Wild Cards VIII: One-Eyed Jacks

by George R. R. Martin

  She walked, keeping watch, listening for the footfalls and scratching of the animals that were this killer’s victims. Ha, a highly trained and motivated government agent, and she was tracking down stray dogs on the Lower East Side. Maybe Cyclone was right.

  A series of streetlights lined the water, but most were broken or burned out. Some lights on a distant pier offered the only scrap of illumination, orange spots rippling on the ink-black water of the East River. Several hours passed, and nothing happened. A couple of cats got into a terrible hissing match, swatting at each other and screaming until one fled across the empty street and into an alley. The victor stayed with its back arched, watching the retreat, until stalking off with a flagpole-straight tail back to shadows. Nothing attacked the cats. Nothing even seemed to be out and about watching, like she was.

  Sunrise over the river was lovely. The first silvery light faded to a pale orange then gray, coming on so slowly she didn’t notice when the sun finally rose, painting drops of gold across the water.

  She’d do this one more night, and if she didn’t find anything she’d suggest to Fuentes that she either increase the security presence in the area or install some kind of security camera system. Though she suspected Fuentes would tell her they didn’t have the budget for it. In the end, if it was only cats and dogs getting killed, no one would make this a priority. But Joann understood the concern: Was it only a matter of time before a horrific, deflated human skin was discovered?

  She caught a cab back to her hotel. The driver didn’t talk but kept looking at her in the rearview mirror, and gripped the steering wheel more tightly than he was probably used to. Joann wasn’t telepathic but she could guess what he was thinking: was she an ace or some crazy person just trying to look like one? Was she going to cause trouble, and if so how bad was it going to be? She told him to keep the change, handing over cash and making sure their hands didn’t touch. The guy didn’t even suggest that a woman shouldn’t be walking alone at the crack of dawn.

  The next night went pretty much like the one before, right down to the same voice muttering under the same set of branches as a street person settled in for the night. She walked a different route, trekking farther among the docks along the river, away from the park, keeping her eyes open for critters—or their corpses. She found a dead rat, but the bite marks and blood covering it were no mystery.

  She was about to turn around, head back to the park, and end her patrol when something splashed in the water off a nearby pier. Her mind spun off possible scenarios: A person or animal had fallen in from the concrete wall, or had climbed out from the harbor. Giant fish? Fabled sewer alligator? Joann had heard stories of a were-alligator ace living in Manhattan’s sewers, but had never gotten confirmation. She crouched, kept to the shadows, and watched, because the splashing wasn’t over, one disturbance and done. It kept going, the water churning, growing more turbulent. She crept closer to the edge, trying to get a better look. A phosphorescence appeared under the water, coming closer until it broke the surface, a final burst churning around it, and what emerged was the strangest joker Joann had ever seen.

  The body was a sphere, translucent. She could only tell it was a body at all by the small, squashed face perched on the top. White-skinned, human eyes and mouth set in a workmanlike expression. The body was a rubbery membrane bulging out some eight feet across. It resembled a stomach, and Joann’s own gut lurched thinking that if she looked closely, she might see something unpleasant digesting inside it.

  Skimming forward on the water’s surface, propelled by what appeared to be hundreds of cilia, the joker reached the shore, docking there like a ship. A whispered voice sounded ahead, and footsteps padded on the sidewalk. A pair of figures, hunched over and glancing furtively around them, scurried toward the floating joker.

  Joann kept her dark cloak around her and remained still, watching, spying.

  The two newcomers were jokers as well, more conventionally disfigured, if one could use those words together. They were human-shaped, but moved strangely. In the dark, Joann couldn’t tell exactly what they looked like. One of the pair had paper grocery bags, stuffed full, cradled in each arm. After a whispered conference, this one handed the bags over to the floating globe. Well, sort of handed them over. Joann couldn’t think of how else to put it, as the person pressed the bag against the membrane of the body—and it went through. Like seeing the action of a cell wall magnified. Then the two jokers followed, each of them putting their hands against the body, then pushing until the skin—was it skin or something else?—parted to let them through, then immediately sealed shut behind them.

