That Nietzsche Thing (14 page)

“But no mention of what started this all?
Who’s fault it all is?”

“Why dredge up the past, Detective?”

I stepped up to the van and climbed in beside
Constantine, sitting down on the long, hard bench that ran the
length of one side.

“Because the past has a habit of coming back
to haunt us?” I suggested as the officer swung the side door
closed.

#

The van didn’t make it three blocks. Fourth
Avenue just north of Town Hall was still a running battle. We came
in behind the Fed’s battle line and were quickly hit by a hail of
bricks and stones thrown by protesters. The driver shunted forward,
but there was no pushing through the throng.

Teargas grenades exploded around us as riot
police, sporting batons, charged at the crowd. Everywhere, people
were yelling, screaming, coughing and running. Bats and sticks
smashed against the iron grates over the windows as protesters
violently rocked the van. They surrounded us. There was no moving
forward and no moving back.

We’d certainly make a wrong turn.

Constantine removed his centimeter gun from
his holster, wrapping both hands around its grip. It didn’t exactly
feel like a situation we could shoot our way out of, but I fished
around for my Rhino.

It was in my hand when the van shook with an
earsplitting thunderclap. It sounded something like an explosion,
but far deeper and shaking the very earth below us.

The echoing boom caused the riot beyond the
van to stumble, then finally grid to a halt. Protesters and police
alike stood dumbstruck in the street. They looked to the sky for
any sign of thunder and lighting. But it was a clear night. The
stars shimmered in the sky.

Slowly, the fading explosion was replaced by
the sound of screeching.

A swarm engulfed the crowd from all
directions at once. A fog of flapping, shrieking bats filled the
air. Rioters screamed and police swung their batons at the sky, but
the beating wings were everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Creatures impacted against the windows of the van as people fled
for their lives away from the intersection.

When the street was finally empty, the bats
began to slowly disperse. Like a fog lifting.

“What the hell was that?” Constantine asked,
straining to see out through the grates over the van’s windows.
“Drive.”

The driver put the van into gear and began to
pull north, up Fourth.

We hardly made it twenty yards before two
figures seemed to materialize before us. They stood among the
detritus of the riot, a man and a woman. I instantly recognized the
girl, but the man was unfamiliar to me. He was a giant, towering
over the small woman. Almost as wide as two men.

“Turn around!” I called out, climbing to my
feet for a better view.

The woman and the man were walking slowly
toward us. She still wore her evening dress and heels. The man wore
a long, black coat.

The van rolled forward.

“Stop! Turn around!” I screamed at the
driver. Belatedly, he hit the brakes. But the rubble in the street
made it impossible to turn about.

“Who the hell are—” Constantine managed,
before the male figure of the pair before us suddenly vanished. He
left the woman alone walking menacingly closer to the van.

How can walking be menacing? Trust me.

Something large landed on the roof of the
van. I didn’t need an invitation. I was already on my feet, and I
reached for the side door. I threw it open and leapt clear into the
rubble.

Sure enough, the large man was standing on
top of the van. If he’d jumped from where the woman in the evening
dress stood, he’d have easily flown two hundred yards.

I didn’t stop to contemplate what was going
on. I turned my back on the scene and sprinted up University
Street. But ten steps and something large landed before me. Hitting
it was like running into a brick wall.

From the ground, I sat up to see Constantine
stepping out of the van. The girl was coming around the hood as
Constantine leveled his centimeter gun.
Pop, pop, pop,
he
fired. But the girl didn’t flinch. With each round she seemed to
derez a little, like every particle of her body was shifting
out-of-the-way to let the bullets past.

When she was within reach of Constantine, she
hopped into the air and kung-fu kicked him with a black pump.

Constantine hit the concrete.

The girl turned toward me.

It was Vivian. Even with her black locks
falling over her face, I knew it was her. Same dress, same sultry
curves. She strode up to where I lay in the debris and looked down
at me.

My Rhino was still in my hand, but I didn’t
dare use it.

“We didn’t finish our conversation,” she said
down to me. I looked up at her in terror. “The book? The name?
Q?”

