“Shit,” Jerry swore again.
The boy’s card had turned, and he was doomed.
The Wild Card virus, let loose on Earth almost sixty years previously by cold-hearted Takisian scientists to test its ability to turn ordinary people into super beings, worked after a fashion. It killed ninety percent of those it infected. Usually in horrific ways. In many cases, however, the dead were the lucky ones. Another nine percent of the virus’s living victims were twisted in body or mind, typically in terrible ways. A final one percent did receive some kind of ability, ranging from the ridiculously useless to the cosmically sublime. Jerry himself had turned over an ace. But he knew that the kid, who had inherited virus-tainted genes from his parents, was most likely a dead man. But only if he was lucky.
“W-w-what’s happening to me?” John Fortune stuttered through clenched teeth. He was sweating visibly now. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his shirt was already soaked as water ran out of his body in rivulets. “I feel so weak.”
Jerry couldn’t crouch over him anymore. His ankle was killing him and his thighs were beginning to ache. He kneeled on the floor, trying to ignore the tumult around them as the audience fled, Siegfried stood frozen in horror, and the company of performers stuttered around him in their bright costumes like a flock of frightened birds. Jerry put his arms around the kid, holding him close.
No one could help John Fortune now. It was all in the hands of God, or the cosmic crapshoot, whichever was in charge of human affairs. But whatever was happening to him, Jerry wouldn’t let him face it alone. He’d failed to protect the kid from this most awful danger, the danger that Peregrine had foreseen and tried so fruitlessly to prevent, but he’d stay with him and hold him and comfort him as best as he could. It was all he could do.
“Your card’s turned, John,” he said quietly. He felt the kid’s arms tighten around him, holding him hard. He heard him gasp. The kid knew the odds of living through this as well as Jerry did. The fact that he wasn’t sobbing aloud spoke volumes about his courage.
Moments passed. John Fortune’s fevered body pressed tightly against him; his breath was ragged in Jerry’s ear. After what seemed an eternity, John Fortune said, “You’ve hurt your ankle.”
“How do you know that?” Jerry asked, astounded.
“I’m not sure,” John Fortune said. “I can feel it. Somehow. I think... I think that I can fix it.”
“Hold on—” Jerry began, but, almost immediately, a wave of relief washed down Jerry’s throbbing leg. It settled around his ankle like a soothing puff of cool air and the pain began to fade. After a few moments Jerry sat back and then slowly stood. He put his foot down gingerly. There was no pain. No pain at all. He and John Fortune looked at each other.
“How do you feel?” he asked the boy.
John Fortune considered. “Warm. Still scared. But—” he looked at Jerry, a smile dawning on his face. “—I’m still alive. I made it.”
Jerry looked at him, even more astonished than Fortune himself.
“More than that,” he said. “It looks like you’re an ace.”
“An ace!” the boy said jubilantly. His smile was beatific. “Yeah, man, an ace!”
He and Jerry grinned like idiots.
“Take me backstage,” John Fortune said. “I think I can help Ralph.”
They looked up. The troupe of Living Gods hovered on the edge of the stage, watching them.
Thoth raised his arms to the Heavens.
“All praise to Ra,” he intoned, and the others took up his chant.
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
Turin, Italy: Cattedrale di San Giovanni
J ohn Nighthawk had always been fascinated by churches. He’d been inside hundreds during his long life, from humble whitewashed clapboards in the Deep South to magnificent cathedrals in both the United States and Europe. As far as he was concerned, the humble and the grand both had their pluses and minuses. It was hard to experience a personal, intimate relationship with God in a cathedral. They were also usually extremely drafty. On the other hand, a cheap wooden shack didn’t quite capture the glory of God on high and they were also prone to falling down after a very few years. Surprisingly, though, decades of experience had taught Nighthawk that both kinds of houses of worship were relatively easy to break into.
“Cattedrale di San Giovanni,” the big man standing at Nighthawk’s right read from the Turin guidebook he’d taken from his hip pocket. He gestured at the structure across the plaza and then looked innocently at Nighthawk. “Isn’t Giovanni Italian for John?”
“That’s right,” said the other big man, who was standing at Nighthawk’s left.
The big man on Nighthawk’s right smiled. “Is this cathedral named after you, John? You’re probably old enough.”
There was quiet laughter from the other big man. The woman standing between them remained stone-faced, as always.
“Don’t blaspheme,” she said.
Nighthawk smiled and shook his head. “This church was erected in 1491. You don’t think I’m that old, do you?”
Speculation about Nighthawk’s age was something of an on-going joke with his team. It was impossible to pin down precisely, although he was certainly older than Usher and the others. A small black man with very dark skin, Nighthawk was about five foot five and maybe a hundred and forty pounds. At first glance his face appeared unlined. Close observation in good light, however, revealed a fine network of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. The lines on his forehead also deepened to legibility when his face crinkled in laughter or a frown. He could have been a hard fifty or an easy-going sixty-five. His hair was still dark but his hands had the rough, gnarled look of someone who’d done physical labor for a good portion of their life. At least, his right hand did. His left was hidden by a black kidskin glove, despite the warmth of the early summer evening.
“Anyway,” Nighthawk added, “you’ve got the wrong John. This cathedral was dedicated to John the Baptist. And if you’re done playing tourist, Usher, you can put the guidebook away so we can get down to the job.”
Usher took Nighthawk’s rebuke good-naturedly and stuffed the guide back into his pocket. He was a big man, six four or so, and strong as an ox. Nighthawk knew that Usher was also the smartest member of the team. He was black, but light-skinned enough that there was a time when he could have passed for white, if he’d wanted to. If he could have gotten the kink out of his hair. Curtis Grubbs was the other big man. He was white, from somewhere in rural Alabama, but somewhat to Nighthawk’s amusement, was Usher’s sidekick and yes-man. He wasn’t quite as big as Usher, but he had a touch of the wild card and was as strong as two oxen. He followed orders if you gave them slowly and in great detail. The woman, Magda, was dark of hair, dark of eye, and dark of mind. She was from some European country that hadn’t been a country for very long. She spoke with a slight accent that made her voice husky and sexy. She was ruthless, quick, and dedicated. Sometimes too dedicated. She was a fanatic. She followed Nighthawk’s orders because he was in charge and also because she feared him, but he never knew when she’d get a wild notion to disobey a directive she reckoned blasphemous. He had to watch her constantly. Sometimes she was more trouble than she was worth, but, again, he had to remind himself who he was working for.