Nighthawk I Did It Again God Dammit

May 20, 2022 Post a Comment

Edited by bestselling author George R. R. Martin, in the adjacent Wild Cards chance we follow John Fortune, son of 2 of the most powerful and popular Aces the world has ever seen.

InDeath Draws Five, John Fortune's card has finally turned. He'southward an Ace! And proud of information technology . . . except that his new powers put him on a collision course with enemies he never knew he had. Is he the new messiah? Or the Anti-Christ? Or is he just a kid who's in over his head and virtually to drown?

It'south really quite elementary. Mr. Nobody wants to do his job. The Midnight Angel wants to serve her Lord. Baton Ray, dying from boredom, wants some activeness. John Nighthawk wants to uncover the awful surreptitious behind his mysterious ability. Fortunato wants to rescue his son from the clutches of a cryptic Vatican part. John Fortune simply wants to catch Siegfried and Ralph's famous Vegas review. The problem is that all roads, whether they start in Turin, Italy, Las Vegas, Hokkaido, Japan, Jokertown, Serpent Hill, the Curt Cut, or Yazoo City, Mississippi, pb to Leo Barnett's Peaceable Kingdom, where the difference between the Apocalypse and Peace on Earth is as thin as a razor's border and where Death himself awaits the final, terrible plow of the menu.

Please enjoy this gratis extract ofExpiry Draws Five, on sale 11/09/2021.

Chapter One

Turin, Italian republic: Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista

JOHN NIGHTHAWK HAD Ever been fascinated by churches. He'd been inside hundreds during his long life, from apprehensive whitewashed clapboards in the Deep South to magnificent cathedrals in both the U.s. 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 mitt, a cheap wooden shack didn't quite capture the glory of God on high and they were too decumbent to falling down later on a very few years. Surprisingly, though, decades of feel had taught Nighthawk that both kinds of houses of worship were relatively easy to intermission into.

"Cattedrale di San Giovanni," the large human standing to 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 to Nighthawk'due south left.

The big man on Nighthawk'due south correct smiled. "Is this cathedral named afterwards you, John? You're probably erstwhile enough."

There was quiet laughter from the other big man. The adult female 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'grand that former, do yous?"

Speculation about Nighthawk'south age was something of an ongoing joke with his squad. 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 pes five and perhaps a hundred and forty pounds. At first glance his face appeared unlined. Close observation in good light, however, revealed a fine network of wrinkles effectually his eyes and mouth. The lines on his forehead also deepened to legibility when his face crinkled in laughter or a pout. He could have been a hard fifty or an low-key sixty-five. His hair was still dark just his easily had the rough, gnarled expect of someone who'd done concrete 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 on summer evening.

"Anyhow," Nighthawk added, "you've got the wrong John. This cathedral was dedicated to John the Baptist. And if you're done playing tourist, Conductor, yous can put the guidebook away so we can become down to the job."

Usher took Nighthawk'due south rebuke proficient-naturedly and stuffed the guide dorsum into his pocket. He was a big human, half-dozen foot four or and then, and stiff as an ox. Nighthawk knew that Conductor was also the smartest member of the team. He was Blackness, but low-cal-skinned plenty 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 pilus. Curtis Grubbs was the other big man. He was white, from somewhere in rural Alabama, but somewhat to Nighthawk'south amusement, was Conductor'south sidekick and yep-man. He wasn't quite equally large as Usher, only he had a touch of the wild carte du jour and was as strong as two oxen. He followed orders if you gave them slowly and in dandy detail. The adult female, Magda, was dark of hair, dark of heart, and dark of heed. She was from some European country that hadn't been a country for very long. She spoke with a slight accent that fabricated her voice husky and sexy. She was ruthless, quick, and dedicated. Sometimes too dedicated. She was a fanatic. She followed Nighthawk's orders considering he was in charge and likewise considering she feared him, but he never knew when she'd get a wild notion to disobey a directive she reckoned blasphemous. He had to sentinel her constantly. Sometimes she was more than trouble than she was worth, but, once again, he had to remind himself who he was working for.

