"We don't wear veils here. We don't wear masks. Let me show the truth underneath. Let me show you the color of the joker below," He clenched harder, ripping and tearing. Ribbons of flesh peeled away as he clawed at her, and she felt hot blood pouring down her ruined features. She moaned, sobbing, her hands trying to beat him away as he raked again and again, shearing flesh from muscle and muscle from bone.
"Your face will be naked," Hartmann said. "And they will run in horror from you. Look, look at the colors inside your head-you're just a joker, a sinner like the rest. I car, see your mind, I can taste it. You're the same as the rest. You're the same."
Through the streaming blood she looked up. Though the apparition was still Hartmann, he now had the face of a young man, and the whine of a thousand angry wasps seemed to surround him. Yet in the midst of her torment, Misha felt a comforting hand on her shoulder and turned to see Sara Morgenstern beside her. "I'm sorry," Sara told her. "It's my fault. Let me send him away."
And then Allah's vision withdrew, leaving her gasping on the floor. Trembling, sweating, she raised her hands to her face. Marveling, she touched the unbroken flesh there.
Stigmata stared at the woman sobbing on the splintery pine boards.
"You ain't no damn nat," he said, and his voice was touched with a gruding sympathy. "You're just one of us." He sighed. Slow droplets of blood welled, fell. "It's still my room and I want it," he added, but the bitter edge was gone from his voice. "I'll wait. I'll wait."
He walked softly to the door. "One of us," he said again, shaking his gory, swaddled head, and went out.
Friday 6:10 P.M.
"So all the rumors are true. You are back again."
The voice came from behind him, in the shadow of an overflowing trash container. Gimli whirled, scowling. His feet kicked up oil-filmed water pooled in the alleyway, the remnants of the afternoon's showers. "Who the fuck are you?" The dwarfs left hand was fisted at his side; his right stayed very close to the open flap of the windbreaker he wore despite the warm night, where the weight of a silenced. 38 hung. "You've got about two seconds before you become gossip yourself."
"Well, and as temperamental as ever, aren't we?" It was a young man's voice, Gimli decided. Streetlight flowed over a figure beside the trash. "It's me, Gimli," the man said. "Croyd. Move that damn hand from the gun. I ain't no cop."
"Croyd?" Gimli squinted. He relaxed slightly, though his squat, muscular body stayed low. "Your ace sure screwed up this time. I've never seen you look like that."
The man chuckled without mirth. His face and arms were a shocking porcelain white, his pupils dull pink; the tousled dark brown hair only accentuated the pallor of the skin. "Shit, yeah. Gotta stay out of the sun, but then I've always been a night person. Dyed the hair and started wearing sunglasses, but I lost the shades. Still got the strength this time, though. It's a damn good thing too," he added reflectively.
Gimli waited. If this guy was Croyd, fine; if he wasn't, Gimli didn't intend to give him a chance to do anything. Being in New York again made him edgy. Polyakov wouldn't meet with them until Monday, when Hartmann was rumored to be making his bid; the fucking Arab woman was a jokerhater who spouted religious nonsense half the time and had 'visions' the other; his old JJS people had lost their fire while he'd been in Europe and Russia; and with the Shadow Fist/Mafia wars and Barnett's rabble-rousing, no one felt safe.
Yet staying cooped up in the warehouse made him edgy.
He had told himself that taking a brief night walk would take some of the edge off.
Another fucking bad idea.
"Gimli was seeing enemies in every shadow-that was the only way to stay alive and free. It was bad enough that Hartmann had the federal and state authorities digging up the old JJS network and hassling everyone. With the jokernat underground skirmishes, it seemed like every fucking cop in New York was in Jokertown and Gimli was too recognizable to feel comfortable on the streets, no matter what precautions he took. He wasn't going to pretend that Hartmann wouldn't prefer Gimli was shot "resisting arrest, than jailed-he wasn't that damned stupid.
Better to be cautious. Better to be furtive. Better to make a mistake and leave someone else dead than to be noticed. "Look, Croyd, I'm just a little paranoid at the moment. I'm real uneasy about people I don't know seeing me…"
Croyd took a step closer. Crooked teeth snagged his lower lip-the albino's gums were a startling bright red. Gimli was reminded of a B-movie zombie. "You got any speed, Gimli? Your connections were always good."
"I've been away. Things change."
"No speed? Shit."
Gimli shook his head. That, at least, sounded like Croyd. The man frowned, shuffling from foot to foot.
"So it goes," he said. "I've got other sources, though they're drying up or dying on me. Listen, the talk on the streets is that the JJS is reforming. Let me give you some free advice. After Berlin, you should give up on Hartmann; he's a good guy, anyway, no matter what you think. Take out that s.o.b. Barnett instead. I might have considered it myself, if I'd woken up with the right power. Everyone in Jokertown'd thank you for it."
"I'll think about it."
The albino laughed again, the same dry cackle. "You don't believe it's me, do you?"
Gimli shrugged. His hand moved significantly back toward the windbreaker; he saw the man watching the movement carefully. "You're still alive, aren't you? That's something."
The albino who might or might not be Croyd sidled closer until Gimli could smell his breath. "Yeah," he said. "And maybe next time around I'll just pound you a lot closer to the pavement than you already are. Croyd remembers things, Miller."
Croyd coughed, sniffed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. With a bloodshot, overdone leer, he moved off. Gimli watched him, wondering if he was making a mistake. If he wasn't Croyd…
He let him go. Gimli waited in the alley until he'd turned the corner back onto the street and then headed off again, taking a few extra turns just to see if he was being followed.
In time he came to the back door of a dilapidated warehouse near the East River.
Gimli could see Video on the roof. He waved to her and nodded to Shroud, who materialized from the shadows of the entrance. Gimli grimaced. He could hear the argument inside the frame building-twined voices snarling like a rumbling thunderstorm heard just over the horizon. "Fuck, not again," he muttered.
Shroud adjusted the strap of his machine pistol and shrugged. "We need some entertainment," he said. "It's almost as good as Berlin."
Gimli shoved open the door. Muffled words coalesced into intelligibility.
File was shouting at Misha, who stood with arms folded and a righteous expression on her face as Peanut tried to hold back the rasp-skinned joker. File waved a fist at Misha, shoving at Peanut. ". .. your self-centered, blind fanaticism! You and the Nur are just Barnetts in Arabian drag. You have the identical hatred in your pompous souls. Let me show you hatred, bitch! Let me show you what it feels like."
As the rusty hinges of the door screeched, Peanut glanced over, his arms still wrapped around File. Peanut was scraped from the effort of holding the joker, his forearms scored with long, bloody scratches. A nat's skin would have been scoured entirely off, but Peanut's chitinous flesh was more durable. "Gimli," he said pleadingly.
File spun in Peanut's grip, tearing a pained screech from Peanut. He pointed at Misha as he glanced at the dwarf. "Get rid of her!" he shouted. " I won't put up with this crap much longer." Twisting, he tore himself away from Peanut, who let him go this time.
"Just what the fuck's going on?" Gimli slammed the door shut behind him and glared. "I could hear you people halfway down the alley."