One Eyed Jacks

SOON…]

They were standing in front of the Dime Museum. A poster was stapled inside a case next to the door, a garish drawing of the Syrian exhibit. A waxen Senator Hartmann was gesturing for the others to retreat, his jacket bloody from the gunshot wound. Guards with Uzis gazed at the dais where the Kahina slit the throat of her brother the Nur al-Allah. Braun glowed in a golden spotlight; Carnifex gleamed in his white fighting suit; Tachyon clutched his head and crumpled on the ground.

John wasn't sure how they'd ended up there. For most of the last hour, they'd reeled through the streets of J-town blindly, trying to find the punks and slowly realizing that the quest was useless.

Their fists clenched and unclenched-the right hand Evan's and the left John's. There wasn't much of Patty surfaced in Oddity at all. It seemed that her body had become sluggish since the loss of her presence.

[We've got to go get her, John. David says they'd've taken her to the Rox. He says we have to find Patty quickly. He's afraid. I can feel it. He's scared of what might happen if he's out of his own body for too long. Patty might be trapped.]

[I don't hear him, Evan. We smashed him down to Passive. Stuck him in the basement and locked the door. We can't hear the fucker at all.]

[Don't tell him Evan I can get you out I can give you the release you want just help me out of here quick I know you I know you…]

David broadcast the plea desperately, constantly. Evan knew the truth. John was tiring already; Evan knew that his own will could not hold David down alone if John fell from Dominant. The jumper knew that, too. Since then, Evan had heard David's voice. Constantly. At Sub-Dominant, Oddity's eternal purgatory sluiced over Evan's soul, and he could hear the words promising a salvation.

[You want out I know you…] Yes, David knew Evan's weaknesses. He knew too well how Evan kept listening and wondering.

A violent shudder racked their body; they could see the right arm shorten and change color as they watched. The torment was worse than either John or Evan remembered, as if they had also taken Patty's share of the agony. The fingers curled with pain, the nails digging into the palm. When the fists opened again, the hand was a piebald mixture of John and Evan.

[How long can you stay Dominant?] Evan gasped with the transformation. [John, the only thing that's kept any of us sane was being able to go down to Passive and rest. Even Sub-Dominant hurts too much. John… please…]

[I'll jump someone else someone you'll loathe some- one neither you or John can stomach at all and you'll be left in the body with them without Patty without any chance of ever getting out at all unless you help me NOW…]

[Patty's in the Rox,] Evan said. [In the Rox. My God-]

[We haven't any plan. We don't know what we're running into or how to handle it once we do find her.] [Let's just get there. Now, John. Before it's too late.] Oddity moaned. The pain redoubled as the body shifted again. Oddity screamed this time, grasping the fire hydrant in front of the museum and wrenching upward as if they could drive away the torture with violence. The top of the hydrant gave way under their assault with a metallic shriek. Water cannoned in a gushing, two-story-high fountain, soaking their black cloak and turning the gutters into dark, trash-filled rapids. Water cascaded over the front of the Dime Museum.

Underneath, David laughed and whispered to Evan. [When we get there I can do it I can give you the body you want whatever you want just help me…]

"What's it feel like to be a man?"

"Huh?"

Patty kissed Evan and pulled him deeper into her with her hands, wrapping her legs around his back. Next to them, John snored, asleep.

"You know," she insisted, giggling. "To penetrate instead of being penetrated. To feel a woman's heat around your cock. To ejaculate. To have one short blinding spasm instead of a long extended one!"

"Is that what you're thinking about?" Evan pretended to be offended and Patty slapped his buttocks, rolling him over until she straddled him. She traced the tight black curls of hair on his dark chest. "So you want to be a man, eh, virile and masterful."

"To surrender my brain to a penis," she retorted. "C'mon, Evan, haven't you ever wondered what it feels like to be a woman?" Evan tried to shrug and she shook her head at him. "Come on now. Admit it!"

"Okay," he said. "Maybe a little. But there's no way to ever know, is there?"

But there was, now.

Moving an arm was ecstasy. Feeling the stubble on her cheek was glory The touch of jeans along her legs was a caress. The tepid beer that Blackhead gave her was a gastronomical delight. Despite all her worries about John and Evan, despite her fear of the Rox, Patty couldn't help but marvel at the wonder of being in this body. She'd forgotten how good it was. It didn't matter that she was male or that she very likely had a crack addiction or worse-she was free, able to walk alone and talk alone and not feel anyone else inside her.

[This body's wanted for questioning in New York, and that may not be the worst of it. What if he's got AIDS, what if the wild card has done other hidden things to him or if he's syphilitic or has cancer? What about sex? What if after a few experiments you find that you're still attracted only to males? What about John and Evan, trapped in Oddity with that punk?]

But the objections didn't totally convince. She was here, in David's teenage body, and Patty had to admit that she enjoyed the sensation. She drank again, savoring the coolness, the odor of the hops, the yeasty taste.

Kelly watched her, always, while Blackhead worried near the door.

"Why do you keep staring?" Patty asked, and the rich, deep voice was a joy.

Blackhead answered for her. "Kelly? She's new. She's got the hots for David but he ain't laid her. She'd love to go down on him, to have him spread her legs-"

Kelly whirled around, stabbing a forefinger at Blackhead. "You shut up, hear? You're just mad 'cause I won't do you."

Blackhead laughed. "Shit," he told Kelly. "That's crap. You'd sure lay down and spread 'em with a smile to get initiated. You ain't really part of us until you can jump, and you can't jump until you get laid by Prime, and that might not be for a while, since he don't get out here that often. So don't give me that shy virgin shit. Maybe it don't have to be Prime, Kelly. And you're wasting your time waiting for David. He can fuck anyone he wants. He don't need you. I'd do just fine."

"I want more than a pencil," Kelly spat. She huddled on the floor near Patty, arms around knees while Blackhead chortled near the entrance to the ramshackle room. "Son of a bitch," she muttered. Her face was flushed from anger and embarrassment.

"I was her age once… I've been there too."

"I'm sorry" Patty said softly to Kelly, and meant it. The girl thanked Patty with her eyes, and Patty had to smile again. But Blackhead's words had caused other reactions, too. "What's it feel like to be a man?" she'd asked Evan long ago. Now she knew part of it. There was a heat, and her jeans were suddenly tighter in the crotch. "You're very pretty" she said softly so that only Kelly could hear. Though the words sounded strange and awkward, Kelly gave a half smile at them.

Patty hated the rest of what she was going to do. "Kelly, I can give you David, if that's what you want." She whispered it so that Blackhead couldn't hear the words.

"You ain't David," she answered, but without anger. "No," Patty admitted. "But maybe when David comes back, his body will remember…"

"You were ugly. I saw the Oddity once in Jokertown. No one would go to bed with you the way you were."

"You're a gorgeous woman, Patricia," John said. It was the anniversary of the first time they'd made love as a trio. Their 'birthday,' they'd jokingly called it. Evan had made a cake. John decorated the apartment with balloons and crepe paper. They'd stuck a silly hat on her head and a champagne glass in her hand when she walked in. "A wonderful person. I can't imagine loving anyone else, and I know Evan feels the same way. We're both very lucky." Patty nodded, feeling the tears in her eyes and fighting them back. She could feel Kelly's gaze on her. "No," Patty said. "Not for a long time. A long time." Kelly's hand reached out and touched Patty/David's. There was a softness in her gaze, a sympathy that made Patty like Kelly despite the hard exterior she tried to maintain. She smiled at Patty and Patty smiled back, feeling the strangeness of David's face.

"Okay," Kelly whispered. "Maybe…"

Kelly rose to her feet and went over to the makeshift door of the hut. She spoke to Blackhead in an intense whisper. "I ain't leavin'," Blackhead said loudly.

"Where the hell is he gonna go? This is the Rox, asshole. You can stay outside if you want."

"Maybe I'll stay and watch, huh?"

"You can diddle yourself outside." Kelly shoved Blackhead, opening the door.

Blackhead snorted. He gestured with the pipe toward Patty. "I'll be right there. You stick your head out and I'll take it off." He looked from Patty to Kelly, laughed again, and left.

Kelly didn't look at her for a long time. She stayed by the piece of plywood that was the door, facing away. Then she seemed to sigh.

It was Patty who came to her, by the door. She opened her arms and hugged Kelly. It felt strange to be so much taller. Patty was very aware of Kelly, of the breasts pressing against David's chest, of the smell of her hair, of the way her hips pressed against her body. Kelly's hands came around Patty's head and brought it down to her.

They kissed, softly and tentatively, then Kelly's mouth opened. [Very strange…] Patty felt her [his] body responding. She leaned into Kelly, pulling her tight. Close. She could feel the unbidden erection aching to be loosed. [Ah, Evan, so very, very strange…]

"So urgent," she breathed. "Impatient."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"Nothing." She hugged Runt again.

There was an insistence to her arousal that differed from anything she'd known before. Maybe it was the years since she'd experienced desire, maybe she'd just forgotten, but this seemed more volatile and dangerous. It wasn't Kelly-Patty had never been particularly sexually attracted to women despite some minor experimentation. Patty shuddered as she ended the embrace, as she raised her head from Kelly's lips and held the girl at arm's length. She slipped the shirt over Kelly's head, unbuckled the jeans. Kelly was attractive, Patty thought clinically. Very pretty in a young way. Patty stroked her tentatively, then with more passion, her hands going from Kelly's breasts to the fleece between her legs as Kelly closed her eyes.

They sank together to the floor. Kelly's legs wrapped around Patty, her hands sought to unzip her jeans and pull out that odd hardness throbbing there.

Holding back was far, far more difficult than Patty had imagined it would be. Runt's lips and hand were insistent; she seemed to feel the heat coming from both of them. Patty wanted to do this, wanted to plunge her erection into Kelly's moist heat…

"I'm sorry" she whispered. Rising up, Patty drove David's fist in a vicious cut across her chin. There was a lot of wiry strength in her new body. Her fist snapped against Kelly's jaw.

Kelly grunted; her eyes closed as blood drooled over cut lips. Her legs and arms went limp around Patty. Patty got to her feet. She called to Blackhead, outside the door. "Hey, man! How about joining us?"

The door opened; Blackhead stuck his head in and saw Kelly's naked body spread-eagled on the floor. He gaped.

Patty hit the kid in the back of the head with doubled, fisted hands. Blackhead staggered and doubled over, and Patty brought her knee up into his face. She heard the nose break.

As Blackhead fell, Patty pulled on the rope handle and flung open the door.

Patty darted through the opening and into the darkness of the Rox.

Ellis Island was a quarter mile from the shipyards of the Jersey shore and a little over a mile from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan Island.

But you couldn't get to Ellis from either of those places. Certainly some could (and had) tried, but they were invariably curious nats, and nats who went to the Rox were treated rudely, violently, and sometimes fatally. The authorities had passed control of Ellis like a legal hot potato from the National Park Service, to the New Jersey authorities, to the New York City police, who had given up any pretext of actual control of the island months ago.

Still, patrol boats vigilantly intercepted anyone trying to swim or boat to the Rox. The authorities might not be able to shut down the Rox itself, but they could and would control traffic to and from the island.

Those who went to the Rox knew that to get there safely you had to see Charon, and Charon could only be found on the East River, where the edge of Jokertown touched water.

Oddity could hear the waves slapping the pilings under the rotting wharf. They'd placed a kerosene lantern at the end of the dock-it hissed at their feet, the mesh filament gleaming erratically in the breeze off the river.

Inside, David yammered at Evan, shielding his mindvoice from John.

[Any fuckin' body you want man any fuckin' one just point at it and it's yours free at last just help me when we get to the Rox fast fast fast…]

[I don't see anything,] John's usually powerful Dominant voice was weak, but it still drowned out the jumper's constant wheedling. [Maybe Dutton was wrong, Evan.]

[No not wrong Charon will come take us to the Rox that's where they'd've taken her…] David whispered it to Evan alone.

[Charon will be here,] Evan told John. [Be patient.] Even as he said it, he knew how impossible it was. One way or another, this had to be resolved soon. Being Dominant was exhausting and John had only gone down to Passive the day before. It had been hard enough for Evan to move to Sub-Dominant with no rest. John wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. When that time came, Evan would have to take Dominant; if he couldn't or wouldn't hold it, David would. If that happened, they'd lost everything.

John knew it, too. His anger lashed at Evan.

[How can we be patient? God knows what's happened to Patty. If they've hurt her, I swear I'll kill every last one of them.]

[They haven't hurt her, John. She's in David's bodythey'll be careful with it.] Then: [John, what if she wants to STAY?]

John wouldn't even consider that. Evan could hear mental doors slamming. [No. Patty wouldn't want that.] A boot scraped wood, a breath hushed in darkness. Oddity turned sharply, their heavy cloak swirling. Four youths came from behind a stack of crates. Jumpers. One, with a shock of orange-red hair, held an aluminum baseball bat. Another swung a chain softly at his side. The other two had knives-switchblades. "What the hell do you want?" Oddity growled.

"David?" Chains asked.

Oddity gave a laugh that was mostly grunt. "Dave's not here," the harsh voice said. The bitter laugh sounded again. "So fuck off before you get hurt."

Chains looked at Red, who shrugged. "David's been in there three, four hours," Chains said.

"Hell, that's a long time, ain't it?" Red grinned. He was missing teeth. "Almost as bad as jumping a bar of soap, huh?" He laughed.

Down in Passive, David struggled. [I wonder if Molly sent them or if they came on their own she might like me gone forever I'll fucking kill her if she did…]

"Hey, man, can David hear me?" Red asked Oddity. He slapped the end of the bat against his open palm. "y?

"'Cause I thought I should tell him a few things. Things he'd like to know"

"So talk."

Red grinned. "Tell David there ain't no reason to go to the Rox, man. We're gonna take care of his body." The words sent a shock through Oddity, stunning them all. For a moment they felt nothing. "Now we came to take care of the rest, huh? Just to make sure."

With that, Red took a leaping step forward, swinging the bat like an outfielder swinging for the fences.

He hit the Oddity square in the side of the head. Oddity staggered and nearly fell. The pain was a burning lance. Oddity screamed, their throat tearing with the sound. John's control tottered, but neither Evan nor David could take advantage. Then John's fury took hold fully. As Red brought the bat back for the next blow and the other three closed in, Oddity forced himself up. A hand caught the bat as it began the downswing; a savage, powerful twist wrenched it from Red's hands-Red's wrist snapped and the kid howled.

