wobbled like those licorice sticks Myka was always nibbling on. Sweat bathed his face and soaked through his clothes. Alternating hot and cold flashes washed over him, so that he was burning up one moment and chilled to the marrow the next. A metal pole was thrust into the ground nearby, next to a flapping canvas backdrop. He held on to the pole to support himself. His right fist gripped the hickory cane. “Yeah, you heard me, bub. Ready for a rematch?” Startled, Worrall spun around to face Pete.
The creep was looking distinctly less cadaverous than he had the last time around, but there was no mistaking his ugly mug. Pete had been seeing it in his fever dreams ever since Worrall had blindsided him outside the gym. More than once, he had fantasized about blasting the scumbag’s head off his shoulders, then using P. T. Barnum’s top to grow Calvin a new head so he could do it all over again. Hey, it beat counting sheep… “You!” Worrall snarled, recognizing Pete as well. He looked shocked to see Pete up and about, not to mention alive. His eyes bulged. “You shouldn’t be here. I already disposed of you.” “Sorry to disappoint you, Infectious Lad.” Pete doubted that the other guy would get the comic-book reference, but what the hey. He needed to use up all his good material before he kicked the bucket-which felt like it could be any minute now. “I don’t dispose easily.” “And yet you came back for a second dose?” Worrall got over his surprise. His snotty attitude reasserted itself. “Perhaps you should have your head examined, Secret Service Man? Sounds to me like there’s something seriously wrong with you.” Pete shrugged. “Says the guy wearing ladies’ gloves.” Worrall scowled; he didn’t like being the butt of a joke. “You think that’s funny?” He started to raise his left hand. Clara’s Barton’s glove glowed ominously. An icky gray miasma seeped from his fingers. “Let me remind you what this ‘ladies’s glove’ can do.” Uh-uh, Pete thought. Two can play at that game. Digging deep, he stomped the cane upon the ground. An incandescent pulse of energy radiated from the cane’s steel-shod tip before vanishing beneath the surface of the lawn, which rippled unexpectedly like a carpet being shaken. A seismic tremor shook the earth. Clouds of sediment puffed upward where the cane had struck. Nearby booths and stands toppled over, crashing onto the grass. Trembling trees shook loose their last leaves, leaving their branches completely denuded. The strewn bodies of Worrall’s victims bounced atop the shaking earth. “Take that, Creepy Cal,” Pete crowed. “Bet you didn’t see that coming.” The elephant-head walking stick had once belonged to an eccentric British military man named Brigadier General Laverlong. An inveterate world traveler, he had constructed the cane using rare elements from the four corners of the earth. It had resided in a museum in Lakefield, Illinois, before Pete and Myka had retrieved it for the Warehouse a while back, and with good reason. Funny thing about the cane: it caused earthquakes… The tremor knocked Worrall off his feet, breaking his concentration. The toxic miasma around his glove faded and he landed upon the grass not far from Nadia. Myka lost her balance as well. She toppled backward into a tangle of groaning bodies. The quake jolted many of Worrall’s victims from their stupor and they scrambled to their feet. Confused and disoriented, they stampeded from the park. Dazed by the dueling gloves and shaken by the earthquake, they’d probably have only foggy memories of what had happened to them.
“Wha-? What’s going on?” a tattooed teen called out to his buddy. A skateboard was tucked beneath his arm. “Is this, like, a terrorist thing?” “I don’t know, man! Just run!” Pete lost sight of Myka in the chaos. Had she managed to get to her feet in time, or had she been trampled by the maddened crowd? Standing at the epicenter of the quake, Pete was unaffected, but the stunt exhausted the last of his reserves. He crumpled onto the lawn, gasping for breath. The elephant-head cane slipped from his fingers, which were too weak to hold on to it anymore. It felt like an elephant was stepping on his chest, actually, and jabbing his skull with its tusks. His heart was racing out of control. He couldn’t stop coughing. Damn, he thought. I could really use a drink right now… Trembling fingers groped feebly for the cane but couldn’t reach it. The seismological stick was only inches away, but it might as well have been back in South Dakota.
