Ben stepped over a blood-red chunk of human flesh and felt a sudden gag in his throat. He stifled it, looking away. In the heat of the struggle, in dragon form, he had fought desperately, biting and slashing Demon Princes with abandon. He had felt different, somehow, at the time. The fight had been necessary, and as a dragon, he had fought the way a dragon must.
Now it was hard to believe he was the same person, inside, as the one who had slaughtered these people so quickly and easily.
It was you, all right, Vivian said with quiet anger. Ben had killed before in his animal forms and would do so again. In most cases he had never faced the remains in human form afterward. Now, however, the bloodshed sickened him. It just hadn't seemed the same a few moments ago.
He clenched his human jaws this time and forced himself to keep searching.
Ben couldn't be sure the package was here; one of the Demon Princes might have had it on him or they might have stashed it earlier this evening. It might have been carried by one who got away. As he looked around, gusts of cold wind blew through the restaurant, rattling dishes and debris and sending napkins flying. After a moment of picking pointlessly through the pieces of furniture and broken dishes, he turned to the torso of the grape-headed joker.
Ben winced and tried to look only at the shiny black leather jacket, adorned with fancy zippers and silver studs, not at the stumps of the joker's legs or the spray of blood all around him. Quickly he patted down the joker and felt a bulge in a large zippered pocket. Gagging from the smell of blood, he retched once.
You have no right to be sick at this, Vivian said accusingly. You caused it.
Ben called up enough saliva to spit and wiped his hand on his sleeve. Then he unzipped the pocket. Holding his breath against the bloody stench, he pulled out a small padded manila envelope.
A siren wailed in the distance, coming closer. That was fast for the Jokertown Precinct. Still, even Fort Freak had to respond when someone made a mess this loud and public.
Ben had to be sure. He pulled open the flap of the envelope and looked inside. The envelope was stretched to its limit by plastic bags jammed with blue powder, sealed by cellophane tape. It was rapture, a designer drug from the labs of Quinn the Eskimo-a Shadow Fist product that was sheer poison.
A drug runner, Vivian said, sneering with hatred and contempt.
He closed the flap, secured the envelope in one of the big patch pockets on his leather jacket, and walked briskly out of Hairy's Kitchen into the worsening storm.
Ben had forgotten about Sally Swenson until he was walking down the filthy hallway to his door. Hoping she had changed her mind and left, he unlocked the door and slipped inside the stifling heat of the room. By the slant of light from the door, he could see her blond hair still splayed out on the pillow much as it had been when he had left. In the heat, though, she had kicked off the sheet, which lay rumpled at the foot of the bed. She was breathing slowly and deeply.
"Sally." He reached down to wake her and then stopped. Overall, she had seemed harmless enough, and he expected to be back well before dawn. The last thing he needed now was a hassle with her.
He turned on the lamp and set the door carefully so that it was in the jamb but not latched. The door was warped and the irregular shape helped hold it in place.
Then he set the knob to lock. Tonight he would have to do without the dead bolt.
You can still get out of this, Vivian said quietly, hopelessly.
"Hope this works," he muttered to himself, ignoring her voice. He took the manila envelope out of his jacket and put it on the floor. Then he undressed, before he began to sweat in the warmth. When he was naked, he took out his Cub Scout knife and the bar of soap he had taken from the Twisted Dragon.
He paused. A cold-blooded creature like a dragon was too vulnerable on a winter night like this. He needed a creature that could tolerate the weather, cross the water to Ellis Island either by air or water, and still hang on to the package. It also had to be a creature that could intimidate the unknown persons he would meet; that was a given on a mission like this.
"Now, then," he whispered, mostly just to hear a friendly voice. He got to work. When he had finished, he set his soap carving in the middle of the floor and slipped into bed next to Sally. She did not stir. He pulled up the sheet, closed his eyes, and concentrated on his carving of a polar bear.
In a few seconds, Ben stood up on all fours, raising an ursine body of considerable bulk under a heavy layer of white fur. He took the doorknob gently in his teeth and walked backward, pulling the door all the way open. Wondering if he could actually get out of the room, he picked up the manila envelope gently in his mouth. Then he squeezed his furry weight through the doorway with effort. He heard the aged wood crack as he pushed free into the hallway.
The hall was almost too narrow for him to turn, but he managed. He dropped the drug packet for a moment and pulled the doorknob until he heard the latch snap into place. Satisfied that his human body was as safe as it could be, he picked up the package and padded downstairs. The streets were even colder and more blustery than before. Fine snowflakes fell fast, swept by the gusts of wind. The snowfall had become a blizzard that had nearly cleared the sidewalks of lower Manhattan. Even so, Ben was completely comfortable in this body.
A polar bear was not the strangest sight most people had ever seen in or near Jokertown. As Ben padded along Canal Street at a soft jog through the whipping snow, the few pedestrians still hurrying for shelter gave him a wide berth, but that was all the reaction he got. Right now, his biggest worry was some street punk with a powerful gun who would shoot him on impulse.
Finally, Ben thought to himself as he reached the Lexington Avenue subway. He hurried down the steps, out of the harrowing wind. At the bottom, he trotted past the token booth and hopped over the turnstile.
A cop standing to one side put a hand on his sidearm, but it was only a defensive move. Ben trotted to the platform, scattering a small crowd of people who gasped in surprise. He glanced them over, saw no one reaching for a gun, and relaxed.
"It's real," one lady whimpered. "Somebody call the cops. Damn, I hate these subways nowadays."
"Bet it's an ace," said an older man.
"Looks more like a joker," snickered a teenaged boy. "Quiet; he'll hear you," hissed the first lady.
" I knew it was cold out, but this is ridiculous," said another man. "Say, what's he got in his mouth?"
"You ask him," said the teenager.
Ben ignored them. When the train stopped and the doors opened, a small knot of people froze in place, staring at him. Then they hurried to exit from other doors and Ben boarded.
He had to sit down in the center of the aisle just inside the doors; even so, he blocked the way. No one else entered his car, and several of those already there suddenly got out at this stop after all, through other doors. The rest simply stared impassively at him.
Ben was relieved when the train began to move. At each stop on the way to the southern tip of Manhattan, he glared out as soon as the doors opened. The people on the platform all flinched and either found another car or decided not to ride the subway tonight at all. Not very many people were out at this hour, on a night like this.
Finally, at Battery Park, he stepped off the train and hurried away. He knew he was too long to fit through the exit turnstile, however, and had to leave by jumping the entryway again. Then he trotted up the steps and back out into the storm.
In the park itself, Ben leaned into the icy, gusting snowfall as he trotted toward the water. He figured this was as close to Ellis Island as he could get on land, since a passenger ferry stopped here during the day between trips to Liberty Island and Caven Point, New Jersey. The bitterly cold wind off the Hudson River where it opened into the Upper Bay blew into his face, and he knew he had chosen well. The heavy fur and layer of fat insulated him just fine.