Gods of Manhattan (17 page)

"I'll drink to that." Lomax took a swig of his martini. "You know, I never really thought of myself as the mercenary type, but I really have enjoyed working with your organisation, Ms. Dragon. The pay is good, but the fringe benefits..." He took in Thunder's helpless, tortured body. "...they're something else."

"You have no idea." The golden eyes glittered.

"You're a little too rough for me, kid. Besides, I never mix business with pleasure. Apart from chess, of course. Fancy a game?"

"Why not?" she grinned. "I'll carve out a board on his chest and make the pieces from his finger-bones." She leant close, tasting the sweat on Doc Thunder's neck. "I will teach you to adore me, pretty-pretty-pretty. If it kills you, you will tell me how much you want to please me with your final breath."

"And if it doesn't... well, part of my fee is that I get to finish off whatever's left when she's bored of you. Not as direct as I'd like, but that's life in the rat race." He laughed. "And speaking of rats..."

Lomax walked to a speaking tube in the wall, flipping open the cover to yell into it. "Venger! Get up here! It's time to meet that business partner I talked about!" He turned back to Doc, smiling ruefully. "He'd never have agreed if he'd known I was in cahoots with N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. He's still a little mad at them about his unfortunate condition. But we need him for the next phase." He checked his watch. "You see, right now, Jack Scorpio has a condition-red emergency to deal with in Venice, and he's under the mistaken impression that his old pal Doc Thunder is protecting the President. He's not aware that you're here, indulging your little predilection for the wronger side of the tracks." He chuckled, finishing the martini. "Nice work if you can get it. Meanwhile, thanks to a slight communications foul-up I may have arranged, our mutual acquaintance President Garner is expecting Jack Scorpio to bodyguard him during this time of international crisis... enter Anton."

Doc Thunder shook his head. "You seem like a third wheel on this one, Lars. This is the kind of thing Venger could have cooked up all by himself."

Lomax almost choked. "Anton Venger? The man's a pawn! God, you don't believe all this 'team' nonsense, do you? I just say that to make the ugly little weirdo feel better. Without my genius, he'd be one more freak at the circus-"

"What?"

The door to the room was open, and there Venger stood, his blank, sagging, blue-white face betraying no emotion, his voice a hoarse, rasping monotone. But in his eyes, there blazed a terrible, baleful hate.

Lomax smiled, throwing his arms wide. "Anton, Anton, Anton... "

"What is
she
doing here?" He turned, looking Lomax right in the eye. "She's the one who did this to me! You allied us with
her?
"

"Anton, baby-" Lomax's voice adopted the smooth, slick tone of a Broadway producer. "You change your mind about who did 'that' to you every day of the week. Eventually you're going to have to admit you just did it to yourself." He turned to the Silken Dragon, smiling reassuringly. "Tough love. Works wonders."

"
No!
" Venger backed away, the cry sounding all the more terrible for coming in his emotionless monotone, from a face that never seemed to change expression. "We're meant to be equals! Partners! A
team!
I - I thought we were - you
can't-"
His flesh seemed to bubble slightly, the only sign of his emotion. "You can't
do this!
"

'"I already did it. Come on, Anton, old buddy. You've got to admit she brightens up the office a little."

"We're meant to be a
team!
The Lomax-Venger Team!
You betrayed me!"
His face was bubbling now, starting to melt and flow like hot wax. The sight was so unnerving that Doc Thunder found himself totally captivated by it - the sheer horror of seeing a man's tortured, disfigured soul displayed for all to see on his suppurating flesh.

"Well, if it was the Venger-Lomax Team I might have consulted you, but probably not." He turned to Thunder and mouthed the words
prima donna
. "Look, are you going to impersonate Jack Scorpio or not?"

"
Never!
Never for
her!"
Even his scream was a monotone.

"Well, we can't do it without you, pal. Why, I'd have to make an incredibly convincing mask using skin cultures I'd grown from samples of your hideous fizzog that I'd secretly taken while you slept!" He paused. "Oh wait, I did! Looks like you're expendable, old pal. Ciao for now."