Oddity swung now, the bat making an audible and sinister whuff through air. Only the fact that Red had crumpled to the ground saved the kid. Chains whipped his steel links in a dangerous arc; Oddity caught them and pulled, catapulting Chains into the pile of crates. The jumper didn't move again.

The remaining two had already fled. Red, cradling his hand to his waist, was limping after them. Oddity screamed again and flung the bat after Red. It clattered into darkness.

[They've killed her! They've killed Pattty!] John shouted inside, raving.

[No!] Evan shouted back. [No! I don't believe that. It had to be a bluff, a deception. John, please!]

A soft splash cut off any further discussion. A glowing apparition came up from the filthy water around the dock, garlanded with a bald tire, two green Hefty bags, and a used Pamper. Except for the garbage snagged around the body, it was almost pretty. The thing was a gelatinous hollow sphere eight feet in diameter, nearly transparent except for translucent bands of muscle. Ribbons of light rippled along jellyfish flesh, sparking soft green, yellow, and blue. Near the top of it were two very human eyes and a mouth. It bobbed in the slight swell.

Charon.

"Fee?" it croaked.

[Evan?] John's rage had not abated. It had merely gone cold and dangerous.

[Must find out…] David seemed stunned, bewildered. Frightened.

[All right, John,] Evan told him. [We won't know anything unless we go.]

Oddity picked up two shopping bags next to the lantern. Approaching Charon, they showed the joker that they were full of groceries and canned goods. "Fine," Charon said. "Put them inside."

Oddity shoved the bags into the slimy flesh between the muscle. The flesh was cold and wet; it yielded under their pressure, stretching until suddenly the skin parted and they could place the bags on the gellid "floor" of Charon. Underneath the flattened bottom of the joker, they could see hundreds of wriggling cilia.

"You want to go to the Rox? You're certain?" Charon asked.

"Yes."

"Then get in. " Charon paused. It snorted air from a blowhole atop the sphere and it bobbed lower in the water. "You've got David with you."

"How did you know that?" Oddity grunted.

"I can feel the child's black, wretched soul. Get in." Charon would say nothing else.

Oddity stepped forward, pushing their way into Charon's body and hating the feel of the clinging, damp flesh. They sat down inside the joker as it began to sink into the waters of the East River. On the muddy, garbage-strewn bottom, in the dim light of the creature, they could see the cilia stirring dark clouds as Charon began the long crawl.

Hidden and silent, they moved south and west into the bay toward Ellis Island and the Rox.

Movement was exhilaration. The running… Ah, the running…

The wind, the pounding in the lungs and chest, the racing heartbeat the joy was almost enough to make her forget a groggy Blackhead shouting alarm behind her and to erase the sight of the hovels of the Rox.

Almost.

In the days before Oddity, Patty had devoured Victorian novels with their London slums, the poor waifs, and the quirky, grimy sense of realism. The Rox had the same Dickensian sense of gloom, the same chiaroscuro shades, but here the reality was harsher-edged. Makeshift dwellings clung like fungus to and between the decaying buildings of Ellis island; the lanes between them were muddy, rutted, and filthy under Patty's feet.

Dickens in hell.

In the early morning the lanes were mostly empty. The few inhabitants she glimpsed told her that the Rox was Jokertown distilled, Jokertown boiled down to the raw, bitter dregs. The jokers Patty saw here were the most deformed, the ones just hanging on the edge of what might be called human.

"Where you gonna go, Pat? There ain't no place to hide." Blackhead and Kelly shouted behind her, their voices echoing between the shacks. They hadn't stayed down very long at all. [Your own fault. They're just kids; you didn't want to hurt them too badly…] Patty could hear the jumpers' pursuit. She turned left blindly, seeing the lights of Manhattan and the gleam of water through two drunken-angled buildings. A few lights were coming on around Patty as Blackhead and Kelly continued to fling taunts and warnings at her.

Turning the corner, she blundered into someone whose skin felt like soaked velvet. She caught a glimpse of yellow, faceted eyes. "Sorry" she said, and thrust herself away, her hands dripping with whatever oozed from that skin. Two heads leaned curiously from a nearby window, joined at the throat into one bull neck. Something without legs slithered across the lane in front of her, leaving behind a scent of lavender that suddenly turned sour and bitter. A voice roared from the darkness between two buildings, but the words were incomprehensible, hopelessly slurred.

A hand caught at her from behind and Patty screamed. The arm to which the hand was attached stretched like taffy, the hand-clawed like a dog's, but undeniably human still clutching her biceps. The arm stretched taut and as thin as a pencil, turning her; then the hand let go and she spun and almost fell from the shock of release.

Patty didn't look back to see what or who had tried to stop her. She kept running.

She'd been to Ellis, years ago. She remembered a U-shaped, tiny island, with docks along the central waterway. The administration building dominated one side of the island; the buildings used for holding detained aliens filled the other. Patty could see the administration building on the far side. She could smell the bay. David's body was beginning to pant from the exertion now, but she seemed to have outdistanced the others.

She broke into the open, looking for a rowboat, a dinghy, anything. If she had to, she'd try swimming-she could swim, and this body was stronger than her own had been. Manhattan and New Jersey loomed achingly close.

"Bloat says to ask what good it will do you to be captured by the police patrols, Patty"

Patty stopped. A figure had stepped out between her and the bay. She squinted at it. It looked like a walking, man-sized roach. There were two others with him; jokers, armed with what looked like a shotgun and a small-caliber hunting rifle. The roach-man held up a cheap plastic walkie-talkie. "Bloat sent me to get you."

From the shadows of the buildings, Blackhead and Kelly came panting out. "Hey-" Blackhead shouted. Patty started to run. There was room. Maybe the insectlike joker would be unable to move quickly. Maybe the jokers with the guns might miss. Maybe she could dive into the water and be gone.

Maybe.

The roach's radio crackled. "Bloat says that the water's still very cold this time of year. You'll cramp up and drown before you get halfway there. He says he has a solution for you."

Blackhead and Kelly were very close. She had to move now.

"Bloat doesn't hurt jokers, Patty. He says to remember that you asked Evan not to waste his life." The roach's voice was almost a sigh, laced with a strange sadness.

The words were a slash, a mortal wound. Patty's intake of breath was half sob at the memory. And then it was too late. Blackhead grabbed her arm roughly; Kelly, dressed only in her jeans, blocked Patty's path, her eyes accusing, hurt, and cold.

"This is a jumper problem, Kafka," Blackhead said gruffly to the roach-man. The two jokers with Kafka stepped forward threateningly, but Kafka waved them back.

"Not anymore," Kafka answered, softly and almost shyly. "Bloat's seeing her. You want to continue to live on the Rox? Then think about what you want to do here. You're renters; you're here only because you pay Bloat for the privilege."

"We don't take orders from Bloat," the jumper blustered.

Kafka just waited. Blackhead's hand dropped to his side.

What looked like a smile went across the inhuman face under the carapace. "Good. We really don't need this unpleasantness. Please… follow me," Kafka said. The joker guards took up escort positions around Patty and the others. Kafka nodded. Scuttling ahead of them with a rustling sound, he led them to the administration building. And Bloat.

THE ROX CAN'T SINK; BLOAT FLOATS. THE GREAT WALL OF BLOAT. Patty'd seen those graffiti, too.

Patty's first thought was that Bloat resembled nothing more than a mountain of filthy, uncooked bread dough into which some irreverent child had stuck toothpicks. Bloat filled the vast foyer of the administration building. Juryrigged steel supports jutted through the sagging floor alongside him; concrete pipes stabbed into that monstrous pile of flesh like gigantic IVs. The size of him was almost too much to comprehend; his shapeless flanks receded into darkness and back corridors. His head was a wart nearly lost on the massive body. The shoulder and arms were almost vestigial, stick thin and too short, overwhelmed in the rolling hills of flesh. Bloat could not move, could not be moved.

And the stench. It was as if Patty had fallen headfirst into a midden. She gagged.

Bloat's eyes were black and amused.

"A mountain of uncooked dough…" he said. His voice was a thin, prepubescent squeak and the words tumbled out in a rush. His statement startled her. "I suppose that's kinder than most, Patty. But then you always considered yourself an understanding woman."

"You mean this one's a fuckin' cunt?" Blackhead guffawed behind her. "Hey, Kelly, you almost lost your cherry to a chick." Kafka motioned. One of the joker guards hit Blackhead swiftly and casually in the stomach with the butt of his shotgun. Blackhead groaned and threw up noisily on the tiIe floor.

"You should be quiet when the Governor's talking," Kafka said gently.

Blackhead spat. "Hey, fuck you, Roach."

Kafka looked at Bloat, who gestured. The guard hit Blackhead again. The youth went to his knees in the puddle of his vomit.

Bloat watched the violence greedily. His ludicrously small hands clenched and twitched and he smiled.

"Yes, I know he's just a child, but he's a vicious, dangerous one," Bloat said, and Patty's intake of breath was audible, for Bloat had once again spoken her thoughts. "For that matter, he's not much younger than me."

Bloat didn't stop talking, didn't stop to take a breath. His monologue rolled on like a freight train without brakes. "There are those who need reminding who controls things here. The Rox is still too anarchic. There's too little direction, too little real leadership. We have potential here, nearly unlimited potential and real power. David's group is just one example, even if they're wild and untamed. Still, I've been here less than a year."

The lecture spewed nonstop in Bloat's high voice. He spoke quickly, loudly, giving Patty almost no chance to interrupt the torrent of words.

"What-"

"Do I want from you?" Bloat interrupted, finishing the thought for her. "That's very simple. Oddity. I want the Oddity."

"I don't know where Oddity is."

Bloat's eyes closed. "I do. They're very close. They're coming here now" The eyes opened again and he smiled at Patty. "Such a childish image that puts in your head," he said, the words rushing past pasty lips. "The Noble Rescue. The Happy Ending. But you haven't thought past that, have you? You haven't thought about what happens then. I have. A strength like the Oddity's could be useful. Not essential, mind you, but I could utilize it. The Oddity has been a friend to Jokertown for years. I appreciate that; it makes us siblings."

"I doubt it."

He nodded, more to her thoughts than her words. "In the Rox, jokers try to help jokers. We do what's best for those the wild card has nearly destroyed."

"No matter who it hurts."

Bloat grimaced. "If nats or aces get hurt, I don't care. Fuck them. If that's what it takes, I'll even encourage it. I have my own dreams, dreams of the Rox expanding. We've only this little island, twenty-seven lousy acres built on abandoned ship ballast that's filling up quickly. There's a bigger island I'd like to claim."

Bloat took a breath, and Patty plunged into the brief space. "New York? That's impossible."

"Not impossible. Not at all. And spilling nat blood now will save a lot of joker blood later."

Patty saw the attendants listening attentively. Alongside her, Kafka was rapt.

Bloat continued. "The reprisals will be brutal, in any case. I have my dream every night, Patty. The dream tells me that the nats are destined to taste the fruits of their own hatred and bigotry. To fulfill that dream, I need more than the jokers and ragtag gangs. We already have a few renegade aces and jokers with useful powers in residence. We can use more. You have some sympathy with our cause, even if you don't agree with my tactics."

He wouldn't let her speak. The diatribe poured out from him, gasping. "Oh, yes, Patty, I hear your thoughts. `The Oddity is different.' You're essentially lawful-you helped Hartmann, after all. You think that no one would want to endure the pain of being the Oddity"

Bloat grinned humorlessly. "They don't have to. David, the one whose body you're holding at the moment, our David and his jumpers can transfer people in and out, can't he?"

"Then why haven't you done it? Why haven't you left that." Patty gestured at the helpless, endless bulk behind him.

The head, so tiny against the body, wrinkled in a grimace. He didn't have to speak for Patty to know that he'd tried it, that it hadn't been successful. Bloat's face suffused with remembered anger. When he spoke, his voice was sharp-edged. "I already know that one new person can be in Oddity and the body still functions. Perhaps two can be gone, or even all three. Perhaps not. Perhaps at least one of the original components must always be in Oddity's mind. I don't know. But I will find out. I'll find out in any way I have to."

[John, Evan, what do I do now?] The silence inside her head was mocking and Patty felt frightened and very alone. The isolation hurt more than anything she remembered from Oddity.

Bloat had paused. In the silence, a soft and prolonged squilching sound reverberated across the lobby, like someone rolling across a half-filled water bed. Gelid, dark masses erupted from pores all along Bloat's body, which rippled around the large pipes impaling him. The black goo rolled, thickened, and then dropped from the slope of Bloat's flanks, leaving behind umber smears. The clumps piled around Bloat, and Patty saw that the tiles around the huge joker were hopelessly stained.

The horrid stench hit her a second later: the odor of concentrated raw sewage. Patty nearly gagged; around her, Kafka and the others struggled to remain stoic. Joker attendants wearing masks came from an alcove and scurried about removing the filth, shoveling it up and placing it in carts. Others toweled Bloat's side.

"They call it bloatblack," he told Patty, answering the question in her mind. "A body this large requires a corresponding amount of intake. The wild card has made it easier-I can digest anything organic. Anything at all. Kafka has made it simple; these pipes connect directly to the Rox's sewer system. But every body, no matter how efficient, has to excrete waste material."

Patty could not keep her thoughts hidden.

"You're disgusted," he said in his choirboy's tenor. "Don't be. It's what the wild card gave me. Is it my fault that this body needs so much, that I must take in everyone else's shit and spew it out again?" The voice had gone strident. He looked at Patty. "Yes. I'm trapped, trapped the way you were trapped in the Oddity. And I don't need your fucking sympathy, you hear! I'll stuff it back down your fucking throat!"

Patty choked and forced the bile back down. She lifted her chin defiantly to the joker. "We won't run Oddity for you. Not me, not John or Evan. Not for what you want it for."

"We'll see, won't we? Maybe we don't need any of you. Serve, or be served," Bloat commented, and suddenly giggled.

" I won't do it," Patty said flatly. "None of us would." Again Bloat's lids flickered down over the satin pupils. "David's the key, not you. He's only interested in his own ego, but I can convince him. From what I sense of John, he might enjoy life on top for once and kicking some nat ass. Evan… Well, maybe your friends will be interested. After all, David and his people supply rapture."

