Wild Cards: Death Draws Five Read Online Free PDF

indication of his real identity.”
    “And you’re sure of this?” Ray asked.
    Barnett pursed his lips. “Sure? Well—reasonably. And we’re not the only ones who think so.”
    “No?”
    Barnett nodded. “There are others who have come to a, well, similar conclusion abut the boy’s importance. But they want to harm him. He has to be protected from them.”
    “But—”
    “No, Billy,” Barnett shook his head. “If you truly want to serve me—and the Lord—you must go to Vegas, get the boy, and bring him back here where we can protect him from these others.”
    “Who are they?” Ray asked.
    “The Allumbrados,” Barnett said, almost spitting as he pronounced the name. It sounded fairly sinister to Ray.
    “So, you want me to go to Vegas, pick up the boy, and bring him here for safekeeping?” he recapitulated.
    Barnett nodded. “Yes.”
    Ray suppressed a smile. “If you say the boy needs help, then that’s good enough for me,” he said.
    Barnett beamed. “The Lord will reward you,” he said.
    I’m so out of here, Ray thought.
    ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
    New York City: Waldorf-Astoria Parking Garage
    The Midnight Angel lurked in a dark alley overlooking the entrance to the Waldorf-Astoria’s underground car park, a troubled expression on her face.
    She didn’t care for New York City. It was much too big and loud and fast. It smelled funny and sounded worse. She felt claustrophobic on its busy streets, hemmed in by the towering concrete and steel cliffs. She’d been born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and though—contrary to her mother’s advice—she’d willfully deserted the town of her birth to seek her fortune in the wider world, she still wasn’t accustomed to many aspects of that world.
    She also didn’t much care for skulking. Skulking in shadows didn’t match her sensibilities. She was much too forthright to skulk. There was no room for deception and lies in her make-up, for such were the tools of Satan. But what could she do? The Hand had sent her on a mission where subtlety was necessary. She’d told him that she was not the person for this job, as she found it difficult to blend into even familiar surroundings. At five eleven and a tautly-muscled one forty-five, she was long-legged, wide-hipped, and big-bosomed. If things had been otherwise, she’d have borne many babies and raised them in the way of the Lord. But that life was closed to her. Her body, as suitable for childbearing as it was, was to her ever-lasting shame also cursed with the mark of the wild card. She carried the stain of the alien beast. Her mother had drummed into her early on that she must find another way to serve the Lord. Of course, the Angel was not following the path that her mother had mapped out for her, but her body, curse that it was, was also her blessing. God had burdened her with it, but it was a burden she bore meekly in his service.
    The Hand had made her see that. She’d been with him for a year, and the Angel burned with an almost sinful pride that he trusted her so much that he’d sent her on such an important mission. To know that The Right Hand of God held her in such high regard made her little short of ecstatic. It’d be better if he didn’t look at her with such fire in his eyes and lust in his heart, but she forgave him. Even though he was The Hand he was still only a man and, therefore, a weak sinner. Anyway, it was her fault. She tempted him with her body, though the Lord knew she didn’t mean to.
    The Angel tensed as a long black limo pulled up to the entrance of the hotel’s underground parking lot. The car had Vatican diplomatic plates. It had to be the one she’d been expecting. She waited until it entered the building’s dark bowels, and then followed. There was no booth attendant this late at night, only an automatic ticket dispenser. She slipped under the wooden arm that bared entrance to the urban cave stinking of oil, gas fumes, and waste, praying to the Lord for strength and