He took the cigar out of his mouth and squeezed it lightly, sending a dart bursting out of the lit end and into Venger's neck. The man with the Face Of Fear gasped, eyes wide, took a couple of steps forward and then collapsed.

"How about that?" Lomax grinned. "I guess these really are bad for your health. Plan B, Thunder. Never leave home without it."

"You're a monster, Lomax." Thunder growled, the chains clinking as he strained on them again. "That man needed psychological help."

"Yeah, yeah. Wait until you see Plan C. It'll knock you sideways." Lomax surreptitiously watched Silken Dragon's legs as her high heels clicked across the wooden floor and she bent at the waist to take Venger's pulse.

"Quite dead. Do you have any more of those cigars, Lars?"

"I've got more insurance, if that's what you're saying, so no funny business. If you want a box of your own - I'll trade it for the recipe for that inexorium you were talking about."

Silken Dragon smirked. "Not at that price. Perhaps in lieu of your fee for the President's assassination."

"It's a thought." Lomax motioned towards the body. "Bring that thing to my lab. I'll harvest the face and throw the rest away."

"Proud of yourself, Lars?" Doc Thunder's voice was acid.

"As a matter of fact, I am. I'll leave you to the tender mercies of my lovely employer, shall I?"

"Mmmmm..." Silken Dragon purred, licking her full lips. "Such a shame I have none, pretty-pretty-pretty. I will take you to the depths of Hell, and there you will learn that I own you. And when I am bored of my plaything, I will ask my wonderful new friend Lars to slit your throat, so that I may bathe my perfect body in your blood. And you... as the life drains from you into my ornate bathtub... you will thank me."

"Sounds like a charming evening. But I have plans. Raincheck?" Doc Thunder flexed again, the veins on his muscles standing out as he gritted his teeth, putting all his strength into pulling on the massive chains. The beautiful, merciless woman in front of him only laughed.

"Oh, my wonderful toy, you will never break free. Those chains could hold an elephant. My foolish pretty-pretty-pretty."

Doc grinned, and the grin was savage.

"Who said anything about the chains?"

A piece of plaster fell from the ceiling.

"They hadn't reinforced the room. The ends of the chains on my wrists were bolted to the ceiling, but the ceiling itself was the weak point. So, suddenly, I had two big chunks of plaster and concrete on the ends of free-swinging chains. Two giant maces..."

Maya laughed. "I remember you telling me about that part. Lomax ended up with a skull fracture. Six months in the prison hospital."

Doc nodded, and sighed. "They both escaped, of course, but I really thought Venger was dead. I checked the body myself. No pulse. And five years after that, Lomax died, and Miles Hamilton changed so completely that our friendship couldn't survive. He became left-handed, emotionless..." He slammed a fist into his palm. "It's so obvious now... why didn't I see it?"

"Because people don't come back from the dead." Maya said, and Doc laughed, mirthlessly.

"Donner did. And Venger makes two. That's two in two days, and that worries me. Because Silken Dragon's supposed to be dead, too..."

He shook his head, looking off into the distance.

"And, unlike Lars Lomax, we never found the body."

Chapter Nine

The Case of The Red Mask

Marlene Lang lay on the couch in her apartment, sipping a Brandy Alexander in her nightgown and waiting for the phone to ring.

She had no doubt it would. Rarely did an evening go by without a gentleman caller, and she'd built up quite a stable of admirers.

It might be David, begging her to come around for another shoot, proclaiming in his broken tones that she was the only model who could possibly do, telling her that he understood that he'd been in the wrong. In which case she would smile sweetly, tell him that she was dreadfully busy this evening, and then go and take a long, luxurious bath. David had to learn not to sulk.