A handgun was holstered beneath his jacket, but he’d be afraid to use it even if he still had oomph enough to draw it. The way his hands were shaking, he’d hit Myka or one of the bystanders instead. He didn’t want to die with an accidental shooting on his conscience. Not stopping Worrall was hard enough. I did my part, he thought. It’s up to Myka now. He hoped he’d live long enough to see her kick Worrall’s ass. The ground stopped shaking. Through blurry eyes, Pete watched helplessly as Worrall scrambled to his feet, looking distinctly worse for wear. Blood dripped from a split lip. His trench coat was rumpled and dirty. He spit red onto the lawn. But his injuries were nothing the gloves couldn’t fix. He ran his right index finger over his lip, which healed beneath its touch. A self- satisfied smirk tested the repaired mouth. He brushed the leaves and grass from his soiled attire before turning back toward Pete, whom he regarded warily. You could practically see the wheels turning behind his wrinkled brow. “How did you…?” Worrall’s gray eyes zeroed in on the cane. “Ah, I see.
Another interesting toy, much like my gloves.” He chuckled. “You are full of surprises, I’ll give you that.” He cast a covetous look at the artifact and started toward it, his greedy fingers curling in anticipation. The cane lay unguarded upon the lawn. “You don’t mind if I help myself to that quite remarkable walking stick, do you? From the looks of things, you won’t be needing it much longer.” The thought of Worrall getting his germy gloves on the cane terrified Pete, but there was nothing he could do to stop him. He tried to drag himself across the grass, hoping to shield the cane with his own body, but his useless limbs refused to cooperate. The pain in his gut was almost unbearable. Pete wasn’t quite sure what peritonitis was, but he guessed this was it. “Hands off, Calvin,” Pete rasped. “You’ve caused enough damage.” Worrall found the dying agent’s defiance amusing. “I don’t think you’re in any position to issue orders, my moribund friend.” He strolled past Pete’s prone body, whistling a classical melody. Myka would have known what it was. “Perhaps I should test my new cane on your thick, impenetrable skull. Put you out of your misery once and for all.” The horrible thing was, that almost sounded like a good idea, except for the part about Worrall gaining the power to create earthquakes at will. Like being the king of sickness and health wasn’t enough for the slimy bastard… Where was Myka? Pete lifted his head enough to see his partner sprawled unconscious on the grass along with the remainder of Worrall’s victims, who were still slowly coming to. The quake, or maybe getting trampled by the fleeing populace, had taken her out of the game at the worst possible moment.
He silently urged her to snap out of it and stop Worrall before it was too late. Get up, Myka! Don’t let this jerk get the cane too! He suddenly wished he had left the cane in the Warehouse where it belonged. “So wherever did you find this singular item?” Worrall asked out loud. “I can’t imagine it’s standard government issue.” Pete was not about to satisfy the bad guy’s curiosity. “You’d be surprised…” “Fine,” Worrall answered, sounding slightly peeved.
“Take your classified secrets to the grave. I’ll soon have influence enough to find out whatever I want.” He bent to pick up the cane. Pete got ready to be turned into a fault zone. He wondered if they’d be able to feel the tremor all the way in South Dakota. Bye, Artie. Bye, Claudia, he thought. Sorry I let you down. At least he was dying sober. That had to count for something. But before Worrall could grasp the cane, a pounding vibration startled both men. For a moment Pete thought it was some sort of aftershock, but then he recognized the sound, which was probably the last thing he had ever expected to hear in the middle of Manhattan. The thunder of racing hooves.
CHAPTER
23
CENTRAL PARK
“Giddy-yap!” Claudia yelped. A horse-drawn carriage, commandeered by her and Artie, came galloping across the meadow like the cavalry. Perched in the driver’s seat behind a wild-eyed brown horse, Artie worked the reins while Claudia rode shotgun-literally: a Super Soaker squirt gun, roughly the size of a bazooka, was clutched to her chest. Purple neutralizer goo sloshed inside the squirt gun’s ample reservoir. A spare tank of goo rested in the open passenger compartment behind her, alongside the carriage’s actual driver, who was snoring off the effect of Artie’s Tesla next to a trio of unconscious Japanese tourists. After some debate, she and Artie had decided to cart the whole party along, rather than leave them defenseless on a New York City sidewalk, where they would have likely been trampled by the panicked mob fleeing the park. The frantic crowd had been their first indication that Pete and Myka were in trouble. Claudia glanced back at the sleeping driver. She hoped they weren’t taking the poor driver and tourists straight from the frying pan into the fire. And the horse too. The situation sure looked craptastic enough. Myka and Pete were both down for the count, surrounded by oodles of wiped-out civilians. The Psychic Fair