"I don't know…"

"Show her," Bloat said, gesturing to one of the joker guards. He came forward; on the doglike face, Patty could see that the lips, gums, and nostrils were stained blue. The joker took out a small penknife. He snapped open the blade and Patty took an involuntary step backward. The joker ignored her, however. Holding out his left arm, he plunged the blade into his forearm to the hilt and as quickly wrenched it out again. Blood pulsed sluggishly from the deep wound.

The joker grinned. He leaned his head back and laughed.

Patty gasped.

"Rapture makes everything feel good," Bloat was saying as she stared at the joker. "You could cut your own hand off and it would feel like the most wonderful orgasm. Every sensation is transmuted into bliss, at least for a while. With long-term use, unfortunately, it finally dulls the senses completely, until it is hard to feel anything at all, but that's hardly a problem for a joker, is it? Imagine Oddity's pain transformed into a nearly sexual pleasure, and then, slowly, slowly, deadened so you can't feel it at all. Would that be something you might like, or if not you, John or Evan?"

Bloat laughed and smiled grimly at the expression on Patty's face. "Yes, you're thinking it, too. Evan wants out, and I can offer him freedom one way or the other. Are you so sure now, Patty? No, I thought not."

[Evan…]

"You're terrified, aren't you, Patty? You hate the separation from your lovers. You listen and there's no one there. But you enjoy being alone, don't you? You wonder if you could stand being in Oddity once again. You wonder if you shouldn't do all you can to stay in David's body. Well, I tell you, you cant. I need David. But I'm not evil, Patty. I don't intend you harm at all. In fact, I've a gift for you. Kafka?"

Kafka nodded. Rustling, he scurried into an adjoining room and came back pushing a wheelchair. Seated in the chair was a teenager, dark-haired and rather pretty: Her eyes were open, but when Patty looked at her, it was like looking into the face of a dead girl. There was nothing behind her eyes, nothing at all. The body breathed, but whoever had once inhabited that shell was gone. Blackhead sniffed behind Patty; Runt gave a cry of recognition.

"I've been saving this," Bloat said. "The girl jumped a polar bear, which turned out to be an animated bar of soap. Unfortunate. But it has left us with an empty body."

Patty glanced at the body, at Bloat. She tried again to blank her thoughts, to make her mind as empty as the girl in front of her so Bloat couldn't steal her thoughts, but Bloat chuckled. [Evan, John… I'm sorry, but…]

"It is tempting, isn't it? Our jumpers could do it for you. Presto! There you are, a woman again. By yourself. And young, too. You wouldn't be so old."

"I'm not old. I'm only forty."

Bloat chuckled. "So easily offended. Think about it, Patty. We can do it right now. I help you; you help me. Think about it."

Outside the milky, translucent body of Charon, the green depths of the bay were revealed. [John, those are bones out there! Dead people

…] Down below, David only laughed. John didn't answer.

Oddity moaned. John had paid scant attention to Charon or the ride to Ellis, too intent on the interior struggle and the pain.

Evan could feel John tiring rapidly. Nothing of Oddity seemed to be Patty anymore. Her body was submerged and what remained seemed to hurt them more than ever before, as if they were both taking on the portion of the suffering that once was allotted to her. The boundaries between Dominant, Sub-Dominant, and Passive were growing weak and tenuous. Worse, like some residue of the transfer process, parts of David's memory were drifting loose.

[The killing was a kick better than crack man all the nats running and screaming through Times Square…] [Evan, this is what he'd do to us. We can't let him take Oddity.]

Evan wasn't listening to John but to David. [I can let you out Evan let you out and and free of Oddity I can do it…]

[What's he saying to you, Evan? He's trying to block me, but the shields are falling apart, too. I can almost hear him.]

Mockingly, more of David's reverie intruded. [With the priest I took the gun he had in his desk and made one of the nuns get down on her knees and suck his cock until he shot his holy wad in her mouth then I made the other one take the barrel in her mouth like it was a dick "make it come, too" I said and when it did it blew the whole fucking back of her head away and then I jumped when the cops broke the door down…]

[Just more of the same garbage. John, you have to listen to me. What if Patty doesn't want to come back in? What then, John? We can't keep David down forever. When he's Dominant, he'll make us do something, something awful, and then he'll jump. He'll jump and leave us with someone else, someone who'll hate Oddity, someone we don't know or love or even like.]

With the thought, their attention was brought back to the outside world. Charon was moving through the sunken graveyard. Many of the bodies still had ribbons of clothing, shreds of flesh. Fish swarmed around the cages of ribs, nibbling and biting; eels swarmed in eye sockets and wriggled from open jaws like obscene tongues.

And something, someone was pushing at them, pressing Oddity's back against the cold, clammy wall of Charon's interior, the flesh beginning to stretch around their back as Charon continued its slow passage. An invisible hand was thrusting at their chest, refusing to let them go any farther even though Charon plodded on. Oddity struggled weakly, but it would not let them loose. [Bloat's Wall Bloat's Wall…] David yammered from Passive. [It's you Evan, it's you.]

With the physical pressure, Evan could also feel a mental lassitude. He no longer wanted to go to the Rox. This quest was useless. Even if Patty were alive, it was futile. They could do no good there. John tried to force Oddity through the unseen barrier as they felt the cold waters through Charon's back, but Evan only watched from Sub-Dominant.

"Stop!" Oddity's broken voice shouted. Charon paid no attention.

[Dammit, Evan. Help me!] Charon's flesh was beginning to thin dangerously. The skeletons outside grinned mindlessly at them, waiting.

[This might be better, John. It would be over. Finished.] [No no no please Evan I'll get you out I will…] [You still want us dead. That's it, isn't it, Evan? That's what you're really saying.] Oddity struggled, took a step forward, but that barely made a difference. The back of their cloak was chill and damp. Charon's flesh bulged dangerously around them.

[You're just barely holding us together, John. I can't keep David back when you fall. He's strong and this time he'll be expecting the pain. He'll know that when it's too much for him, he can just jump.]

[If we're on the Rox, he'll jump back to his own body, Evan. Which puts Patty back with us.]

[I'll have Oddity initiated make you all jumpers so you can get out…]

[Is that fair, John? Are you so possessive of her that you'd punish her like that when she's free? What's betterto let this bastard loose again or to make the sacrifice? We can keep Patty free and take the SOB out with us. What's better, John?]

[I'm Dominant] And with that there was a flailing resurgence of will. Oddity managed two lurching steps back toward the center of Charon. The chill receded. [I'll stay Dominant until we find Patty.]

[And what then, John? What then? It's been sixteen years, John. Long enough.]

[John I'll help you too just don't let him kill us…] David's panic loosed adrenaline. Oddity screamed as John forced them forward once more, trying to keep pace with Charon's slow movement. Fish swirled away from their grisly feast, disturbed by the movement inside Charon's body.

Suddenly they were through. Oddity stumbled and fell as the resistance vanished. Outside, the skeletons were behind them; ahead there were weedy mud flats and the beginnings of a rise. Charon moved between piles of discarded ship ballast as Oddity's lungs heaved and the agony of change lanced through them all. David tried to rise from Passive once more; John only barely managed to keep him down.

He said nothing to Evan. Evan said nothing to him. Charon hissed. Bubbles rose around them and the body began to rise alongside a rust-stained concrete pier. John forced Oddity to its feet and pushed his way through the body angrily, hating the feel of the wet, cold flesh. There were corroded steel rungs set in the concrete seawall. Oddity swung out of Charon and climbed to the top.

They were waiting for him, a ring of jokers armed with a ragged assortment of weapons. Oddity howled in frustration.

"What an interesting mind," Bloat commented, but his tiny face was pained and drawn. "The pain makes it unpleasant even for me. Still, the complexity of a shared consciousness is fascinating."

"Where's Patty?" Oddity grated out. Their voice was barely more than a whisper. Most of John's concentration was utilized in staying Dominant against David's mental pushing. They looked from the guards-standing well back from Oddity-to Bloat, gauging distances as the cloak humped and folded over their madly changing body. Bloat chuckled.

"Oh, by the time you got halfway to me, they'd have shot you dead, but then you've already figured that out, haven't you, John? It is John, isn't it?" Bloat shook his head. "You should lay down the burden for now, John. It's David I want to speak with."

"No!" Oddity tried to shout; it came out more grunt. "Not until we see Patty."

" I don't think that's a good idea." [It's a stalemate, John. You see?]

[You give up too easily.] John's ego weakened with each moment, his hold on Dominant crumbling. Desperation colored his thoughts. Oddity gave a tremulous sigh.

Underneath both of them but rising, rising, David whispered only to Evan. [Look at all the bodies here you can have any one of them no need to play goddamn hero just let me past let me take Oddity and I'll set you free I promise don't let us die…]

"We'll see her," Oddity said, "or we'll see how close we get to you. You kill us or you die. It really doesn't matter. One way we get what I want, the other way what Evan wants. Either way, you lose."

Bloat sighed. "Such a waste." He sighed, then gestured with one tiny hand. " I didn't care to show my hole card so quickly, but I suppose it can't be helped. Bring her in," he said, then nodded to Oddity. "You need to understand the situation. Can David hear me?"

The fencing mask nodded under the hood.

"Good. It's important he does. David, even if you can, don't jump back yet. Ah, here she is…" Somehow, thinking of Patty alone in one body had given them a vision of her as she once had been: dark brown hair swirling around her shoulders and wearing the denim skirt she liked so well with a blouse of unbleached cotton. But the person who stepped from the side doorway was in soiled Levi's and a leather jacket. The body was distinctly male, a youthful, handsome face topped with blond and unruly hair.

"John? Evan?" he [she?] said, and the voice was deep. " I love you both. I miss you."

Patty said the words, and felt the truth of them with the tears they set off in her eyes. Behind her, rubber wheels squeaked against tile. She glanced back at the joker pushing the wheelchair with a young jumper's body. The bait. The temptation.

[Yours. It can be yours.] The knowledge tore at her, and she looked back at Oddity, remembering the pain and the hurt and the feeling of being imprisoned.

"Patty?" Bloat said, and her gaze went grudgingly to the joker. "I need to know. Now. Will you cooperate with me? Do it for yourself. Do it for all jokers. Do it for the rapture. Help me."

Patty looked again at the young woman, at the empty, wonderful body. She also saw Oddity watching and she knew that John and Evan could guess her thoughts as well. Faintly, she saw the fencing mask that was Oddity's face nod, as if in forgiveness. [Go on,] she could almost hear John and Evan saying. [We understand.]

Patty reached out and stroked the girl's face with a yearning wistfulness. The skin felt soft and smooth. She knew she would remember that softness forever.

She turned, trying to remember it all. Trying to pack into these few seconds all the sensations of being alone, of being one.

She shook her head.

"No," she told Bloat, not caring that David's body was weeping openly now. "I hate Oddity, but I love Evan and John. You only want Oddity as a weapon, and I won't be a part of that. I'd rather be with my lovers again, as we were."

"I'd rather be with my lovers again, as we were." Patty's words startled all of them. Evan could feel the surprise loosen what little hold he had.

Oddity screamed.

All at once, everything inside the Oddity had become fluid. The mind barriers crumpled and went to dust. [John?]

[I've lost Oddity, Evan. You have to-]

The person in David's body was running to them, and his [her?] arms were around them, hugging them and not caring that the body was changing underneath the embrace. Oddity stood there, the arms half up as if unsure whether or not to return the embrace…

[Evan, hold David back…] [I'm trying, John.]

For a moment, Evan was in control of Oddity as Patty [David?] stared up into the bowl of the fencing mask. "My God, Patty…" he moaned. "We love you so much…"

"Evan? It's so lonely out here. I miss you, Evan, John. Please… I want back in." She was crying, clutching tighter to Oddity as the powerful, piebald arms went around her at last.

"But you're free," Oddity said, and the voice was slurred, confused. "I don't understand-"

[Hold him, Evan, hold him…]

[Now, Evan. Let me have Oddity] David insisted. David's will shoved at Evan's weak resistance. Laughing, David shoved past Evan and into the Dominant position. Immediately the Oddity groaned as the full impact of the pain hammered at the youth. Yet this time, prepared for the torture, David clung to Dominant.

Evan did nothing. Nothing.

He let David have Oddity without a struggle.

[You promised me,] he said to David. [Remember what you promised me.]

[Goddamn son of a bitch, Evan…] "Fucking Christ, Bloat, this hurts!"

"Davvd!" Bloat sounded pleased. "Good. Now that you control Oddity, I can say more." He looked down at Patty, who struggled in Oddity's grasp. "I'd continue to hold on to your body. I'd hate to see Patty damage it, which is what she's considering at the moment."

Patty cursed, glaring at Bloat.

Oddity's grip on Patty tightened. "Say it quick, Bloat. I know it ain't your style, but I ain't staying here long." Bloat smiled. "In a nutshell, then. It's time for us to organize. It's time for the jumpers to help the Rox." Oddity chuckled, then groaned as another shift in the mutable body racked them. "That's what you were telling Patty. So what? You upping the rent?"

Bloat shrugged, the tiny shoulders lifting helplessly in the immense body. "I imagine there are any number of jokers who would like to be aces, especially here in the Rox. A few judicious triple jumps

… Imagine what a dozen or so jokers-turned-aces might be able to accomplish."

"Especially with Bloat telling us what to do."

"Especially." Bloat smiled.

[Evan, you can't allow this…]

Evan ignored John's pleading. [David, you promised me. Right?]

[Hey, man. I keep promises. Don't worry.] [Then go ahead and jump. I'll take Dominant.] Patty struggled in their arms, biting and clawing uselessly against Oddity's compelling strength. "We'll talk, Bloat," Oddity said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's time to organize a little. But in a second, when I'm back in my own skin."

"What about Oddity?" Kafka interjected, looking worried.

"I agree with my counselor, David," Bloat said. "I thought Patty would help us control it. Perhaps Oddity's simply too dangerous."

[Evan?]

[Just give me a body, David. Like you promised.] "It'll be cool," David told them. "Don't worry about Oddity."

Inside Oddity, there was a moment of chilling vacancy [… Evan!

…] and then Patty was back, stunned and falling almost immediately to Passive as John made a last desperate attempt to take Dominant.

Evan shoved him back contemptuously. David's eyes had closed. Now they opened again and looked up at Oddity and the hidden face behind the mesh. "Hey, man. You can let me go now."

[John? Patty? I love you both. I'm sorry.] [Evan-]

[We understand we do…]

Oddity's hands came up. One was Patty's now, one John's. In a swift movement they grasped either side of David's head.

