Avenging Fury

by John Farris

  Woolwine quickly averted his own face, closed the door behind him, and sat hunched over, holding his stomach, trying not to think of what might be going on in that trailer. But not daring to sneak a look. Blood throbbed in his temples. All he could think of was jellied eyeballs and a slogan that the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce recently had adopted:

  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

  He hoped that was true, because he didn’t plan to stay there for more than a few hours longer. The flickering, stylized palms of the sign reminded him of Rio—the fun capital of Brazil, not the local hotel and casino—and Rio de Janeiro seemed perfectly sized to his immediate ambitions for getting good and lost in a far place.

  1:05 A.M.

  From where they were sitting in Harlee Nations’s red Dodge Viper coupe, Harlee had an obstructed view of what must have been a second intense flash, this one inside the trailer where Virgie Lovechild had conducted her lucrative Pack of Rotsies business for many years.

  They were silent as Gwen subsequently reappeared with the red crystal skull, got into the Cadillac Escalade (which Harlee had last seen parked in the garage beneath Lincoln Grayle’s aerie) and backed out into the street, headed south, and turned right at the intersection.

  Nicole let out the breath she’d been holding. “That was the Avatar?”

  Harlee shook her head. “Don’t think so.” But she couldn’t be sure. After all, what were the odds that Eden Waring’s doppelganger had successfully completed her journey through time, returning spot-on to her point of departure—and without the help of the crystal skull that she and Devon had spirited away not long ago from the dpg’s suite at the Magician’s house? The same skull Harlee had deposited the day before in the vault at Grayle’s Mountain.

  In the Great One’s absence, Harlee was certain that she alone had access to the vault. Harlee was tired, confused, angry. But not so tired that she couldn’t reach the only reasonable conclusion to this mystery: there was more than one of the cosmically powerful crystal skulls in Las Vegas, no matter who they’d just seen driven away from Virgie Lovechild’s.

  “They’re gone,” Nic said, yawning tautly. “Are we going to Virgie’s now?”

  “No.”

  “But Devon—”

  “She’s not there, Nicole.”

  “Her car’s not there! Doesn’t mean—”

  Harlee started her Viper. She closed her eyes momentarily, seeing red. Her hands wanted to tremble. She gripped the wheel tightly.

  “Just shut up, Nic! I don’t know what’s become of Devon and I won’t know until I hear from her. But I’m not going near Virgie’s house. Something went on there tonight, Devon’s missing and I have a bad feeling.”

  Nic moaned softly. “Girl, you are givin’ me goose bumps.”

  Harlee drove down the street, slowly, both of them staring at the walled half acre and the nearly lightless bungalow.

  “If it was the Avatar we saw, why do you think she was—”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t need to be yellin’ at me, Harl.”

  “You’re right. Apologies. What are you doing?”

  “I’m callin’ Flicka again! I’ll call her every five minutes until she picks up!”

  “Don’t bother,” Harlee said. “They’ve got her.”

  With the phone to her ear, Nic shot Harlee a look. “Even if they turned her over to the cops, I mean, what could they prove? And doesn’t she get a phone call?”

  “She’s not in juvie. By they I meant the Supa and the Av.”

  Nic’s expression turned dismal. “Shit. Voice mail again.” She dropped the phone into her tote. “If that’s true, what are we gonna do about it?”

  “I need time to think this through. I’m going home.”

  “I don’t want to be by myself tonight!”

  “Come with me, then.”

  “I hate bein’ around that old guy you livin’ with. Drop me at Reese’s?”

  “Okay.”

  “What do I tell Reese and Honeydew?”

  “We’ll put our heads together tomorrow. Right now I need sleep.”

  Harlee’s own phone rang. She glanced at the dashboard display.

  “It’s Flicka’s cell!” Nic said joyously.

  “About time,” Harlee said, but she hesitated before answering, feeling a twinge of apprehension. Then she took the call.

  “This is Harlee. Where—”

  “Hi,” Eden Waring said cheerily. “Hope I’m not calling you too late, Harlee.”

