Gods of Manhattan

by Al Ewing

  '"Any questions, ladies and gentlemen of the press? You, sir." Ambrose motioned to a rat-like man in a dirty overcoat.

  "Rich Uben, sir, The Daily Bugle. What happened to Lomax's body?"

  "Well, obviously, since he was stabbed through the heart by Mexico's Greatest Hero -" More cheers and applause. That's how it's done, Darren. "- we feel he's no longer a threat to anyone on this side of the grave. However, to make sure, we removed his head from his body by means of controlled explosion. Seventeen controlled explosions, in fact, utilising more than one hundred sticks of dynamite."

  The crowd made an appreciative 'ooooh' sound. No doubt most of them were wishing they'd had front row seats.

  "The head and the body have been flown separately to Langley, where they are being studied extensively by top men."

  Uben narrowed his eyes, looking suspiciously over the top of his glasses. "Uh-huh. And which men might those be, Mister Mayor?"

  Ambrose smiled back at him, a trifle frostily. He paused a moment before giving his answer.

  "Top. Men."

  In the dream, Maya was chained to the altar again, and the giant roc was circling overhead, swooping down towards her. This time it had Doc Thunder's face.

  "Don't worry," said Doc, as he opened his mouth wide to bite into her naked flesh, "I'm Doc Thunder, America's Greatest Hero, and I never make a mistake."

  She tried to scream, but in the dream something had stolen her voice.

  At the last second, someone sprang from the rocks, slamming a fist into Thunder's head, knocking the great bird down into the valley below. She couldn't see his face.

  "Wake up," said the Stranger.

  Maya jerked awake with a start, blinking at the sun streaming in through the window. "Who on earth-" she muttered, shaking the sleep from her eyes.

  "Wake up," said Doc, lounging in the doorway. He was holding some sort of bundle in his hands, gently, as if he was afraid he might break it. There was something about him that seemed different, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  "What do you mean by this intrusion?" she said, frostily, staring ice daggers at him. He only laughed.

  "You need to start making a habit of getting up earlier, young lady. You're sleeping half the day away." He laughed again at her look of astonishment. "Come on, get up. You can sleep in when you're back in your kingdom. You are still planning on going back?"

  She nodded, slowly, not looking at him. Why on earth did he want to drag this out? "Yes. I'm sorry, Doc... Hugo... whoever you are. But I need to sort a few things out."

  He nodded. "Fair enough. Oh, that reminds me, Monk wants to go too."

  Maya's eyes widened, and her mouth fell open, and then she laughed despite herself. "Monk's awake?"

  "Awake and asking after you. And like I said, he wants to come with you. I figure he might end up being pretty useful if any more viziers or high priests have been plotting. The only trouble is, you might have to wait for him to be ready to travel. And maybe while you're waiting, we could talk a little. Sort a few things out." He grinned, and the thing in his arms moved.

  Maya smiled, relaxing on the bed, her green eyes glowing with their familiar warmth. "We'll see. No promises. What on earth is that you're holding?"

  Doc smiled. "It's a present for you. Just something to say sorry for... a lot of things, I guess. Keeping secrets. Not being the man you thought I was." He shook his head, then held the bundle out, tugging back the swaddling clothes to reveal the pink face of a baby piglet. "I'm thinking of calling him El Chancho. When he grows up, he can be my new sidekick."

  Maya put her hands to her mouth, gasping in delight. "Oh, he's adorable!" She reached to take hold of the little bundle, looking down at the snuffling little snout of the piglet. Then she looked up at Doc Thunder, smirking. Doc raised an eyebrow.

  "What's that for?"

  "Oh, I was just thinking." Maya smiled wider. "Doc Thunder saves my life from a treacherous high priest armed with a mystic gem and a giant roc. Hugo Donner gives me a pig."

  Doc smiled, looking at the floor. "Maybe Hugo Donner wants to make a more realistic impression." He looked up, suddenly serious. "And Hugo Donner wants to come along to Zor-Ek-Narr too."

