III
She swam through the thick mud, reverting to her animal self. The Ancient Adversary was stirring inside, ascending within her mind. She was near the Cape, and would have to go on, with or without Colonel Presley. She was sure he would make his own way. Their twinned destiny had yet to be fulfilled. They would come together again.
As the Adversary grew, so did her awareness of Nguyen Seth. The Elder was trying to shield himself from her, to shut her out. But he was thinking of a ring around the Earth. That had something to do with the Cape. He was in Salt Lake City, but his catspaws were out there at the launchpad.
He had to be stopped.
Krokodil surfaced, and wiped the mud from her face.
She was in a quiet lagoon, alone with an old friend.
The fates were drawing her close again. The pink Cadillac was half-grounded on an island, its bodywork streaked with dried mud.
She waded ashore, and looked through the windscreen. An old man, his face wrinkled and scaled, was asleep in the driver's seat, a half-full bottle open against his belly, sloshing moonshine into his lap. It must be the porch-sitter from Donny and Marie's Deathtrap Diner.
Elvis had given her the emergency override entry code for the car door. She opened the keyboard hatch under the doorhandle, and tapped in the number sequence.
The door opened outwards, and a waft of alcoholic reptile body-odour hit her. The drunk grumbled, and made a grab for the jug. It tumbled out of the car and rolled into the swamp.
'Out,' she said sharply. 'No arguments, Pops.'
She took him by the arm, and pulled. He came free and staggered into the sunlight, blinking sideways. As the light hit him, he started screeching. Obviously, the mutation was rendering him abnormally photo-sensitive.
He plunged into the water and immersed himself, leaving only his eyes above the surface. The jug bobbed against his head, and he pulled it down, presumably making a suck for the last of the liquor.
The joyrider hadn't done any harm to the Cadillac when he ran it aground. Krokodil initiated a complete systems check, just to be on the safe side. The car cleared itself.
She braced herself and got a grip on the front bumper. She lifted the three-ton car and eased it off the island and into the water. Dr Threadneedle's augmented muscles did their job.
The joyrider was gone now. Krokodil wondered who he was, and what he was turning into, but she had no time to go into that.
She stripped off her Filthy pyjamas, and washed with non-potable water from the Cadillac's tanks. She found a leech attached under her ribs, and pulled it off. Its teeth hadn't quite penetrated her skin, but it did leave a red suckermark. She hadn't even felt the thing.
She only had one outfit left, a black, green and brown camouflage danskin catsuit. She pulled on jungle boots and a padded vest over it, and then strapped herself into the holster harness. The guns and knives balanced her perfectly.
Ready for everything, she towelled the stinking booze off the driver's seat—it left greyish stains etched into the tough pink leather, so God alone knew what it did to your stomach—and slipped into the car.
She was reaching for the ignition keyboard when the brainstorm hit her…
She was sucked back through her life. In the Denver NoGo, Bruno Bonney, her Dad, thrashed wildly with his willow switch, spittle falling from his mouth. Somewhere on the road, Andrew Jean embraced her, long tongue poking into her month, pressing the zooper-blast ampoule against the roof of her mouth as it exploded. Andrew Jean dissolved into Dr Threadneedle, his face burned off his metallic skull, then into Hawk-That-Settles, singing his song of death, and then into Colonel Presley, singing 'One Night With You.' Through her one eye, she saw the world Nguyen Seth perceived, thick with hidden wonders and horrors. In Spanish Fork, she saw demons dance bloodily in the air as the preacher's spectacles fell from her face. She felt her face pounded against the hard tarmac, blood spattering around her. In the Katz Motel, she faced the risen corpse of a murderer's mother, and felt her mind fleeing. In the desert, she chased lizards for food and took on a Miss America contestant in a swimwear single combat. Miss America's face was superimposed over Mrs Katz's rotten skull, and was displaced by others. A preening prettyboy Op hiding in his machine while she killed her way towards him. Dr Ottokar Proctor, the erudite monster, smiling as the cartoon Tasmanian Devil displaced his features. Then, in its terrible grandeur, the Jibbenainosay blossomed, blotting out the sky, calling a challenge to the being cocooned inside her. She did not know which frightened her more, the monster on the outside, or the thing that expanded to fill her mind and body…
Krokodil gripped the wheel, and tried to clear her mind of the unwanted images. Her entire body shook.
Remembering Hawk's tutoring, she centered herself, trying to make her mind the calm eye of the raging hurricane.
Elder Seth appeared in the centre of the Jibbenainosay, eyes blank. He was waiting for her to kill him, she knew.
She remembered her other selves. Jessamyn Bonney. Jazzbeaux. Jesse Frankenstein's Daughter. They came to her, and melded with her current person.
Krokodil.
She was Krokodil.
She started up the motor, and did a three-point turn in the lagoon. Cape Canaveral was almost directly due East.
The Cadillac knifed through the swampwater, leaving nothing behind but a wake.
IV
Raimundo's jaws closed over the Donny, snapping him off half-way down his torso. The dinosaur worried at the Josephite until the mouthful came loose, and Donny's lower body fell, twitching, to the floor.
'Heyyy, homes,' said Raimundo between swallows, 'chewy-chewy, maaaann!'
'Watch out,' Elvis said. 'He's not out of it yet.'
Donny's body got up. One arm was still attached by a strand and a joint, and the fist convulsed, discharging the gun. A bullet whined against the blades of the ceiling fan.
Raimundo nudged the headless Josephite, knocking him down, and put a three-taloned foot on the wriggling thing. The dinosaur put all his weight on one leg, and Donny squished apart.
Josephites appeared behind Raimundo. Elvis head-shot two, and they went down. They weren't all Waltons, thank the Lord.
Raimundo stumped off into the thick of battle, stray bullets flattening against his hide.
Elvis and Shiba dashed out of the wrecked office. Shiba chewed the ankles of a Marie Walton, wrenching her leg off. Elvis fired his remaining shots at the armoured transport, and paused to reload. The battle seemed to be turning in their favour.
Raimundo loomed over the transport. Its tower was swivelling, trying to bring a chaingun to bear. The dinosaur ripped the thing free and, its magazine flapping, pointed it down into the interior of the transport. He got a talon into the manual trigger-guard, and fired it. Empty cartridges clattered against the armourplate, and the interior of the transport rang with resounding ricochets and cries of pain.
The Suitcase People were coming out ahead. The Josephites hadn't sent a large enough force on this strike.
Shiba had been stabbed in the tail by a Marie, but was chewing on a writhing arm. He was ripping the creature apart. The head was babbling adspeak, endorsing the latest oven cleanser, while the fingers of her remaining hand