  1:14 A.M. PST

  Cody Olds returned from his compact kitchen with two snifters of brandy to find Eden lying knees-up on the sofa and gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, tossing Flicka’s little cell phone from hand to hand. She was bare legged, wearing running shorts and a hooded pullover.

  He eased down onto the sofa at her feet, his back giving him problems—from a stressful day and present worries, he thought. Cody put one of the snifters on the floor where it was handy and reached out to nab the phone Eden was playing with. He put it into his shirt pocket. Her reverie interrupted, Eden smiled and sat up facing him. She tucked a big buckskin-covered pillow behind her back and extended a hand for her brandy, waggling fingers mock impatiently.

  “Well, it’s done,” she said. “A short but interesting conversation.”

  “But was it the smart thing to do?”

  Eden sipped her brandy and licked her lips in appreciation.

  “What’s that line from the Godfather movie about enemies?”

  “Keep ’em closer than your friends. I wonder if anyone’s ever done a follow-up about the success of that strategy.”

  “She can’t hurt me. That’s the first lesson Harlee Nations is going to learn.”

  “I guess you’re not about to tell me what it was you did with that Flicka girl.”

  “No more than she deserved. Cody, they’re not—sweet young things. They’re Fetchlings. They all have histories that would gag a maggot.”

  Eden extended her long legs across Cody’s lap. He winced a little.

  “I’m sorry! Is it your back?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “Want me to—”

  “No, you’re fine like you are.” He ran a hand from one ankle to the inside of her knee. Hesitated there. Smiled. Left his hand where it was. Three little puncture scars there, repair job on a torn meniscus. “You just get me to seizin’ up sometimes, because I don’t know yet how I’m supposed to be of any help to you.”

  “Your bad back is my fault?” she said teasingly. “I thought you fell off a horse.”

  “You’re the horse I keep fallin’ off of now.”

  Eden smiled, sympathetically.

  “There’s no one else who can be what you are to me, Cody.”

  They looked at each other for a while. Cody blinked first.

  “What?” Eden said, reaching for the hand on her knee and slowly moving it higher.

  “Pain in my back went away.”

  “Good.”

  “When are you meetin’ up with this Fetchling?”

  “One thirty tomorrow afternoon.”

  “In a public place?”

  “You bet. I invited her to lunch.”

  Cody nodded. “Goin’ it alone?”

  “I’m shielded, Cody. Protected from—any harm they might try to bring to me. But they can eventually get to me through you, if they know we’re as close as we are. Can’t allow that to happen.”

  “How do you plan to get this Harlee off your back?”

  “Just believe that I can do it.”

  He nodded slightly. They resumed looking at each other, sipping brandy, smiling about things that didn’t need to be put into words.

  “Cody, I think I’ll go to bed now.”

  “Sleepy?”

  “No. I’m not all that sleepy.”

  Almost a minute went by.

  “What about—”

  “His name is Tom Sherard. He’s someone—something t
hat I got caught up in because I was afraid and lonely and not at all sure of myself. But some of that’s changed now; the rest will be up to you.”

  “Okay.”

  She swung her legs together to the floor and stood, stretching, not looking at him.

  “Give me five minutes to—brush my teeth, and, like, settle down because my heart’s really going now, and—time to get comfortable in my skin, if that makes sense to you.”

  “Can’t say I’m any different, Eden.”

  “Really? Because I couldn’t deal with a lot of—you know, macho stud bullshit right now. My love life has been—oh, I probably shouldn’t even bring it up, but. He, my first lover I mean, betrayed me and might’ve gotten me killed. Tom—wherever he is—I think probably he’ll be glad for me. And that’s—really all there is to tell. Some love life.” She laughed. “God, I’m nervous.”

  “Go brush your teeth.”

  “Okay . . . okay. Do you want me to call you when—?”

  “I think I’ll know when.”

  “You will, won’t you? And that’s what I love about you and depend on, so much.”

  CITTA DEL VATICANO • 0620 HOURS ZULU

  Following a working breakfast with the senior Vatican prelates whom he most relied on to keep sand out of the theocratic gears and orchestrate accommodations between secularists and hard-line conservatives within the Holy See, Pope John XXIV takes a twenty-minute breather, alone, in his garden.