With all of Oddity's power they twisted savagely. The snap of the neck breaking was very loud. Oddity let the body crumple to the floor. They spread their hands wide, closing their eyes for the last time and waiting for Bloat to give the order, waiting for the bullets to shred their shared body.

[Good-bye Patty, John. I do love you.] It never happened.

Bloat was staring at David's body. Kafka watched Bloat. The joker guards' weapons were pointing at them, ready.

Bloat only gave a brief sigh.

"David was my key. He was willing to listen to me, to share in my dream. If you were Golden Boy or Peregrine or just another ace, I wouldn't hesitate," he told them, still looking at David's body. "But not the Oddity. Not people who know the pain of being a joker."

The tiny head on the mounded body closed its eyes. The body rippled and more bloatblack oozed from the body. The smell of corruption was strong in the room.

"Get out," Bloat told them savagely. "Get out before I change my mind."

Dutton finally opened the back fire door and stood blinking into the Jokertown dawn. The noseless, living skull face yawned. He tugged the cord of his silk bathrobe tightly around his waist.

" Oddity." He sounded relieved. "I was worried. I'd called some people I knew-"

"We came to work."

"Evan?" Dutton glanced at the hands-for the most part, they were chocolate brown and long-fingered. Dutton stepped away from the door and let the cloaked figure enter, then shut and locked the door behind them. The museum seemed gloomy after the sunshine. "It's six in the morning. What happened? Where's Patty?"

"Here. Passive for the moment. John's with us, too. It's over, Charles. We-I-was wrong. We wanted to tell you."

"Wrong?"

"About endings. Maybe things do occasionally work out. The leader of the jumper gang's dead, Charles." Behind the mask, Oddity laughed, full and loud. The gaiety sounded very strange to Dutton. "It doesn't solve everything," Oddity continued. "Probably not much at all."

"But it's one little change for the good. A few less atrocities the nats will be able to blame on us, one less excuse they can use to oppress people affected by the wild card."

"And you? What about Oddity?"

"It still hurts. But one of us got out, at least for a bit. We can think of that and hope that maybe-someday-the rest will change."

Oddity sighed.

Under the heavy cloak, shapes came and went.

"You got any cake, Charles?" they said. "It's our birthday."

My Name is Nobody by Walton Simons

Jerry walked up the stone steps into the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. He hadn't been inside a church in over thirty years. His parents had exposed him to their religious preference, which was Episcopalian, but had let him stop going after he continually went to sleep during the service. David had been Catholic, though. At least the building had a late-Renaissance look that was less forbidding than the usual Gothic stuff.

Jerry slipped in and sat behind Kenneth and Beth. They wouldn't recognize him, though. He was wearing an old look, with sagging flesh, bad posture, and gray hair. Jerry hoped he could pick up a comment from Beth saying she missed him, but they sat silently through David's eulogy. Jerry wanted to stand up and tell everyone that the man they were mourning was a bad one by anyone's standards, let alone a devout Catholic's. That David was behind the "jumper" crimes and deserved exactly what he got. Jerry wanted to, but he didn't. First off, if there was a God, he/she/it would not be impressed. Second, he didn't have any proof. That chapped him plenty. All those months of detective work and he had nothing to show for it. Nobody except Tachyon would ever know he'd found David out, and Tachyon was all for secrecy.

Jerry glanced across the aisle at St. John Latham. The attorney put his hand to his mouth and coughed. There was strain in his neck and his face was pale. He was breathing in an even, but forced manner. Latham shook his head, then reached in his coat pocket and dabbed at his eyes. Jerry wanted to bend over the pew and get Kenneth and Beth to look Latham's way. They wouldn't believe the tears any more than Jerry did. St. John was the original iceman.

Latham stood, left his pew, and headed for the back of the church. Beth and Kenneth were still focused on the minister. Jerry hobbled after Latham down the church's central aisle. He had to move slowly to stay in character and Latham was nowhere to be seen when he entered the foyer.

A young kid stood at the door to the men's room. He was wearing a new black suit and had obvious blackheads all over his face. Jerry headed for the men's room, wheezing.

"Sorry, old man," the kid said as Jerry approached the door. "It's occupe right now"

"My medication," Jerry said, beginning to shake. "I'll die."

The kid made an unhappy face. "Oh, all right. But don't be long."

Jerry heard a man sobbing in one of the stalls as he stepped in. He didn't have to see the face to know who it was. Latham was blubbering like he'd lost his own son. Jerry began running water to wash his hands. The crying tapered off. After a few moments the person inside blew his nose. Jerry turned off the water and reached for a towel. Latham stepped out of the stall.

"He was a fine boy," Jerry said.

"Yes, very fine indeed." Latham turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face. His eyes were completely bloodshot. He left before Jerry could say anything else.

Jerry stepped outside in time to see him leaving with the kid.

Something was definitely up.

Jerry savored his last bite of Imperial Duck, chewing it slowly. He'd had to let his belt out a notch already, and it was getting tight again.

"God, that's good," Jerry said.

Kenneth nodded. "Oh, yeah. I'm glad you didn't back out at the last minute."

"It's not you I'm mad at." Jerry took a sip of his hot tea and reached for his fortune cookie.

"Do you enjoy being mad at her?" Kenneth asked, his voice flat and nonjudgmental.

"I don't know. I just feel like she came down unnecessarily hard on me. I don't need that right now" Jerry cracked open his cookie and pulled out the fortune. He paused a moment to read it.

"What does it say?"

"'You will overcome many hardships,"' Jerry said. " I don't think I like that. It means I'll have to deal with them."

"On the plus side, maybe it means you and Beth will get things sorted out. That would certainly go a long way toward making me happy." Kenneth read his fortune and wrinkled his brow.

"How about yours?" Jerry asked. "'Babes in abundance will beat a path to your door'?"

" A good man has few enemies; a ruthless man has none.' "

Jerry made a face. "Fortunes for the eighties. Get yours and take out anyone who gets in your way. That's real encouraging."

Kenneth paid the bill and the brothers walked out into the crowded streets of Chinatown. The spring air had a freshness that even the smell of garbage couldn't cling to.

"Let's walk awhile," Kenneth said, heading toward Canal.

"Okay by me." Jerry patted his `stomach. " I need a little exercise or I'll lose my schoolboy figure."

"Beth told me she called you last week. She said you hemmed and hawed, but promised you'd call her back soon." Kenneth turned and looked at Jerry. "Are you?"

"Yes, she called. And yes, I'm going to call her back when I feel damn good and ready." Jerry knew it was shitty to put her off, but felt like letting her twist in the wind for a while. He really wanted his pound of flesh. " I don't want to talk about this anymore. How about those Knicks, eh?"

"Whatever you say. Just don't lie to her, she hates that." Kenneth looked at his watch. "Maybe we have time to pick up some canoles."

"Time is something I got plenty-" Jerry heard gunfire from inside one of the buildings and flinched. Kenneth pulled him to the pavement as three kids in ski masks and blue satin jackets charged out of an antique shop. All three had guns drawn. They stopped in front of Jerry and Kenneth. Jerry saw two cold brown eyes meet his. The kid's gun swiveled over and past him. Another kid said something in Chinese. The group sprinted off down the street and ducked into an alley. Jerry recognized the bird on the back of their jackets.

"Egrets," he said.

Jerry stood, then helped Kenneth to his feet. Someone wailed inside the antique shop. "What did you say?" Kenneth looked at him hard.

"Immaculate Egrets. They're a street gang. I saw a TV special on them." Jerry smiled. "Nothing like a little mayhem to get your blood going. Should we call the police, or something?"

"I'm sure they've already been contacted. I don't recall any TV special on that particular gang." Kenneth started walking Jerry down the street. "Look, I've heard rumors that you've been doing some detective work. Certain individuals take that sort of thing very personally. So if it's true, I'd advise you to stop it. Now"

Jerry couldn't imagine how Kenneth had found out. Beth wouldn't talk, even though she was mad at him. Maybe someone had tipped him about Jerry having hired Ackroyd at one point. But he'd been checking out David, and David was gone. Jerry decided to do a little fishing. "Who's Kien?"

Kenneth blanched. "So. It is true. You don't want to know, Jerry. Latham is much more dangerous than you can imagine. He's been losing his grip lately, so stay out of his way." Kenneth glanced at his watch again. "I need to get home."

"Latham's got something on you, doesn't he?" Jerry couldn't imagine his brother this scared for any other reason.

"Let's just say the situation is balanced, but very precariously." Kenneth grabbed Jerry by the elbow. "Don't upset the balance. You could get us all killed."

A police car squealed around the corner and bounced down the street, its siren and rotating reds going. "You head on home, Kenneth. Don't worry about me. I'm going to stick around and tell the cops what I saw here." Jerry would also memorize the cops' faces and badge numbers. That could come in handy later, too.

Kenneth gave Jerry a look of troubled resignation. "Watch out for yourself. If you get into trouble with this, I might not be able to get you out. I'd try, of course."

"I know. Tell Beth I really will call her sometime." Jerry waved his brother off. "And don't worry about me. There's more here than meets the eye."

Kenneth gave a weak waist-high wave and turned away. It began to rain softly. Jerry walked down toward the police car. If Latham was putting the squeeze on his family, Jerry was going to dig something up and squeeze back, hard. Thunder rumbled across the sky in the distance.

Jerry sat in the lobby, paging through the sports section of the Times. He'd changed his eyes and hair to brown and darkened his skin. His bone structure was thicker. The Knicks were definitely going to make the playoffs. As long as they didn't wash out in the first round, especially to Boston, he could live with whatever happened.

He hadn't turned up thing one on Latham. St. John didn't even have a police record, so he was obviously as sharp as Kenneth said. Might as well shadow him and see if he could come up with something. Anything Jerry could uncover he'd turn over to Kenneth. That way, if Latham decided to up the stakes, Kenneth could match him.

The elevator pinged softly. Latham stepped out of the car, alone. Jerry carefully folded up his paper, stood, and followed him into the street.

It was warm and breezy outside. The sky over Manhattan was clear. The sidewalks, unfortunately, were not.

Latham was walking fast and Jerry had to push and shove to keep him in sight. Latham crossed the street at the corner, trotting out onto the asphalt just as the sign across the street started blinking DON'T WALK. Jerry knifed through the crowd, but before he could get across, the traffic surged in front of him.

Jerry stood at the corner, bouncing up and down on his toes. Latham got into a black Cadillac parked in a tow-away zone. There were two young boys in the front seat, and a girl in the back with Latham. The girl had spiky black hair and looked vaguely familiar, but at this distance most people did. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. They were still kissing when the light changed and the Caddy whipped out into the street. It was gone before Jerry could get a license-plate number.

He changed back in the first-floor men's room. Nobody noticed that the person who went in didn't look at all like the person who came out. Nobody ever noticed. That was one good thing about present-day New York. He checked himself in the mirror on the way out. "Just call me Mr. Nobody," he said. The name felt more appropriate than he wanted it to.

Tachyon was giving Blaise a lecture of some sort. The boy looked like a pit bull who'd just taken a beating from his master, mad and ready to get even.

"Not now, Jeremiah," Tachyon said. "Family discussion." Blaise gave Jerry a contemptuous look. "Yeah, you don't belong here."

Tachyon reached over with his good hand and grabbed Blaise by the chin. "That will be quite enough. Apologize to Mr. Strauss."

Blaise set his jaw and stared at his grandfather in hateful silence.

"I'll see you some other time," Jerry said, backing out.

Tachyon turned Blaise loose and shook his head apologetically. "Soon, I hope. You've just caught me at a bad time."

Jube the Walrus was standing by the curb when Jerry stepped outside the clinic. His Hawaiian print shirt was a recognizable beacon against the gray of Jokertown.

"Did you hear the one about the guy who played center on the joker basketball team?" the Walrus asked. "Nope," Jerry said.

"He was a seven-footer, but only five feet tall." Jube smiled around his tusks. "Want a Cry?"

Jerry had started to shake his head when he saw the DOUBLE JUMPER INCIDENT headline. He'd been so involved with snooping on Latham that he hadn't paid attention to what was going on in the world. "Sure." He dug out his wallet and handed Jube a twenty. "Don't bother with the change. What do you know about these jumpers?"

Jube shrugged. "Nothing that isn't in the paper. There hadn't been an incident in a while, I thought maybe we were through with those kids."

"Me too," Jerry said.

"Sure you don't want your change?" The Walrus hadn't tucked the bill away yet.

"Nah. Just let me know if you hear anything else. I know where to find you." Jerry raised his arm as a cab rounded the corner.

"Will do. Did you hear the one about the joker cabdriver?"

"No." Jerry had a feeling he was going to.

The Devil's Triangle by Melinda M. Snodgrass

Her fingers twined, warm and a little dry, through his. Each undulating rise and fall of the horse pulled them apart. Skin sliding on skin. Then the midpoint when for an instant they were side by side, poised in the moment with no retreat.

Tachyon half opened his eyes and watched the colored lights of the carousel whirl past. The music was a little sharp, a little tinny, but it was a waltz.

And in his dreams they were dancing.

He cautiously turned his head, and with that unspoken communication that had arced between them from the moment of their first meeting, she, too, was turning her head. The fine bones of her face were etched in the lights of a Coney Island ride, the eye patch a dark scar on that beautiful face. A deformity, yes, but an honorable one. A wound won in battle. Even on Takis one might be tempted to keep the scars, not replace the missing eye.

The music was slowing, the horses' eager spring dying to an awkward sad sigh as the ride came to an end. Without thinking, Tach patted the arching neck of his steed. His artificial hand struck the wood of the carousel horse, producing an ugly hollow tone.

The violence of his reaction was wearily familiar.

Stomach closing into a tight ball, jamming itself against the back of the spine, nausea like a physical pain. Cody's hands cupped his face, but there was no gentleness in the touch.

"Cut it out. You lost a hand. He could have gutted you. I lost an eye. The bullet could have blown my damn head off. If you're smart, you're grateful to just fucking be alive."

"I'm sorry, I'm not normally a whiner."

"Yes, you are." She smiled to take away the sting. "You're always agonizing about what can't be fixed. The past is dead, and the future ain't here yet. The best we can do is live for the moment, Tachyon."

They started walking down the midway. The air was redolent with the smell of stale grease, corn dogs, cotton candy. Overhead the sky was a diffuse milky white as the high clouds reflected back the lights of New York. Barkers squalled from their cheap and gaudy arcades.

