Hard Case Page 20

  "I'm thinking diplomacy might be better than your usual plan in this case.” She whispered, giving me her patented half smile.

  "Would you like me to teleport you back to talk?"

  "No, I'll use my legs, but you'd better tell me something I like before I get there or you may need to slam me into the wall again."

  I strode across the jazz club at no great speed.

  "I will tell you that you are wrong. Janovic tried for Saripha, but he didn’t get her. I intervened. The ravens were mine.”

  “You have Saripha? Where is she?”

  “Saripha can wait. Since you know deep down you can't fight me, you'll have to take my word for that. Right now, it is Janovic you must face."

  I stepped up to the booth and held his gaze. Nothing stirred in there. He was powerful in ways that I could barely fathom. He was right. There was nothing I could do about Saripha if he didn’t want me to. The only thing I could do for the moment was learn as much as I could. I was relieved that she wasn’t in Janovic’s hands, although I only had a hunch Guido was better.

  I eased into the booth opposite Guido. Rox stood behind me.

  "Are you saying that our getting Saripha back depends on my taking care of Janovic for you?"

  Guido remained still, thinking. "If you want to think about it that way, you could say that."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why don't you take care of Janovic."

  "I can't."

  "You can't? And I can?"

  "Maybe. We'll have to see."

  "Damn it!” I slammed the seat next to me since I knew it would do no good to try to punch Guido, but I was really getting angry with this oblique mysterious devil crap. "That makes no sense. You are far more powerful than me. How can I stop him if you can’t?"

  "You misunderstand. It is not that I could not stop him. It is that I am not allowed to."

  I thought about that for a moment. "You’re not going to explain that further, are you."

  Guido smiled. It was subtle, but I caught it. "You don't need to know."

  "According to you."

  He didn't say anything. It was strange. I was angry and frustrated, and I was very concerned about Saripha, but something in me wanted to like Guido. He was powerful, quite alien when you came right down to it, but there was also something charming about him. Not that he wasn't a threat. There was dark power lurking under the surface and it was almost always coiled, ready to strike.

  “Why did you take Saripha… to stop Janovic?”

  I was trying to give him the opportunity to indicate he was on our side. It was useless, he wasn’t giving anything away.

  “You don’t need to know that just now either. We’ll focus on what you need to do next. Communicating this way is difficult for me.”

  I was not going to get anywhere bantering with Guido. I wasn't even going to find out that much. I had no way to either hurt him or persuade him. I had no choice for now but to do things his way.

  "Where is Janovic?"

  Guido nodded towards the door.

  "Out there?"

  "Yes."

  "What's out there?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "How can you not be sure what's outside your door?"

  "Not my door. His."

  I couldn't help it. I swung at him. All that happened was that I ended up in his empty seat again and he ended up in mine. He sat patiently as I pulled myself up. He kissed Rox's hand which just annoyed me even more.

  "You'd better hope I don't find a way to whack you."

  "You won't. But that's the spirit."

  “His door? Janovic's?"

  "Through that door is a world that doesn't belong to Hell. You will be entering Janovic's mind."

  "Entering his mind? Where is Janovic?”

  "He is no longer corporeal in any sense, even as a glamour. This allows him to use his full power. The only way to kill him is to enter the world of his own creation, discover its laws and use them to defeat him."

  "Oh, that's all. You have a plan? A magical weapon? "

  "Maybe. The platform is a secret. A talisman. You have to take it. And Rox. The platform will be different in his world. However, you mustn’t let him take it and use it."

  “I can’t let him take the platform?”

  “No. You can’t let him take what is locked away inside.”

  I kept feeling like the more information Guido gave me the less I knew.

  “If he is contained, why don’t we just leave him? Why is he a threat?”

  “All I can tell you is he will not be contained forever. He can already reach out. You saw that.”

  "I take it, in Janovic’s world, I can't just sneak up on him and kick his ass."

  "I don't know, maybe you can. I told you I don't know what's out there."

  "I'm betting you could make better guesses."

  Guido said nothing.

  I sighed.

