissed him, then held him at arms' length. "Why did you let me sleep through all the excitement? You almost got yourself killed without me!"

"Almost," Brennan agreed. He threw himself down on the sofa and sighed deeply.

"What's the matter?" Jennifer asked.

Brennan shook his head. "It's all gone. I've used up all the possible clues. There's nothing left to investigate. Bludgeon, Oddity, Wyrm, Morkle, Quasiman. None of them did it. Her journal was no help. Her… files… have been burned. Everything and everyone else has vanished into thin air. Sascha, Ezili, her master…"

Jennifer sat down beside him and laid her hand on his cheek.

"Is there no one else to question?" Father Squid asked. Brennan shook his head wearily. "I don't think so, Father."

"There's me," a small voice peeped.

Everyone turned to see one of the homunculi come out shyly from behind the couch.

"How long have you been there?" Father Squid asked. "Awhile. I was watching. There is nothing else I can do."

"Can you help?" Brennan asked, desperate for any information. "Have you heard of any of those names?"

"Ezili," the homunculus said. "I've heard that name."

"Yeah," Brennan said. "A lot of people have. Only no one knows where she is."

"Perhaps she's at the loft."

"Loft?" Brennan said, suddenly sitting upright on the sofa.

"Yes. When Sascha started acting strange, the Lady wanted to know about this woman he was seen with. We followed her to a loft near the East River. Two of my brothers went there, but they never came back."

"Do you remember this address?" Brennan asked in a low voice.

"I think so," the homunculus said.

Jennifer looked at Brennan. "You're not going alone this time," she said.

Brennan nodded. It was only a few hours until dark.

"I'll make it get up and do a little dance," Blaise had said when he'd first seen Charm in Piedmont Park. The memory had still been there, in the back of the boy's mind, and his master had found it and been amused.

Charm had been dancing for almost forty minutes now. One of the pairs of legs, attached to the female body in the middle, had stopped moving twenty minutes ago, but the rest of the joker continued its grotesque shuffle.

When Charm finally collapsed in exhaustion, the huge body slumped against the couch, jolting it sideways almost a foot. The silence that followed was profound and frightening.

Sascha and the centipede man entered the room. "Does it please you?" Sascha asked.

"Very much," Ti Malice replied through Blaise. "It feels intensely, and when its mind takes hold of another's, it feels the other's emotions as well as the physical sensations… so much to savor, all at once… flavors, colors… the textures of two or three bodies… exquisite…"

"A treasure," Ezili said. She sat on the mattress, one arm coiled around the boy's skinny leg. Both of them were still naked.

"His powers will be useful, master," Sascha pointed out. "Any mount you might desire is yours now, even the most powerful of aces. The boy can bring them to you, and hold them still, helpless, while you take them."

"Yes," the creature had Blaise say. "You've done well. You shall have the kiss soon, my dear one."