"See Tiny Tina, the world's smallest horse."

"Three balls for a dollar. Knock over the milk bottles, and a prize is yours."

Screams from the more garishly neon-decorated rides ripped the night air. The Parachute jump blossomed like an exotic lily against the night sky. Tiny figures plummeted toward the ground only to be caught by the billowing of a parachute. There was something almost grotesquely maternal about the gigantic ride dropping its little chutes like seedlings around its looming bulk.

Tachyon tore his gaze away from the jump and asked, "where did they say they were going?"

"The Zipper," Cody said. "Dreadful."

"They're boys."

The couple stopped at the entrance to the ride. Rock music assaulted the ears, the bass line vibrating in the ground itself. The little cars were opening, spilling their stumbling, tottering passengers like peas from a pod. Blaise had his arm around Chris. The human boy was staggering, but Blaise, his hair almost scarlet under the lights, was fully in control. There was a wild light in his dark eyes, and his teeth gleamed.

"What did you think?" asked Blaise.

"Damn… that was awesome," replied Chris. Tachyon and Cody exchanged glances at the way the child had awkwardly prefaced the sentence with the cuss word.

Boys into men, thought Tachyon. So difficult a transition.

"Chris is what? Thirteen?" he asked. "Yes," said Cody.

"At thirteen I was just emerging from the women's quarters."

"That's lousy planning. Just when a boy wants to be around girls, you separate them." She studied her adoles cent son now exchanging playful blows with Blaise. "On second thought, considering the raging hormones at that age, maybe it's a good thing-before any ad hoc biology lessons can begin."

"We have toys for that."

"'What!"

He caught her thought of outrageous sexual implements. "Not those kind of toys, living toys."

"I think that's worse."

She walked away to join her son, and Tachyon chewed on his lower lip. She was a strong woman with strong attitudes. Had his flippant remark offended her? Made her think that he regarded her as a toy? He hurried after the threesome wondering how to make amends.

The boys were walking across each other's lines, each trying to draw Cody's attention. Blaise danced out in front of her, walking backward with easy hip-swinging grace, somehow avoiding the oncoming crowds.

Maybe he has more telepathy than I think, Tachyon mused as he studied that lean figure. At fourteen Blaise was already three inches taller than his grandsire, and already showed signs of developing a linebacker's shoulders, and the whip-lean hip of the true athlete.

And you're having a hell of a time taking him during your karate workouts, a disquieting voice reminded him. Tachyon shook off the worry. Blaise had been much better since Cody had entered their lives. Putting aside that it was a celibate relationship, it had all the qualities of a marriage. Cody alternately scolded and mothered Blaise, and he loved it. Her interest in the boy had soothed his mercurial disposition. In fact, it had been months since Tach had felt actively afraid of his grandchild.

"Cody," Blaise was saying. "Would you like me to win you a stuffed toy? I can do it." He jerked his head toward the shooting gallery.

Tachyon stepped up to join them. Cocked a grin up at Cody. "Perhaps you better rely upon me. I've been at this a little longer than he has."

Blaise frowned, and Tach felt a flare of embarrassment. Prancing and snorting in front of his fourteen-yearold grandson. Who was in competition with whom?

The woman sniffed. "Thanks boys, but I'll win one for myself." She allowed her fingers to rule lightly across the curls on the top of his head. Tach felt as if his lungs had been replaced with stones. It was tough to draw a breath. "A contest," said Blaise, his eyes bright.

The three males followed Cody to the gallery and laid down their money. She was already testing the weight of the weapon. Tach hefted the rifle. It was awkward lefthanded. Despite his thrice-weekly sessions at the range he still had much to relearn.

The operator fired up his machine, and a line of rampant bears trundled across the back wall. Blaise and Chris blazed away. Blaise was better than the human boy, but neither of them succeeded in scoring the requisite number to continue. Blaise threw down the rifle and backed off, muttering petulantly in French.

Tachyon and Cody stepped up to the counter. Began firing. The operator stared openmouthed at their competence. Charging bears fell supine onto all fours and were swept away. The numbers mounted. Chris's cheeks were red with excitement. He hung close to his mother's left side. Blaise's glance was smoldering fire between Tachyon's shoulder blades.

Tachyon had missed two shots. Cody only one. One more and he was out. He sighted, drew in a breath, held it, squeezed the trigger. The bear remained smugly, stubbornly upright. It seemed to be sneering as it rounded the corner. Tachyon laid down the rifle. Cody kept shooting. It took five more minutes before she had finally missed three shots.

The man pulled down an enormous white tiger and handed it with a bow to Cody. Tach as a consolation prize got Roger Rabbit.

The man and woman, with their children in tow, headed back into the shifting color of the midway. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" Tachyon scolded as they waited for Blaise and Chris to buy cotton candy. "For what?"

"Demolishing my fragile Takisian ego."

"Takisian, my aunt Betsy. Male ego." She gave him an ironic glance out of her one eye. "Going to win a prize for the little lady," she mocked.

"Be kind, I am a one-handed shootist."

"And I'm a one-eyed shootist. So much for excuses." But Tachyon had lost his taste for the banter. He was reliving a nightmare. Blood and bone fragments fountaining into the air. Agony, agony, agony!

Her cheek was warm against his. Her arm a welcome support.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Memory" he forced out. "We remember more clearly than you humans. It's our curse." He drew his thumb across his forehead. It came away wet. "Oh Ideal, I am sorry, it is passing now"

Her hand slid down and gathered his prosthetic hand into hers. "You remember the pain…?" Her voice trailed away in a question.

"As if it were yesterday."

"Oh, God, I'm sorry"

Her lips were against his cheek. Whispering the words. The warm breath puffed against his chilled skin, and suddenly Tachyon realized he was in the circle of her arms. Since that day at the clinic they had never done more than touch hands. Now her arms were around him again. Their thighs were lightly touching, and he had a full erection.

Simultaneously they began muttering apologies and inanities and backed away from each other. Cody hurriedly swept up the boys. Tachyon went in search of a men's room.

"Meet you at the car," he called to them as he fled in search of cold water to splash on his face and a long pee to relieve the pressure-sort of.

Roger Rabbit sprawled on the sofa in the office. The tensor lamp threw an almost painful yellow light across the welter of papers on the desk. The rest of the room was in shadow. Tachyon rubbed gritty eyes, picked up his fountain pen, and laboriously scrawled his signature across the bottom of a grant request. His prosthetic right hand was serving as a paperweight at the top of the page.

Most of the grants had dried up after the bloody events at the Democratic National Convention last July. This grant was for fifteen thousand dollars from the greater New York Franco-American society. Fifteen thousand dollars would keep the Blythe van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic open and operating for about two hours and twentyseven minutes, but all the little thousands added up to joker lives saved.

Tachyon heard the distinctive quick tap of her heels in the hall outside his office. The door opened, and Cody was there, backlit by the fluorescent bulbs in the hall.

"What in hell are you doing here? It's two A.M."

"And why are you here, Madam Surgeon?"

"I had patients to check on."

"As do L"

"Those-" she waved a hand toward the paperwork"are not worth killing yourself over." She crossed to the desk. "People we either cure or bury These"-she swept up a handful of paper from the desk, crumpled them and dropped them into the trash can-"we handle in a different way."

"Cody, behave yourself." Tachyon dug out the abused paperwork.

She cocked a hip up onto the desk. Tachyon's mouth went dry. At the amusement park she had been wearing blue jeans: now, unaccountably, she had changed into a skirt. Her pose left a lot of thigh visible. Tachyon was noticing.

She noticed him noticing and smiled. With the eye patch and the scar it gave her a dangerous predatory look. But sexy: God, she was sexy.

"You had one hell of an erection at the carnival," she said conversationally. "Made me realize just where I stood with you."

After swallowing his stomach, Tach forced his voice into the same matter-of-fact tone she had used. "Cody, we have been working together for almost a year. Frankly I'm surprised at my forbearance, and I can hardly be blamed for my body's betrayal."

"I'm a professional. Soldier, doctor, your chief of, surgery"

"And a woman," he reminded softly. "And you want me."

"I would be a liar if I denied it." He picked up his hand and fitted it onto the stump of his right arm. "Could you ever want me?"

"I don't know. I'm nervous about getting too close to you."

"Why?"

"You've had too many women. I don't want to be just another notch on your gun."

"You make me sound very spoiled… heedless."

"You are. In some ways you're a real user."

"As long as we're being this honest you should know that I have been incredibly forbearing and patient with you. I have been willing to wait-"

She slid off the desk. "Yeah, but I'm worth it," she interrupted.

"God damn it, woman. I want you!"

"Tough. Until you lose the revolving door, I'm not interested. If I walk through your bedroom door, I better be the only one."

"What are you asking for?"

"Commitment. It's an important word to me. I'm the most loyal friend you'll ever have, Tachyon. But if you betray me I'll kill you. Are you still certain you want me walking through that bedroom door?"

"I don't know. You frighten me… a little."

"Good. The game's not big enough if it doesn't scare you."

She suddenly leaned in and kissed him quick and hard on the lips.

"What was that for?" Tachyon asked.

"For being man enough to admit that we women really are the more dangerous sex."

He combed back his hair. "You have me totally confused."

"Good."

The door closed softly behind her.

Tiny, gaudily dressed figures whirled past in a kaleidoscope of colors. The rifle butt was slick against his cheek. Her eyes warm on the back of his neck. He squeezed convulsively and bullets sprayed like light rays from the barrel of the gun. Tiny Tachyons shattered and died.

The man was handing down a gigantic toy. He turned to face her. Her expression of pride and love warmed him. Her hand reached out, and stroked down his cheek, unzipped his pants, pulled out his penis. Her lips were hot on the head of his cock. His heart squeezed into a tight painful ball.

Sperm jetted hot and sticky across his belly. Blaise sat up in bed, breath coming in hoarse gasps.

Cody, Cody, Cody.

Cody was just leaving as Blaise and Chris arrived at the apartment. She kissed Chris on the cheek, lifted Blaise's Dodgers cap, and ruled his hair. Fire shot through him, and he stared at her with hot, suggestive eyes. Blaise noticed with satisfaction that she turned away quickly to gather up her purse and briefcase.

"Okay, outlaws, I'm off to the hospital. There's a chocolate cake on the counter and Coke in the fridge, so no excuses for not studying. The sugar rush ought to be enough to propel you into next week."

"Okay, Mom," said Chris.

"Blaise, are you all right?" Cody asked, a hand on the doorknob. "You keep staring at me like a boy with acute constipation."

Blood flamed in his cheeks, and Blaise's fantasies deflated like his suddenly flaccid penis. "I'm fine," he muttered.

The door closed behind her, but the scent of her perfume still lingered in his hair.

Chris was already in the kitchen hacking off two enormous slabs of chocolate cake.

"Algebra," he said as Blaise walked in. "Do you understand it? And why do we have to understand it?"

"You might not have to, but I do. It's the first step to calculus and trig, and you have to have all three for astrogation. I've got a spaceship that's going to be mine someday. I have to know how to navigate her."

"That is so neat," Chris mumbled around a gigantic mouthful. "A spaceship, and a granddad who's an alien."

"It's not so great."

Chris gaped at him. "You gotta be kidding. What could be better?"

"The life I had before." Blaise carefully cut away the icing, and mashed it with his fork. "No school, no homework, no clean up your room. My father did that. Uncle Claude said I was too important to be irritated by the mundane."

"You've got a father?" asked Chris in honest amazement. "Yes, of course."

"So… where is he?"

"In a French prison."

"How come?"

"He's a terrorist. Tachyon put him there."

"That's good."

"Why?" asked Blaise.

"Because… well… because-"

"Chris, it's fun to be a terrorist."

"Yeah?"

"You're always on the run. Always changing houses. Passwords, meeting arms dealers at night on the river. Always a step ahead of the stupid flies. You're always walking a step to the left of ordinary people. They have to work or go to school. We watched the artists in Montmartre, ate pastries in cafes on the Left Bank. We walked through the museums and he told me all about the painters, our history. 'Vive la France,' he would say, and then he would laugh and hug me."

"Who?"

"Uncle Claude."

"And was he a terrorist, too?"

"Yes."

"What happened to him? Is he in prison like your dad?"

Very levelly Blaise replied, "No, he's dead." Blaise mashed cake, and watched icing erupt through the tines of the fork. "I think my grandfather killed him."

"Blaise!" Chris's eyes were wide, and he had chocolate icing around his mouth. It made him look absurdly young, and really stupid.

"Your mother really likes me," Blaise said, changing the subject abruptly. He was tired of the past. Thinking about it made him sad. Made him mad.

"Huh?"

The younger boy's incomprehension infuriated Blaise. Gripping Chris by the hair, he yanked back the human boy's head.

"She wants me! She's in love with me!"

"You're crazy!" yelled Chris. "You're just a kid. Like me. You're like my brother, except I don't want you for a brother when you act crazy."

"We'll never be brothers." Blaise's tone was quiet, dangerously rational. "For us to be brothers… that would imply that Cody and my grandfather-"

"It could happen."

Blaise was on Chris again, his long, slim hands closing around the boy's throat, but he exerted no pressure. "No," he said softly. "That is not going to happen."

He released Chris, and walked out of the apartment.

"Tachyon, we've got to talk."

The alien looked up from the microscope. Blinked to clear the moisture from his eyes brought about by tooclose concentration. The woman's agitation beat at him despite her level tone and calm expression.

"Cody."

He held out his artificial hand. She laid her hand on his forearm where the prosthesis met flesh.

"What happened to Chris?" Tachyon said.

"Damn." She bit her lip. "Why has this happened?" Humbly he said, "I do not mean to read your thoughts. They are just there for me."

"I'm my own woman, Tachyon," she warned.

"I know" He cocked an ankle onto his knee. "Now, tell me what happened."

"I'm concerned about my son, but the reason for my concern is Blaise."

Tachyon knew his expression had grown wary. He fiddled with the focusing mechanism on the microscope. You may hide it from yourself, but the world sees, mocked a little voice.

The Takisian steeled himself.

Cody continued. "Blaise scared Chris half to death last night."

"Did he mind-control him?"

"No, but he wrapped his hands around my kid's throat. He made some crazy remarks about me." Cody made a weary gesture. "Now it sounds so stupid, but I saw the fear in Chris's eyes."