  Right then, another person charged down the street, straight for the pier. “Don’t go! Take me with you! Please, take me with you!” A young white kid, scrawny, with stringy hair and a couple days’ worth of thin beard, he was wearing a dingy green army jacket two sizes too big, torn jeans, and falling-apart sneakers.

  She could still see the joker’s passengers through the translucent flesh. They reacted to this newcomer, looking back at him, up at the joker’s face, out at the water. Anxious, like crooks in a getaway car. The joker himself had settled in the river a little with the extra weight. As soon as the skin had sealed, the cilia below whirled into action, and the joker drifted away from the shore.

  “Back off!” the joker muttered as the gap between them and the dock widened. The passengers within settled, clearly relieved.

  For a moment, the scrawny kid looked like he might jump at the joker, a last-ditch effort to catch the ride. The joker’s odd face showed expression—lips scrunched in anger, eyes glaring. The kid wasn’t welcome, and Joann imagined if he jumped, trying to stow away, he’d just slide off that weird bulbous body and end up in the East River.

  But he didn’t jump. He collapsed at the edge of the pier, crying. Twenty or so feet out, the joker sank under the surface, leaving behind a faint glow that was swallowed by the water.

  “Please!” the kid begged one more time, pleading at the last glowing ripple.

  Eventually he stumbled unsteadily to his feet, wiped his face with a corner of his jacket, and trudged back the way he’d come.

  Based on the way the kid had beelined for the pier, and the joker’s reaction, Joann guessed this wasn’t the first time this scene had played out.

  This was certainly a mystery, but not the one she’d come to solve. She’d ask around. Maybe the police knew what was going on here. She’d read what little she could find on what was happening out at Ellis Island and surrounding areas. It was hard learning anything cohesive at all. A few reporters had written stories that ended up on page ten or so of the Times, a few police reports had been issued, a couple more from the Coast Guard. None of the various agencies seemed to have talked to one another. Jurisdiction wasn’t clear cut, and everyone seemed to be hoping someone else would take the lead, make a decision. Was this strange interaction connected to all that?

  No wonder Fuentes couldn’t get anyone to look into this problem of dead vermin. Far too much was happening here. And this all seemed like exactly the thing SCARE ought to be investigating. Not that she’d be able to convince Carlyle of that.

  Officially, as far as Joann knew, the strange submersible joker and its passengers weren’t breaking any laws. Trespassing, maybe. Loitering after dark? Should the floating joker be required to have a boating license? A taxi license, for carrying passengers? She might pass along those angles to someone looking for some leverage. In the meantime, right now, she didn’t see anything for her to do. Make a note, pass it along—

  The aquatic joker was long gone and Joann was on her way back to the park and to some more populated area where she could find a cab when a scream echoed. She froze. Pulled back her hood to hear better. In a second, the sound registered—it wasn’t a human scream that echoed off the water and in her ears. That was a cat, a high-pitched yowl, instantly cut off.

  The sound had come from the edge of trees separating the park from the piers and wareho
uses, and she ran. This was what she’d been searching for.

  Anyone might disregard the scream as a couple of stray cats having it out. But instead of more hissing and yowling, the pattering of fleeing paws, what she heard next was an incongruous slurping. Low, wet—disturbing. She approached carefully, not wanting to startle whatever was hiding there. If she could just see—

  She found him. The scrawny kid from the edge of the water, only now he held the limp body of a cat to his face and seemed to be devouring it, vampirelike. He wasn’t biting, wasn’t chewing. But the fur and skin deflated as the animal’s insides somehow vanished. And the kid looked for all the world like he was trying to get the last bit of soda out with a straw. Without leaving a wound on it, he was sucking the innards, bones and guts and all, out of the cat.

  Well, that was a mystery solved. Sort of.

