Read Wild Cards 15 - Black Trump for Free Online

said. Snotman. Well, that was something, anyway. A place to start.
    "Card Sharks, police, aces," Quasiman chanted. "Ring around a rosy, pocket full of posey, ashes, ashes, all fall down."
    "Eenie meenie minie moe," Jay replied, "catch a hunchback by the toe. No offense, Quas, but the next time Father Squid wants to send me an urgent message, maybe he could consider Western Union."
    Quasiman wasn't listening. The hunchback's left hand had disappeared. Quas stared curiously at the end of the arm where it had been just a moment ago. Then he looked up at Jay, his eyes wide and bright and curiously innocent. "Save us," he whispered urgently. "The Black Trump." Then he vanished.
    When Hastet returned from the bathroom, wrapped in a terrycloth bathrobe with her hair up in a towel, Jay was pulling on his socks. "Your friend leave?" she asked.
    Jay nodded. "Think of all the money he saves on doors," he said. "Where's the mate for this sock?"
    "Why? You're not actually going to wear matching socks, are you? Is this some sort of disguise?"
    "The whole Ilkazam harem falls madly in love with me and I have to marry the Henny Youngman of Takis," Jay said. He found the matching sock, pulled it on, and looked around for his shoes.
    "Where are you going?" Hastet asked him.
    "Down to the office," Jay told her. "I have a bone to pick with Humphrey Bogart. Don't wait up."

    ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

    Ray turned to Poynter in sudden fury. He shook her, snapping her head back and forth like a tree branch in a hurricane.
    "How can we help them?" he said between gritted teeth.
    "St-st-st-stop," Poynter stuttered. Blood dripped from her mouth as she bit her tongue.
    Ray somehow controlled himself. "How can we help them?" he repeated.
    Poynter shook her head dazedly. She put her hand to her mouth and looked in stupefied fascination at the blood on it. "We can't," she said. "They're in the final stage. They won't last long."
    "Is it the Black Trump?" Ray asked.
    Poynter looked at him as if afraid to answer. He let some of his strength flow from his hands as he squeezed her arms again, not caring if he broke them. "IS IT?"
    "Yes," Poynter admitted.
    He dragged her to the glass cage that held the girl. She lay huddled in a miserable pile. She focused on Ray as he approached. There was no nope in her eyes, only pain and knowledge of imminent death.
    Ray had never felt so helpless in all his life. There was nothing his speed or strength could do. He grabbed Poynter by the back of the neck and shoved her face against the glass wall.
    "You did this, didn't you? I should break your fucking neck."
    She was crying, but Ray didn't care. He felt his fingers tightening on Poynter's neck.
    "Wa-wa-wait," she stuttered. She was crying, whether from pain or fear Ray didn't know, or care. "Don't. I can tell you - I can help - "
    "Tell me what?" Ray asked.
    "Rudo's journal. About the Black Trump - "
    "Where?"
    She pointed a trembling hand at the desk.
    Ray let her go. She moaned and slipped down against the glass until she too was huddled on the floor, a mirror image of the dying girl on the other side of the wall.
    "Stay put," Ray ordered as he went to the desk. An orderly stack of papers sat in the center of a dark green blotter. Some were memos, some were letters addressed to Dr. Rudo.
    Ray scanned them quickly, but they said nothing about the Black Trump. He tried the desk's center drawer. Locked. He pulled at the drawer and it came loose with a screech of tearing metal. Among the miscellaneous crap that you find in most desk drawers, locked or not, Ray found a journal. He smiled.
    He opened to the last page. "Last vial to Casaday," the note read. "Johnson and I will divide the remaining culture and head for our targets tonight. God help them then!"
    Ray looked up, frowning at the sound of the door swooshing shut. Poynter had snuck out of the room. He tucked the journal into the deep thigh pocket of his appropriated fatigues and went after her.
    She was in the lab ahead of