Valentine took Rho into the dim compartment. A pair of tiny bunks angled together into the sharp prow of the vessel. He laid the Lifeweaver down.
Thank you, Lee... David. You have a strong aura. It might be best if... the others didn't see me, after... The mind's touch faltered.
"It's not over, sir. Just rest."
It... Rho began, but never finished. He flickered one final time, before shifting back to his natural form. The thing he knew as Rho collapsed into a rubbery mass the size of a teenage boy. Rho sagged-there was no skeleton to support his body-into something that looked like a blue octopus with a bit of bat in the evolutionary tree. Leathery fins ran the sides of his tentacles, the longer limbs at the back of his body joined by the veiny membranes almost to the sucker-tipped ends like a ribbed cape, the shorter ones at the front unattached and with smaller, more delicate suckers. His aqua-colored skin, more blue around cephalopod skull, changed to sea-foam green along his limbs, with a latticework of delicate black lines covering the skin that he found eerily beautiful, though if they were decorative or functional Valentine could not say. Spicules and flaps formed a band under the brain-in-a-bag of its head, but whether they were noses, ears, breathing tubes, or even sexual organs was anyone's guess. The bulging eyes, lids opening wider and wider as it relaxed into death, drew Valentine's gaze back every time he looked elsewhere. They were like yellowish crystal balls flecked with red, with a black band running across the middle.
God, it was ugly for an angel. Or a devil, for that matter.
Valentine hugged the moist, limp form to himself. He owed his and Molly's life to the dead Life weaver. When the warmth had left the body, he covered it with a blanket.
He should stuff Rho's body in a bucket or a big jug, preserve it with alcohol, and get it back to the Miskatonic. The researchers there might be able to find a weakness, some flaw that would allow them to kill the Kurians without blasting into their lairs and blowing them to bits. Duty, and loyalty to his species, demanded it.
He exited the cabin and went to the engine.
"Take any gear and fixtures you want out of her," he said to the crewmen of the Whitecloud. "But don't go in the cabin."
He found a hose and siphoned some gasoline up into a water bottle. He took the fuel down into the forward compartment and splashed it on the carpet and wood paneling. He repeated the process until the gas was gone and the speedboat reeked of fumes. He followed his shipmates into the sailing vessel as the sailors pulled the powerful outboard up out of its mount with a block and tackle.
Valentine reached into his pockets and found one more tin of matches. He struck them all at once, and tossed the flaming handful into the cabin. Flames raced through the boat, and the Whitecloud sailors cast it off.
He watched and waited until the lake consumed the flaming wreck. The smoke dissipated into the fresh breeze.
Sailors are used to the unexpected. A woman with a long, thin-boned face introduced herself as Collier, the captain of the Whitecloud, and offered them blankets and hot coffee.
She invited them below to the cramped galley. Valentine showed the captain his card, the chit given him by Captain Doss of the White Lightning. She agreed to take them north, where they could transfer to another ship, which could take them anywhere in the Great Lakes they wished to go. "I'd do it anyway, even without Dossie's card. Something tells me you went through a lot to get here."
He, Molly, and J. P. discussed their options on the coming voyage. They decided to winter in the familiar (at least to Valentine) reaches of the Boundary Waters. He would see Father Max again. Only when spring came would he have to make new decisions.
A very weary David Valentine took Molly into the clean, cold air of the Lake Michigan morning. They looked west as the shoreline slowly became distinct and the sun penetrated the clouds. He thought of all the doomed souls beyond the distant, mist-shrouded shore. He had saved Molly, but how many others had died to feed the Reapers in the last three days?
He remembered a story that Father Max used to tell, and a quote he had to memorize from the green blackboard, of a tireless nun named Mother Teresa. She and her Sisters of Mercy had worked with the multitudes of impoverished, disease-stricken people in India. A journalist had asked her how she managed to keep her spirits up, when despite her unceasing labors there would always be more suffering than she could possibly cure.
Mother Teresa had thought for a moment, and then said: "You start with one."
David Valentine turned to watch the dawn, Molly's hand in his.
oo: Lincoln Park, a green oasis between the shores of Lake Michigan and the shattered city, is considered the premier entertainment tract of Chicago, and indeed the Midwest. From what had been the oldest zoo in the United States at the south to the Elks' temple in the north, Lincoln Park as run by the Kurians is a mixture of Sodom and Mardi Gras. Along with its adjacent gambling ship tied up at the old Chicago Yacht Club in BelmontHarbor, it offers diversions to suit the most jaded palate. From late March to November, "Carnal-val" is in session. This nonstop party provides much-needed relief for the favored Quislings who are allowed to attend. During Chicago's dreary winters, the action is limited to the indoors but remains just as wild. With good behavior, a Midwestern Quisling can expect a trip into Chicago to visit the Zoo every few years. They are released in groups, and anywhere from two to a hundred go to Chicago together,-with the direst warnings about what will happen to the rest should any desert. Parties from places as far away as Canada, Ohio, and even Colorado and Kansas visit for up to a month. But as the money runs out to the point that even shoes are sold to pay for unholy delights, the trips are ended early by mutual consent. Everyone knows the destination for those left penniless in a city where there is no such thing as a free meal or room. Within the confines of the Zoo, there is no curfew as there is everywhere else in the city. There is ample if poor-quality food and drink to be had at any hour from street vendors, tented cantinas, and permanent restaurants. Mounted officers, equipped like the statue of Phil Sheridan with sword and pistol, patrol the area from their headquarters in the old Chicago Historical Society building. They do very little to break up disturbances, and only a fistfight that threatens to grow into a riot will cause them to do anything but pause and sit their horses to watch. Everyone from magicians to three-card monte operators to street musicians tries to make a living on the streets, but nothing can be sold on the grounds of the park save food, drink, tobacco, drugs, and flesh.