  He dropped the animal and tilted his head back, his eyes half-lidded, as if he was drunk. He must have had some kind of power to gain sustenance by absorbing his prey, via some kind of osmosis. Was it compulsory? Was he driven to this, or was it a choice? The best way she knew to find out was to ask.

  “Hey,” she said softly, and his eyes went round, and his whole body tensed to run. She expected this and quickly added, “It’s okay, I just want to talk. You’re not in trouble.”

  She also expected that he wouldn’t listen to this, and he tore through branches and kicked up dirt, fleeing her. She’d already pulled off her glove, and reached out to grab him. All she needed was a foot.

  She thought this was going to be an easy catch, that he’d be weak, wobbly, like he was at the pier. A street kid who must have been starving, he had so little meat on him. But she miscalculated—he’d just fed, and whatever he’d done to that cat was how he got his strength. Now, he was powerful. He kicked away from her and ran fast, through the trees and into the park.

  She gave chase. She didn’t need to catch him, not really. All she had to do was touch him.

  The layout of the park hemmed him in. He didn’t have a straight path to the street, where he could vanish into nighttime traffic. He sprinted across the lawn, looking for a sidewalk, a way out. Putting on a burst of speed, she lunged at him, slapped her hand against his back—pulled. A spark of power surged up her arm, and her body reached out for more, waiting to suck it all in, down to the last bit. She yanked back and wrapped her cloak around her, insulating herself. She hoped she hadn’t taken too much. This was a balancing act. She didn’t like using her power like this. If she touched someone, if she guessed wrong about how hard to grip and when to let go—well, she’d just have to be right.

  The kid cried out, stumbled. Kept going a couple more steps, then fell to his knees, gasping for breath. “What … what…”

  “I did that,” she said, crouching to his level. “I can do more.”

  “What— Who—”

  “I just want to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”

  “What did you do to me?” He moved slowly, like an old man.

  “I took away some of your energy. That’s what I do.”

  He sat back on his ass and started crying. Sloppy, wet, snot dripping out of his nose. His hands hung in the air like he didn’t know what to do with them, like he didn’t have enough energy left to wipe his own face.

  “I’m sorry!” he sobbed, once he was able to finally make words. “I can’t help it, I don’t want to do it, I try not to do it, but I … I can’t stop, I have to do it, nothing else works, I can’t keep anything down—”

  “Whoa, slow down. What’s the matter? What do you mean, you can’t stop?”

  “I can’t eat real food! I can only … I can only do that! You saw!”

  “That’s how you eat? You have to eat like that?”

  “I try to stop and I can’t!”

  She could piece together his story: kid turned his card, and it did something to him. Nothing visible at first, but in fact his whole digestive system had been rewired. Instead of eating food, he now had to feed on live prey, as some kind of vampire of internal organs and skeletons. No doubt there was some kind of fascinating physiological explanation, like cellular osmosis. But a thing like that was enough to ruin a life. He was kicked out of the house, maybe he ran away. He was trying to make do, and failing. He looked to be maybe sixteen, seventeen, and he seemed to be in the process of hitting bottom. Stuck on the edges of the city, feeding off strays and rodents.

  “Have you asked anyone for help?” she asked. “Have you been to the Jokertown Clinic? They specialize in cases like yours.”

  “Why … why would they help me?”

  “Because that’s what they do. You should go see them. Explain what’s been happening. It’s just up the road.”

  “So … you’re not here to … arrest me? Or something?”

  Or something. Joann wondered what he’d been expecting, really. After she swooped in on him like some ace avenger? Of course the kid was freaked out.

  “No, I just wanted to figure out what was happening to the stray animals around here. And now I did. You’ve been freaking out the park rangers.”

  The kid actually laughed a little, an exhausted, stuttering noise. “I didn’t mean to make trouble. I just didn’t know what to do.”

  “Do you want me to call the clinic for you? Or take you over there?”