  Maya winced, frowning. "The whole point is-"

  "We'll leave Doc Thunder in New York. I promise. It's not like anybody needs him right now anyway. Who's left for him to fight? Besides, I need to get my blood away from all the would-be super-scientists wanting to be the next Lars Lomax. It's either the Forbidden Kingdom or a beach in Malibu and a shave."

  Maya's frown lifted. "Hmmm. A holiday at home with Hugo Donner and Monk Olsen, two big, strong and very ordinary men about town." She smiled. "We'll see."

  Doc smiled. "No promises."

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  "Oh, what the hell." Maya laughed. "Come to bed."

  At the Jameson Club, the disappearance of Parker Crane had not gone without comment. Jonah had refrained from participating in the gossip. For one thing, it was not the place of a trusted servant to indulge in idle rumour, or to betray confidences about those he was tasked to serve.

  For another, he was getting very worried about the leader.

  The Führer had been in touch, through intermediaries. Reports indicated that Untergang had been so weakened by Crane's shenanigans that Hitler was considering pulling all funding and shutting the experiment down for good. He had expected a significant propaganda victory from Operation Blood-Spider, the report said, and instead he had seen Untergang almost bankrupted to feed the whims of a dilettante with an obsession with American masked heroes. As soon as Crane resurfaced, he would have questions to answer in Berlin.

  It was Bunny Etheringdon who broke the news.

  "Thanks awfully, Jonah," he'd said, accepting his fifth Singapore Sling of the evening. "I say, have you heard the dreadful news about poor Parker?"

  Jonah froze. "I'm afraid I haven't, Sir. Nothing serious, I hope?"

  "Well, he's dead!" Bunny slurped down a hefty gulp of the Singapore Sling. "They found his body in some ghastly little one-room apartment in the East Village - the bit that was half destroyed in that bizarre business with the monster man. He'd been shot, or stabbed, or some such." He looked left and right, as if checking for spies, and then leaned in with a stage whisper. "There's some talk that he may have been involved with the whole thing. Do you know he was dressed up like that fellow the Blood-Spider? I'm on tenterhooks waiting for the next revelation, I'll tell you."

  He leant back, smiling facetiously, as if expecting Jonah to gasp, raise his hands to his cheeks and exclaim "Well! I never!"

  Instead, Jonah kept his composure, and only nodded. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Etheringdon."

  Bunny smiled, waving him off. "Oh, of course, Jonah. No rest for the wicked, eh?"

  "I have one final task to perform first, Sir." He bowed, walked down the stairs to the Lower Library, let himself in and locked the door behind him.

  Then, without any fuss, he placed a loaded pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  The Jameson Club hired a new major domo on the Monday.

  "Name?"

  Marlene smiled prettily, looking through the lenses of the glasses she'd bought from the theatrical costumiers. "Mary Watson," she smiled. It was amazing the difference red hair dye and a pair of glasses made. She could have walked right up to anyone from her old life and they wouldn't have recognised her at all.

  "Occupation?" She'd gone for a very tight black rubber dress with a rather prominent window onto her chest, a gift from David in days gone by that was paying dividends now. The customs officer couldn't keep his eyes off that cleavage window, which was all for the best as it distracted him from the cheapness of her fake passport.

  "Actress." She smiled again, arching her back a little to make sure his eyes remained exactly where they were. She supposed she was being rather dreadful, really, but it wasn't as though she was going to give him her telephone number. Not
her real one, at any rate.

  "And is the purpose of your visit business, or, ah... pleasure?" The man's moustache twitched as he leered. It reminded Marlene rather of a rat's whiskers. He did have a perfectly gorgeous accent, though, but she supposed they all did here. One of the benefits of her move to London.

  "Oh, pleasure, of course," she purred. Best not to let on that it was both. After all, crime was a serious business, but declaring war on it was quite the most perfect pleasure she could imagine.

  The customs man laughed, opening up her suitcase and leafing carefully through the perfumed silk negligees and leather corsets she'd carefully packed. Of course, he was far too fixated on those to notice the false bottom of the suitcase, and he certainly wouldn't think to look beneath it to find her twin automatic pistols and the mask Parker had left her. He looked up at her, a twinkle in his eye, his lips parting in a smile that revealed the most unsavoury set of teeth.