It is this last that is the real attraction of the Zoo. Under every lamppost, at every corner, and inside every barroom, women, a few men, and the occasional child can be found for a price. At the top of the carnal hierarchy are the showgirls, performing everything from stripteases in the clubs on Clark to variegated sexual displays behind the bars of the Zoo that would make those performed in pre-Kurian Bangkok seem tame. Next come the geishas. These women, found in some of the better bars, act as short-term girlfriends to the Quislings on vacation who want more than just sex, providing a sympathetic ear as well as other favors. The full-time companionship of a geisha for a week or two is out of the price range of all but the wealthiest Quislings, but bar girls in the saloons will do the same as long as the soldier keeps buying them watery drinks. Finally there are the colorful streetwalkers in a variety of flavors, offering their services anywhere from alley and bush to the little flotilla of old boats anchored in the park's Lake Michigan-fed waterways.
The careers of the Zoo women are short, and most come to a sad end in the Loop. A few make enough money to retire to Ringland or open an establishment of their own. A few more leave the Zoo permanently in the company of a Quisling. But for most, it is a degrading road that leads to servicing the most perverted and violent customers before the final trip downtown.
As for the Quislings, like carnivorous flowers attracting insects with bright color and perfume, only to trap and devour them within, the wanton joys of the Zoo leave many too broke to get home and, unless they are smart or lucky, they become prime candidates for the Loop.
The night breeze no longer blew just cool, but downright cold. Scattered clouds crossed the full moon like inky stains. Below, the color had drained from Chicago's streets, leaving a world of low-contrast black and white. As Valentine drew farther away from Rush Street, the streetlights became irregular, and those that still functioned gave light to a few square yards around the pole. Scattered figures clutched their coats or thrust hands deep into their pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind as they brushed past Valentine without a word or a glance. Beater cars and small trucks chugged along the streets, most without benefit of headlights, as clattering bicycles dodged out of their way. Valentine could hear the clopping sound of hoofbeats on pavement down a nearby alley. He cast about with his nose; the city seemed overwhelmed by an oily petroleum smell and dusty coalsmoke. The gutters reeked of urine.
Valentine glanced up again at the moon. Its chalky whiteness comforted him somehow. Full moon, good night for a Wolf. But a sudden wave of fear passed through him, leaving his back running with cold sweat and his hair bristling. He paused under a light, ostensibly to check his map, when motion ahead caught his eye.
Pedestrians parted like a school of fish swerving to avoid a cruising shark. A Reaper garbed in a shirt, trousers, boots, and a cape-rather than the usual robes-moved toward the dead heart of the city. It ran with great multiyard leaps, like a deer bounding through the woods. Valentine's hand fell instinctively toward his gun, but he managed to change the gesture into a simple thrust of his fist into his coat pocket. The Reaper passed without a glance in his direction, its sickly yellow eyes blazing like tiny lightbulbs. Valentine turned and watched it go. It reached the back of a slow-moving car, a ramshackle vehicle with wood planks where the panels and roof used to be. The Hood leaped over it in a single bound, cape flapping like bat wings in the night, and disappeared out of sight as the startled driver stood on his squealing brakes.
Somewhere to the east, Valentine could hear Lake Michigan lapping at its breakwaters. He sensed lights and music somewhere to the north, a mass of noise that could only mean the Zoo. To either side of him, ruined blocks of rubble sprouted shanties like wooden toadstools. Some buildings still stood and showed signs of irregular maintenance-everything from glass to iron bars to wooden shutters covered the windows, and the smells of cooking wafted out into the street. He could make out trees in the lights ahead, and now several figures had joined him in moving toward the Zoo. Most of them had brightly colored cards dangling from thin beaded chains around their necks.
He noticed a line at a kiosk on the edge of the park and joined the cluster of waiting men, almost all of whom wore assorted uniforms. An elephantine redheaded woman sold the white cards on chains to the lined-up men under the supervision of a cigar-smoking baldie with the watchful, sullen air of a pit boss. Valentine looked at the prices, which started at five hundred dollars a day. He extracted the pass he'd obtained from the Duke and passed it to the meaty hand of the redhead.
"Three-day pass, huh, boy?" the woman said, reaching under her counter for a card on a chain. "You one of the Duke's couriers?"
The supervisor's eyes narrowed as he evaluated Valentine.