It might be Jack - lovely Jack, her one-eyed sailor, her grizzled soldier, back from Uzbekistan or Antarctica or London, catching a night between one delightfully top secret mission and another to ravish her expertly on the balcony, treat her to oysters and champagne in bed and then fly off on a cavorite wing-pack like something out of a radio serial. Jack called rarely, but his brief visits always left her drifting in a pink haze for weeks.

It might be Easton, cool, calm and collected Easton, asking her out to a sushi bar in Japantown to drink cheap sake and help him forget some tragedy. She loved the way he looked at her; that mixture of need, sorrow and contempt, like she was an addiction he couldn't shake, a poison he didn't want a cure for. It was all so wonderfully
noir.

It might be Timothy - gentle Timothy, living in his moldy, fetid bedsit in the Village, occasionally slipping out to O'Malley's bar, terrified of the police. Sleeping with him was like charity, like slumming with an underclass of one, and yet there was something in him, a fire that sparked and possessed him; all the fire and spine and strength that David lacked. Dear Timothy Larson, her most secret lover.

It might be Parker, of course. Parker wasn't quite as exciting as Jack or Easton or even David - who had the most wonderfully wicked imagination if not the spine to match - but he had a cruel streak and hidden depths underneath the frosty surface. She enjoyed their verbal jousting, the sexual tension, and most of all his air of cold amusement, as if there was something he knew that she didn't, a secret all his own beyond the ones they shared. Also, she had to admit - and the thought made her instinctively flex her bottom - it had been rather an awfully long time since she had been properly spanked.

New York had the most interesting men of any city in the world, and she was building up rather a varied set.

And of course, there was the other one.

The most interesting of them all.

As if in answer to her thoughts, the phone rang. She smiled as she picked up the earpiece, a thrilling premonition dancing its way down her spine.

She was not disappointed.

"
Ms. Lang... you're needed."
A click, and the line went dead. To-night, it seemed, the Blood-Spider was in no mood to mince words.

Enjoying the secret shiver of anticipation building inside her, Marlene stood, unhooked the nightgown and let it puddle around her feet, and then went to the wardrobe where the sleek black uniform waited for her.

Less than forty minutes later, her body caressed and hugged by the tight leather of her chauffeur's costume, her long legs flexing as she pressed her foot down on the accelerator, she guided the Silver Ghost through the twisting traffic of New York City.

The Blood-Spider was quiet in the passenger seat - more so than usual. His expressionless lenses stared straight ahead, and aside from a curt mention of their destination there had not even been the slightest word to her as she powered through the streets in the purring machine, startling horses and rickshaw drivers and astonishing passers-by.

"What's the matter?" she heard herself say.

A pause. So long that she assumed he was simply ignoring her. Finally, he spoke.

"
We have... urgent business. Business that cannot be ignored.
"

"What kind of business?" she asked, before she could stop herself. She was on dangerous ground here, she knew. He was obviously in no mood to talk. And yet, something in her could not help but poke and pick at his looming, oppressive silence.

Again, a long pause. Then he turned his head, staring at her with those unreadable, blank lenses.

"
Perhaps... the end of the Blood-Spider."

The roof of the hospital was flat and barren, in large part taken up by a large metallic structure, a lattice of steel and copper that looked like an Eiffel Tower in miniature. It was designed to absorb lightning strikes and bring them harmlessly to earth, so neighbouring structures were not damaged. Occasionally, the staff of the hospital would come up here to smoke. The hospital was a good ten stories high, and the view, while not spectacular, was certainly worth the trip from the lower floors. On a night like tonight, however - with the setting sun shrouded in dark cloud and a fierce rain already descending - there was nobody who would bother making the long trek up the maintenance stairs.

Almost nobody.

The maintenance exit leading onto the roof opened with a creak, and the man who for the past two-and-a-bit years had answered to the name Doctor Miles Hamilton shuffled out. He leant on his cane, turning his head and checking the roof was quite empty. Then he stood straight, taking the weight fully on his legs, the years seeming to fall from him in an instant. The rain was falling heavily now, but he didn't seem to notice.