They're a practiced team, Nighthawk idea. Maybe a little short on brains, simply that was to be expected. He had likewise been offered the services of the Witnesses, but turned them downwards despite their strong ace powers. Their tendency to grandstand often turned them into liabilities. He'd also passed on Claret. He didn't retrieve a joker-ace who had to exist led around on a leash so he wouldn't molest stray pedestrians or passing cars would fit in on a mission where stealth was necessary.

It was past midnight, but in that location were withal people on the street. Damn tourists, Nighthawk thought. It was unlikely to get much quieter, so he signaled Usher to move. The big man nodded and slipped quietly into the night. He crossed the Piazza San Giovanni, keeping to the dark side of the street, blending naturally into the shadows like a large cat or a seasoned mercenary, which he'd been before signing with the Allumbrados equally an obsequentus. Nighthawk figured that the big man had joined the Enlightened Ones for the pay. He had neither Grubbs'due south naive credulousness nor Magda's vicious fanaticism.

Conductor crossed the plaza in shadow, unobserved, and subsequently ten or twelve seconds Grubbs followed him across the square. He was not as serenity or as inconspicuous as Usher, but he tried hard to emulate him. After both men had vanished in the night Magda followed at Nighthawk's nod.

She was halfway across the plaza when a burst of sudden revelation struck Nighthawk similar a thunderbolt. Every bit e'er, information technology exploded across his brain almost also fast to grasp. The figures in information technology were dark and grainy like in an onetime-fourth dimension motion picture, and the poorly lit scene they played was open to several interpretations. Just one thing was certain.

Ane of the team would die that night. Nighthawk couldn't exist certain information technology wouldn't be him. Caught in the grip of awful fear, the old man looked across the plaza at the ancient cathedral, wondering if that dark he would find the answer to the question that had haunted him for the last sixty years. The gloved fingers of his left hand closed around the old harmonica that he always carried, currently in his inside jacket pocket. It was his lucky piece besides as a reminder of past friends. He smiled to himself, only without humor.

"Possibly we notice out this night, Lightning," he said quietly. "Possibly finally tonight."

Las Vegas, Nevada: The Mirage

PEREGRINE TRIED TO SLAM the newspaper down on the hotel suite desk-bound, but since it was open up it only fluttered limply. Still, Jerry got the message that she wasn't happy.

"You could have been hurt!" she said angrily to John Fortune, who watched her glumly as she paced well-nigh the room. "Fifty-fifty killed!"

"At that place was no danger of that," Jerry interjected.

Peregrine paused in her pacing and turned her optics upon him. Suddenly he was glad that she hadn't packed her titanium talons for the trip.

"Y'all know that how?" she asked in a voice gone quietly silky. Through long experience in bodyguarding John Fortune, Jerry knew that when she used that tone she was at her about dangerous. She looked at him with the eyes of a lioness sizing up an antelope for the kill. Even though she was in her tardily forties, Peregrine was still one of the most beautiful women Jerry had always seen. Tall, lean, and athletic, her stunning wings matched a withal-stunning effigy that had made only the slightest concession to historic period and gravity over the years.

"I made sure we kept far abroad from the tigers when we went backstage," Jerry said quietly, just his words did lilliputian to mollify the angry ace.

"Tigers!" Peregrine spat, as if he'd said mosquitoes or something equally insignificant. "I would expect you to handle tigers." Jerry's chest expanded at the unanticipated praise. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "Maybe," she added. She paced some more effectually the room, and so stopped and looked at her son. He was still glum. Still handsome. All the same normal looking, except for that orangish-yellowish glow that hovered around his caput and the exposed pare of his hands and artillery like halos. "Simply how exercise you know that only using his ability isn't dangerous? He's just a boy. I would wait him to exist excited when he turned his card. But you lot should have known better."

