by Graeme Smith
The Question.
Chapter Three
Jack 2 Jack
Yeah. I could’ve run. After all, if the blonde-who-wouldn’t-stay-dead said it, it must be good advice, right?
Sure it was. And there’s a whole load of dead bodies would agree with you.
Ever tried to outrun a bullet? It can be done, but this wasn’t the time. Besides. If they used bullets, there wouldn’t have been anything to worry about. Bullets is patty-cake. They’d smack me round some, then patch me up and tell me not to go doing again whatever it was I’d no idea I’d done. That’s the Dragon way. The way this was shaping up, there wouldn’t be no….
The cut on my throat stung as it bled. Riftblades. Sharp enough to draw blood before they even touch you. As mine dripped red down my neck I knew I’d need a new shirt. I had an idea it wasn’t going to pass expenses.
Prowess kept on playin’ Dragonstar, but I figured the Claw wasn’t a music lover. His shimmersilks did what they did best, which was to make you look at anything in the room except them. Chameleons blend in. Claws grab the corner of your eye and wrap it round themselves. Prowess didn’t break a note, but one of her eyebrows raised. It’s hard to fight when you don’t have a thought in your head she hasn’t eaten, so there isn’t much she can’t take down if she wants to enough.
Except me.
When I didn’t raise an eyebrow back, Prowess just went on playing.
Claws are who the Dragon send when they’re serious. They don’t talk much. Mostly because after the Dragon pick them for training when they’re three, their tongues are ripped out. So this one told me where to go the same way they all do, by making sure the riftblade was everywhere he didn’t want me to be. I just went where it wasn’t.
Outside, the car was waiting. The door swung open. The sap I’d been expecting slammed into my head, so I just let everything go bla—
* * * * *
An hour later
—ck. My eyes cleared, and I returned from sap-land. The room was still black. It could have been empty. It could have been full of Claws. The only way to find out was to do something stupid. I was already way past stupid and heading towards 54th-and-couldn’t-give-a-damn. But then, I never had. Given a damn, I mean.
The long table stretched away from me. At the other end was the high-backed and carved chair. I’d seen it before, after I walked out of the bar. Seen it once. You were only ever supposed to see it once—when they recruited you. He’s always the one you see—at least he is if you’re a guy. You see him just that one time. Unless you get neck deep in some gardener’s dream birthday present. I figured sniffing would be a bad idea. So I sniffed. The only smell was old wood and the musty only a really old room can must. But that’s what upwardly mobile deep-shit smells like.
I waited.
Sure enough, I didn’t have to wait long. Just like last time the slow tap of the cane was getting closer. Even before he came into the room, I could see him in my head. The cane lifting. The slow step. The cane hitting the ground. The slow step. The tap. He’d been good once. One of the best. But he’d started to enjoy it too much. Doing extra jobs, just because. So they kicked him upstairs. That made it OK, doing it for fun.
I don’t do fun. Like I said, it’s a job. Just a job.
He came in and sat in the high-backed chair. Just like last time. The top hat. The silver topped cane. The black cape, the velvet waistcoat. He’s like the Dragon. There’s a hundred stories. A hundred theories. They’re out there: books, the ‘Net. One of them’s got it right. Actually, that’s a lie. None of them tell the truth. Not about him and not about the Dragon. But I’m Dragon. I’d say that anyway.
I nodded down the table. “Hey, Jack.” That’s not his name. It’s just what you call him if you want to piss him off. A muscle twitched under his eye, but he didn’t say a word. I wondered if he’d said any words to the others, those nights in Whitechapel. I tilted my chair back, and lifted one leg up onto the table. That was to piss him off too. But that wasn’t the only reason I did it. It got my hand nearer the top of my boot. He didn’t look up, but his hand slammed the silver topped cane down onto the table. Before the first echo had died the walls shimmered and twenty Claws stood with riftblades ready. Jack still didn’t look up, but his other hand waved irritably. The Claws vanished, as though they’d never been there.
Maybe they hadn’t.
“Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack.” Jack sighed. At last, he looked up. “You know, I offered. You do understand? To retire you, I mean.” I shrugged. I didn’t say anything. If I got lucky, he’d say. After all, just about anything he said would be more than I knew. Jack frowned. Well, the other Jack did. I just smiled. He frowned some more. “Sadly, they didn’t accept my offer.” Jack’s teeth bared briefly. He probably thought it was a smile. “A shame. It would have been a worthy challenge.” The teeth bared again, no more than a split second. “One, of course, you would have lost.”
I tried to look knowing. If I got lucky, it would piss him off again. I reached back and scratched my neck, brushing the collar of my leather on the way. Jeans come and go, but apparently I’d had the jacket on when I walked out of the bar. The Dragon wanted to issue me a new one. I threw it away. It wasn’t sentiment—I don’t do sentiment. But the one I had fitted me like it had been custom made. I’d almost died a few times finding out how custom made it really was. Then there are my own modifications. My emergency kit. The mage who made it owed me, so he promised never to tell anyone else what he’d done.
I believed him. And saved him the effort of keeping his promise.
“Who is she, Shadow?” Jack glared down the table.
I shrugged again. “Someone told me she’s Dragon.” If I hadn’t already turned the old apartment to matchwood, I’d have been getting a new one. Because the Dragon hadn’t found out about the blonde when I went to see Prowess. From what Jack had just said, they already knew. Which meant they either knew about her being in the apartment, or they knew about her before. And didn’t tell me. “So you tell me, Jack.”
The silver cane lifted up, to slam into the desk. Then it stopped, hovering in mid-air. Jack lowered it to the table, gently. “They thought about kicking you upstairs, Shadow. But I helped them see it was a bad idea. If she’s coming after The Mast….” Jack stopped, his lips twisting like he’d just bit into sour with a capital S. “I mean, if she is a threat to our organisation, then no doubt you can resolve the matter. But if it’s just you she’s interested in, then your position will indeed … change.” Jack grinned. I could see he was happy about the idea. Looked like I wasn’t a gnat any more. Now I was a goat. The one you leave out to attract the tiger. Thing is, whatever happens to the tiger, it doesn’t tend to go well for the goat. Jack smiled. “Shadow? Don’t disappoint me, now. Don’t die too quickly.” He got up. He picked up his cane. As he left, the slow tap-tap-tapping echoed through the room.
Just like Whitechapel.
The others in here? Oh, don’t worry about them. They ain’t part of this job. Well, not part of your part. Not anymore. Call them decoration. They can’t see a thing. Or hear it. So go ahead. You can scream. Scream all you want. You’ve got reason. Not that you know what it is. Not yet.
You just think you do.
Chapter Four
350 And Down
There wasn’t a car outside. Which wasn’t good. Because it meant they’d stopped caring if I knew where I was. Where Jack was. Because they figured I wouldn’t be telling anyone.
No. I’m not telling you.
The team was good. Real pavement artists. They didn’t just change—a reversed jacket here, a hat there. They didn’t just rotate—the little old lady in front, then across the road, then the guy with a briefcase. They were Shifters too. I saw the little old lady turn into the kid on the skateboard in a shop window reflection. And that was the problem. They were good. Real good. And I caught them. So either they weren’t quite good enough, or….
There was no ‘or’. They were faking
it.
I figured I was supposed to be so pleased with myself for seeing them, I wasn’t going to be looking for the real deal. So I didn’t. I ducked in stores, making sure it looked casual. I went down alleys that didn’t have exits. Not unless you knew which door to knock on, which fire-escape to pull down. And it worked. One by one, I lost them. All of them. Which made it worse. Because I shouldn’t have been able to do that. To lose them. They were a team, and for sure they was talking to each other. Either they all stayed, or none of them. So they were either dumb, lazy, or they wanted me to be. And it was OK for them to be dumb. Or lazy. But not me.
Sometimes, things can get on top of you. This time, it was Fifth Avenue. 350 Fifth Avenue, to be precise. 350 Fifth Avenue and one thousand four hundred and seventy two feet of straight-up. OK, plus the fifty five feet of straight-down foundation I was at the bottom of. No, they don’t take the tours down there. They don’t even know there’s a ‘down there’ to take them to. Best I could manage, not even the Dragon know. But I’d paid someone a lot of money to make sure there was one. A down there. One I knew about. Now I leaned against a wall that hadn’t been touched since I built it in 1929.
