Jokers Wild Page 0,147

lost count long before, forgotten the minutes ticking away, even forgotten where he was.

"What in Cod's name did you do to me?" she moaned. "I feel like I just ran a marathon."

"Sorry," Fortunato said. "It kind of goes with the territory." He'd never had sex with another ace before. The fusion of their powers was beyond anything he'd ever experienced.

His energy body was too large to be contained in his flesh; it overflowed all around him in a bright white aura.

He'd come three times himself, each time blocking the flow and turning it back inside him. He'd lost a couple of drops in the process, enough to give Peregrine her own faint luminescence, though it didn't do much for her energy level.

She stroked his chest. "I've heard of afterglow, but this is ridiculous."

He rolled over and kissed her on the thigh. "I have to go, you know."

"The Astronomer."

"Something's supposed to happen in an hour. He's got some kind of escape set up, something that'll get him away from me for good and all. I can't let that happen."

"Why not? Just let him go. What good is killing him going to do?"

"I'm not out for justice, if that's what you're thinking. Making him pay for his crimes, or any of that shit. It's just that I'm not going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, worrying about him showing up again."

"Bullshit. You want him dead, and you want to be the one to kill him."

"Yeah. Okay. I want the little ratfuck dead. I admit it. I want it enough I can taste it." He got up and into his pants. He rolled up the sleeves on his tux shirt and let it hang open rather than search the apartment for the missing studs.

She came to him and put her arms around his neck. "I'd offer to help, but I'm getting dizzy just standing."

"All I want you to do is come back to Aces High with me, and stay there till this is over. One way or another."

"Wait..."

"I can't wait. Time is running out."

"No, I mean, listen. Do you hear something?"

His senses were overloaded from the glut of power. There seemed to be a low, electrical hum coming from all over his body. But beyond that he could hear something else, a sound like wet plates squeaking in dishwater. He glanced at the digital clock next to the bed. It was vibrating on its pedestal. "Oh shit," Fortunate said, just as the water bed exploded. The force of it knocked them across the room. The water was boiling at first, but cooled as it expanded. Fortunato landed against a gray earthenware pot full of bamboo. It shattered under him. Before, the air even came back into his lungs a dead, broken body hurtled through the wall of windows and he was surrounded by flying glass.

Fortunato reached out to slow time, but time itself resisted him. He strained against it and saw the lines of power in the room in topographic relief. He saw that the body was a woman's, but he didn't let himself see any more, not yet.

He pushed at the lines of power with his mind. Tight cones of force rose up where he and Peregrine lay. The broken glass followed the new contours of the room's spacetime and curved away around them, smashing itself to dust against the walls.

Peregrine crawled across the floor. Fortunato saw where she was heading and shaped his power around her to protect her. She got to where her gloved talons hung on the wall and put them on. There was a costume there too but she didn't bother with it.

The roof groaned and then split all down its length like a broken saltine. Chunks of concrete and rebar rained down on them, but the shields around them were solid. It took hardly any of Fortunato's new power to hold them. Peregrine gave herself a running start and flew out into the darkness.

The floor buckled under Fortunato. Jets of water shot up from broken pipes and the air stank of natural gas. He crawled toward the dead woman and turned her over.

Caroline.

It was Caroline.

Her neck was broken. Her skin was clawed and bitten and torn.

She'd been his favorite for seven years. He could never predict her violent moods and sarcastic humor, could never get enough of the sheer physical intensity of her lovemaking. Between the new girls he'd always come back to her.

For a long time he couldn't feel anything. A