"Aw, Mom," John Fortune said, "I had to become aid Ralph. You should accept seen him. The tiger had grabbed him by the cervix and there was blood everywhere! He would've bled to death if I didn't do annihilation. But I healed him. Ask Jerry. He was right there all the while, making sure nobody crowded us or anything. I but held Ralph and full-bodied and he healed right upward. Information technology was easy."

"No," Jerry said, shaking his caput, "your mother's correct. In that location's no telling how dangerous using your power might be—"

"Listen to him," Peregrine said.

"Information technology'due south not dangerous," John Fortune said, his impatience showing in his tone. "I'k fine."

Peregrine put the dorsum of her mitt against his forehead. "Y'all experience warm to me."

"Aw, Mom."

"Could but be the effects of a speeded-upwards metabolism," Jerry offered.

"Could exist," Peregrine said. Suddenly, she enwrapped her son in her artillery and wings and held him to her tightly. She airtight her eyes, fighting back tears. "If you but knew how worried I've been for you, all these years."

"Aw, Mom," John Fortune said again, his head deadened against her chest. Jerry was envious. "I'one thousand all right. I knew I would be. My card turned and now I'm an ace, but similar yous and my begetter. I mean, Fortunato."

Peregrine nodded, unable to speak for a moment as years of drastic worry seemed to squeeze out of her trunk. Simply some still remained.

"Promise me 1 thing," she said equally she still held him tightly. "Don't use your power once again until we get home and have you checked out at the Jokertown Clinic."

"But what if I have to save someone—"

She pulled away, and held him at arm'south length.

"John," she said sternly, "you take your whole life ahead of yous. You have years and years to salve people. And listen to me. There'southward a large lesson y'all have to learn right now."

"What'southward that?" the child asked.

"No matter how powerful you are, no thing how much fourth dimension and attempt and sweat and blood yous expend," Peregrine said slowly, coming downwardly difficult on each and every word, "you can't save everyone."

The boy was silent for a long moment, as if digesting her words.

"All correct," John Fortune said quietly.

"Believe me," Peregrine said.

Jerry nodded. "Believe her."

He knew. Sometimes that was the hardest affair nearly existence an ace of all.

Branson, Missouri: The Peaceable Kingdom

BILLY R AY WAS IN Loaves and Fishes, lingering over lunch and wishing he were anywhere in the globe except here, when the child tracked him downward. Ray didn't particularly expect like an ace, let solitary a dangerous one. He was an averagesized 5 ten, ane hundred and lxx pounds. His accommodate was expensive and neat, without contraction, spot, or blemish. Though a couple of years on the incorrect side of forty, he looked younger. His green eyes were sleepy-looking. His features were bland, if a lilliputian ill-fitting. His broken-angled, rather prominent nose stood out from the rest of his face. He moved slowly, about languidly. He was fifty-fifty more than bored than he looked.

As the kid approached, Ray looked up from his plate piled loftier with beef ribs and chicken fried steak with gravy and biscuits, green beans, corn on the cob, and existent scratch-made mashed potatoes, not from a box. He liked Loaves and Fishes because it was all you could eat, but lately he'd been losing interest in food too as everything else. He knew what was wrong, just he knew besides he couldn't do a damn matter near information technology.

"How-do-you-do, Mr. Ray," the kid said.

Ray sighed for about the billionth time and said, for virtually the billionth time, "I told you non to phone call me mister."

"Okay, Billy." Ray knew that wouldn't last long. It never did. If the kid was anything, he was respectful. Alejandro Jesus y Maria C de Baca looked like he was well-nigh 14 years old. Slight, slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed, always smiling, always cheerful, fresh out of spook schoolhouse and then goddamned respectful that he sirred waiters. It was clear to Ray that Nephi Callendar, their boss at the Secret Service, had teamed them upward specifically to annoy Ray.

"Say, mi—uh, Billy, President Barnett wants to run into yous, right away."

Ray sighed. God, he hoped that it wasn't for some other prayer session. "Did he say why?"

The child shook his head. "Nope. I was with him when he saw something in the paper that got him existent excited, and he wanted to speak to you lot correct away."