"Blaise is… erratic at times. In the months since you've been here I've seen an improvement in him. You've been the mother he never had, and he wants to please you. There is less anger in him-"

"It's not the anger that worries me. There's a coldness in Blaise that's almost inhuman."

"He is inhuman. He's a quarter Takisian."

"That's bullshit, and you know it. Genetically humans and Takisians are identical. Maybe you were our ancient astronauts-I don't know, and none of this is relevant. The point is that-"

She broke off abruptly. "Say it, Cody."

"Tach, he needs help."

"I can help him."

"No. You're the problem."

He rose and walked away from the truth of that statement.

Spinning back to face her, he said, "You have to understand. What he's been through. The horrors he has seen and endured." Tach was nervously washing his hands. He noticed and forced himself to stop.

"His childhood was spent in the hands of a violent revolutionary cell in Paris. Then last year he became a host for a hideous creature. While in its thrall, he experienced his first sexual encounter. He mind-controlled a joker and forced the wretch to literally tear himself to pieces."

Her hands closed about his, and he looked up into that single fierce dark eye.

"Tachyon, I'm willing to be understanding. This is all very sad, but it doesn't alter the relevant, dangerous fact. Blaise is a sociopath, maybe even psychotic. People are going to continue to get hurt."

"I am willing to take that risk."

"Fine! But you don't have the right to place others at risk."

"What can I do! With his mind powers do you really think he's going to submit to analysis?"

A new, worrisome thought intruded. He watched it etch itself momentarily on her face. Concern rose in the back of his throat, snatching the breath from his lungs, and Tachyon realized it was her emotions he was feeling. She was afraid for him.

"Tachyon, you can control him, can't you?"

"For now."

"What does that mean, for now?"

"As he matures, he gains power. I've taken to maintaining shields against him constantly."

"How hard are these shields to…?"

"To break?"

"Yes."

"Exceedingly," he soothed. "I'm afraid."

"Don't be. I will protect you." Her hair was soft against his fingertips as he brushed it back from her forehead.

Sharply. "I don't need your protection!"

Startled, he pulled back. "I meant no offense. I assumed you would be a shield to my back as well," he stuttered, backpedaling frantically. The militant light died from her eye.

"Damn it!"

"What?"

"It's so damn hard to hold my own against you."

"Why must you?"

"Because you're too fucking seductive. Too glib. Too polished. Too attentive. I won't-"

She whirled and was out of the lab as if every ancestor ghost in her pedigree was on her heels.

The bright June sunlight spilled into the gloomy interior of the Jokertown Dime Museum and set dust motes to spinning. Blaise liked that. Had they been there all along, he wondered, just waiting in the darkness for his coming? Or had his arrival created them?

Do other people think those kinds of thoughts? Blaise mused as he sauntered past the "Hideous Joker Baby" display and the Jetboy diorama. Cody was standing in front of the waxwork figure of his grandfather. Blaise felt a flare of irritation.

The woman thoughtfully stirred her cup of Italian lemon ice and took a bite.

"How young he looks," Blaise heard her say.

"No different than now," said Dutton, owner of the Dime Museum.

The joker was standing behind her, hands hidden in the folds of his cloak. The hood was back, revealing the death's-head. Blaise wondered if the man was trying to shock Cody, or if this was a measure of how well accepted she had become?

Cody was speaking again. "No, that's an illusion. When I look at him, I see every one of those forty-three years etched in his face."

"You care for him," suggested Dutton.

"I'm fascinated by him," Cody corrected, then added: "It's the face of a dissipated saint."

"I'll leave you to a contemplation of a face for which you care

… er… with which you are fascinated."

"What lovely grammar you have," said Cody dryly as Dutton retreated back into his office.

The stones were a sharp, hard pressure against his thigh. Blaise cupped his hand protectively about the bulge and moved swiftly to intercept Cody as she moved to survey the Syria diorama.

"Hi, Cody."

"Oh, God, Blaise, you startled me."

She had pressed her hand against her throat. He could see where her tan ended and the milk white of her breast began. He noticed she was wearing a thin gold chain. He liked the way it echoed the gold of her skin. Maybe colored stones didn't suit her? Maybe she didn't like them? Oh, God, I love you so much!

But what he said, in a voice jumping with nervousness was, "I got something for you."

He dug into his pocket, the supple leather of the pouch was soft against his hand. The knobby bundle pulled free and Blaise tugged open the drawstrings. With a sound like hail on glass the gemstones spilled across the surface of the diorama console. Emeralds formed a drift about the button controlling Sayyid. A diamond skittered hysterically toward the edge of the console, and Cody automatically caught it. Her fingers closed tight about the jewel. Slowly she raised her hand to eye level and cautiously unfolded her fingers, as if fearful of what her hand contained.

Blaise frowned down at the rainbow spill and worried his lower lip between his teeth. The sapphires looked almost fake-too blue. The rubies weren't bad, but the topaz was best. The boy swept up a golden topaz the size of a small robin's egg and held it against the hollow in Cody's throat. A nervous pulse was hammering there. Blaise liked that.

"Here, this suits you best. I know it's only semiprecious-"

"Where did you get these?"

Her voice was rough, commanding, not the breathless excited coo he had expected. Blaise flinched, felt stomach acid starting to churn.

"You don't ask about a gift, you just accept it."

The jewels rattled as Cody began sweeping them into a pile. She twitched the leather pouch from his hand and began shoveling in the gems. "Blaise, you're in big trouble. Tell me where you got these. Maybe we can work out something without your grandfather having to find out. You are a minor-"

"Cody! They're for you!"

"I don't want them. I don't want stolen gifts."

"I just wanted to make you happy," said Blaise. "Well, you've managed to achieve just the reverse."

"Cody." His voice was a plaintive whine. "I love you." Her hand was soft on his head, the fingers stroking through the rough short ends of his brush cut. "Every kid feels that way. I feel madly in love with my high-school history teacher. It's something we do when we start to notice there's a difference between boys and girls. When you're a teenager, everything seems so insecure. If we can fall in love with an older person, it helps give a sense of order to a very uncertain world."

"Don't talk down to me!"

"I'm not. I'm trying to show you that I do care. I do understand, but understanding is not permission."

His power was beating against the confines of his skull. His entire body was one great pressure-filled ache. He wanted to explode, to lash out.

"I love you." The words had to squeeze past clenched teeth.

"I don't love you."

"I can make you!"

For the first time he saw a reaction. A flicker of alarm in that single dark eye. But her voice was cold and dead level as she said, "That's not love, Blaise, that's rape."

His arm executed a wide, uncontrolled arc. "It's him! It's him, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm better than he is. Younger, stronger. I can give you everything. Anything you want I can give you. I can take you anywhere."

He began to pace, long agitated strides that carried him across the narrow confines of the aisle and back again. Cody was so still it was frightening.

"Anywhere in the world," he continued. "Off the world. And Chris is okay, he can come, too. You don't want him pawing at you. You don't want the stump rubbing your boob, or feeling you up-"

The blow was so unexpected that it stopped the words in his throat and rocked him back on his heels. Cody slowly lowered her hand. Blaise could feel the stinging imprint of her palm on his face. A pressure was building in his chest as if all the unspoken endearments, curses for Tachyon, descriptions of prowess were piling up like cars on a gridlocked beltway.

"Now, you listen, and you listen good! I have allowed you to ramble on in this very silly and very immature fashion out of concern and love for your grandfather, and out of consideration for your youth and folly."

Each word struck like a lash, and Blaise writhed under the withering scorn in the deep, husky voice. His love was curdling until it lay like an oily foul-tasting slick on the back of his tongue.

Cody continued. "But I'm out of time, and I'm out of patience. Somewhere out there"-her arm swung in a wide arc encompassing the city-"there's a lovely young girl who's learning to prove geometry theorems, or cut out a dress pattern, or play tennis, and someday the two of you are going to meet and be very happy together. But that girl isn't me."

She hefted the pouch of jewels and stared sternly down at him.

"Now, tell me where you got these, and I'll see if I can keep you out of reform school. And you keep your mouth shut to your grandfather. I won't tell him what a fool you've been if you'll work with me and we get these jewels back to their owner."

"I hate you!"

A mocking little half smile curved her lips. "I thought you loved me."

He backed away, held out a shaking hand. "I… will… show… you."

The Tachyon waxwork was directly opposite him.

Blaise coiled and lashed out with a spinning back kick. The head flew off the wax figure, and it toppled to the floor. Then quickly and methodically he kicked it to pieces. Dutton ran out of the office.

"Hey!"

His voice trailed away as he looked from Blaise to Cody, who was standing as still as one of the waxwork figures surrounding her.

"I'll… show… you," Blaise said again, and strode out of the museum.

"It should have sounded silly and melodramatic. Hell, it did sound silly and melodramatic, but frankly it scared the pee out of me."

Tachyon pressed a glass into her hands. Folded her chilled fingers about it.

"And when he kicked that waxwork to pieces…" Cody took a long swallow of the brandy.

Tachyon returned to the bar and poured himself a drink.

"Are you sure you are not overreacting?" he asked. "No!"

He held up a placating hand. "All right."

Cody tugged a pouch from her purse and flung it down on the coffee table. It landed with a sharp crack. "And I know for damn sure this isn't an overreaction."

Tach shook out the contents and stared in amazement at the multicolored gems that glittered against the crimson of his glove. His eyebrows flew up inquiringly.

"I called the police and pretended to be a journalist," Cody said. "Nobody has reported a jewel theft."

"I will handle him," said Tachyon. "You need be afraid no longer."

Cody joined him on the sofa. "Tachyon, you moron. I'm not worried about me. I'm worried about you. What I saw in Blaise's face was-"

She broke off and bit down on her lower lip. Tachyon tried to reschool his features. He sensed that he looked like a stricken deer.

"He hates you."

There it was-bald, ugly, stark, the truth. He had been hiding from it for over a year.

Her shoulder was close. He laid his head against it. Cody's arm went around his shoulder.

"What am I going to do?"

"I don't know"

Like a shadow's vomit. Children in the darkness. Following. Watching. Blaise whirled, lips drawn back in a snarl. They retreated. For an instant he considered reaching out with his power. Coercing one of them. Shredding his mind. Finding the answer. Who are you? What do you want? But one thing life with Tachyon had taught himcaution. There were too many of them. He might hold eight or even ten, but their sheer numbers would beat him down.

Blaise ducked into a Horn and Hardart. Bought a sandwich and coffee. Cody had kept his jewels, God damn her. But maybe that wasn't so bad. He had taken them for her. Let her keep them and consider what she had rejected. She'd pay soon enough.

And money was better than jewels anyway. He had mind-controlled a limousine driver and the elegantly attired passenger. That had netted him almost a thousand bucks. He could go a long time on a thousand bucks. But the jewels would have been better.

The turkey sandwich was dry, the bread forming a soggy expanding mass on the back of his tongue. Blaise choked it down and wondered again where the fat old joker news vendor had come by a fortune in precious gems. Maybe he should go back to Jube's apartment and make him tell?

A slim form slid onto the stool next to him. Blaise tensed. Studied her out of the corner of his eye. He didn't bother to slide a hand down to the. 38 tucked into the waistband of his pants. His mind powers could subdue her faster than a gun could fire.

The girl was young. Fifteen, sixteen with spiky multicolored hair, deliberately tattered blue jeans, unlaced high-top sneakers.

"We've been watchin' you."

"Yeah, I know. Any particular reason why?"

"You look like you need a place to go."

"I've got plenty of places to go," said Blaise.

The girl popped gum. "What are you gonna do when you get there?"

"Take care of myself."

"Think you can?"

"Know I can." And there was something in his face that made the girl edge as far away as the stool would allow.

"I'm not sayin' you can't," she said. She thrust out a hand. Blaise noticed she had bitten the cuticles into the quick. "Molly Bolt."

Blaise ignored the outthrust hand. "What do you want?"

She pulled back her hand, thumb rubbing lightly across the tips of her other fingers as if she were startled to find the hand at the end of her arm.

"Just this. You need a place to go. You ever need a team… people to handle something;.. come to pier eleven on the East River. We'll find ya."

The cold coffee had a slick oily taste. "I'll keep it in mind."

"Fine."

She was gone as quickly as she had appeared. Suddenly the well-dressed businessman seated a table away stood up, unzipped, pulled out his cock, and pissed down his own leg.

Blaise left. The food wasn't very good. And he'd lost his appetite with the realization of just who or rather what he had been dealing with.

Jumpers.

Jumpers were after him.

"Would you stop worrying? Go already. Go to Washington, and bring back that grant. Mama needs a new laser surgery center."

The connection on the car phone was terrible. Cody sounded like she was calling from the center of an electrical storm. Tachyon pictured her: hair brushed back, one hand thrust into the pocket of her lab coat, knee jiggling as she longed to get back to her patients. For an instant his concern and fear for Blaise receded. He laughed. "What are you chortling about?" Cody's voice was sharp with suspicion.

"You. How many times per second is your foot tapping?" "You are interrupting me."

"Take the time. I'm worth it."

A slight choke of laughter as he threw her words back at her.

"Prove it to me," Cody said. "Get down to Washington, and lobby like hell." She added, "It really is a shame about Senator Hartmann. He might have been a loon, but at least he was our loon."

The missing hand flared in agony as Tachyon remembered the bite of the assassin's buzz-saw hand. An assassin sent by Senator Gregg Hartmann, Democratic presidential candidate. Or at least the candidate for a day until Tachyon had destroyed forever Hartmann's political ambitions. But Cody did not know-could never knowany of this.

"Tach, are you still there?"

"Yes, yes, sorry. Take care of yourself. I'll see you Monday." He started to hang up, then hurriedly added, "Please, please, be cautious. Be careful."

A disconnected buzz was all he got back. Had she heard? Did she understand? Tachyon stared out the windows of the gray limousine at the city like a jeweled ship sailing away from him in the darkness. Blaise was out there somewhere.

The thought chilled him.

Troll was propping his nine-foot length against the front reception desk, chatting up the Chickenfoot Lady when Blaise entered. The joker straightened abruptly, his face twisting into an expression of surprise and concern. It looked like tectonic plates in motion.

"Blaise, your granddaddy's been worried sick. Where the hell have you been? I ought to whip your ass." Troll suddenly turned, lowered his head, and ran full tilt at the far wall. He struck with a sound like a cannonball crashing into a fortress battlement and went down in a heap. Chickenfoot let out a hysterical cackle and ran through the big double doors leading to the emergency room.

