Jokers Wild

The little fuck was not going to back down. "All right. Okay. We play it your way. But you get the Astronomer out of that ship. Or I'll get him out any way I have to."

Tachyon paused for a second and then said, "Agreed."

"What about me?" Roulette said.

"You're coming with me," Tachyon said. He took her hand and pulled her into the ship after him.

The Astronomer leaned nonchalantly against a post of the bed. The sleeves of his robe were encrusted with blood, and there was the sour odor of death about his bonv form. But for the first time since meeting him Roulette sensed confusion and hesitation.

He turned his maddened, red-rimmed eyes upon them. "You didn't kill him."

The Takisian stepped forward, boot heels ticking on the polished floor. "I proved tougher than you anticipated." The awful gaze switched to Tachyon. "And only a coward sends a woman to do his killing."

"Is that the best you can do? Toss a few insults in my direction? You're pitiful, little man."

Suddenly the master Mason staggered, groaned, and clutched at his head. Tachyon, hair like a fiery cloud on his shoulders, eyes bright in a pale face, began to tremble with strain, and beads of sweat lined his forehead. Then, with menacing slowness, the Astronomer straightened, shook off the alien's mind control. Tachyon's eyes widened in fear.

"Die, you irritating gnat." The talonlike fingers curled, and Tachyon flung himself to one side as a ball of flame exploded on the spot he had been standing.

The floor tilted wildly as Baby flinched.

"It's no good. This ship can't be your escape." Tachyon scrabbled across the polished floor as another ball of flame exploded a delicate. chair behind which he'd been hiding. "She doesn't navigate herself. How's your astrogation?"

Roulette squeezed herself into an alcove praying to be overlooked, praying to avoid being incinerated by one of her master's errant energy bolts.

"And you better not sleep if you do get off the planet. She's a sentient being, but of course you've figured that out." Tachyon yelped, and the shoulder of his coat blackened. "You drop your coercion, and she'll blow the locks, or fly into a star. One of the drawbacks to a living ship, as other enemies before you have discovered."

The pyrotechnic display died. The Astronomer eyed Tachyon with something approaching pleasure. "You've made some interesting points, Doctor. So I'll take you with me."

"No… I think… not." Gasping breaths punctuated the words. "I've set a deathlock. All that I am, body, soul, and mind, oppose you now. To possess me you will have to destroy me."

"A pleasing image."

"Which still leaves you with your original problem." They were circling the room, Tachyon edging warily away from the Astronomer, the Astronomer pacing him with the patience of a predator. "And there's another small matter, but I thought I ought mention it. Fortunato's outside. Waiting. He'll crack this ship to get at you. I'd prefer that he not. Which is why I'mi here-though I can think of nothing I'd rather do less than face you. "

But the Astronomer had stopped listening. At the mention of Fortunato his face had suffused with blood, and an explosive expletive left his lips flecked with spittle.

"You've plagued me long enough, you useless piece of shit. This time I will finish it."

He plunged out of the ship, and Tachyon, seizing Roulette by the wrist, raced after him. And into hell. Balls of flame screamed through the air, searing the concrete floor and igniting the warehouse walls. There was a backblast of air that sent them tumbling, and Tachyon's hand slipped from her wrist. Masonry and girders rained down as Baby, terrified beyond reasoning, burst through the roof and fled into the night. Choking from the plaster dust, Roulette crawled for the door, ignoring Tachyon's frantic calls, first for Baby, then for her.

Cradling the Magnum she huddled in an alley, and watched the sky.

Chapter Twenty-three

4:00 a.m.

Fortunato felt his legs come off the ground and fold into a lotus. His thumbs touched his forefingers and settled on his knees. He felt as if his final orgasm with Peregrine was still going on. When she held him and drove the power back into him it was like being blown to atoms and coming back together with the entire universe inside him. He felt like the core of a sun, with flares of energy shooting off him uncontrollably. He felt like it would never end.

It was five minutes later when the Astronomer came out of the ship. Fortunato had lived through his entire life again in every detail, the feel of silk against his skin, the sound of every note of music he'd ever heard, the taste of the breath of every woman he'd ever kissed. It had taken forever and no time at all.

"Motherfucker!" the Astronomer screamed. "You're a worm, a maggot, a fucking amoeba! Why do you keep buzzing around my head, you fly, you mosquito, you locust? Why do you not fucking die and depart?" He raised his thin hands and the sleeves of his blood-caked robe slid back past his elbows. The insides of his arms were dotted with bruises and sores. Fortunato remembered the heroin he'd seen at the Cloisters.

The Astronomer's hands swelled like canteloupes and then exploded with balls of flame, hundreds of them, screaming through the air at Fortunato. Each one peeled off a layer of his power as he deflected it and he couldn't rebuild his shields fast enough. The last fireball singed the hair off his left arm. The roof of the warehouse exploded. The Astronomer shot through it into the sky, still screaming. "A dog that chases me down the street, trying to chew my shoes. Magick? Your kissing and hugging and fucking and sucking? You're a child, a larva, a little, helpless, wriggling sperm. You've never seen power." He pulled Fortunato up in his wake, and the warehouses, and then the island, fell away under them.

Now the Astronomer was glowing. Hotter, brighter than Fortunato. "Death is the power. Pus and rot and corruption. Hatred and pain and war."

Fortunato saw that the Astronomer was more powerful than he'd ever imagined. It left him strangely calm. The city was far below and behind him, nothing more than a grid of lights. They were over the East River between Manhattan and Queens. The Williamsburg Bridge was just to Fortunato's right, the cables clanking hollowly in the wind.

They were high enough up that Fortunato's skin felt cold where his tux shirt hung open. The air was clean and a salt smell blew in from Long Island Sound. His legs had unfolded and he stood in midair, his arms curled at his sides. He knew he was going to die.

He saw himself as the hexagram Ken, the Mountain, keeping still. His opponent was Sung, Conflict, boiling with chaos and destruction. There was no point in rebuilding his shields. He drew all the power inside him into the middle of his body, formed it into a sphere and compressed it. Harder, tighter, until all his strength and knowledge and energy was compacted into a grain the size of a pinhead, just behind his navel.

There would be no second chance. He launched it at the Astronomer. It shot through the air, leaving Fortunato limp and frail and empty. It was so bright he had to put his hands in front of his eyes, and even so he could see the bones through his flesh.

He felt rather than saw it penetrate the Astronomer, going through his shields like a bullet through jelly. When he could see again the Astronomer was doubled up in shock and pain.

The Astronomer burst into flame. He burned hot and red, and dense black smoke boiled off him. His arms stuck out of the fireball at odd angles and Fortunato watched them turn black and crusty.

And then the flames died.

The Astronomer's body was blackened, mummified. The wind blew charcoal-scented flakes of burnt skin off him as he floated.