Ray sighed again. He defenseless himself, realizing that he was doing entirely besides much of that lately. He looked downwardly at his lunch. He wasn't hungry now, anyhow.

"Yous want some luncheon, kid?" Ray asked his colleague.

"I already ate, sir, uh, Billy. But it'd be a shame to waste all that nutrient. I tin can box it upwardly and drop it down at the homeless shelter after our shift."

Ray nodded.

"You exercise that," he said. He left Loaves and Fishes and strolled through Barnett's vision of Heaven on World to his headquarters centrally located on the peak flooring of the Angels' Bower hotel. He had to cut through the part of the park called New Jerusalem to accomplish it. As always, the Via Dolorosa was crowded with tourists, and so Ray took the back way that looped effectually the rides, exhibits, and concessions. He went by the twenty-foot-high statues of the Twelve, wondering, not for the first time, how they'd decided which apostle was baldheaded, which i had a big honker, and where in the hell Judas was. He could hear the faint screams of the faithful every bit the Rapture took them to Heaven and and then dropped downward to the Pit with a tummy-flipping hundred-and-lxxx-degree turn that piled on over three gs of acceleration every bit information technology fell forty stories straight down to Hell.

Roller coasters, Ray idea disgruntledly. Maybe he should take a ride. Put some excitement into his life.

It was, he had to admit, his own fault. He'd smart-assed his way here, calling his boss "Nehi" one fourth dimension too many. Before the ink had stale on his orders he'd found himself, accompanied by the child, exiled to the suburbs of Branson fucking Missouri to wet-nurse an ex-president equally he whiled away the years running his crazy-ass theme park in the middle of redneck Sky. Of grade, by law every ex-president was accorded Underground Service protection, but the odds of Barnett being stalked by an assassinator in the Peaceable Kingdom were virtually as peachy as him running a Pagans Get In Gratuitous weekend special.

It was a hell of a way to wrap up his career, merely non entirely unexpected. Ray had ruffled likewise many feathers along the fashion, and not only by being a smartass. He'd played a major part in breaking the Bill of fare Shark conspiracy and saving Jerusalem—the real one, not Barnett's Disneyfied version—from getting A-bombed to hell, but it had price him non but Apr Harvest, the just woman he'd always come shut to loving, but also a meaningful career in the government. Every bit it turned out, the government had been riddled with Carte du jour Sharks, and no one was exactly pleased that Ray helped expose that petty fact. Sometimes Ray wondered if they'd rooted them all out. Probably not. Probably some unexposed Sharks were still pulling strings. And that had been the problem. Ray had embarrassed the string pullers and determination makers, the powers behind the throne and the voices in charge. Publicly he was a hero. Privately he was just another wild carder who knew besides much. A wild carder with a reputation for flying off the handle and running his mouth when peeved.

That explained the next seven years spent in the shitholes of the world, but at least the tedium of those years had been broken up past episodes of real excitement. Amidst other things, he'd helped the mujahideen against the Soviets, and when the Soviet Union went to pieces he helped the people of Afghanistan against the mujahideen. He served a tour in Peru, teaching the Shining Path the real meaning of fear. He was on the team of international aces that went into Baghdad and snatched the tin can-plated dictator Saddam Hussein, catching him cowering in his golden-fixtured bathtub, subsequently Saddam had kicked the UN weapon inspectors out of his crappy excuse for a land.

Ray hadn't minded the lack of recognition or applause. He'd spent vii years doing what he did best, boot donkey if occasionally forgetting to accept down names. Only now, he was rotting in paradise.

He breezed into Barnett's function. Sally Lou, Barnett'south blond receptionist, looked up from her magazine. She was sleek and sexy-looking, and Ray suspected that Barnett had hired her for something other than her typing skills. She could have put some of that long-sought excitement dorsum into his life, but it seemed to Ray that, as far as she was concerned, he was just another one of the hired assist.