  The sun has just risen and ground fog is melting away. Leoncaro has a small plastic bag of birdseed with him, which, like a good Franciscan, he scatters at intervals. He is also practiced at bird calls but feels a little embarrassed at the possibility of being overheard. Except when he is secluded in his personal quarters, there always are eyes on him.

  Nevertheless, fun is where he can find it during the course of grueling eighteen-hour days. And this morning he has indigestion.

  “Back so soon?” he inquires skeptically of Zachary, the Echelon 3 recently dispatched to Las Vegas, who now is achieving modest form within a line of Italian cypresses. “Very well. Report.” With a fist Leoncaro suppresses a bubble of gas that has reached his lips. He looks around in the morning glow. There are rosy nuthatches living nearby that he is particularly fond of, but he has yet to see one on his morning walk.

  The Caretaker-in-training waxes a little brighter as he falls into step beside his mentor.

  “There really was nothing more I could hope to accomplish in Las Vegas,” Zach explains. “The bond that has been established between Cody Olds and Eden Waring should prove to be . . . unusually durable.”

  “Fast work.”

  “Because they’ve now reached an inevitable point of intimacy, I didn’t feel at all comfortable, you know, hanging around. And there are developments.”

  Leoncaro broadcasts more birdseed. “Related, perhaps, to recent disturbances in the Mobius microregion colloquially known as ‘Jubilation County’ that indicate Mordaunt’s better half has succeeded in reclaiming her true persona.”

  “Oh. But aren’t there safeguards—”

  “Fresno’s Vortex. To be sure. I think it unlikely that ‘she’ managed, by herself, to escape from a Mobius microregion, even taking into consideration her considerable powers. Yet it seems she has escaped.”

  “I don’t know if or how this could be related, but—do you recall, Holiness, on my last visit you were telling me all that fascinating stuff about Eden Waring’s doppelganger.”

  “Guinevere. Yes.”

  “Whom Eden had lost touch with? Well, it’s a virtual certainty that the dpg showed up in Vegas a couple of nights ago. Behind the wheel of a 1926 Franklin speedster that suddenly appeared on the casino floor of the Venetian Hotel. Accompanied by atmospheric disturbances that upset quite a few stomachs and had guests reeling all over the—”

  “Franklin Sportster? I remember those. I suppose you’re going to tell me that Gwen wasn’t traveling alone.”

  “No, Holiness. She had two passengers with her in the car. Inadvertent time-travelers, it seems. Patrick O’Doul and his uncle Mickey, both of whom disappeared from Paramus, New Jersey, present era and macroregion, circa 1973. Something to do with spark plugs in an old—anyway. Patrick eventually spilled the beans to my—to Cody Olds. Explained how they simply vanished. Poof! And found themselves—”

  “The theatrical gestures are unnecessary, Zach. Now, did you happen to see the car that the doppelganger and her passengers arrived in from Jubilation County?”

  “No. But from Patrick’s description, it had to be a time machine.”

  “Specially equipped by Letty Fresno,” Leoncaro muses. “No doubt with one of those damnable red crystal skulls. More of Letty’s sly deviltry. She and all of her skulls should have been interred aeons ago beneath a frozen methane sea on Neptune.”

  “Red crystal skull? Now that you mention it, Holiness—”

  Leoncaro looks at Zachary with a slight knowing grimace.

  “Gwen had it with her?”

  Zach nods. “When she was last seen, leaving the hotel. Because of the surveillance network in Las Vegas—which is more comprehensive than that of a supermax prison—anyone who sets foot there is almost immediately recorded.”

  “Then we can safely assume that Mordaunt’s liberated better half has control of Gwen. Who remains beyond Eden’s recall. Thus in a position to become the most deadly of the Avatar’s enemies. I wonder how this can get any worse.”

  “What about Mordaunt himself—I mean, Lincoln Grayle?”