  "So, I just hop on the platform and it takes me there."

  "You and Rox."

  I thought about the image Janovic had shown me of Rox ripped apart and the evil Rox emerging. I thought of that evil face emblazoned in my memory while I died. My chest tightened. Rox touched me. I jumped and then started to relax under her touch.

  She leaned close and whispered. "I understand you don't want me, but I am no more happy about having to face Janovic again."

  “I’m beginning to make peace with needing to work with you, but I don’t like Janovic being in a position to get his hands on you again. Bad for you and it may limit my options.”

  “Your concern is so heartwarming.”

  "Well, it looks like none of us have any choice. You and I, we'll have to sort out later. Right now, we’re tied together into the same fate."

  We stepped over on the platform. I looked over at Guido and held his gaze. "I'll be back. I'll be back for Saripha."

  Guido let a very subtle smile push just at the edges of his jowls, like a dog that knows it is about to be naughty. It was unsettling how dog-like he could seem given that he was otherwise so human-like. “I'm counting on that. Try not to disappoint me.”

  I held onto Rox and blue flames rose around us. We flew straight into the howling winds on the other side of that doorway.

  It was New York City. Or rather it was Janovic’s take on New York City. It was there in all its stone reality. Except the sky was dark, and a powerful wind was blowing swirling, blackened debris. The streets were deserted. Some buildings had been burned out, some collapsed, some miraculously were unscathed, but what was there, in whatever form, was what I remembered. Admittedly, my memory of my old life was getting fuzzy. Going to Hell and dying twice will do that for you.

  I was on 6th Avenue and 37th Street. Along the avenue were deserted shops. Winds howled deafeningly between the buildings. Barbed wire bounced down the asphalt like tumbleweed. Rox and I tried to keep going, but as a chunk of building facade flew at us, we lost our balance compensating and fell to the street. The glowing platform hit a wall and landed amongst the garbage on the street near Rox.

  "You okay?” I had to shout to be heard over the winds.

  "I'm fine.” She looked around. "It's a chamber."

  "What?"

  "I've heard of it but never witnessed it before. It’s a spell that isolates a psychic sphere as real space. The world inside can be anything you imagine and the architect draws power from it."

  "Janovic can do all this?"

  Rox looked around. "I wouldn't think so. This takes a lot of energy to maintain. He has to be drawing power from somewhere."

  "Guido claims it’s not him."

  Up 37th street had been a lot of loading and unloading of various import/export goods, if I remembered right. Clothes, carpets, fabrics, shoes, who knows what all. Old abandoned trucks were parked at odd angles all along the block, along with loading carts with side rails that were tossed around randomly on the debris-strewn sidewalks. The winds were coming hard from the East Side a
s we pushed our way towards 5th Avenue.

  There was a flash on the second floor of a building we were passing. The plate windows buckled and shattered as a white nova of flame pushed the glass out and the entire building was rocked by an explosion. By instinct, I grabbed Rox and started to fall to the ground. The platform, which was tucked under my arm, glowed when I grabbed her. We shot just under the breaking wave of white flame, careening around the corner onto 5th Avenue and then hit the ground hard, forcing me to let go. We bounced towards Herald Square. Rox was about ten yards away. The platform slid up inertly next to me.

  "Janovic!” I shouted to nowhere in particular. "Why don't you give up the life of being the world’s biggest asshole and start your own theme park? Really, this is pretty good."

  The fact was, I really didn't know what to do. We were in a physical reality that was shaped by Janovic's sick mind. He was somewhere here, but I didn't know how to find him. He controlled the environment and I had no idea what that control entailed. I had no plan and as far as I could tell I had no weapon. I had no idea what the limits of his powers were, but I was certain they were greater than before.

  “So, he creates all this with his mind? Why doesn’t he just kill us? Have all the buildings collapse on us? Set off propane tanks? Open up the ground and bury us?”

  “As far as I understand, it doesn’t work that way. The origin of everything is the mind, but things are just set in motion. He really doesn’t have direct control. He will stay someplace where he feels he can draw the greatest power and keep feeding it to the chamber.”

