Wild Cards
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and FireFor decades, George R.R. Martin – bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire – has collaborated with an ever-shifting ensemble of science fiction and fantasy icons to create the amazing Wild Cards universe.In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth’s population was devastated by a terrifying alien virus. Those who survived were changed for ever. Some, known as Jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical deformities; others, granted superhuman abilities, are known as Aces.Wild Cards tells the stories of this world.
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HarperVoyager
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust 2018
See Copyright Acknowledgements page for further copyright information
Cover images © Shutterstock.com 2018 Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust 2017 assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008285203
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008239664
Version: 2019-03-01
To Lezli Robyn
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
A Long Night at the Palmer House by John Jos. Miller: Part 1
Down the Rabbit Hole by Kevin Andrew Murphy
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 2
The Motherfucking Apotheosis of Todd Motherfucking Taszycki By Christopher Rowe
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 3
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 4
A Bit of a Dinosaur by Paul Cornell
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 5
Stripes by Marko Kloos
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 6
The Sister in the Streets by Melinda M. Snodgrass
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 7
A Beautiful Façade by Mary Anne Mohanraj
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 8
Meathooks on Ice by Saladin Ahmed
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 9
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Part 10
A Long Night at the Palmer House: Epilogue
The Wild Cards Universe
About the Publisher
Copyright © 2018 by George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust
‘A Long Night at the Palmer House’ copyright © 2018 by John Jos. Miller
‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ copyright © 2018 by Kevin Andrew Murphy
‘The Motherfucking Apotheosis of Todd Motherfucking Taszycki’ copyright © 2018 by Christopher Rowe
‘A Bit of a Dinosaur’ copyright © 2018 by Paul Cornell
‘Stripes’ copyright © 2018 by Marko Kloos
‘The Sister in the Streets’ copyright © 2018 by Lumina Enterprises
‘A Beautiful Façade’ copyright © 2018 by Mary Anne Mohanraj
‘Meathooks on Ice’ copyright © 2018 by Saladin Ahmed
a variant of seven-card stud poker
wherein the high hand splits the pot
with the low spade in the hole
IT HAD BEEN ONE hundred and forty-two years since John Nighthawk had been inside the Palmer House, and then it had been the earlier incarnation of the luxurious Chicago hotel, known simply as the Palmer.
Nighthawk’s age was not apparent in his appearance. He was a smallish black man in a dark pin-striped suit with a discreet kidskin glove on his left hand. He looked to be in his thirties. He sighed as he gazed at the entrance to the hotel. Perhaps, he thought, it’s finally time to lay old ghosts. He hurried across the street, dodging early morning traffic with the ease of the longtime urbanite, and entered the hotel’s lobby.
Inside he paused momentarily, suddenly almost overwhelmed as one of his visions washed over him. They were part of the powers he’d gained on that first Wild Card Day in 1946 and usually came as warnings of great danger lurking in the near future. This one was more incoherent than usual, chaotic scenes of fire and ice, of great beasts and shifting landscapes, of quick flashes of the past he’d once seen and an even vaster past he’d never imagined.
He stood for a moment catching his breath, then went on to the elevator bank and up to the seventh floor, wondering what was in store for him this time around.
The door to room 777 opened at Nighthawk’s light knock, and he found himself looking down into the large, expressive eyes of a man even shorter and slighter than himself, no more than five four and maybe a hundred and ten pounds. The crown of his head was totally bald and there were baggy wrinkles under his soulful eyes. He looked as if he were in his fifties.
It took Nighthawk a moment to place his face. He was the spitting image of the actor Donald Meek. Nighthawk had loved him in