Like I said. It’s out there. On the ‘Net. Bloomfield. July 30, 1975. See, sometimes the best time to finish a job is before you even start it. There’s ways, if you know the right people. She wasn’t Dragon, but she could get me where I needed to be. Or when. And could tell me how to get back. Of course, she had to learn to keep her mouth shut. But I’m a helpful kind of guy. I put her behind the wall, right next to Jimmy.
I waited. Maybe whoever it was would just stay upstairs, waiting for me to come out. If I was right, they’d be able to tell. But if they were smart, they’d work out there might be another exit. One they wouldn’t be able to watch. And I was right. She came out of the shadows. I had a feeling she’d have liked to slink, but—I glanced over—being about sixteen she wasn’t quite up to it yet. I raised an eyebrow.
She tried for a menacing smile, and got as far as a curled lip. “Call me Madame Death.”
I sighed. “Kid, I ain’t calling you Madame. Not in here and not out there. You can be—” I thought a moment “You can be Twinkle.” I grinned, waiting some more. I didn’t have to wait long.
“Twinkle? Twinkle?” She took two steps, and launched herself at me. Which told me the first thing I’d been right about. She wasn’t human. As she shot through the air towards me I twisted sideways and raised one foot, then kicked her in the head. Her skin smoked a little where the silver blended into the steel strip on the bottom of my shoe touched her. But I could see it healing quick. Twinkle hit the ground and rolled back against a wall. The growl growing in her throat wasn’t all that was growing.
Some girls take bad hair days just a little bit too far.
I shook my head. “See, I don’t do partners.” It wasn’t going to make a difference, but it made sense to go through the motions.
Twinkle smiled. “I’m not your partner, Jack.”
I shrugged. “Figured it was better than goatherd.”
Twinkle spat. It didn’t sizzle where it hit the floor. Likely she’d have preferred it if it did. “You’re mine, Shadow. When the time comes. When we know what … who … when you’re girlfriend’s taken care of.”
Now I knew why Jack had been so unhappy. He’d been passed over. “So you’re my retirement plan, huh?” Twinkle grinned. “Big bad ass, huh Twinkle?”
Her eyes went cold. “None badder, Shadow. I’m going to eat your heart. If I can find one.”
I sighed. “You stone, Twinkle? Put many down? Got many of their friends comin’ after you?”
“Enough, Jack. Enough. And they don’t come after me. Not for long, anyway.” She was getting herself back under control. The growl was gone, and so was the hair. So I shot her. The slug ripped into her, the soft silver nose spreading. Even while the hit was throwing her back against the wall, the wound was closing over.
Werewolves are like that. But not when the bullet’s silver. Or, they’re not supposed to be.
Twinkle laughed. “Silver, Jack? Can I call you Jack? You think the Dragon would send me after you if that was all it took? You don’t know what you’re up against, Jackie boy. The Master….” She stopped. She didn’t look happy.
“Master, Twinkle?” She didn’t say nothin’. I grinned. “You’re right. Silver—well that would be too simple.” Now she didn’t look quite so certain. “So it wasn’t just silver.”
Getting answers out of a werewolf isn’t easy. They’re tough to hurt, and anything you break mends real quick. And there’s no fix. No cure for what werewolves got.
Or almost none.
The mage who turned ‘none’ to ‘almost’ was on the other side of Jimmy. But he hadn’t gone there before he told me how to make bullets that weren’t just silver. Like the one I’d put in Twinkle. The one that made sure she’d never have a bad-hair day again. So I told her she could tell me everything she knew, or I could throw her ass out on the street. And put the word out to everywhere that Little Miss Bad Ass wasn’t quite so bad no more. And that hunting season was open. So we talked. It took a while, but it turned out if Twinkle knew anything, she still wasn’t sayin’. So we talked some more. My way.
Then I built a new wall.
Oh, don’t worry none. I ain’t here to make you talk. You only got one thing to tell me anyway. We’ll get to that. Right now? All you got to do is listen.
Chapter Five
A Walk in the Park
I hoped they thought Twinkle was as good as she thought she was. They’d pulled the pavement team so I’d think I’d lost them, knowing Twinkle was on my ass. If they were still watching, and didn’t see her, maybe they’d think it was because she was good.
