LITMIR.BIZ

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only way to board her was a rickety ladder extending down from the main deck. The police launch sidled close and Jones led the way up the ladder. Ray followed, with the Angel carrying Moon in one arm as her paws couldn’t handle the narrow steps. Jones was puffing as she reached the end of the climb and accepted an extended hand to help her over the top and onto the Schröder’s deck.

      ‘Thank you—’ she began to say as she looked up, then fell silent.

      The man standing before her smiled and released her hand. He was old but distinguished looking, in a gray charcoal-colored suit that Ray’s practiced eye told him cost more than twice his own. His long and still abundant silver hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he leaned on a heavy wooden cane. His shoes, like his suit, were handmade and expensive. The right one encased an obvious prosthesis, which extended upward into an artificial leg, the extent of which was hidden by an expertly tailored pants leg. He smiled at Jones as she gained the deck.

      Three companions stood grouped behind him. One was a man of similar age, smaller, with a lined, pale face that showed no expression at all as he looked over the newcomers. The second was a striking woman in a formfitting blue silk shirt tucked into tight blue jeans that showcased her splendid figure. It was, Ray realized, a theme of a sort. Her skin was a deep rich blue, her thick, long hair a shade darker, and her eyes the clear cerulean of a cloudless summer sky. The third person was a young man in a black suit with a priest’s collar. He was serious-looking in an intense way, with regular features, dark eyes, and short dark hair.

      ‘Agents Ray and Angel,’ the silver-haired man said. ‘Pleased to see you. Splendid work, saving the world and all that. Splendid.’ He looked at Moon, whom the Angel had set down on the deck. ‘And this is?’

      ‘SCARE Agent Moon,’ the Angel said.

      ‘A were-canid,’ Ray explained as Moon thumped her tail against the deck.

      ‘Of course,’ the man said. He turned toward Jones. ‘I am Dr Pretorius. You must be Ms Jones, the ICE agent in charge. I’ve been retained to represent the Schröder refugees in their attempt to secure political asylum.’

      ‘By whom?’ Jones asked in a somewhat less pleasant tone.

      Pretorius smiled. ‘The Joker Anti-Defamation League.’ He gestured toward the three who stood by him. ‘This is Mr Robicheaux and Ms Blue, their representatives.’ He indicated the young man. ‘And Father Joachim Aguilera of the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker.’

      If Robicheaux was a joker, Ray thought, his deformities were hidden. Unlike Pretorius, his clothing was that of a working man. He wore a short-sleeved shirt tucked into worn jeans and work boots that had seen hard use. His eyes were dark and, like his expression, opaque as his gaze swept them all. He nodded. Ray nodded back.

      ‘We have much to discuss. The others are waiting. If you will follow me.’ Pretorius leaned heavily on his cane as he limped away.

      They fell in line behind the lawyer. As he led them across the main deck, Ray’s nostrils flared. The Schröder’s interior matched its exterior in terms of grime, rust, and general decrepitude. The deck needed a new paint job, not to mention a thorough washing. Usually, Ray thought – though his experience with boats of any kind was rather limited – you see crewmen bustling about on errands and chores, taking care of vital upkeep and minor repairs. But they saw no one, crew or passengers, as they made their way to a hatch leading down into the ship’s hold. It was so quiet that it was more than a little eerie. The Schröder might as well have been manned by a crew of ghosts.

      Ray and the Angel exchanged glances. She can feel it, too, he thought. He glanced at Moon and saw her sniff the air. An expression of disgust washed over her lean-jawed face. Ray lacked the acute senses that Moon had, but he could smell the stench, too. Had smelled it since they’d reached the deck. It was getting worse, and it hit them like a slap on the face when Pretorius led them down the ladder into the ship’s hold.

      The vessel’s only cargo was inside. People. They were everywhere in the gloom of the poorly lit, practically unvented hold. Men, women, and children looked at them wearily as they descended the ladder, hunger, hope, and fear in their eyes. Ray guessed that this trip had been as hellish as the demon-haunted last days of their home city of Talas. Most were gaunt. Many just lay on the dirty bedding that was their only protection against the harshness of the hold’s metal floor. Ray had been in better-smelling swamps. He didn’t want to even try to imagine the privations these people had undergone during their voyage.

      Ray and the Angel kept stoic expressions on their faces, but Jones recoiled and audibly gagged.

      ‘My God,’ she said, ‘don’t you people bathe?’

      ‘In what?’ asked the woman approaching them. Her voice was bitter and bore an East European accent. Ray recognized her as Olena Davydenko, the daughter of a deceased Ukrainian mobster. She’d used her dead father’s fortune to finance this desperate quest for safety and freedom. Olena looked at them cooly. She was blond and pretty, Ray thought, in a brittle, high-fashion sort of way. She was accompanied by a young woman who was a bare inch or two over five feet. She had clear pale skin that had a golden sheen to it. And she was staring at the Angel, who seemed uncomfortably aware of her gaze. At least the Black Tongue was nowhere in sight. If IBT and the Angel came face-to-face again – Ray pushed the thought away and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now.

      ‘We have barely enough water to drink,’ Olena continued bitterly. ‘We have no food, no fuel, no medical supplies—’

      ‘Not my concern!’ Jones snapped. ‘You people should have been better prepared for your little cruise.’

      Pretorius held up his hands. ‘This is all beside the point.’

      ‘The point being,’ Jones said implacably, ‘that of all the people who decided to take this trip, very few have the proper documentation or even family members already living in the United States willing to sponsor them. No one lacking a sponsor or the proper documents will be allowed off this ship.’

      Dr Pretorius gestured to an angry Olena, who handed him an expensive-looking briefcase. Ray figured that while most of the onlooking refugees probably couldn’t follow the conversation in English, they had no problems understanding the gist of it. Pretorius extracted an impressively thick document from the briefcase and handed it to Jones.

      She glanced at it. ‘What’s this?’

      ‘A brief requesting political asylum for all my clients,’ Pretorius said. ‘The government in Kazakhstan has collapsed. The warlords are fighting over the scraps of their country, but they all agree on one thing. They fear, wrongly and unjustly, that somehow the plague that struck Talas was brought on by the wild card virus and that the madness that destroyed the city was somehow spread by the jokers living there. Nonsense, of course, but that’s not stopping them from waging genocide against all wild carders. These people couldn’t stay in Talas and be killed. They can’t go back. They’re claiming asylum.’

      ‘You know that this must be adjudicated at higher levels of government—’

      ‘I ask for an expedited hearing. In the meantime, we need food, water, medical—’

      ‘I’m sure they do.’ Jones started back up the ladder, taking Pretorius’s brief with her.

      The joker lawyer looked at Ray. ‘That was pleasant.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Ray said. He was starting to have a very bad feeling about this mission. It wasn’t as cut-and-dried as it had first seemed. He hadn’t signed up to bully helpless jokers, women and children among them.

      The young woman standing with Olena looked at Angel and spoke in accented but clear English. ‘I am called Tulpar. I was in Talas, too. I saw you fighting monsters. They called you the Angel of the Alleyways, the Madonna of the Blade—’

      The Angel looked down. ‘I lost it.’

      A look of sympathy crossed the girl’s face. ‘I see that your pain is great. But

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