He would have to call Tachyon; better, go down to the Village and wake him up.
Eileen.
Fortunato clenched his eyes shut until the thought of her had passed. He should have let Tachyon give him something for that, some kind of forgetfulness drug so he wouldn't keep stumbling over her in his mind, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to do it. Because then she really would be gone. He splashed water on his face and paused in the act of blotting it with a towel, staring at himself in the mirror. For half a second, he had seen another face covered with water; young, female, wide green eyes, dark reddish hair, very pretty, a stranger to him, calling for help. Not calling to him, specifically, but calling without a hope in hell of answer. Praying. Then the face was gone and he was alone with his reflection.
He pressed his face into the towel. One of a soft, luxurious set that Michelle had bought. When she'd brought them home, they had rubbed them all over each other and made love.
Kundalini. Feel the power.
(Lenore. Erika. Eileen. All lost to him.) He went out to Michelle.
Jane accepted the steaming cup of green tea from Kim Toy and sipped at it delicately. "Here's to the second night in a row of no nightmares," she said with a weak smile. "I hope."
Kim Toy's answering smile was less than hearty. The girl should have been a quivering mound of jelly after the dreams the Astronomer had sent her, and that was barely a taste of TIAMAT Real contact would have driven her permanently mad. But here she was, the fragile little innocent, drinking tea and getting her color back. She was made of sterner stuff than any of them had given her credit for. It was always the innocent ones you had to watch, Kim Toy thought wryly. Their strength was as the strength of ten because their hearts were pure and their sincerity made them lethal. She wondered if twisted-up old pervos like the Astronomer had any inkling or whether he was so far removed from anything even remotely resembling innocence that he couldn't even conceive of such a thing. When she thought about the way the Astronomer recharged his power, yeah, she could allow that was entirely possible. What would a sick old fuck like that know about innocence?
And he was going to own the world. Sure.
But she did believe that. She was unshakable on that. Had been unshakable on that. No, still was. Wasn't she? And who was she calling a sick old fuck, anyway? What was it when you scrambled a man's brains to make him fall in love with you, and then, when he'd served his purpose, you turned it up from scramble to liquify, and the same people who dumped the bodies for the Astronomer dumped that one, too. She looked at Jane. It was no wonder she preferred the company of women if she couldn't be with Red.
Jane reached over and pressed the On button of the remote control. The TV screen flickered to life. "I watched Peregrine's Perch last night and I didn't have the dreams," she said, a bit sheepishly. "Now it's made me superstitious. I feel like I have to watch it to keep the nightmares away. Even if its a re-run."
Kim Toy nodded. "You and about a billion other people."
"Sal adored talk shows. Especially Peregrine's Perch. He said he watched because he was dying to see how they'd work around those wings each night." She paused as a commercial gave way to the stunning features of Peregrine herself. "Sal said they never disappointed him." ,
"Who?"
"Her wardrobe department."
"Oh." Kim Toy fell silent and dutifully watched the program with the girl. Half an hour into the show, a picture of a handsome red-haired man with russet eyes and a lean, sculpted face appeared on the screen, causing Jane to leap out of her chair.
"There he is!" She knelt down close to the TV "Jumpin' Jack Flash. I followed all the news stories about him. He's one of my heroes."
Kim Toy turned up the sound. The man's face vanished and was replaced by the talk-show set where Peregrine was interviewing an expensively dressed woman holding an even more-expensive-looking camera.
"I think you've captured the spirit of Jumpin' Jack Flash exactly," Peregrine was saying. "That couldn't have been easy."
"Well, it was all the more difficult because it was a candid shot," the other woman said. "Believe it or not, I was just lucky, being in the right place at the right time. J. J. didn't know I was taking that picture, although he later gave permission for its use."
"J. J.?" said Peregrine.
The photographer looked down demurely. "That's what his intimates call him."
"I'll bet," Kim Toy muttered. "What?" said Jane.
"His `intimates.' Gimme a break. He probably tells all the women he sleeps with to call him J.J., just so he can keep track. It's easier than remembering their names, and far less trouble than notching their ears, or having them all rounded up and branded."
Jane looked a little hurt. One of her heroes, right. Kim Toy shook her head. At her age, the girl was overdue to learn that certain heroes had-well, not dicks of clay, but certainly hyperactive ones.
Like your heroes, madam? Like the Astronomer, maybe? Kim Toy shoved the thought away and forced herself to concentrate on the interview. The photographer apparently specialized in photographing aces. More pictures flashed on the screen; to Jane's delight, Jumpin' Jack Flash reappeared several times in between shots of Modular Man, Dr. Tachyon, the shell of the Great and Powerful Turtle, Starshine, and Peregrine herself.
"Too bad she can't take your picture," Kim Toy said as the segment ended and the show went to another commercial. Jane shrugged. "I'm a joker."
"You're starting to get on my nerves."
"But the joke's on me. One of the two people who meant the most to me drowned; the other bled to death." She turned away from the TV "Yeah, the joke's definitely on me and it isn't a bit funny."
Kim Toy was about to answer when something shimmered in the air to the right of the TV set. Both women were very still as the image of the Astronomer congealed out of the shadows. "Kim Toy. Jane. I wish to see you."
There was no need to answer. Kim Toy remained at a sort of attention, hoping her annoyance didn't show. Cheap theatrics for Jane's benefit. The Astronomer must have thought she was one hell of a hot ticket to go this far to impress her. He could have conserved his energy and sent Red to fetch them.
Dr. Tachyon still looked his stylish best, even on the downside of midnight. "I knew he had some aces up there. But the machine you describe from the dreams-well, it does exist and it's very old by your standards." His eyes narrowed as he studied Fortunato's swollen forehead. "Rather unusual for you to have an out-of-body experience spontaneously, isn't it?"
Fortunato turned away from Tachyon (goddamn faggot, just what we need, faggots from space) and stared out the window in the direction of the Cloisters. "I just came here to tell you. There's a hell of a lot of power massing up there. It called me. Power calls to power."
"Indeed," murmured Tachyon. Faggots from space. Fortunato would never love him, but he had never seen the tall, exotic Earthman in such an openly emotional state before.
"They're calling to that thing out there. TIAMAT The whole organization has existed for centuries just for the purpose of bringing that horror down on us."
Tachyon's sigh was heavy. Suddenly he felt very tired. Forty years of one horror and another, he was entitled to feel fatigued. He knew Fortunato, standing in his elegant living room with his bulging forehead and the power practically crackling in the air, wouldn't have agreed with him. Power calls to power? Oh, what he could have told them about that, Tachyon thought. And if he could have stepped back far enough to see the grand design of the universe, what he might have learned himself about his own people and the Wild Card Day and the approach of TIAMAT or the Swarm or whatever it was. Maybe there was a true grand design to the universe; or maybe it was just the wild card powers calling the Swarm. Of course, that would mean the virus had called the Swarm before the virus had even existed, but Tachyon was accustomed to dealing with the absurdities of space and time. Not that any of it mattered anyway. He looked at Fortunato, who was energized with kundalini and impatience. The time for agonizing was long, long past; now was the time for doing, for doing as much as he could and not a bit less. To atone, perhaps, for a time when he might have done more, but had failed.