  “That’s another matter. The Stella Salamis went down in a Pacific storm short of the undersea canyon that was to have been the final destination of the encrypted were-beast. The Crucis Aurea has yet to determine if there were survivors, although another ship was in the area.”

  “Well—tragic that lives were lost, but the sinking of the ship isn’t all bad, is it?”

  They walk on, mulling the troublesome turn of events. Leoncaro barely suppresses a belch and says apologetically, “I rarely have sausage for breakfast, and this is the reason why.”

  Zachary ventures, “Surely the odds that the beast survived are very long.”

  “The prospect, no matter what the odds, of his soul being made whole is too dreadful to contemplate. And there’s the fate of the two girls I rashly sent out there to deal with the late Magician. Their developing powers and, I hope, instinct for teamwork, are impressive. But Deus Inversus full-strength is no adversary for amateurs.”

  “If we’re correct in assuming that the feminine soul is presently in human form—” Zachary looks baffled. “But of course doppelgangers aren’t human. They’re—they’re—what exactly are they?”

  “What matters is that this one, although not fully independent of her homebody, is very dangerous. Celestial Law ensures that her doppelganger may not take Eden’s life. But she is a threat to anyone close to Eden, who could be manipulated into naming Gwen, thereby setting her free.”

  “Bertie Nkambe has made a remarkable comeback from the shooting, but she’ll probably be in a weakened condition for a while. As for Cody Olds—” Zachary shakes his head worriedly.

  “You were only doing your job,” Leoncaro assures him.

  “I do feel responsible for him. He would lay down his life for Eden now. Perhaps I should go back to Vegas. Even though I can’t directly interfere in human affairs.”

  “No. Take a breather for now, Zachary. I set all of this in motion. I shall be the one to go to Las Vegas.”

  Zachary looks around the papal garden, the old stones, the greenery coming to light, and then at the solemn face of his boss.

  “But—your schedule here—you don’t have a minute free to—”

  “I shall just have to be in both places at once.”

  Zachary purses his lips to whistle, but doesn’t.

  “You can do that?”

  Leoncaro shrugs. “After all, there are only twelve of us, Zachary. Two places at once, merely a matter of training a
nd discipline. Now, being in three places at once—that is a bit of a stretch.”

  LAS VEGAS • 1:45 A.M.

  In addition to Bronc Skarbeck’s Aston Martin there were a couple of black limos on the parking court of Bronc’s house when Harlee arrived home, yawning. Bronc often had visitors at all hours of the night, particularly this week with the Elite 88 in town for uneasy parleys. She took little notice of the limos.

  Her unusually sharp and focused mind was blurred with concern for the missing Devon. She was further confused about the import of Eden Waring’s phone call. Eden had been cheerful, suspiciously so, but had refused to answer any questions about Flicka, saying only that the Fetchling assassin was for now “a guest” of Eden and Bertie Nkambe.

  There were two men in the foyer of the house eating take-out pizza. Limo drivers or bodyguards, Harlee thought, not looking closely enough at their suits, expensive European tailoring that bespoke style. She smiled absently as she walked to the stairs.

  In spite of swarthy skin and a few moles they had bland, easily forgettable faces. If you paid little attention to lightless eyes that could outstare a corpse. Harlee felt a stab of uneasiness before one of them spoke to her.

  “Are you Harlee?”

  She paused, a hand on the stair railing. “Yes.”

  “The General would like to see you, in his quarters.”

  Harlee’s shoulders dropped. “Not tonight. Could you just tell him—”

  A scream of intense agony reverberated through the house. Harlee looked up the stairs, lips parting; then she turned and ran for the front door.

  The shorter of the two men, with three gold rings punched into an earlobe, was quick. He caught her by an elbow and did something with her arm that gave her excruciating pain and had her up on her toes, barely able to breathe.

  “Walk,” he said.

  The other one stuffed the last of his pizza into his mouth and chewed it while he followed them upstairs. Harlee grimaced in pain but didn’t say anything. They weren’t men you could disobey or try to trick. Harlee knew that she and Skarbeck were in a huge bind. She could piece together a scenario without much difficulty.