  “So he doesn’t create these events?” It was hard having a conversation while shouting over the chaos.

  “It isn’t direct control, but he influences what happens. There’s something else to consider. I don’t think he wants to destroy you yet.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “He’d be here if that was his only goal. He would want it up close and personal.”

  “He wants something.”

  Power lines tore themselves out from under the street and coiled together with strands of barbed wire that floated in from everywhere. In a way, everything was too weird to be terrifying and all I could do was wonder what was up with his idea that New York City had so much barbed wire. Then, too late, I realized he had woven the power lines and barbed wire into an electrified serpent. I fell back, but it didn't come after me. Instead, it swallowed Rox, trapping her in its electrified webbing and then disappeared.

  Oh, that's right, I had promised Rox that she wouldn't fall into Janovic’s hands. Now he had her, as I previously thought he had Saripha, all because of my little war. I threw a rock at a storefront window in frustration.

  "You'd better use your power, mister."

  I turned sharply around. A little dark-haired girl approached me. She couldn't have been more than ten, wearing what had been a pressed gray skirt, light blue blouse, knee socks and buckled shoes. Her clothes were now smudged and torn. There was a bruise on her face. She handed me the platform which she had picked up. I took it, not sure how to react.

  "Use my power?"

  "Your power. The platform is a talisman. Use it or we will all die."

  Suddenly there was a loud crashing down the street. Debris from buildings and street garbage combined and swirled and began forming a large figure maybe two stories high. It was vaguely humanoid, but hunched over with long arms knuckling on the ground. It opened a large maw that appeared to be its mouth with jagged rebar for teeth and roared over the wind. It was like a punk, urban King Kong.

  It swung its fists, balls of metallic junk binding cinderblocks really, and sent chunks of a second floor stone facing flying. I ducked around the debris and just stood there dumbfounded as the animated junkyard beat its chest and roared. The roar was like the howling wind itself. How the creature roared, I had no idea since the thing clearly had no vocal mechanisms, but this was in part being manifested by the psychopath whose world this really was.

  Suddenly a fiery pain shot up my leg. I turned to see the little girl standing with a large kitchen knife sunk into my calf.

  "Do something now! Use your talisman or we all die."

  Frustration flared from deep within me. In part it was because everything was so chaotic with the howling winds, flying debris and roaring of the junk ape. Partly it was because there was just a hint of the expression I had remembered from Rox's face when I died. The little girl had those eyes. Everything just burst out of me with no control. Without thinking, my face twisted and I punted the girl like a football.

  She flew like a rag doll and landed on the street nearly a block away and laughed as she rolled with the other junk.

  The debris creature lunged at me, but I twisted under it as it collapsed a storefront that had been just behind me. I jumped on the platform. Blue light, like flames rose around me. I arced up into the air until I was at the same level as the thing's head and I just angrily willed the blue energy to strike it. The energy leapt from my hands and the creature screamed and lashed out as the energy pushed him back. The creature collapsed into another set of storefronts, then lunged back to its feet. The strange thing was, although the energy pushed the creature back, I could feel it being pulled from me as well. Like something was trying to draw the energy out of me. It felt unnatural. It didn’t feel like it was flowing, or directed by my will, it felt like it was being torn out of me, like it was something harmful.

  The creature forced itself back up, roaring, smashing walls on either side as it pushed back against my energy, almost swimming towards me. The web-like patterns that were etched into the platform shimmered brightly and rose up around me. I knew I could use them, but I didn't know how.

  "Now!” the little girl shouted over the thundering din. "Use the pattern now!"

  I reached for the sigils cast in glowing webs. Then, as suddenly, I stopped. The glow retreated back into the platform. The sigils disappeared. I dropped to the street, a bit hard, tumbling. I jumped immediately to my feet.

  "What happened?” The girl sounded confused. Even the junk-as-giant-ape seemed to stagger back, puzzled.

  "This is crazy," I said, more to myself than to satisfy the girl's question. "This is way over the top, like a Vegas magician who wants you looking at the million-dollar stage setup rather than paying attention to what is really going on. This thing won't harm me. Someone just wants me convinced it will, so that I do... what?"