“I know where he is,” I blathered. “I can
take you there.”

“Good,” Vivian said. Then to the walking
brick wall, “Get him on his feet.”

A great mitt of a hand came down and lifted
me bodily up off the road.

“Watch out!” I screamed.

Vivian had her back turned, but I could see
the riot cop climbing out of the van with one of the FBI’s
centimeter assault rifles in his hand.

One second, Vivian was there, then next she’d
vanished. The brick wall seemed to envelop me. The machine gun
barked, and I could hear the bullets impacting into something
solid. But the gargantuan man had me wrapped in his arms.

When he let me go, I looked up to see the
riot cop laying crumpled on the ground. Vivian stood above him with
his severed right arm in her hand.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said,
tossing the arm aside.

Chapter 19

They didn’t take my gun, either. Vivian
introduced the colossus as Tebor. They threw me into the backseat
of a Cadillac they found parked a few blocks away from Fourth and
University.

Tebor smashed the glass with his bare fist to
open the doors. He tore the casing off the steering column once
he’d pulled his massive bulk in behind the wheel. A few seconds of
fooling with wires and the engine turned over.

The back of his large, black overcoat was a
punched out pattern of bullet holes. But there was no blood. Not a
drop.

Yeah, they let me keep my gun. There was no
reason to take it away. I put it away in its holster under my
bomber.

“Where are we going?” Vivian asked, sliding
into the front seat.

I was prostrate in the back. Terrified hardly
began to describe my condition. “The Hearthstone. On Green
Lake.”

“You know it?” she asked Tebor.

He nodded, put the Cadillac in gear, and
pulled away from the curb.

I remained silent as the car drove pass the
burned-out storefronts of downtown. I ventured to rise to a sitting
position, but doing so evoked a growl from the driver.

“He doesn’t like you,” Vivian said from the
front, tilting her head slightly to speak back at me. Even the side
of her face was breathtaking. Her lips ruby-red. Her eyelashes long
and fluttering.

“Does he speak?” I asked, defensively.

“Some. But he understands plenty.”

“Why doesn’t he like me?”

“You killed some of his friends,” Vivian
answered with a detached air. “Back at the flop. Those Genies were
Tebor’s followers.”

“I decoded Dark’s novel for him,” I said, as
watching the riot raging outside the windows of the Cadillac.
Somehow, the Caddy was gliding effortlessly through the chaos.
Until the police van. “Isn’t that worth something?”

Tebor growled.

“He still doesn’t like you.”

“I’m sorry.” I tried.

“He thinks we should just eat you and get it
over with.”

“Eat me?” I said with guarded concern. It
sounded like dark humor, but it also sounded terrifyingly
possible.

“Don’t worry,” Vivian laughed. “I told him he
can eat you later.”

“Later?”

“Once we’ve found Q.”

Very reassuring.

“The FBI know,” I volunteered. “About Michael
Elton.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Vivian dismissed.
“Tebor’s people can keep them bottled up downtown for a little
longer.”

“Tebor’s people? Then the riot?”

“You’d be shocked how many Gene Genies are
able to hold down day jobs,” she said. “With the government.”

“You’re Rosicrucians? In City Hall?”

“The Mayor,” Vivian turned to give me a sly
smile. “And three Council Members.”

“Fuck,” I couldn’t believe it. “Then all of
this...”

“Mmm,” Vivian agreed, predicting my
observation. “Welcome to beginning of a Rosicrucian Civil War.”

“The Progs?”

Vivian nodded.

“The orthodox?”

“At key, senior positions.”

“And the NeoCons?”

“Yes, the NeoCons...” Vivian spat.

“You used to be one of them.”

“My
father
is one of them,” she said,
angrily. “We never saw eye-to-eye.”

“But you were attempting to decode Dark’s
novel when you were killed. I thought the iconoclasts were trying
to do that.”

“Everyone has been trying to decode Dark’s
novel, Detective. For a hundred years, it’s been a race. What
separates the Rosicrucian factions is not decoding the novel, but
how to deal with Q once we find him.”

“Constantine says he’s looking for a cure.
For Geneing.”

