Aces High

Then the moon fell out of the sky in the middle of the afternoon.

Cagliostro spurred the stallion toward the glowing apparition. It touched down in a clearing a few hundred yards away. The horse wouldn't get closer than a hundred feet, so Cagliostro tied him to a sapling and approached on foot. The thing was indistinct, made of angles that didn't co

He ransacked Balsam's mind. The knowledge had to be there somewhere. Some fragment of what the thing in the woods had been, what it had said or done.

That was when Balsam jerked upright and said, "The woman is in my brain."

He was looking through Eileen's eyes again, enraged at his own clumsiness. Things liad gone hideously wrong. He found himself staring into the face of the little man with the thick glasses and the robe.

And then he was back in his cell.

Two guards had him by the arms and were dragging him toward the door. "No," he said. "Please. Just a few more minutes."

"Oh, like it here, do you?" one of the guards said. He shoved Fortunato toward the door of the cell. Fortunato's foot slipped on the slick linoleum and he went onto all fours. The guard kicked him near his left kidney, not quite hard enough to make him pass out.

Then they were dragging him again, down endless faded green corridors, into a dark-paneled room with no windows and a long wooden table. A man in a cheap suit, maybe thirty years old, sat on the other side of the table. His hair was medium brown, his face unremarkable. There was a gold shield pi

"Sergeant Matthias?" the second guard said. The man in the cheap suit nodded. "This is the one."

Matthias leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Fortunato felt something brush his mind.

"Well?" Roman asked.

"Not much," Matthias Said. "Some telepathy, a little TK, but it's weak. I doubt he could even pick a lock."

"So what do you think? Does the boss need to worry about him?"

"I can't see why. You could hang him up for a while for murdering that kid, see what happens."

"What's the use?" Roman said. "He'd just plead self defense. The judge'd probably give him a medal. Nobody cares about those little bastards anyway."

"Fine," Matthias said. He turned to the guards. "Kick him loose. We're done with him."

It took another hour to get him back on the street, and of course nobody offered him a ride home. But that was all right. Jokertown was where he needed to be.

He sat on the steps of the precinct and reached out for Eileen's mind.

He found himself staring at the brick wall of an alley. He was empty of thought or emotion. As he struggled to break through the clouds in her brain he felt her bladder let go, and felt the warm urine spread in a puddle under her and quickly turn cold.

"Hey, buddy, no sleeping on the steps."

Fortunato walked out into the street and flagged a cab. He put a twenty through the little metal drawer and said, "South. Hurry."

He got out of the cab on Chrystie just south of Grand. She hadn't moved. Her mind was gone. He squatted in front of her and probed for a few seconds, and then he couldn't stand it and he walked down to the end of the alley. He pounded on the side of a dumpster until his hands were nearly useless. Then he went back and tried again.

He opened his mouth to say something. Nothing came out. There were no words left in his head, only bloody red clumps and a flood of acid that kept rising up in his eyes.

He walked across the street and dialed 911. It hurt to press the buttons. When he got an operator he asked for an ambulance and gave the address and hung up.

He went back across the street. A car honked at him and he didn't understand why. He knelt in front of Eileen. Her jaw hung open and a thread of saliva dangled down onto her blouse. He couldn't stand to look at her. He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind and gently stopped her heart.

It was easy to find the temple. It was only three blocks away. He just followed the energy trails of the men who'd left Eileen in the alley.

He stood across the street from the bricked-up church. He had to keep blinking his eyes to keep them clear. The trails of the men led into the building, and two or three other trails led out. But Balsam was still in there, Balsam and Clarke and a dozen more.

That was good. He wanted them all, but he would settle for the ones that were there. Them, and their coins and their golden masks, their rituals, their temple, everything that had a part in trying to bring their alien monstrosity to Earth, that had spilled blood and destroyed minds and ruined lives to do it. He wanted it over, finished, for good and all.

The night was utterly cold, a vacuum as cold as space, sucking the heat and life from everything it touched. His cheeks burned and then went numb.

He reached for the power he had left and it wasn't enough.

For a few seconds he stood and shook with helpless rage, ready to go after the building with his bare, battered hands. Then he saw her, on the corner, standing in the classic pose under the streetlight. Black hot pants, rabbit jacket, fake-fur shawl. Hooker heels and too much makeup. He slowly raised his arm and waved her over.

She stopped in front of him, looked him warily up and down. "Hey," she said. Her skin was coarse and her eyes were tired. "You wa

He took a hundred-dollar bill out of his jacket and unzipped his pants.

"Right here in the street? Lover, you must be hurtin' for certain." She stared at the hundred and eased down onto her knees. "Woo, this concrete cold." She fumbled around in his trousers and then looked up at him. "Shit, what is this? Dry blood?"

He took out another hundred. The woman hesitated a second and then stuffed both bills in her purse and clamped the purse under her arm.

At the touch of her mouth Fortunato went instantly hard. He felt a surge all the way up from his feet and it made his scalp and his fingernails hurt. His eyes rolled up until they were staring at the second floor of the old church.

He wanted to use his power to lift the entire city block and hurl it into space, but he didn't have the strength to break a window. He probed at the bricks and the wooden joists and the electrical wiring and then, he found what he was looking for. He followed a gas line down to the basement and back to the main, and then he began to move the gas through it, building the pressure the way it was building inside him, until the pipes vibrated and the walls shook and the mortar creaked. The hooker looked up and across the street, saw cracks splitting the walls. "Run," he said. As she clattered away Fortunato reached down and jammed his fingers into the root of his penis, forcing back the hot flood of his ejaculation. His intestines turned to fire, 'and in the crawlspace over the temple the black steel pipe bent and shook free of its co

The building swelled for an instant like it was filling with water and then it erupted in a ball of smoky orange flame. Bricks smashed into the wall on either side of where Fortunato stood but he wouldn't look away, not until his eyebrows had been singed to the skin and his clothes had begun to smolder. The roar of the explosion shattered windows up and down the street, and when it finally died the bleating of sirens and alarms took its place.