Blaise walked on, brows knitted in a frown of concentration, hands thrust deep into his pockets.

Cody wasn't in her office.

She wasn't in surgery. Finn was, and he shouted from behind his mask about the sterile integrity of the room and advanced on dancing pony feet on Blaise. Blaise didn't fuck with Finn's head. He kind of liked the pony-sized centaur.

Cody was in the morgue. What appeared to be an enormous wasp was on the table. Blaise watched as she carefully cut open the joker's chest cavity and surveyed the lungs. Cody then leaned over a small tape recorder. Her voice was so low he couldn't distinguish the words, just the soft, husky timbre like a chuckling brook. The sound made him shiver, but whether with anger or desire he couldn't say.

Suddenly Cody looked up and stared directly at him through the tiny window in the morgue door. Blaise jumped, hating that she had thrown him off balance. He stiff-armed the heavy door, and it flew open. She didn't retreat before his furious entrance. And that, too, made him angry.

"Hello, Blaise. Had a good time for the past week?"

"I've come for two things. My stones and you."

Her smile was crooked and a little hateful. "Your problem, my son, is that you've always thought your stones were bigger than they are."

" I can make you love me!" Blaise cried.

"No, you can make me hate you. Love you have to earn."

Cody was standing stock still. A pillar of ice and darkness. Blaise ran his eyes down that slim tall form. Noted her hand tucked into the fold of her lab coat. The glint of the scalpel between her fingers. He smiled.

"Cody, you're so stupid," Blaise crooned. The scalpel fell from nerveless fingers. "I don't give a fuck how you feel."

The coat fell with a sigh to the linoleum floor.

"Because I can…"

The blouse joined the coat on the floor. ". make you…"

She stepped out of her skirt. "… love me."

Had it connected, the blow would have ruptured a kidney.

But Blaise's karate training gave him a split-second warning. The young man spun away from Tachyon's thrust kick and caught his grandfather by the ankle. Floor met chin with head-ringing force, and Tachyon tasted blood as his teeth snapped shut on his tongue. He rolled to the side. Blinked in consternation as the heel of Blaise's boot slammed into the floor where his head had rested only a second before. Tachyon got his legs beneath him and bounded to his feet. Blaise charged, and the older man fended him off with the artificial hand. The digits couldn't be bent to form a proper spear hand, but the hard plastic fingers still managed to sink a satisfying distance into the teenager's solar plexus.

Blaise let out a sound like a dying air brake, and Cody lunged for her surgical gear as Blaise's mind control broke. "Would you fuck this macho bullshit!" she screamed. "And just mind-control him!"

For an instant Tachyon was distracted by the sight of the completely naked Cody snatching up and wielding a chest separator like a modern-day Hippolyte.

First rule of combat never, never, never get distracted. Blaise landed a palm strike to the face. With a dreadful mushy sound the cartilage in Tach's nose let go, and blood fountained over his chest, forming a red bib on the elaborate peach-colored coat.

Belatedly the Takisian brought up his hands in defense. He and Blaise circled each other warily.

Feint, feint. Tachyon lashed out with his mentat's power and struck the glass-smooth surface of Blaise's shields. Struck again and a tiny cobweb of cracks appeared in the structure. At this rate it was going to take until next Tuesday to breach the boy's shields. And Tach didn't have that long.

Too much booze and not enough exercise was taking its toll. He was panting like a ruptured hog. Blaise landed a body blow that resurrected memories of broken ribs from the year before.

Suddenly Cody was there. With a deft twirl of the chest separator she landed a walloping blow to the back of Blaise's head. He staggered, but then Cody froze and began advancing stiff legged on Tachyon.

"You see, Granpere." Blaise's smile was feral. " I can control her and fend you off. Mentally and physically. All at the same time."

Blaise's coercive ability was the most powerful Tach had ever confronted, but it was brute force. The subtleties of high-level mentatics were beyond him. Contemptuously Tachyon batted aside Blaise's grip on Cody. Interposed himself between the teenager and the woman. His mental shields enfolded her close as an embrace.

Cody was raging. Her thoughts ripped off her like sparks off a shorting fuse.

Damndamndamn. Stags. Runtingbedamnedstags. Me a damn shuttlecock. Notatoy! Releaselmakefree!

Cannot. Dare not. Tachyon sent to her. Help me, he begged.

Tachyon licked blood from his upper lip and endured three punishing body blows as he closed with Blaise. Clawlike, the artificial hand closed about Blaise's arm just above the elbow. It could exert enough pressure to crush a metal cup. Its effect on human tissue was also quite satisfying. Blaise screamed, and Tachyon's nostrils flared with wild, joyous pleasure as he slammed his left hand over and over again into Blaise's face.

Touch her, will you? No! None but me! She is mine! Mine! MINE!

Blaise tried a ball shot, but Tach was too quick for him. The blow landed on his thigh. The older man responded with a hammer blow to the boy's nuts. A scream ripped through the morgue.

Tachyon could feel Blaise's mind control scrabbling at his shields, but the teenager was in too much pain, too disoriented by hate and interrupted lust to muster any effective challenge to Tach's power.

Suddenly there were hands tearing at his shoulders. "Stop it! Stop it! You're going to kill him."

Tach snarled, ignored her, continued the pleasurable business of reducing his enemy to a bloody pulp. The hands were gone. Tach heard the slap of Cody's bare feet on the tile as she ran.

Agony! The formaldehyde burned like acid in the cuts on his face, his eyes. Tach and Blaise both fell back. And at last it penetrated. Blood lust, the killing. He had been on the verge of murdering his own grandchild. Horrified, Tachyon stumbled back, lost his footing in the slick blood, and went windmilling to the floor.

Blaise, his face a mask of blood, cradling his mangled arm, snarled down at Tachyon. "You're dead!"

Crablike, Blaise scuttled for the door. Flung it open and bolted from the morgue. Tachyon shook off the fear that held him and struggled to his feet.

"Where are you going?" cried Cody. "Must… catch him. Apologize. Help him."

"It's too late for that!"

Tach tottered for the door, but the pain from his broken nose made him dizzy. Tach sent out a telepathic bellow for Troll and was amazed when the nine-foot-tall joker appeared a second later.

"Doc, are you okay?" the security guard asked. "Of course he's not okay," snapped Cody.

Troll opened and closed his mouth several times as he contemplated the stark-naked chief of surgery.

"Blaise," Tach mumbled around a split and rapidly swelling lip.

"He lit out of here like a scalded cat," said Troll, then added ruefully. "Sorry I'm so late getting here, but I knocked myself clean out."

"Help me get Dr. Tachyon to emergency," Cody ordered. "We've got to fix that nose."

"Put on some clothes," ordered Tachyon.

"What's the matter? You've never seen a naked woman before?"

"I do not wish the entire world to see my woman." "Your woman? Your woman?"

Tach retreated from her acid laced thoughts. "Slip of the tongue," the Takisian muttered weakly.

"Owwwww! What are you using?" Tachyon complained nasally. Cotton wadding and splints clogged his nose, and his throat was becoming sore as he struggled to breathe through his mouth. "An entrenching tool?"

"Don't be such a baby." The probe hit the steel tray with a metallic clatter. "You're going to need a new nose. Any preference?"

"How about just like the one I had."

"Don't waste a golden opportunity"

"Why should I change it?" It annoyed him that she didn't like his nose.

"It was trifle on the long side," Cody said coolly. "It was patrician and aristocratic."

"It was a honker."

Tach absorbed this. Reluctantly admitted, "My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother always hated my nose."

"Then allow me to be creative."

"All right."

Cody worked in silence for several minutes, then a little gruffly she asked, "How did you know?"

"We were halfway to Tomlin International when I realized I had forgotten a grant application."

"The one from HEW?" she interrupted. "Yes."

"I've got it. I inadvertently picked it up when I was in your office this afternoon. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You should thank whatever ancestors guard your back. So fortuitous a gift should not be demeaned. Anyway, Riggs started back, and at about Fifth Avenue I heard you screaming your head off. Riggs spared no effort, and as a result we had a police escort all the way to the clinic."

"Well… thanks." She made a minute adjustment, and Tach sucked in a pained breath. "I seem to be making a habit of having you rescue me."

"It is my pleasure."

"Well, it's no pleasure for me. I'm accustomed to taking care of myself."

"You would do the same for me," said Tach gently. Cody prefaced her words with a long sigh as if she regretted the emotion that drove the response. " I suppose I would."

That girl was back. Lips skinned away from his teeth at Blaise whirled on her.

"Why the fuck are you following me?"

"You look like you need that place to go." The angle of her cigarette as it hung limply from her lips seemed to mock him.

"I don't need dick from you."

" I can show you something you'll like," Molly Bolt said.

Blaise smiled. "You're a really skinny, ugly little runt. I doubt your pussy's going to be much nicer."

The girl's face closed down like a series of slamming doors. "You're so fucking stupid. Okay, fine, we'll show you."

He felt the pressure of a mind. Then a second, a third, more and more joined in a desperate attempt to do something to him. Molly's tough-girl act was starting to fray at the edges. Blaise grinned at her. Reached out and closed his power about the watchers in the shadows. Last of all he took Bolt. It felt sweet to save her until last. Blaise commanded, and eight kids walked out of the shadows of the alley. Stood shoulder to rigid shoulder with their leader. Molly's eyes raged at him.

"What are you?" whispered a girl whose white-blond hair formed a shimmering nimbus about her little face. Blaise considered the question for a long time. It deserved a lot of consideration. Finally he said, "Inhuman." Blaise patted down Molly Bolt and pulled out a package of cigarettes. Lit one. Took a long drag. "Now, what was it you wanted to show me?"

"Read my mind," spat Molly.

It angered Blaise that he couldn't. Tachyon would have been able to. That cranked the anger a little higher. "What are you going to do with us?" Molly asked.

"Sell you as lawn jockeys." The laugh emerged as a tight little whinny.

"Let us go… please," cried the blond girl. "You wont fuck with me?"

" I swear it," said Molly, pleading a little now. "We need you. Now I know why."

"What were you going to show me?"

"Let us go."

Blaise released them. Truth was, his overstretched mental powers were starting to quiver like a too tightly wound guitar string. But his little humans never suspected.

Molly ran a hand across the spikes of her multicolored hair. Sauntered to the mouth of the alley. The sidewalks were filled with rush-hour humanity. The sun sank like a bloated red sack into an ocean of brown-green smog. In the canyons between the buildings night had already fallen. "So, pick one," said Molly.

"One what?" asked Blaise.

"Person," said a skinny kid whose face seemed to be one angry blackhead.

"For what?" Blaise asked. He hated to ask. It made him look stupid.

"To humiliate," said the blond teen in her soft littlegirl voice.

"Or kill," offered another of the gang.

Blaise scanned the crowds. Listened to the blare of car horns. The thrum and rumble of hundreds of tires racing across the uneven asphalt of Broadway.

"Hurry" prodded Molly Bolt.

Blaise ignored her. Eventually he spotted what he was looking for. A carefully combed head of carrot-red hair, a business suit on the inexpensive side of nice. Not too tall. A little too slim.

An incline of the head. "Him."

"And do what?" asked Molly. "Kill him."

" I am fine. It is just a broken nose. I do not need to be in bed."

Cody ignored him. Folded back the comforter. " I must reach Washington."

She stripped him out of the blood-covered coat. "I must locate Blaise."

She unbuttoned his shirt.

"Make up your mind," Cody said. "Blaise or Washington."

Tach considered. "Washington."

"Fine. You'll fly tonight. Dita's already rescheduled your tickets."

"Damn it," he raged. "Don't manage my life."

She pushed his shirt off his shoulders. "Somebody has to." She pointed at his pants. "Finish. I'll get you some water so you can wash down these pain pills."

It's useless arguing with a shut door. Meekly Tach stripped off his pants and shorts and crawled beneath the sheets. Cody returned with the glass and an ice pack. Tach obediently swallowed the pills.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Now what are you apologizing for?"

"Mind-controlling you. I know how fiercely independent you are, but I could not effectively protect-"

"I know why you did it. Let's just drop it, okay?"

"Nonetheless, your reaction shamed me. Cody, please understand and do not reject me. My defense of you is not meant to demean you."

"I know"

"Perhaps it manifests as somewhat proprietary, but that is because I am still hoping-"

"Tachyon, would you just shut the fuck up."

"But I do not want you angry-"

"You know what your problem is? You talk too goddamn much!"

Black, oily. The water looked really disgusting. And the smell…

Blaise swallowed hard. Wished his elbow didn't hurt so bad. Out in the bay a police patrol boat droned past, spotlights sweeping across the choppy waters.

Blackhead-Blaise had discovered his name was Kent set down the bags of groceries on the end of the pier. Molly knelt and lit a kerosene lantern.

"One if by land?" asked Blaise sarcastically.

Molly didn't reply, for there was rippling in the dark water and a thing rose up from the water.

"Shit!"

"No, Charon."

Kent thrust the bags of groceries through the semitransparent body wall. Blaise's initial disgust was passing. It was just another version of Baby, Tachyon's living spaceship. Blaise took a step toward Charon. Molly held him off with a hand to the chest.

"How bad do you want it?" asked Molly sternly. Blaise remembered. Shrill screams. The wailing of sirens forming a frantic counterpoint. The small redheaded man pinned against the wall of the cleaners. Vomiting his blood across the hood of the big Caddy.

"Enough to do anything to get it."

"Then ya gotta trust us. You gotta be one with us."

"And if I don't?"

"You can't make us give you the power," the blond girl said. "You can only scare us so much."

Blaise slid his eyes toward her. "And do I scare you?"

"Yes."

Startling in its simplicity and honesty. Blaise took another look at her. Fine-boned. A few pimples on her chin, but otherwise unflawed. Fawn's eyes, but smoky gray with a dark circle surrounding the iris. The pale hair hung below her hips; it stirred softly in the breeze off the river.

"What do I have to do?" Blaise asked, turning back to Molly.

"Die."

"Huh?"

"Symbolically speaking," Kent explained. "This is bullshit."

"No," said Molly. "This is real." She lifted a long chain with shackles attached to the end. "You walk behind Charon. We've got the end of this." She shook the chain. "Eventually we pull you in."

"Eventually." Blaise turned the word over and over in his mouth.