"The president—"

"Yep, I know." He waved every bit he strode by. He paused at Barnett's door, nodding at the Clandestine Service guys continuing to either side of it, nats in nighttime suits and sunglasses, for Christ's sake, knocked once, and went on in before its occupant could reply. What more could they do to him for being a smart-donkey? Send him to Antarctica? Even that would be an comeback over his electric current situation.

"You lot wanted to see me?" Ray asked, stopping before the large desk and the human being behind it, who was reading a paper spread out on its teak surface.

Barnett smiled. "Yes, I did," he said.

Leo Barnett was still a handsome man, even after serving eight years equally president of the Us. He was tall and still slim even though he was pushing sixty, blond-haired and bluish-eyed, and dimpled as a baby's butt. Ray couldn't assist wondering how he did information technology. Ray had been with the Justice Department for almost xx-five years. He'd spent a good portion of that fourth dimension bodyguarding presidents and presidential candidates, and he'd noticed early on that the presidency, even merely running for the office, tended to wearable a man down. It put bags nether his eyes, creases in his confront, and dye in his hair. Not Barnett, though. He looked as wrinkle-free today equally he did the day he ascended to the office. Ray wondered what his hugger-mugger was.

"Have you seen the papers today, Billy?" Barnett asked, slapping the open newspaper with an immaculately manicured manus.

Ray shook his head. He didn't bother reading the news. He was more than used to making it.

"Information technology seems as if a new ace has joined our constellation of heroes."

"Is that so?" Ray asked with a modicum of involvement.

"Indeed it is," Barnett said, and looked down at the paper spread out in front end of him and began to read. ". . . 'Ralph Holstedt, partner and star performer in the famous Siegfried and Ralph magic human activity featuring white tigers and other unsafe beasts, was severely mauled during yesterday'southward matinee functioning when a half-grown male tiger playfully grabbed him by the pharynx and dragged him from the stage. Fortunately for the performer, John Fortune, son of the beauteous ace Peregrine and the mysterious Fortunato, who has spent the last sixteen years in seclusion in Nihon, was in attendance and for the first fourth dimension publicly revealed his own ace. Fortune, who to all accounts was glowing a mysterious but pleasing shade of orange-yellow, took the performer in his artillery and nearly instantly healed the wound threatening the magician's life. The newly revealed ace, a good-looking male child in his mid-teens, politely refused all requests for interviews and was seen leaving in the company of a man who witnesses said bore an uncanny resemblance to 1940s thespian Alan Ladd.'" Barnett looked up at Ray. "What exercise you think of that?"

Ray shrugged. "I think that Ralph was one lucky tiger-lover."

Barnett sat back in his chair, nodding. "Yes. Simply doesn't it strike y'all that someone else in that scenario was fairly blessed in the luck section?"

"John Fortune," Ray said. He knew what the odds of drawing an ace were besides as everyone. "Of course."

"Exactly," Barnett said, equally if Ray just answered the million-dollar question.

Ray shrugged over again. He didn't run into the betoken.

"These are troubling days, Baton," Barnett said. "Some say," his voice dropped dramatically, "the End Days."

Oh shit, Ray thought. It didn't take Barnett long to drag religion into fifty-fifty the almost mundane conversation. Ray himself wasn't much of a believer in anything. Only Barnett could brand almost anything sound reasonable when he was orating. After all, he'd been elected president of the The states. Twice.

"Merely it's 2003," Ray said. "If you're talking about the, uh, Millennium, surely that passed—"

Barnett shook his head.

"Actually it's just around the corner, my male child," Barnett said. "Timekeeping was non an exact scientific discipline when the Bible was written two thousand years ago. Records were not precise. The calendar as we know it is a relatively modern invention. Anyway, you'd await an error of a year or two to ingather upward over a couple of millennia, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose," Ray said, noncommittally. He still had no clue as to what in the hell this had to exercise with a child saving some Vegas magician from his overgrown kitty true cat.

Barnett nodded. "Of form. Hell, nobody took notes on the twelvemonth when they wrote down the Bible. Nobody even cared. Likewise—the signs are the important things, and all signs say that Armageddon is approaching."

