Fantasmagoria Read Free Page A

record. Once he was dead, LaMana and his connections at City Hall would bring the police down on Pimpernel’s entire organization. Pimpernel would fight for his life with everything he had. A gang war would erupt. The Empire would come. An Imperial zeppelin in the city at this time of year, when the island was drifting so close to the Aminal Kingdom, was dangerous. After that, it was anyone’s guess.
    “Think about it.” LaMana signaled his men and walked to the door.
    One by one the suited henchmen filed out. The black and tan scraped his horns on the ceiling and snorted as he walked by. Jack watched bits of plaster fall to the floor. Then was alone in the apartment with the whimpering man. A clock in the corner ticked the minutes of Jack’s life away.
    He should have stayed at the bar.
    Jack looked at the man, who pleaded gibberish through his gag. Jack walked over and caught his own reflection in the glass of the old clock. His block head on top of square shoulders. His long coat ending in the twitch of lean hands. The heavy bags under his eyes from skin that didn’t quite fit anymore. He was a frail tiger.
    Jack knelt and pulled the gag off the mark. “How you doing?”
    The man stared, wide-eyed.
    “You know who I am?”
    The man jerked his head up and down in a nervous nod.
    “You hit your kids?”
    The man’s voice was mountain-lake cool but his eyes were on fire. “I swear, I’ll never lay a hand on them, Mr. Jack. I swear to Goyen and the Holy Trinity. I promise.”
    “Good.” Jack nodded. “Then today’s your lucky day.” Jack stood up, and shuffled out.

 
     
    (THREE) A Radioactive Man Has No Friends
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Gilbert Tubers shuffled down the street in a huff, clutching the most valuable thing in the world. It was tucked under his arm inside a glass jar, and he admired it every twenty paces while he stopped to rest. His heavy breath came in rhythmic ebbs, and inside the hood of his yellow hazard suit, it both obscured the street noise and blurred the round visor in a moist fog. Gilbert held the jar close and peered at the little passenger through the thin, fogless rim of the glass portal. He smiled and shuffled off again.
    Those few people left in South Carton, the dark, crumbling, trash-ridden hind end of Freecity, crossed the street when they saw him coming. They did it nonchalantly, as if that was their intended route and crossing had nothing to do with the funny man in the radiation suit. Not that Gilbert minded. In the fourteen years since the accident, people had faded from his life like music from a deaf man.
    It was hot and humid after all the rain—even more so inside the heavy suit—and Gilbert’s ass cheeks were well lubricated by the time he reached the abandoned tenement where he made his home. He could feel beads dribble one by one down the back of his legs like falling suicides. He rested at the top of the stairs for a moment and let them drop while he caught his breath. The lead suit was heavy, and he resolved to take a shower before unwrapping his prize.
    As he walked through the door, the fairies in the large glass terrarium at the other end of the loft fluttered behind a rock. Gilbert heard sounds and remembered he had left the music on for the plants, which had withered in their pots. He set the jar on his workbench, next to a stack of Amateur Fairyer magazines, and walked to the windows to examine potted death. Fourteen plants, one for each year—some hanging, some stacked on books, all the leaves dry and crusty. He noted the date and time in the open logbook. This batch had taken less than twelve hours to die, a record.
    Gilbert switched off the turntable and stripped out of the heavy suit as he walked to the bathroom. His thinning hair was wispy, and it reached for the ceiling as he removed his hood. His condition was getting worse. He could feel it. He was filled with energy. He barely slept. He had headaches every night. He needed answers soon. He