'The Holy Spirit has spoken through human beings before. The son of God took mortal flesh.'
'You are flirting with blasphemy.'
'Blasphemy and I are just good friends. Holy Father.'
The Pope smiled.
'Can we get anyone there in time?'
'Mapache says no. Sister Chantal is busy in Kamchatka, and Mouier Kazuko Hara is still convalescing. I don't think we have anyone else qualified to handle something like this.'
'Your suggestions?'
O'Shaughnessy spread his hands. 'Prayer, Holy Father.'
Duroc watched the Jibbenainosay disappear into the sky like a Montgolfier balloon, and was relieved to see the thing getting further away from him. It still trailed its corpses like puppets, and had sprouted some non-organic looking appendages that seemed capable of doing plenty of severe damage. He got the impression that even Nguyen Seth wasn't exactly unhappy to see the Dark One off on its way to get Jessamyn Bonney.
Duroc couldn't believe that it had come to this. The Jibbenainosay was something you called up if you wanted to sink Antarctica, not take out an eighteen-year-old girl. Of course, the Manolo and Proctor options hadn't proved effective. Jessamyn—Krokodil, she was calling herself now—was demonstrating an unsuspected resilience. Still, she would have no chance against the Dark One.
Then, Duroc supposed, Seth would have the problem of finding something else to keep the Jibbenainosay occupied.
It didn't rain any more, but sometimes this part of the desert was visited by violent sandstorms. Hawk-That- Settles thought one was coming along. At the height of the afternoon, the wind began to blow gently, and sand drifted against the walls of Santa de Nogueira. He hadn't seen Dr Proctor around all day, but that didn't worry him. It would probably be time to gather the womenfolks indoors, board up the windows and sit tight until it blew over. But he knew Krokodil wasn't going to be be the proper squaw and let him protect her from the elements. She stood on her chapel roof, looking unblinking to the North as the sand blew in her face.
Erich Von Richter, born Ethan Ryker, pulled back the joystick and lifted his Fokker up over the turbulence. He had been with the Red Baron for three years now, giving air cover for the Flying Circus's raids. They only had two planes, but the rest made do with Kustom Kars kitted out with razor-edged biplane wings and machete-blade propellors.
The convoy was down on the road, drawing level with a couple of eighteen-wheelers. He was alone in the skies today, because the Baron had some business with the yaks in Welcome. He was turning over a percentage of the scav for a tankerload of fuel, and an extension of the warranty on the Fokkers.
Von Richter loved flying, but he didn't care for the aerobatics that were the Baron's special thrill. He much preferred laying down a blanket of napalm in front of an interstate wrapper, or opening up with his twin burpguns, kicking up ruts in the road and puncturing the running groundrats.
His old man had sprayed crops for a living, back when there were crops. This was a much better way to use the skies.
'Yo, Rikki,' said Heidi in his earchip. She was groundleader for the day. 'We have the camels in sight. Are you available?'
'There's some weird whirlwind effect up here.'
'If you can't handle it, we'll be okay without you, flyboy.'
Heidi was always taunting him, jockeying for his plane. 'Nothing I can't breeze through, roadcrawler. Remember, you're talking to an ace.'
He dipped the bird's nose into the turbulence and swooped down. It was rougher than he had thought. The stick jarred in his hands, bruising his palms.
The motors cut out and the Fokker fell thirty feet like a deadweight before they cut in again. That shouldn't happen.
'Flyboy, what are you freaking around for? This is combat, here. Squirt some lighter fluid on those trucks and leave it to the Arizona Korps.'
He didn't answer Heidi. He was too busy with the stick, trying to regain control of the biplane.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by a cloud. No, there were no clouds in the Big Empty. It must be smoke. It was black and thick, as if night had fallen in an instant. It wasn't like regular air. The instruments weren't responding properly.
Von Richter shivered as the temperature fell. Ice formed inside his goggles, and his sweat crystallized.
The engine stopped, and he tried to scream. A gust froze his throat.
The Fokker didn't fall. It was suspended in the black cloud.
'Rikki, what is that freaking thing up there? Tell me I'm having a GloJo flashback.'
Von Richter thumbed his gun controls and the guns chattered, spinning bullets and cartridge casings into the black. They emptied quickly, but he still kept pressing.
This was serious weird shit.
A face ten feet across appeared in the blackness. It was more or less human. Von Richter screamed, and beat his hands against the ribbed canvas.
The face's thick lips opened, and a white beak pushed out, opening three ways. A violet thing shot out of the beak, and latched onto Von Richter's face.
Tiny filaments threaded instantaneously through his entire body, and there was a mighty tug as the black thing turned him inside-out.
The Fokker fell out of the sky, and crashed into the sand, surrounded by chunks of ice. Pieces of Erich Von Richter rained down around the wreckage.
The Jibbenainosay sped onwards, towards the South, thinking less of its latest prey than a desert wanderer does a single grain of sand.
The Arizona Korps didn't stop to bury their ace.
Dr Proctor had been polishing his knife. When the Indian came into the wine cellar, he looked up, teeth bared again. 'Hello, Tonto,' he said.
The Ancient Adversary was puzzled. The Vessel was not what he had expected, not the titanic being that could bestride a world and wrestle mind-to-mind with the Dark Ones.
This Jessamyn Bonney was so fragile, so slim, like a butterfly. It knew a moment of doubt. Then, it firmed its resolve.
It was shrunken inside Jessamyn now, inside Krokodil.
The sand was blowing hard now, stinging her face. This was the first sign of the Jibbenainosay.
She remembered her dead foes: Daddy Bruno, Miss Liberty, eyeless Holm Rodriguez, Susie Spam-in-the-Can Terhune, Bronson Manolo. And Dr Proctor, not dead but neutralized.
Behind all the faces, she saw Elder Seth.
The Krokodil part of her knew what was coming, what the Jibbenainosay was, and it was afraid. That was a first for it.
The Jessamyn Bonney part didn't care any more.
On the road, Trooper Nathan Stack was concentrating on the screen, wondering again whether he should try to be reassigned. He didn't know whether riding with Leona was a good idea after their break-up, but he wasn't sure if he could stand the thought of some other grunt drawing the duty. Sergeant Leona Tyree handled the United States Cavalry cruiser with expert ease. They had had a call-in from an interstate convoy, out of Phoenix for the East. Someone hadn't paid off the yaks, and a polite oriental gentleman in a suit had made a scrambled telephone call,
