"A thousand apologies for the way you have been treated."
Elvis felt sorry for the humble creature. "That's okay, sir. I understand. You can't be too careful, what with some of the things wandering the swamps these days."
"Indeed, indeed…"
Shiba's intercom buzzed.
"Mr Assistant Director," a voice crackled, "the East perimeter fence has been breached."
Elvis heard gunfire outside.
"This is what I had feared."
Shiba nodded to Raimundo, who charged out of the room, his massive thighs pounding the shaking floor. Elvis had to hang onto a filing cabinet to stay upright. Reuben unlocked a cabinet, and started pulling out automatic weapons.
A klaxon sounded like a hellhound's whine.
"I apologize for this inconvenience," Shiba said to Elvis. Then, to the intercom, "Marielle, scramble the defence squads."
The gunfire was louder, and there were shouts. Through the office window, Elvis could see Suitcase People running towards the break in the fence. Some of them had guns, but others were just armed with the knives in their mouths and on their fingers. A human-eyed pterodactyl flapped past, flying low on leathery wings.
The window shattered, and Elvis ducked to avoid flying glass.
Outside, in the compound, an armoured transport was rolling across the field. Suitcase People were trying to resist a force of well-drilled soldiers in combat fatigues and black hats. Elvis recognized the adherents of the Church of Joseph. The pterodactyl dipped a beak in a Josephite's chest, but was cut to pieces by a chaingun.
The Moulinex was at the bottom of the swamp, but Elvis had had his side-arms when Raimundo brought him in. He picked up the fully-loaded Python from the desk, and cocked it. Shiba was slithering on all fours.
A grapefruit-sized object came through the window, bounced off the desk and skittered on the floor. Unconsciously counting the seconds, Elvis reached for it, but Shiba was there first. The exec took the grenade in his jaws and tossed it back.
It exploded in the air outside, blowing in the wall of the prefab hut, and filling the room with fragments of plasterboard and wallpaper.
Gunfire poured into the office, scarring the opposite wall.
Papers flew. Reuben was shoved back against the bulletmarks, bloody holes stitched across his chest.
"Reuben," shouted Shiba, scuttling towards the indentee.
The old man's lungs weren't working. Bloody froth leaked from his mouth. Shiba tried to press his paws to the indentee's wounds, but wasn't coordinated enough to do it properly. It would have been no use anyway. The man-thing was dead.
A figure came through the smoke, gun cradled in his hands, and checked the place out for resistance.
The Josephite saw Shiba and Reuben before Elvis, and took aim on the 'gator man's head.
Elvis got off a shot that tore through the Josephite's shoulder, spinning him around. He fired a burst into the ceiling. His hat came off as he steadied himself and brought the machine gun up again.
Elvis went for the head shot, but knew it wouldn't do any good.
The Josephite was Donny Walton. Another one. Blonde and smiling, he had a hole in the middle of his face where his nose had been. He shook his head as if to get the ringing out of his ears and aimed the gun. He pulled back the catch, setting his weapon on single-fire. He was going to take out Elvis and Shiba like a surgeon performing an operation.
Donny Walton pointed the gun at Elvis, and pulled the trigger…
III
She swam through the thick mud, reverting to her animal self. The Ancient Adversary was stirring inside, ascending within her mind. She was near the Cape, and would have to go on, with or without Colonel Presley. She was sure he would make his own way. Their twinned destiny had yet to be fulfilled. They would come together again.
As the Adversary grew, so did her awareness of Nguyen Seth. The Elder was trying to shield himself from her, to shut her out. But he was thinking of a ring around the Earth. That had something to do with the Cape. He was in Salt Lake City, but his catspaws were out there at the launchpad.
He had to be stopped.
Krokodil surfaced, and wiped the mud from her face.
She was in a quiet lagoon, alone with an old friend.
The fates were drawing her close again. The pink Cadillac was half-grounded on an island, its bodywork streaked with dried mud.
She waded ashore, and looked through the windscreen. An old man, his face wrinkled and scaled, was asleep in the driver's seat, a half-full bottle open against his belly, sloshing moonshine into his lap. It must be the porch-sitter from Donny and Marie's Deathtrap Diner.
Elvis had given her the emergency override entry code for the car door. She opened the keyboard hatch under the doorhandle, and tapped in the number sequence.
The door opened outwards, and a waft of alcoholic reptile body-odour hit her. The drunk grumbled, and made a grab for the jug. It tumbled out of the car and rolled into the swamp.
"Out," she said sharply. "No arguments, Pops."
She took him by the arm, and pulled. He came free and staggered into the sunlight, blinking sideways. As the light hit him, he started screeching. Obviously, the mutation was rendering him abnormally photo-sensitive.
He plunged into the water and immersed himself, leaving only his eyes above the surface. The jug bobbed against his head, and he pulled it down, presumably making a suck for the last of the liquor.
The joyrider hadn't done any harm to the Cadillac when he ran it aground. Krokodil initiated a complete systems check, just to be on the safe side. The car cleared itself.
She braced herself and got a grip on the front bumper. She lifted the three-ton car and eased it off the island and into the water. Dr Threadneedle's augmented muscles did their job.
The joyrider was gone now. Krokodil wondered who he was, and what he was turning into, but she had no time to go into that.
She stripped off her Filthy pyjamas, and washed with non-potable water from the Cadillac's tanks. She found a leech attached under her ribs, and pulled it off. Its teeth hadn't quite penetrated her skin, but it did leave a red suckermark. She hadn't even felt the thing.
She only had one outfit left, a black, green and brown camouflage danskin catsuit. She pulled on jungle boots and a padded vest over it, and then strapped herself into the holster harness. The guns and knives balanced her perfectly.
Ready for everything, she towelled the stinking booze off the driver's seat—it left greyish stains etched into the tough pink leather, so God alone knew what it did to your stomach—and slipped into the car.
She was reaching for the ignition keyboard when the brainstorm hit her…
She was sucked back through her life. In the Denver NoGo, Bruno Bonney, her Dad, thrashed wildly with his willow switch, spittle falling from his mouth. Somewhere on the road, Andrew Jean embraced her, long tongue poking into her month, pressing the zooper-blast ampoule against the roof of her mouth as it exploded. Andrew Jean dissolved into Dr Threadneedle, his face burned off his metallic skull, then into Hawk-That-Settles, singing his song of death, and then into Colonel Presley, singing "One Night With You." Through her one eye, she saw the world Nguyen Seth perceived, thick with hidden wonders and horrors. In Spanish Fork, she saw demons dance bloodily in the air as the preacher's spectacles fell from her face. She felt her face pounded against the hard tarmac, blood spattering around her. In the Katz Motel, she faced the risen corpse of a murderer's mother, and felt her mind fleeing. In the desert, she chased lizards for food and took on a Miss America contestant in a swimwear single combat. Miss America's face was superimposed over Mrs Katz's rotten skull, and was displaced by others. A preening prettyboy Op hiding in his machine while she killed her way towards him. Dr Ottokar Proctor, the erudite monster, smiling as the cartoon Tasmanian Devil displaced his features. Then, in its terrible grandeur, the Jibbenainosay blossomed, blotting out the sky, calling a challenge to the being cocooned inside her. She did not know which frightened her more, the monster on the outside, or the thing that expanded to fill her mind and body…