Vivian laughed. “They’re looking for a cure,
alright. By destroying Cain. They believe that will cure the
Genies.”

“But you don’t want that,” I said. “You want
to be more like him. That’s why you gave that copy of Q to the
Rosicrucians. So they’d bring you to Tebor, here.” I could remember
Vivian’s injuries clearly. Her twisted, murdered body. At the time,
I’d said it would have taken a group of guys to do that to her. A
group of guys or one giant. “He’s the one who killed you, wasn’t
he? Smashed in your skull?”

“And gave me life again. Eternal life.”

“But why?”

“To find Q.”

“Cain?”

“He will bring about a new beginning. A new
world. Every Genie will welcome him; he is the salve to their
fevered nightmare. Only he can deliver their salvation. All those
who bear the Mark of Cain are his children, of him and because of
him. They will live and follow Q. Now and forever.”

All his children? Every Genie? That would
mean an army of millions.

“Once Cain is resurrected,” Vivian continued
with reverence. “This country will be resurrected, too.”

#

I didn’t like the sound of that. Vampires,
Genie armies, national resurrection...history didn’t have many good
things to say about people who made grand exclamations of
palingenetic fantasy. Such dreams never turned out well for people
like me. And Vivian and her Rosicrucians and their little cult of
undead Übermensch...I had no love for Constantine, President
Cassidy and their ilk, but at least they were
human
.

So, it’s finally come down to that: I was
choosing my friends on the stringent criteria of having a pulse.
I’d hit some sort of rock-bottom. If only I’d known how much worse
it could get.

Tebor parked the stolen Caddy in the circular
drive of the nursing home and the three of us strode through its
automatic glass doors. I could see the beginnings of dawn on the
horizon. If Vivian and the monster-man had the same sun allergy as
Dark described in his book, then they were quickly running out of
time.

Didn’t vampires have to be in their coffins
before dawn? The idea made me smirk. Then, a cold shock of the
realization hit me: Either I would be dead before sunrise or they
would be. If they went to ground with me still breathing...well, it
would only take one call to Constantine and a few hours of sunlight
to track them back to their warren...

No, if Q was here in the building, they were
done with me. I was as good as dead.

Tebor would finally get his wish to eat
me.

The night nurse at the front desk gave us a
sleepy glance up from her e-reader, then did a double-take at the
sight of three of us: Vivian, dressed for the opera, me all scruffy
and in desperate need of a shower, and Tebor, a walking mountain of
flesh and fur.

I got the feeling the nurse saw had seen a
lot of strange people in her job, but we really were something
special.

“Visiting hours start at 10 a.m.,” she said,
turned her attention back to her e-reader.

“We’re here to see a Michael Elton,” Vivian
said, putting an elbow on the front desk.

“As I said, visiting hours—” the nurse began
again.

“We’re here to see Mr. Elton,” Vivian
repeated, more forcefully. “Does he live here?”

The night nurse was just about to tell Vivian
where she could shove it, when I stepped forward and flashed my
badge.

“Detective Fonseca,” I said. “This is police
business. Do you have a resident by the name of Michael Elton?”

The night nurse looked between Vivan and
Tebor. If we were cops, she was Peter Rabbit. But she looked at the
badge again and decided the quickest way to get rid of us was by
playing along.

“Sure, I know Mr. Elton,” she said. “He’s one
of our oldest residents.”

Tebor made a low growl, literally baring his
fangs and looking over to Vivian. The nurse tried to smile but
couldn’t quite pull it off.

“How old?” I asked. I had to stay ahead of
the whole situation. Take command. If I lagged, it would mean I’d
be breakfast. And probably everyone else in the building who still
breathed in and out.

“Oh, I...” the nurse faltered. “Well, you
know, I’m not really sure,” she said, conversationally. “He’s a
somnolence case. Zero responsiveness. But he is a dear.”

“Do you know how long he’s lived here? When
was he admitted?”

The nurse shrugged. “He was here when I took
the job...” The night nurse made a face as she realized, perhaps
for the first time, how peculiar that fact was.