Right. And maybe they were just too dumb to have a tracker mage on her. Sure.
I knew they couldn’t see her under 350 Fifth. I had that place warded up the wazoo. So they’d have lost her there. But they’d have waited. To see her reappear. And they wouldn’t see a damn thing. Not of Twinkle anyway. Me? Me they’d see. So they were going to be coming. And this time they’d mean business. Wet business. I was out of time and out of….
As I turned, I saw it. Her. Twinkle. Ducking into a store behind me. Which was all sorts of impossible. Or, since I’d given up on impossible after walking out of a bar I never walked into, a damn close second. So I did what I’d been going to do anyway.
I ran.
Now, when you’re running, ‘specially if you’re running from a smart-ass were-kid with a bad habit of not staying dead (I was getting kind of tired of that), you don’t actually run. You walk. You hop cabs. You do the subway shuffle, you go to places your tail can’t go, and leave ways they shouldn’t be expecting. You know how many men’s rooms there are in the Apple? I do. And I used near every damn one. But it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. Everywhere I went, there she was already. Which was interesting. In fact, it was so interesting, it was why I was right back where I started, at 350 Fifth. Or rather, under. Under and staring at what was behind a wall I was getting real tired of rebuilding.
“That was fun, Jack. Let’s do it again!”
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a girl who giggles. Well, along with having my fingernails torn out by the roots. And root beer. And … OK. One of the things I hate is a girl who giggles. But even girls who giggle are better than girls who don’t stay dead. And even if I’d never know about the giggling part, the wall I’d just ripped down was busy telling me Twinkle had the staying dead down pat. So I put a slug through the blonde’s chest, more out of habit than hope, and I wondered who I’d been seeing behind me all day.
“Why, Jack! I didn’t know you cared! Me, of course! You needed some time, and I wanted you to have it. So I thought it best if the Dragon thought their little pet was still on your tail. Wasn’t that nice of me, huh Jack? Taking care of your—” Blondie grinned, and winked, “—ass, and all?”
Blondes who don’t
stay dead are bad enough. Blondes who can read my mind, I can live without. And according to Prowess, nobody could read my mind. But it looked like Prowess never told Blondie. Still, like the kids say these days, there’s a hat for that. And I had one. I got it made when I did the Nixon job. I grabbed my Stetson off the shelf and jammed it on.
Nixon? Oh, he was a real nice guy. Straight as an arrow. Dragon didn’t like that, so we did a switch. We had to get Lucy a sex-change, but she said it beat the crap out of the Papal Palace.
As usual, Blondie didn’t seem bothered by the fatal chest wound she was busy not having. She grinned. “Nice hat, Jack.” Her eyes narrowed, and focused. After a while she raised an eyebrow. “Damn, Jack. That’s a very nice hat.”
“You never hear the stories, Blondie? How Nixon always wore a Stetson?”
“Nobody ever saw Nixon in a Stetson, Jack.”
“Oh, they saw him, Blondie. They just never got to tell anyone.” I didn’t wink. I didn’t grin. I didn’t give out some evil laugh. That’s for the comics. For me, like I said. It’s just business.
“Yes. I guess there’d have been times young Lucrez—er, I mean young Richard—would have needed a hat like that.” Blondie must have liked comics. She winked again. For the wink, I could care less. But I was beginning to see why the Dragon were so hot on her. She knew. And I didn’t know what she knew, but it was already too much. “Jack. Unless you’re going to shoot me again—and do feel free to try—we really need to talk.”
Central Park. They say it’s nice in spring. Of course, it wasn’t spring. A cold wind was blowing up off the lake, and standing in the middle of a hunk of metal didn’t make it any warmer. But Blondie said that was sort of the point. Bow Bridge. Sixty foot of cast iron over water. Not flowing water, but Blondie said the cold iron would make up for it. Standing in plain sight on the middle of a bridge while the Dragon had every Claw, mage and anybody else who wanted to make a name for themselves after my ass wasn’t my first choice. But Blondie told me all those guys were busy watching me and her run all over New York. And that nobody could see us where we really were. It seemed being not dead wasn’t all she was good at. And I was beginning to get an idea that whatever Blondie was, she was real good at being it. So if she wanted to talk, I was going to listen.
