George R.R. Martin - [Wild Cards 18] (36 page)

Inside it was almost as dusty as out. Fortune could see rows of canned food stacked haphazardly on rickety wooden shelves, along with some loaves of bread, jars of pickles and peanut butter, and packages of cookies and crackers, and—
good God
—an old-fashioned cooler set against one wall, plugged in and humming away, a soft breeze wafting off it. He couldn’t deny his sudden urge to lean his burning forehead against its metallic coolness.

He slid the cooler open, reached in, and dragged out a bottle of ice cold Coke. On the cooler’s side was a built-in bottle top remover. He popped the lid, put the bottle to his lips, and drained it in a single, long gulp, shuddering as the sugar and caffeine hit his stomach.

He finished the bottle with a satisfied sigh, and noticed for
the first time a wooden coatrack with a beat-up pair of bib overalls hanging from it. They looked a little rank and far too large, but Fortune was in no position to be choosy. He pulled them down from the hook and danced his way into them, hopping on the sagging plank floor as he put them on. Fortune felt better. He had clothed himself. More sustenance was within reach. Now, if he could only find some shoes. …

He looked up and saw his face framed by a cracked mirror set in the old wooden coat tree. The thing in the middle of his forehead was like a massive pimple, red and hard and shiny. It looking ugly and freakish.

The fear struck him again like a blow to the face. He panicked, scrabbled at the amulet with grimy fingers. He tried to pry it out of his forehead, but his fingernails were too short to get a grip on i t—though in his blinding fright he scratched himself so badly that blood began to flow.

A knife
, he thought.
A piece of glass. A strip of metal
. Anything to get that thing out of his head.

Fortune’s heart nearly stopped when a car pulled into the store’s rutted dirt parking lot, its headlights gleaming like monstrous eyes through the dirty storefront window. A strange, powerful hand clamped down on his brain, and he began to
change
.

The metamorphosis should have been painful, but if it was, John was too frightened to notice. His body grew massively. He felt his new overalls rip apart at the seams, as if they’d been made out of paper towels, and he was naked again. But he didn’t really need clothes. He was furry all over, with a thick pelt that shone as he had once shone himself, back when he’d been an ace. He could see a ghostly reflection of his body in the dirty glass window.

A lion
. Of all the crazy, impossible things in the world, he had turned into a lion.

No. Not quite
. More precisely, he was a lioness…but a lioness a lot bigger than any he’d ever seen at the zoo. And he
glowed
. He glowed like a beacon in the dark.

That was the only solace he could cling to, all he could think about if he wanted to keep his sanity. Because he no longer had any control over the body that was no longer his.
He stared at the car outside, trying to speak, trying to call out—but something would not let him. Something else had taken command of his flesh, something that was growling, twitching its tail angrily, its muscles ready to leap and pounce.
Something…or someone
. It was furious, he realized, but it was also, underneath it all, very afraid.

Car doors opened and slammed. John heard his name called out. “John! You in there?”

He recognized the voice. It was Bugsy. The massive figure at his side had to be Lohengrin, though he could see little but their outlines because of the headlights glaring in his eyes. The lioness tensed. She leaped, landing atop a rickety wooden shelf, scattering cans of chicken-noodle soup and beanie weanie everywhere. He felt her take a deep breath. Her lungs expanded enormously and a heat kindled in her stomach, burning like a furnace popped on by a pilot light.

“Mein Gott!”
Lohengrin shouted. “The lion again!”

Fortune screamed. He made no sound, though the word reverberated in his skull like an echo in a tiny cave.

The lion let its breath out in a whoosh that engendered a smoky billow of air, but no flame.

a voice said in his head. It had a lilting accent that Fortune couldn’t identify, and was definitely feminine…and tinged with fear.

Her words brought back shattered memories—his first transformation, in his mother’s house…Lohengrin…the sudden armor and sword…fire, smoke, the scream of an alarm. The house burning down around them. Crashing through a window to escape.

John would have sunk to his knees if he’d had control over his transformed body.

he asked.

the voice said.

There was no doubt that it was a woman.

My God
, Fortune thought,
I’ve got a woman in my head.
He had to be certain.

Isra told him.
seemed, a long, long time. Now I am in your body. What year is it?>

There was a long silence, then,

Fortune thought frantically.
me
what the hell has happened? How did you get into my head? And my friends, out there
—>Bugsy and Lohengrin were peering though the storefront.

Isra shook her shaggy head.

He remembered her saying the name, but it still meant nothing to him.

Still nothing.
me
talk to them.>

The single word was hard, final. She hesitated a moment, then almost plaintively said,
…
so long.>

—> Fortune swallowed his anger. Isra had the upper hand at the moment, but he’d managed to retrieve his body before. He could do it again. If he could just figure out how.

Isra lifted a paw. Lohengrin’s sword had flickered into his hand. He and Bugsy looked at each other. “What do you think?” the German ace asked in accented English. “This time, she is not attacking. That is good,
ja?”

“Ja,”
Bugsy replied, “I think that it might be all right. John, is that you? Are you…are you all right?” Isra nodded her leonine head.