  "One more thing, Miss Watson - the name and number of your hotel. Just to be on the safe side." He even added a wink.

  As Marlene reeled off the name and telephone number of a completely different hotel, and a fictional room number for good measure, she found herself wondering if she would end up seeing the customs officer again after all. He looked like the sort that might solicit a prostitute, or possibly enter an illicit vice den to gamble the night away. There was at least a ten per cent chance, she decided, that he would find himself looking down the barrel of the Blood Widow's automatics.

  "See you soon, Miss," he said, grinning and fiddling with his crotch as she wiggled away on her heels towards the taxi rank.

  "Oh, I hope so. Perhaps even sooner than you think." Marlene murmured, and smiled.

  "I spoke to Hisoka's parents. They said thanks for your help." Inspector West took a long drag on his cigarette, then breathed the smoke out slowly, so it formed a lazy cloud drifting over the railing of the balcony, out towards the city. He watched it for a moment before the wind took it apart. Then he poured another sake.

  Okawara's was a tenth-rate sushi joint in the heart of Japantown, a little fish being eaten alive by larger, slicker competitors. But they did a good, cheap, strong sake, and they had a view that those big fancy restaurants would kill for. From here, you could see everything, the whole damned city. You could look down on it with a warm sake in one fist and a Lucky Strike in the other, and pretend for a minute or two that you didn't need to walk those damned streets, to wade through the crap that everybody else has to wade through just to survive.

  It must be nice to be able to leap over it, or at least that's what Easton West figured. But maybe that just meant you landed in it harder.

  "It wasn't me who... apprehended Hisoka's killer." Doc Thunder danced around the word, but they both knew what he meant. Murdered.

  "You got him that pardon, right? Get out of jail free?" West tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "That masked son of a bitch killed a dozen men, maybe more. We're just supposed to forget about that?"

  Doc Thunder shrugged. "He saved my life. He probably saved yours. Probably the President's. The whole USSA, in fact." He looked at Easton, and suddenly he looked tired. "What was I supposed to do? I don't like his methods any more than you do, but there it is. He's the reason the sun came up this morning."

  "I don't care if he put the damned sun in the sky to begin with," Inspector West growled. "We're a nation of laws. That's all that keeps us from sliding into Hell." He swallowed another fistful of sake.

  Doc paused, looking out at the view. "Crane killed Danny. I'm sure of it."

  Easton West nodded. "It was him, all right. But that doesn't change anything." He poured another. "Danny Coltrane was the nearest thing I ever had to a father. I became a cop to get the man who killed him. To get him, understand? Get him right, by the book. That's how the Ghost would have done it." He downed the shot in one. "Killing Crane like that - that's spitting on Danny's memory. And if I see El Sombra again, he's going down for that. By the book."

  Doc nodded. There wasn't much to say. He poured himself a measure of sake he knew he wouldn't feel, then poured one for Easton. He lifted the cup between two outsized fingers, and smiled. "Here's to Danny."

  Easton smiled, picking up his cup and draining it. "Yeah. Here's to you, Mister Ghost Boss." He smiled, very slightly, just at the corners of his mouth. "You rest now."

  "Sure, I knew the Blood-Spider. Him and me were like that, buddy. Like that. He knew he could count on Harry Stacey, yes sir. Knew what I'd done in the line, keeping the streets safe. Yeah, okay, maybe there were a few minor breaches of the regulations here and there, but opium goes missing from the evidence locker all the time these days - don't know why people pointed at me. Everybody knows your slant is a fiend for the dragon, and we got a lot more chinks on the force than we used to, thanks to that asshole Rickard and all his bullcrap about 'diversity'. I'm just saying, ask them where it went. Christ, 'diversity in policing'... What the hell does 'diversity' even mean, anyway? I'll tell you; anti-white racism, that's what. The most oppressed race in the whole goddamned world is the friggin' white man. Anyway, the Blood-Spider...