  I thought a moment. Then I answered my own question. "Use the power."

  Suddenly the wind stopped and once all the debris settled, it was as quiet as a library. I looked at the junk monster. It fell apart on the spot, crashing to the street loudly as a scatter of dissociated rubble, and then all was quiet again.

  "The beams-from-the-hands superhero stuff was fun, but it ain't my style. If Janovic wants something, he's going to have to take it from me himself."

  I looked at the little girl a moment. She was keeping her distance. "Do you want me to take you to Janovic?"

  I picked up the platform and tucked it under my arm. It was very light.

  "No. I know where he is.” I set off east on 34th street. Without looking back I said: "You can tell him I'm coming to kick his ass."

  23.

  I stood in the middle of the block on 14th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C. The facade of the apartment building I had lived and died in rose before me. It had been a bit of a hike from Herald Square to here, but one I had made many times. This time, there was no bustle on the streets, no fruit stands and news dealers, no honking cabs. There were only deserted streets, faded storefronts, burned-out buildings. All was quiet and gray. Litter was strewn everywhere. It wasn't scary; Janovic didn't have the imagination for that. Just depressing.

  The apartment building in the middle of the 600 East 14th Street block was different. No signs of life from the outside, but there rarely were. It looked very much as I remembered it, with great attention to detail. It was an old tenement building of railroad
flats. The stone facade had been whitewashed and given a dull, teal trim in anticipation of going co-op. However, now the windows were dark. There were no curtains or plants, or even the occasional cat.

  I had a good idea what was waiting for me. I didn’t know what to do when I went in. Why should this be any different? Really. I win or lose. I'm in Hell. How can it get worse?

  Of course, I knew it could.

  My hand grasped the cold metal rail that ran up the three steps to the door. I checked that I had the platform still securely under my arm. I thought of leaving it, but I knew that it was important. The key. I just didn't know where the door was.

  I stepped up the stairs and entered the two doors and stood in the first floor hallway as I had the day I had come down to get Janovic to fix the heat. As then, balalaika music wafted faintly from his locked apartment. As then, the doorway to the basement was ajar.

  I knew where he would be.

  I descended the stairs. It was a perfect reproduction of what it had been in excruciating detail. This must have been his world for so long. He and his demons. And his victims. How many? Where were they buried?

  There was a rusty metal rod leaning against the dingy, greasy shelves at the bottom of the stairs. I wasn't quite sure, but I suspected it was the steel bar from an old Fox Police Lock. I grabbed it, shifting the platform to under my left arm, and hefted the heavy rod. It had nice weight to it. I walked on.

  Slowly I passed down the dingy corridors, making my way to the boiler room. I stood in the doorway and froze. The funny thing is, I really don't know why it stopped me in my tracks. It was a logical piece in this recreation of our first meeting Janovic had put so much energy into. I should have seen it coming. Chained to the boiler, hanging, was Rox. No, not Rox. It was Katrina. There was no darkness in the eyes, no fire, just frightened moistness of a terrorized victim. Bruises, electric burns, and cuts peeked out from under torn clothes. She was conscious enough to look at me.

  You’d have thought I would have known what came next, but I was nevertheless caught off guard as I found myself crashing into the tin storage shelves next to the boiler. The platform scudded across the floor, ricocheting into a damp corner. The police bar I was carrying went flying somewhere, crashing loudly. I had trouble getting control over my spastic muscles, but I managed to twist myself around enough to see why. There was Janovic. He appeared just as he had when we first met: shirtless, wearing goggles and pants and rubber boots. However, his flesh was covered by eerie purple striping, like tattoos, looking almost tiger-like. Purple energy rippled over his skin, licking about his body and into the air. I sprang to my feet and charged him, white-hot emotion bursting from my gut. His mouth curled subtly up on one side. He grabbed me and held me up in the air. The glow around him increased and it was like someone had slammed me with a two-by-four. I went flying across the room crashing painfully into a workbench.