Fortune asked. not all right.>
“John?” Bugsy was saying. “Can you…ah…change back? If you want to…I sent out a few hundred wasps to find you after you busted out of Peregrine’s house.” He paused momentarily. “Ummm. Sorry about the house and all, but it wasn’t us. It was the lion.” He stopped for a moment, as if realizing how lame that sounded. “She breathes fire. Uh…you breathe fire. Really. You probably know that, though.”

“John,” Lohengrin said. “I am sorry too.”

“Anyway,” Bugsy said quickly. “I’m sorry it took us so long to find you. Trying to rent a car in the middle of the night is a real bitch, and you were really moving there for awhile. My wasps could hardly keep up…uh…but the question is, where should we take you? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Isra shook her head angrily, a low grumble sounding deep in her broad chest.

“We could call your mother,” Lohengrin offered.

“No,” Bugsy said, “no, not
his
mother.
Simoon’s
mother. Isis. She was the one who wanted him to have the amulet. Let’s take him to her. Maybe she can…fix him or something.”

“Is she a doctor?” Lohengrin asked.

“No, I think she’s a god.”

At last, some things were starting to come together.

The lioness paced through the store and pushed through the remains of the door, shoving it completely off its hinges. She padded past Bugsy and Lohengrin, who turned to keep her in sight at all times. Fortunately, the rental car was a convertible. Isra—or Sekhmet, or whatever the hell she should be called—leaped lightly into the back and settled herself regally across the seat. She pretty much filled it.

Lohengrin’s sword disappeared. “I think she wants to go to Isis,” he said. He slid into the driver’s seat. Bugsy took shotgun. “Great,” he announced. “Road trip.”

The sun had been up for some time when they hit the Strip.

They could see the black glass pyramid of the Luxor towering in the clear morning sky a mile down the street to their right. John Fortune could read the utter amazement in Isra’s
mind as they moved past hotels and casinos, though her leonine features showed nothing but regal inscrutability. Despite the early hour the street was thick with traffic, and the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. Las Vegas is truly the city that never sleeps.

It was difficult to say who was more astounded—Isra, or the crowd on the sidewalks—as the rental convertible slowly cruised down the Strip. Fragments of excited conversation from the onlookers came to them:

“Holy crap, look at the size of that lion!”

“Is it real?”

“Of course it’s real! Whaddya think this is, Disneyland or something?”

“It’s too big to be real! And it’s glowing!”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It’s probably a publicity stunt.”

“That blond guy driving must be Siegfried.”

“Nah. He has tigers.”

“And look! There’s Ralph! Looking good, Ralph!”

“I had no idea he was so young.”

“Wave to the camera, Ralph!”

Bugsy waved enthusiastically, while the big German remained dignified as he drove sedately to the Luxor, muttering, “I am not Siegfried. I am Lohengrin.”

Fortune could feel Isra’s growing excitement as they pulled into the Luxor’s parking lot, passing a giant sphinx, a serene reflecting pool, and rows of obelisks. They stopped in front of the main entrance to the hotel, but none of the valets dared approach. Sekhmet was snorting fire in her excitement, much to the excited approval of the crowd that had gathered to gawk.

The show was only starting. The lioness leaped out of the back of the convertible and padded lightly, eagerly, back and forth, very much as if it was feeding time at the zoo.

Fortune said, desperately hoping for some kind of help to arrive.

It soon did. Half a dozen of the Living Gods filed out of the main entrance to the hotel casino, accompanied by a retinue of fan-bearers, jugglers, acrobats, and other retainers.
Led by the beautiful Isis, attended by fan-bearers holding ostrich feathers over her head, by a fat-bellied dwarf whose name Fortune didn’t know, by jokers with the heads of a dog and a hawk. Bringing up the rear, accompanied by their own servants, were two old familiar figures—Thoth, the ibis-headed spokesman of the Living Gods, and ancient Osiris, he who had perished and then come back to life, supposedly. As usual, a cryptic smile wreathed his tight-lipped mouth.

Isis—beautiful, voluptuous, and wearing a gown that was more diaphanous than modest—was receiving most of the attention from the gathered onlookers. Especially when she bowed low gracefully and said, “Hail, Lady Sekhmet! Your coming was foretold by far-seeing Osiris! Long have we awaited your arrival! Enter our abode!”

The onlookers burst into applause as the lioness returned Isis’s bow, as elegantly as four legs would allow her, and followed the colorful procession into the Luxor’s lobby. Bugsy and Lohengrin, exchanging glances, took up the rear. They were a traffic-stopper as they paced slowly, ceremoniously through the cavernous atrium and halted before the elevators. Not only was Isra reluctant to enter them, it seemed that she was too big to get into one even if she’d wanted to.

Fortune urged.

Isra snarled and some of the onlooking tourists glanced about nervously.

Fortune said.

Perhaps the word “cages” did it, or maybe just the mere thought of confinement again. Whatever made Isra relinquish control, there was an unexpected, instantaneous transfiguration, and Fortune found himself standing naked in front of the elevator banks.

Fortunately, the fan-bearers acted with instantaneous aplomb and covered him—almost entirely—before the cameras in the hands of onlooking tourists could go off. All the important figures piled into the elevator, leaving their retinue to entertain the assembled crowd and deliver a spiel about the Pageant of the Living Gods, six days a week, with matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays.