"That's her, Lieutenant!"
Black contemplated the woman and said nothing. He wondered how to approach her.
The flames gushed up higher, snapping, and suddenly strange bright flickering lights, like Saint Elmo's fire, played about the woman and her bags. Then something in one bag seemed to rise up, a dark shadow, and the fire bent like a candle flame in a strong wind and was sucked into the bag. In an instant fire and shadow were gone. The strange colored lights played gently about the woman's form. Greasy ashes drifted to the pavement.
"Holy shit," murmured Carroll. Black reached a decision. He dug into his pocket and got his billfold and the keys to his unmarked unit. He gave Carroll a ten.
"Take my unit. Go to the Burger King on West Broadway and get two double cheeseburgers, two big fries, and a jumbo cofee to go." Carroll stared at him.
"Regular or black, Lou?"
"Move!" Black snapped. Carroll took of.
It took both burgers, the coffee, and one set of fries to lure the bag lady into Black's unmarked car. Black thought she probably would never have gotten into a blue-and-white like Carroll's. He'd had Carroll lock his uniform coat and weapon in the trunk so as not to alarm the woman, and Carroll was shivering as he got in the passenger seat.
Behind, the bag lady was mumbling to herself and devouring fries. She smelled terrible.
"Where to now?" -Carroll asked. "One of the refugee centers? The clinic?"
Black put the car into gear. "Someplace special. Uptown. There are things about this woman you don't know." Carroll put most of his energy into shivering as Black sped out of Jokertown. The bag lady went to sleep in the back seat. Her snores whistled through missing teeth. Black pulled up in front of a brownstone on East 57th.
"Wait here," he said. He went down the stairs to a basement apartment entrance and pressed the buzzer. A plastic Christmas wreath was on the front door. Someone looked out through a spyhole in the door. The door opened. "I wasn't expecting you," said Coleman Hubbard.
"I've got someone with… powers… in the back seat. She's not in her right mind. I thought we could put her in the back bedroom. And there's an officer with me who can't know what's going on."
Hubbard's eyes flicked to the car. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him to stay in the car. He's a good boy, and that's what he'll do."
"Okay. Let me get my coat."
While Carroll watched curiously, Hubbard and Black coaxed the bag lady into Hubbard's apartment, using the food from Hubbard's refrigerator. Black wondered what Carroll would say if he could see the decor in the special locked apartment next door, the dark soundproofed room with its candles, its altar, the pentagram painted on the floor, the inlaid alloy gutters, the bright chains fixed to staples… It wasn't as elaborate as the temple the Order had downtown before it blew up, but then it was only a temporary headquarters anyway, until the new temple uptown could be finished.
In Hubbard's apartment there were two rooms ready for guests, and the bag lady was put into one of these.
_"Put a lock on the door," Black said. "And call the Astronomer."
"Lord Amun has already been called," Hubbard said, and tapped his head.
Black returned to his car and started driving back to Jokertown again. "We'll get your unit," Black said. "Then we'll get you to the cop shop for your report."
Carroll looked at him. "Who was that guy, Lieutenant?"
"A specialist in mental cases and jokers."
"That lady might do him some harm."
"He'll be safer than either of us."
Black pulled up behind Carroll's cruiser. He got out and opened the trunk, taking out Carroll's coat and hat. He gave them to the young officer. Then he took out a flute-NYPD for an innocent-looking soda bottle filled with liquor-which he'd been planning on using to keep himself warm during the plant tomorrow. He offered the flute to Carroll. The patrolman took the bottle gratefully. Black reached for Carroll's gunbelt.
"It was lucky you were around, Lou."
"Yeah. It sure was."
Black shot Carroll four times in the chest with his own gun, then, after the officer was on the ground, shot him twice more in the head. He wiped his prints off the gun and tossed it to the ground, then took the Coke bottle and got back in his car. Maybe, with the spilled rum, it would look as if Carroll had stopped to hassle a wino and the drunk had gotten the drop on him.
The car smelled like cheeseburgers. Black was reminded he hadn't had supper.
The bag lady had ignored the bed and gone to sleep in a corner of the room. Her bags were piled in front and atop her like a bulwark. Hubbard sat on a stool, watching her intently.
His crooked smile had frozen into an unpleasant parody of itself. Pain throbbed in his brain. The effort of reading her, mind was costing him.
No turning back, he thought. He had to see this through. His failure with Captain McPherson had cost him in the Order and in Amun's esteem; and when Black had shown up with the bag lady, Hubbard realized this was the chance to win back his place. Hubbard had lied to Black when he told the detective he had alerted Amun.
There was power here. Perhaps enough to power the Shakti device. And if the Shakti device were powered by the bag thing, then Amun was no longer necessary.
The bag thing could eat people, Hubbard knew. Perhaps it could eat even Amun. Hubbard thought of the fire at the old temple, Amun striding through the flames with his disciples at his back, ignoring Hubbard's screams.
Yes, Hubbard thought. This would be worth the risk. Detective Second Grade Harry Matthias, known in the Order as Judas, sat on the bed, his chin in his hands. He shrugged.
"She's not an ace. Neither is whatever she's got in the bag."
Hubbard spoke to him mentally. I sense two minds. One is hers-it is disordered. I can't touch it. The other is in the bag-it's in touch with her, somehow.. there's an empathic binding. The other mind also seems to be damaged. 16 as if it's adapted to her.
Judas stood. He was flushed with anger. "Why in God's name don't we just take the damn bag?" He went for the bag lady with his hands clawed.
Hubbard felt an electric snap of awareness in his mind. The bag lady was awake. Through his mental link with Judas he felt the man hesitate at the sudden malevolence in the old woman's eyes. Judas reached for the bag.
The bag reached for Judas.
A blackness faster than thought rose into the room. Judas vanished into it. Hubbard stared at the empty space. In his mind, the woman's honed madness danced.
Judas shivered and his lips were blue. Christmas tinsel hung in his hair. A piece of sticky cardboard was stuck to the bottom of one shoe. His gun had been twisted into a sine wave. He shivered and his lips were blue. He'd been transported to a dumpster on Christopher Street and had ceased to exist for about twenty minutes. He'd taken a cab back.
Power, Hubbard thought. Incredible power. The bag thing warps space-time somehow.
"Why garbage?" Judas said. "Why shitpiles? And look at my gun.. . " He became aware of the cardboard, and tried to pull it off his shoe. It came free with a sticky noise.
"She's fixated on garbage, I guess," Hubbard said. "And it seems to twist inanimated objects, sometimes. I could sense that it's broken-maybe that's a problem with it."
He had to figure out some way to subdue the bag lady. Waiting till she'd gone to sleep didn't work-she'd woken up at the first threatening move from Judas. He wondered vaguely about poison gas, and then an idea struck him.
"Do you have access to a tranquilizer gun at the precinct house?"
Judas shook his head. "No. I think maybe the fire department has some, in case they have to deal with escaped animals."
The idea crystallized in Hubbard's mind. "I want you and Black to steal me one."
He'd have Black actually do the shooting-if the bag thing retaliated, it would attack Black. And then with the bag lady put to sleep, Hubbard would take the device…