The first few forays were brief and in a lot of company—a walk down the narrow streets of Sausalito, feeding the birds on the pier, eating ice cream bought from a vendor. She drew some stares, it was true, but also a lot of admiring glances from strangers, and after she saw some of the normal denizens of the Bay area in their crazy costumes and painted faces, she realized why the location had been chosen.
Ultimately, one of the staff would drive just her and Maria into the city itself. She liked the feel of San Francisco, and liked browsing in the shops, particularly in the silk shops of Chinatown. Maria was always there, dressed in a curly blonde wig and dark glasses, the worldly-wise guide.
Still, she felt only a visitor here, not a part of things. She could read none of the signs, understand none of the prices, and could make no sense at all out of the ceaseless babble around her.
One evening in late September they were walking back to the car as it was growing rapidly dark. They had limited themselves to the daylight, mostly for safety’s sake, but Angelique found she had no sense of time at all and Maria had lost all track of it. The area where they’d parked seemed now full of shadows, dim and deserted.
They didn’t even notice a group of four big, young men on a street corner until, when they were actually at the car and Maria was fumbling for the keys, they were suddenly all around them in the otherwise deserted lot.
Strong hands pushed both women with force up against the car and then turned them around. The four stood there, grinning and leering, and there were knives in the hands of two of them.
“Look, you can take the money, the car. Just go and leave us alone,” Maria told them, trying to sound brave when she was actually scared to death.
“Yeah, well, maybe we take more than that, babe,” said one, obviously the leader. “What’s she? Some kind of Affrican princess or somethin’?”
“Y—yes. African. She doesn’t speak any English.”
“I never had no Af-rican meat before,” one of the others noted. “Not the genuine article. And you, babe, you look good for the bunch of us yourself.”
Angelique could not make out the words, but she felt almost overwhelmed by Maria’s terror and there was no mistaking the intent of the men. She repressed her own fear and mentally called for the spirits to attend her, even in this desolate and unnatural jungle.
One man reached out to undo Maria’s jeans, while another closed on Angelique with intent clear in his mind, and something snapped inside her.
Feet shot out powerfully into one man’s stomach, knocking him back into the one behind. Somehow, in one motion, Angelique had landed on her feet with the knife from the first one in her hand. It was a strange sensation; she was working on instinct and with such speed that the men all seemed to be moving in extreme slow motion.
The knife plunged into the one closest to Maria while Angelique’s body knocked the other away. Although tiny, Angelique had tremendous power and speed. Her sari unraveled and fell away, and as they were getting up to come at her she was already in their midst. She leaped like an antelope, a foot striking one’s Adam’s apple while the other came down, maintaining perfect balance. She whirled, and before another could leap on her the knife in her hand whirled, too.
Maria watched, stunned, unable to believe what she was seeing, in spite of knowing that Angelique had taken care of the two guards in the boat house back on the island. This was unnatural, perfect; Angelique was a killing machine and she was enjoying every second of it. The sight of it, the combination of the attack and her friend’s response, and the welled-up tension of the past weeks all seemed to gang up on her at once, and she panicked and started running blindly away from the parking lot towards the street and people through an alleyway.
Angelique was on such a high that she didn’t even notice, but now, standing over the bodies of her victims, she looked around and saw nobody there. She was suddenly aware once more of where she was and what she had just done, although she could still see no alternative. She knew, though, that this place would not stay deserted for long, and that when the authorities came they would find her and take her in and there would be fingerprinting and descriptions that would go out across the country and would be seen and heard by the ever-present listeners even on their remote island. And the Dark Man had a very long reach.
She looked around, found the crumpled sari and hastily moved off into the shadows, clutching it. Only in the safety of the darkness did she pause and retie the thing as well as she could manage. She had had a lot of practice. The whole thing was held in place in the end by one inner safety pin that had given way at her first leap. Fortunately, the pin had remained embedded in the cloth.
She knew she had to get out of there and fast. She couldn’t waste time looking for Maria, not now, and she was sufficiently exotic that even if they discounted the idea that such a small woman could have taken and done in all four attackers they would run her in on general principles.