  "Now listen, you don't want to believe all that crap about Parker Crane being the Blood-Spider. That's just lies. Parker Crane was just one more asshole rich boy, that's all. In fact, I heard he was a fruit. Well, that's why he was always seeing those models, they knew he was safe! And let me tell you, the Blood-Spider was no butt-bandit. The guy was all man. Like me. Coupla peas in a pod.

  "And don't believe all that crapola about that friggin' wetback saving the day! That's the goddamned liberal media for you. If they're not spending all their time on that son of a bitch Doc Thunder, who is - and this is a documented friggin' fact - a friggin' faggot, a liberal and a miscegenationist, they're wanting to turn a god-damned illegal into the hero of New York city. You want to know who took that prick Lomax down? The Blood-Spider. Shot him through the heart with a magic bullet, saved all our asses. That's a damn fact.

  "And what does he get for it? He gets smeared! Don't believe that bullcrap that he was Crane, or that Crane was a Nazi - that's just the Jew media tryin' to play with your head, friend. Listen, you know you're getting the straight dope from me. I'm a cop. Well, no, I ain't a cop any more, now I clean the toilets in this joint, but like I said, that's all because of the damn slants.

  "Yeah, like I said, that business with the opium out of the evidence locker. I mean, someone signed it out - probably a chink, like I said - and sure, they used my name. And they found the stuff in an apartment that I'd apparently signed a lease for, but look, that apartment belonged to a hooker, okay? I'm a happily married man. Well, I was.

  "Listen, pal, this too will pass, you know? A real rain's going to wash all the scum off the streets, let me tell ya. A hard rain's gonna fall when the Blood Spider comes back to town. Him and me were like that, like I was sayin', and he always looked after his number one guy. That's all I'm saying. He always had a place in his organisation for Harry Stacey.

  "The Blood-Spider will rise again, friend. The Blood-Spider will rise again..."

  In the end, El Sombra was glad to go.

  New York had been... fun. He had to admit it. There was magic in this city - a strange energy on every street corner, waiting to be unleashed. The music, the culture, the larger than life personalities... As he stood on the docks, waiting for the boat that would take him to Europe - to the final battle with the creature he'd been born to destroy - he found himself thinking over the little things.

  Djego, standing in a coffee house in the East Village, not three blocks from El Sombra's battle with Lars Lomax, reading his old poems and getting a standing ovation, starting to cry as a piece of his heart came back to him.

  El Sombra, dancing with the breakers in Times Square, losing himself in the rhythm, free and unrestrained and whole again for a few short minutes.

  Djego, in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, looking at Warhol's 'cellphone', a block of black cer
amic studded with numbers and a tiny sheet of glass, and for a brief moment being transported to that other world, the world of dreampunk.

  El Sombra, squeezing Crane's shoulder, feeling the burning that would forever be in him ease, transforming into sadness for a single moment.

  Djego sitting in a futurehead bar, wearing El Sombra's mask around his neck like a bandana, détourning his own personal demons and transforming them into couture, laughing like a boy.

  El Sombra, standing on top of the Empire State Building and yelling into the night, scaring the tourists and aggravating the cops and not giving a damn, because whatever the bastards had taken from him, he would always have this one single moment, forever and ever until the day he died fighting.

  All of these moments happened, in between and underneath his mission and his adventures and all the craziness and the violence. They all happened, and they were all important, even if they weren't part of that big, complicated story of Doc Thunder and the Blood-Spider and the most dangerous man in the world. Maybe more important because of that.

  And maybe that was the lesson of New York City - that all the moments were important, that all the little things mattered. The smallest detail could save the day or destroy the world. It was a good lesson to take into the endgame.

  And he had to admit, they'd been very gracious about all the dead bastards.

  Still, it was past time to leave. He'd spent too long circling America, while the enemy in Berlin had grown more evil and more dangerous still. Now was the time to end it once and for all. Now was the time to go to the heart of the Ultimate Reich and show them what they'd so thoughtlessly created. What they'd forged in the fires of their damnation.

  Now was the hour of final battle.

  El Sombra breathed in, focussing on the task ahead.

  "Hot dogs! Hot dogs! One dollar five! Wrap a nickel in a bill and eat your fill!"