  He turned his gaze to her, wide-eyed and pleading. “Would you really do that?”

  “Yes. Come on.” The conventional, socially polite thing to do would be to reach out and help him up. Instead, she stepped back, giving him room. Because she couldn’t reach out, not physically. He seemed confused a moment, waiting a beat for that hand he could grab. Slowly, he managed it on his own. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “V-Vlad.”

  Skeptical, she asked, “Really?”

  He shook his head. “That’s what everyone calls me.”

  “Everyone who?”

  “Street people. Jokers. Stuff.”

  “Okay. Vlad. People call me Lady Black. Or Joann, if you’d like. Tell me one more thing: What happened at the water? That joker who looks like a bubble—”

  The kid shut down. His expression went tight, like a switch had been flipped. He wasn’t supposed to talk about this. This was dark stuff, and he was in on it. Or wanted to be. Joann changed her tack. She wished she had a way of appearing less scary. Hard to do, with the cloak and hood. Well, she always did like a challenge.

  “Hey, it’s okay. I already said you’re not in trouble. I’m just trying to understand.” She hoped she sounded soothing. Maternal, even. No idea if she pulled it off. “Let’s take a walk to the clinic, and we don’t have to talk about anything anymore.”

  That last was to keep him from charging off, and it worked. He scuffed his feet, but he stayed, arms tightly crossed, folded in on himself. Joann picked a jogging trail that led out of the park, found a sidewalk—one lit with streetlamps, even—and gestured Vlad to come with her. For a time, they traveled in silence. A nice evening stroll. She glanced at him a time or two, but he stayed with her. Looked less and less like he was going to bolt.

  Vlad finally spoke. “That’s Charon. He takes people to the Rox—”

  “That’s Ellis Island, right?”

  He shook his head adamantly. “Not anymore. Now it’s the Rox.”

  “And Charon takes people there.”

  “You can’t get in without him. But … but … he won’t take me! Because I’m not … I’m not a joker. He says I’m not. But I am! At least, I feel like one.”

  Her heart sank a little because she knew exactly what he was talking about. She couldn’t make physical contact with another living being. She was forever isolated behind her cloak, trapped by her power. Wasn’t that a kind of deformity? Just like having a completely altered digestive system? Even if it wasn’t visible on the outside.

  Vlad scrubbed his face again, wiping tears before they started, and scowled. “I just want to go with them. They won’t take me! I can’t go
. I don’t belong.”

  He wasn’t a joker. Not physically. He didn’t look like he belonged. So they left him on the shore. Rejected by the rejected.

  Vlad looked even more scrawny and forlorn under the bright lights outside the clinic’s emergency entrance. Washed out, his face was tense. They both stood for a moment, wincing against the stark contrast to the nighttime world. Joann felt the energy of it tingle across her skin, and drew her cloak more tightly around her, insulating herself.

  “Ready for this?” she asked him.

  “No. But I guess we’ve come this far.”

  The emergency department was spare, clinical. Rows of plastic chairs, a small front desk. Doors leading to other parts of the hospital. Joann—Lady Black—drew attention. Those nearby turned and stared, and their movement attracted others, until the whole room paused to look. She wasn’t so famous that most people would instantly recognize her—not like Peregrine or Cyclone or Jack Braun. But she was clearly someone. She ignored them all and drew Vlad to the front desk. He was cringing under all the stares.

  She had spent much of the walk figuring out how she was going to explain this—not sure Vlad would be up for telling his own story—but was saved when a short, urgent, and strikingly red-haired man came through the nearby doorway. Dr. Tachyon looked up, his expression brightening.

  “Lady Black! How lovely it is to see you, how are you these days?”

  She and Dr. Tachyon had met during the World Health Organization tour a year or so back. A lot had happened since then. A lot. Her gaze drifted to his right hand—prosthetic now. His natural one had been destroyed by the same attacker who gutted Billy Ray. It was good to see the man on his feet and working.