There was, and had always been, a contingency plan in case of any separation. There was a place where far-off people visited, the Place of the Fishers, which was always brightly lit and was right on the water. If anybody was separated, they were to go there—Maria had shown her the exact spot—and wait near the old sailing ship until help came. It was an open area, so someone could observe the spot without actually being there and thus make certain of rescue before exposing yourself. But she was not near the water, but well into town, in the places of business and guest houses rising to the sky, and it was dark, the high buildings and city lights obscuring any view even of the sky and moon. She turned a corner and found herself on a hilly street filled with pedestrians and horseless wagons with bells and bright, garish lights, and she was alone, with only a rumpled sari, hopelessly lost and confused, with no command of any language she might encounter, with no money. She had had no real fear of the four men; they had been evil ones, barbarians who had to be dealt with, and she had the power and the skills to do it. But now, here, alone in this strange city, she began to feel afraid.
12
AND ALONG CAME THE SPIDER …
The headline in the paper read, “FOUR THOUSAND DEAD IN MIDEAST SUICIDE ATTACK.” The sub-head was “Gunman kills 40 in Chicago Mall.” The madman who hacked and slashed nine people to death in Philadelphia, including five children, did not even make the national news.
Three bloody revolutions erupted simultaneously in Africa. No one from outside could get in or out, so it would be some time until the death toll was known, which was still the headline. Nobody much cared which side won.
There were forty-two revolutionary groups in various stages of fighting throughout Latin America, while in Sinkiang, China, a general at the Lop Nor nuclear facility went mad and was stopped just short of launching four atomic missiles into the heart of the Soviet Union. Nor were the Soviets immune, although little of that news leaked outside. In Leningrad, however, police were still baffled by the Canal Slasher, who mutilated and tortured at will despite the best efforts of the police and KGB. It was rumored that he was himself either a top KGB man or perhaps a top party official.
The Secretary of the Air Force was attempting to keep quiet, while demanding to know the cause, why no fewer than twenty two-man nuclear missile launch teams had had at least one officer go mad during quiet times, so much so that he either shot or had to be shot by the other.
There were two assassinations and five attempted assassinations of world leaders during a forty-eight hour period. No motive or connecting thread could be found. Thirty-seven nations now boasted that they had atomic bombs and delivery systems for them. The others who had them weren’t telling.
And Angelique, ignorant of all this, was on the crowded streets of San Francisco, frightened and alone.
It had been easy, up to now, to kid herself into thinking that perhaps her situation wasn’t all that bad, that she could find and perhaps cope with a life for herself. Now, surrounded by flashing signs she couldn’t read, people who totally ignored her and with whom she could not converse even to get simple directions, enclosed by a strange and spiritless shell of concrete and steel, she understood just how terrible her curse really was.
Everyone seemed her enemy, although she was indeed not only ignored but, after dark, wasn’t even particularly odd looking or behaving by her own and others’ standards. The sight of so many men being so openly affectionate with other men, and women with other women, shocked her. She had been in a big city downtown only twice, and both times it had been Montreal, which at the time she had felt was bizarre and strange. Now here were men and women dressed in everything from faded jeans to flowing robes, some with shaved heads or bizarre haircuts, mixing in with, and being ignored by, the ordinary-looking folk of middle America.
She climbed to the top of one hill, hoping to spot the harbor, but the fog, while light, was definitely in and illuminated only up to the next hill. She stood there, feeling wet and chilled, and tried to decide what to do. Behind her she could hear a great many sirens and, looking back, saw police cars and ambulances heading to where she’d just come from.
In their eyes, she was now a murderess, and she knew it. She couldn’t tell her side of the story, no matter whether it would make any difference. The four had not merely been dealt with, they had been butchered like steers in a slaughterhouse, and she knew that, given the same situation, she’d do it again without thinking.
She was perhaps a third the civilized human being she had been raised to be and two-thirds stone-age survivor. Worse, she knew that after the paralysis, the helplessness, the power-lessness of all those years, she enjoyed power and control— and the power and control that she had came from her Hapharsi self, a part that grew every time it was let out.
In the wheelchair, paralyzed and dependent, she had never really hated anyone, nor had she really blamed anyone. Now, however, looking at these apparently carefree people going about their lives, preoccupied with petty day-to-day problems or in search of a little pleasure as a release from that day to day existence, her envy knew no bounds. She hated them, hated them all. She had never had a chance at what they took for granted, and even now, among them, she could not join in, could not participate.