"What signs? Tiger attacks in Vegas?"

Barnett frowned, the twinkle all of a sudden gone from his baby blue eyes.

"The prophecies, my boy. The continued being of Israel, the nation whose being you helped preserve, and don't think I've forgotten that, is but 1 of them. Only permit'due south not get bogged down in details at present." Barnett opened the middle drawer in his desk. He took out an impressively thick manuscript. "Here. I wrote a book about it. Not intended for anybody of class. Wouldn't want a panic among the full general populace. But give it a written report, my boy. You'll run across. It'due south all very convincing." Barnett handed the book to Ray. It was heavy. "This is strictly for people within my organisation, I judge you'd call information technology."

Ray looked up from the thick manuscript to Leo Barnett. "Organization?" he asked warily.

"A call back tank I founded after I had the honor of serving equally president of this great nation. The Millenarians. Nosotros believe that the fourth dimension of the Apocalypse is at manus."

"That'south a bad affair, isn't it?" Ray asked doubtfully.

"Non at all, Billy, not at all," Barnett explained. "Though many people believe that. Apocalypse means merely 'unveiling' or 'revelation.' It is the time when the truth will be revealed for all to encounter. When the Lord Jesus volition render to this earth to conductor in a thousand years of peace and prosperity for those who believe in his proper name."

Ray'south expression was unchanged.

"Well, read my manuscript," Barnett said. "It explains everything."

"All right," Ray said every bit sincerely as he could.

Barnett frowned.

Apparently, Ray idea, I don't sound quite equally sincere as I think I do.

"Nosotros demand a man of your talents, Billy," Barnett said earnestly, turning upward the wattage of his charm. "To baby-sit me and, um, other figures of import to the Parousia—that's the founding of Jesus' kingdom on Earth, which will usher in the thousand years of peace and prosperity of the Millennium."

"I thought you said that the End Days were approaching. Doesn't that mean, like, the end of the world?"

"It does," Barnett said seriously. "Merely only subsequently the thousand-year peace of the Millennium. And only, of course, if we triumph in the upcoming disharmonize. We have foes, Billy. Powerful foes. Some might say satanically powerful foes."

Hither we get, Ray thought. He knew this just wasn't going to be a simple fiddling story. "I'm already guarding yous," Ray pointed out. "Exactly who are these others who demand guarding?"

"Christ," Barnett said.

Ray waited a beat, simply Barnett added nothing to what Ray initially idea was an uncharacteristic expletive.

"Christ," Ray repeated. "You hateful, Jesus Christ?"

"Jesus Christ," Barnett confirmed. "The 2d Coming of the Son of God is upon us."

"Well," Ray asked, "where is he?"

Barnett cleared his throat. "Apparently," he said, "in Las Vegas."

"Y'all don't mean John Fortune?"

Barnett nodded earnestly. "I practise. Y'all have to trust me on this, Billy. Years of study have led me to this decision. His act of healing this, uh, brute tamer, is only the final indication of his real identity."

"And you're sure of this?" Ray asked.

Barnett pursed his lips. "Sure? Well—reasonably. And we're non the only ones who think and so."

"No?"

Barnett nodded. "There are others who have come to a, well, similar conclusion about the boy'southward importance. Simply they want to harm him. He has to exist protected from them."

"But—"

"No, Billy." Barnett shook his head. "If y'all truly want to serve me—and the Lord—you must go to Vegas, become the male child, and bring him back hither where we can protect him from these others."

"Who are they?" Ray asked.

"The Allumbrados," Barnett said, well-nigh spitting equally he pronounced the name. Information technology sounded fairly sinister to Ray.

"Then, you want me to go to Vegas, pick upwards the boy, and bring him here for safekeeping?" he recapitulated.

Barnett nodded. "Yep."

Ray suppressed a grinning. "If you say the male child needs help, then that's expert plenty for me," he said.

Barnett beamed. "The Lord will advantage you," he said.

I'yard so out of hither, Ray thought.