Dead Mans Hand

1:00 P.M.

Brennan carried Jennifer, wrapped up in his denim jacket, down into the sewer line. She seemed to be getting worse. Her skin was feeling cool and feverish in turn, and she was murmuring gibberish that Brennan couldn't make heads or tails of.

He moved as quickly as he could through the semidarkness of the sewer. He had to stop every now and then and put Jennifer down in order to climb to the surface to check his route, but Brennan had a good sense of direction below as well as above ground. It led him with only a few false turns to his destination. Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. He carried Jennifer back up to the surface and over to the small rectory attached to the rear of the church. He kicked the door several times with his foot. Father Squid opened the door after a moment, his look of annoyance quickly turning to one of surprise and concern.

"Merciful Lord," he said, "what happened?"

"I'll tell you in a moment, Father," Brennan said, pushing past the priest. "Right now we have to get a doctor. One you can trust to keep his mouth shut. Know anybody that fits that description?"

"Well, there's Mr. Bones-"

"Get him."

"He's not a real doctor-"

"Is he good?"

Father Squid nodded. "The people around here swear by him. Sometimes I think he knows more about joker physiology than Tachyon."

Brennan nodded. 'All right. Get him.'

Father Squid bustled off to his bedroom to make the call, while Brennan set Jennifer down gently on the priest's beatup old sofa and then flexed his tired arms. He knelt down by her and felt her forehead. It was cold again, although sweat was beading up and running down her forehead and high cheekbones.

As he held her hand it began to turn ghostly in his as she phased in and out of her material state, uncontrollably and unconsciously.

"Jennifer!" He tried to wake her up, but she didn't seem to hear him. He was afraid to shake her, afraid to move her at all.

Her skin was white as death, her breath infrequent and shallow.

Father Squid came back into his neat little living room, bringing a blanket that he gently draped over Jennifer. "He was in. He'll be here soon. Now, tell me, my son, what's going on here?"

" I guess I owe you that," Brennan said. He settled down tiredly on the floor next to Jennifer, refused the priest's offer of coffee, and told him what had happened that day.

While he spoke, half of his mind was condemning the obsession that had put him and Jennifer in this desperate situation, and half was wondering about the palace and Chrysalis's downstairs neighbors, and how he could get by the police surrounding the place.

When he finished the tale, there was a slow, measured knocking on the rectory door. Father Squid went to answer it and let in a tall black man who looked like a resurrectionist out of a Boris Karloff movie. Mr. Bones was old, thin, and gaunt. He wore a white shirt and an old black suit that was clean and neatly repaired, but much too short for his long, lanky limbs.

This joker wasn't severe as things went. In fact, the two feathery antennae growing out of his forehead were rather attractive. They twitched like ferns blowing in a gentle breeze as Father Squid introduced him to Brennan.

"This the patient?" Bones asked as he knelt down before Jennifer. He stripped the blanket off her. As he took her pulse he bent very close to her and moved his head up and down her body. His antennae twitched and rotated like sensitive radar receptors.

"How is she, doctor?" Brennan asked quietly.

"I'm not a doctor," Bones replied, still running his antennae over Jennifer. After a moment he rocked back on his heels and looked at Brennan and Father Squid. "Her system's had quite a shock. Right now all we can do for her is let her rest." He covered her with the blanket and stood up. "And hope for the best."