She idly remembered that the horseless cars that went up and down hills went to the place where she wished to go. True, she didn’t know if they all did, or whether this line did, but she followed the tracks anyway, down one hill and up the next. It was growing incredibly cool very rapidly, and she was unprepared for it. Still, atop the next hill she could smell the sea and feel the spirits of water and wind, and she knew that she was headed right.
A drunken man lurched out of a doorway and said something to her, coming very close and reaching out. She didn’t know what he said or wanted, but she repressed a defensive instinct and merely traced a little sign with one finger. The drunk suddenly lost interest in her and just stood there looking confused, as if he couldn’t remember what the hell he was doing there.
Her power and her defensive skills were the only armor she had to defend herself against the forces of civilization and she knew it. They were more than Maria had, it was true, but Maria now could step into the light, could make a phone call, take a cable car to the meeting place. To a large extent this was her element, and freed of the immediate threat she could do quite well on her own here.
The cable car tracks ended at a turntable in the middle of a hotel and light industrial area, not at the harbor, but that didn’t bother her. She knew that the harbor could be only a few blocks further on in the same direction. She could hear, feel, smell it, now.
Thanks to a light drizzle and a moderate chilly wind off the water, Fisherman’s Wharf wasn’t as crowded with tourists and locals as it usually was, and the sidewalks and cobblestone areas were slippery, particularly to her bare, chilled feet. She spotted the spot by the sailing ship, but took a position across the street in the shelter of an archway leading back to a hotel and small arcade. It offered some slight relief from the wind and rain. She knew it might be a long wait, and she drew herself up as best she could and tried to think warm thoughts, although this would be balmy for this time of year in Quebec.
It was the waiting that really got to her, because it meant she could only brood about things. It wasn’t really the people that she hated, it was herself, this existence, she knew. She wanted out. She wanted it ended. She would even take the paralysis and the chair again, she thought darkly. At least then her body couldn’t feel the cold, the discomfort, nor ache for love and closeness. When paralysed, at least she could communicate, and in that way she could participate to an extent in this mainstream of human affairs.
She had been wrong. It had not been a fair trade to her advantage. The Dark Man was indeed having a good laugh at this.
She couldn’t even have let them kill her, and remove her from all this, for suicide was as repugnant to the Hapharsi as it was to she who had a Catholic upbringing, and she had been obligated in any event to protect Maria.
She waited only about an hour, but it seemed a lifetime, before a familiar car pulled into the pay lot at the Wharf and Greg MacDonald, wearing a raincoat, got out, paid the man, and walked over to the area by the old ship. She spotted him and ran to him, almost slipping once or twice, and when she reached him she flung her arms around him, and he looked down at her in sadness and hugged her back. It felt warm, and good. He led her back to the car and she got in, and found Maria sitting there in the back seat, looking nervous and ashamed.
Maria’s emotions and thoughts were a confused unhappy mess. She had felt tremendous guilt when she panicked, and even more when she couldn’t locate Angelique at all, but some of her fear inside was directed towards Angelique as well. She had seen her friend’s butchery, and seen, far worse, the absolute glee with which her companion had done it, and at that moment she’d had a hard time distinguishing between Angelique and the Dark Man at the altar stone.
They rode back in a tense silence that could be cut with a knife, and Greg wasn’t about to get himself involved. He’d heard Maria’s account, of course, and blamed himself to a degree for leaving them too independent, but the damage was done now.
The house was ablaze with lights when they pulled up, and several cars and small vans were there, with the staff hurrying back and forth loading things into them.
“We’re pulling out?” Maria asked him. “I mean—I thought the car wasn’t traceable.”
“It’s not. Counterfeit plates that match a real registration in New York, car stolen off a used car lot in Dayton and repainted. It’s the prints, Maria. Fingerprints in the car, maybe on the keys, you name it. Yours and Angelique’s. They’ll put it on the wire to Washington and it’ll go via satellite. SAINT will intercept the transmission, flag it, and know immediately where we are give or take fifty or a hundred miles. Local, state, federal, and company cops will be swarming over the whole region any time now.”
“So where are we going this time?”