"You have to trust us to pull you in before it's too late," said the blonde.

"What's your name?" Blaise asked abruptly.

She was surprised and replied without thinking. "Kelly."

"Stop farting around," interrupted Molly. "Have you got the guts for it or are you a jerk off and a coward?"

"Try saying something like that after all this bullshit is over," warned Blaise. "And just what is the point of this bullshit?"

"You have to die to live with us," a boy called out. "Great," muttered Blaise. "This is so stupid."

"In or out, Blaisy Daisy," crooned Molly.

Tachyon vomiting blood. Cody, eyes wide with terror and desire. Her body fiery hot beneath his. Bloody froth on her lips as his fingers sank deep into her neck.

Blaise thrust out his hands. The shackles closed around his wrists. Blaise eyed Charon. The two small eyes regarded his thoughtfully, closed in a slow blink. Blaise laughed as a white-hot surge of lust and anticipation shot through him. This was going to be fun.

They had clipped a heavy diver's belt about his waist, replaced his tennis shoes with lead-soled boots. Charon had slid beneath the water, Blaise plummeting like a stone behind him.

Blaise concentrated on the thousands of wriggling cilia that propelled Charon across the muddy bottom. How long could he last? How long until the last stale bits of air exploded from his aching lungs and the filthy waters of the river rushed in?

Charon's body cast a greenish glow into the dark waters. Occasionally a fish brushed against Blaise's body, fluttered hysterically away. His feet tangled, and Blaise fell to his knees. Almost… almost he gasped. His foot had caught in the rotting rib cage of a body. There was a jerk of the chain, the shackles biting into his wrists. Awkwardly Blaise staggered to his feet. Hurried to catch up with Charon.

There was a roaring in his ears, and his lungs were laced with fire. His eyes focused desperately on the chain. Noted how the vaguely defined bands of muscle in Charon's body closed lovingly about the metal links. Blaise fought the urge to reach out and seize control of Molly.

No! He'd fucking die before he'd break.

And that was beginning to seem very likely. Blaise lifted his hands and pressed them against his nose and mouth. Suddenly the slack was taken up on the chain, and he was being reeled toward Charon's glistening body. He struck and began flailing desperately at the rubbery wall. It stretched reluctantly open. Water and Blaise poured into the slimy interior.

Kelly was yanking him up out of the water, which washed sluggishly across the floor of the joker's body. Air. Gulp it down, taste it, revel in the cool rush that filled his starved and aching lungs. Molly unlocked the shackles. They were cheering, laughing, suddenly he was captured in their embrace. A ten-headed animal with twenty arms holding and- caressing him. Blaise realized he was, crying and he couldn't figure out why. But it must have been okay because several other jumpers were crying, too.

Blaise became aware of a mental barrier. It whispered of terror, death, loss, loneliness. He blocked it. The jumpers were shifting nervously. Molly soothed them with a constant soft murmur.

"Just a little more. Almost there."

"What the fuck is that?" asked Blaise. "Bloat," came the terse reply.

Kent suddenly jumped to his feet. He was whispering as he shuffled toward one moist gelatinous wall. Blaise grabbed his wrist, forced him down next to him.

"Sit down! You can take it. It's just a stupid mind power. And a pretty wimpy one at that."

The jumpers were regarding him with awe. All except Molly. She looked pissed.

"No wonder the Prime wanted you," breathed Kelly. "Who's the Prime?"

Bolt tersely replied, "You'll find out. Someday. Maybe." Charon gave a little lurch as if all the thousands of cilia had pushed against the muddy bed of the river. They were rising. Water cascaded off Charon's back. They had arrived.

Once on shore, Blaise folded his arms across his chest and gazed across Ellis Island. The trees covered it like spikes on a dinosaur's back, and above the shadowy foliage loomed massive buildings topped with turrets and fanciful cupolas. It reminded Blaise of the Takisian fairy tales Tachyon used to tell. Lost kingdoms that existed only in the clouds and mist. Elaborate palaces that lured a man to explore their treasuries and ballrooms only to fall to his death with the sunrise.

But it wasn't a palace. It wasn't even livable. At least Blaise didn't think so. They had led him through the darkness to the main immigration center, and now they stood in one of the side rooms. There were, a couple of cots, and twenty or thirty sleeping bags. Some were rolled like somnolent caterpillars against the walls, others were spread out on the stained and buckled tile floor. Candy wrappers, crumpled snack-chip sacks, empty Vienna sausage cans littered the room and formed junk drifts in the corners.

Gray-green paint peeled like a bad sunburn from the wooden walls. High overhead, filthy windows barely indicated the presence of a waxing moon. Some were broken, the shattered glass like jagged fangs embedded in petrified jaws.

"Pick a place," said Molly with a broad, gracious sweep of the arm.

"Do I get a sleeping bag?" asked Blaise.

"You can share mine," offered Kelly as she sidled up next to hirn. "Until we can get one for you," she hastened to add, wilting a bit under his cold stare.

"Better rest, Blaisy Daisy," said Molly. "You're gonna need it."

Blaise pivoted slowly to face her. "Don't… ever… call me that

… again."

Arms militantly akimbo, Molly sneered in a singsong tone, "Or what?"

"I'll kill you."

The matter-of-fact tone left the girl gaping. She suddenly recalled herself. The watching jumpers, eyes bright like a hunting rat pack, eagerly waiting for the fight. Molly tossed her head and laughed.

"You'can try, Blai-" The word cut off and she whirled and exited.

"She's a quick learner. I like that in a slit."

The boys laughed. The girls shifted uncomfortably and exchanged glances.

Yes, Blaise decided. This was fun.

The lights made interesting effects on her face. At times it seemed as still as a white marble effigy. At others it was soft and vulnerable.

Tach hugged his briefcase to his chest. Winced as a bus released its air brakes with a sound like a dying pig. "This was not necessary. Riggs could have driven me."

"I wanted to," said Cody.

She drove as smoothly as she did everything else. No wasted movement, hands lightly gripping the wheel, the tiniest wrist movements as she wove through the beltway traffic.

" I wanted to make sure you got on that plane," she continued, and Tach forced himself back from a rapt contemplation of her hands.

"I'm not going to collapse from a broken nose."

"It's not your health that concerns me."

"Thank you." A little ironic and she caught it. She cocked her head to get a better look at him out of her one eye. "Should you be driving?" Tachyon suddenly asked.

"Little late to worry now. And as for the plane. I was afraid you'd take it into your head to go looking for Blaise, and frankly, funding the clinic is a hell of a lot more important."

"You can be very cold."

"No, I just know when to cut my losses."

The cars up ahead suddenly braked and the red flare of their taillights punctuated and underscored Tach's sharp reply. "I don't think he's a loss!"

"Then you're a delusional fool."

Tachyon dropped his head briefly into his hand. "All right, I don't want to think that."

Cody spun the wheel and they shot up the ramp and under a sign marked DEPARTING PASSENGERS.

"Better. God damn it, Tachyon, in maybe twenty or thirty years I'll have you past the guilt, out of the wallow of self-pity, and you'll have figured out when to shut up."

"Thank heaven I'm a big enough man to listen to this catalog of my flaws."

Cody's eye raked his diminutive form. "Well, your ego is big enough to handle it."

"I'm also highly encouraged."

"By what?"

"That you are willing to devote your life to the reclamation of my mind, body, and spirit."

The seat belt nearly cut Tach in half as Cody slammed on the brakes in front of the terminal.

"I don't think my original statement went quite that way."

"It was implicit."

Tach closed the prosthetic hand around the handle and pushed open the door. Cody moved to the trunk and pulled out his two big suitcases.

"How long are you going to be gone?" she asked. "Three days."

"You've got enough here for a round-the-world cruise."

"But, my dear, one must dress."

He was smiling bravely up at her, but inside he suddenly felt like he was filled with broken glass. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he muttered a curse.

Cody laid her hands on his shoulders. "What is it? You look stricken."

"I don't know. Nothing." Tach shook his head. "I am suddenly just so very, very unhappy."

For a long moment she looked at him, then bending down, she placed a soft feather-light kiss at the corner of his mouth. Tachyon stared at her in amazement.

"Smile for me, kid," she said, a crooked smile curving her own lips.

Tachyon burst out, "Cody, come with me to Washington."

"What? You're crazy. I've got no ticket, I don't have any luggage, what about my kid-" She paused for breath. "And who's going to run the clinic?"

People were shouldering past them as the couple blocked the automatic doors into the terminal.

"Please, I am frightened for you."

"I'll holler if I need you."

"It will be too far to come."

"You're hysterical. It's the pain pills talking."

"Cody, he means to harm us."

"Do you or don't you want me to call the police and have them search for Blaise?"

"No." Tach stared seriously up at her. "For if he's found, I shall surely have to kill him."

When you're stark naked and dressed only in a scarlet robe that had obviously been ripped off from some local Episcopalian church choir, you can feel like a real dork.

Add to that the fact that nerves were giving Blaise the most amazing hard-on it had ever been his pleasure to experience. Or maybe he just got off on big black candles and a droning tape of Tibetan monastery chants, he thought ironically as Molly led him into the dark, echoing room. Molly glanced down at his penis thrusting aggressively from between the folds of his gown, and grinned. "You're gonna do just fine," she muttered as if to herself, but intending for Blaise to hear.

He didn't respond. This and anything that followed could be endured. The ultimate prize was too great to blow it with a fit of temper now.

Jumpers lined the walls. Blaise did a quick head count. Forty-two. But many of those weren't jumpers. You couldn't jump until you'd been initiated. Most, like Kelly, were still waiting. Blaise noted that two-thirds were boys. Why? Did it whatever it was-affect males more strongly than females? How did one make a jumper?

A lurid green pentagram had been painted on the stained tile floor. On the walls were painted other occult symbols. The swastika, a leering goat's head, 666. The enormous room was lit by a score of black candles, but they did little more than chase the shadows into the corners of the roof where they hung like brooding bats.

In the center of the pentagram was a low table. It was an odd height if it was meant to serve as an altar. And the three red satin pillows tossed on its polished black surface really ruined any hope of suggesting blood sacrifices.

Molly closed her fingers around Blaise's left wrist and led him three times around the pentagram. At the eastern point they stepped into the figure, and the jumpers let out a weird, undulating cry. Blaise had to bite back a laugh. Then from the darkness a man's voice asked, "Who comes to be made?"

"Only one, Prime," called Molly. "Is he worthy?"

"He is brave. He is trustful."

"Will he serve?"

Molly nudged Blaise.

"I'll serve," the boy replied. Apparently it was the right answer.

Molly signaled and Kent hurried forward to pull off the choir robe. They were all staring at him. Kelly especially. Blaise ran a hand across his chest. Noticed that he was starting to grow hair. He had become a man. He could pinpoint the moment. He had gone into that morgue a child. Emerged a man.

"Lie down on the table," whispered Molly. "With your stomach on the pillows."

For a moment he bridled at the undignified positionhis bare ass thrust aggressively skyward.

Patience. Patience.

Tachyon vomiting his life out across the hood of his limo. No, even better across Cody's lap.

Paper-dry hands cupped his rump, and Blaise almost lost it.

Didn't take a genius to figure out what was coming. Parted his buttocks.

Oh, I'm gonna get you for this, Grandpa! Tearing pain as the man thrust deep within him.

A lifetime later and it was over. Blaise rose stiffly from the table. There was blood on his ass and legs.

The man gestured a broad sweeping motion that set the hanging sleeve of his gown to swaying. "Reach out. Seize one of them. Trade with them. For you it should be child's play."

Yeah, snarled Blaise internally, and he reached out for the man.

Nothing happened. Behind the mask the man's eyes glittered. The mouth twisted stiffly into a smile.

"You beautiful bastard," the Prime said. "You would try to fuck with me. Forget it, I can't be jumped."

"Can you be killed?" Blaise asked sweetly. From behind him he heard Molly gasp.

"Oh, yes, but without me there are no more jumpers. Don't shoot yourself in the foot, Blaise, in a fit of pique." The hem of the gown whispered about his feet as the Prime turned and slunk back into the shadows.

Blaise turned back to his peers. They peered back at him like bright cardinals in their scarlet robes.

"Come on, let's play," said Molly.

And Blaise reached out. Seemed to bounce out of his skin. Shoot like liquid fire. He came to rest in Kent's body. He looked out at the world from new eyes. Glancing down, he studied the overly long thumbnail on the right hand, the callused finger pads. Would the body remember how to play guitar? Blaise wondered. Then he was on to other sensations. Like the fact that Kent smelled funny. Blaise looked across to his body. Molly and Kelly were easing it to the floor. It… he… Kent-damn!-seemed to be conscious, but frozen in some kind of fugue state.

Blaise made the jump back. Shook off Kelly's patting hands. Climbed to his feet. Raucous laughter rang through the rafters, skittered among the shadows. The jumpers stood in shocked silence.

Blaise threw back his head and screamed like a banshee.

"Oh, Tachyon! You're going to wish I had only killed you!"

Nobody's Home by Walton Simons

Kenneth was late. Central Park baked in the August heat. Most of the animals in the zoo were napping. Jerry sat in front of the seventy-five-foot-tall cage that had been his home back when he was a giant ape. A lone pigeon walked up to him, head bobbing. Jerry shooed it away.

He felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

"It's just me," Kenneth said, sitting down beside him. "Sorry I'm late."

"What's up? You sounded pretty mysterious on the phone."

Kenneth nodded. "It's Latham. He's going around the bend, I think. He's involved in more than you can imagine. For years he's been a major figure in the Shadow Fist Society. Which includes everyone from punks like the Immaculate Egrets and Werewolves up to very respectable businessmen. And Latham's in it up to his neck."

"But he's got something on you, too. Right?" Jerry leaned forward. He'd been trying to come up with material on Latham for months, and hadn't turned up anything other than a few interesting reports from his time in Vietnam.

Kenneth looked away. "There are some things I'd rather Beth didn't know about. Other women. We've made such progress since almost getting divorced. I don't want to jeopardize my marriage. Latham has some pretty graphic evidence. One of the women I saw was working for him." He turned back to Jerry. "This isn't to be repeated, you understand."

"Only under torture," Jerry said. "Who's Kien?"

"You're better off not finding out, but it may come to that soon."

"What do you mean?" Jerry wiped his sweaty forehead. "Latham knows I have information on him. He wants to trade it for what he has on me." Kenneth shook his head. "But I've known St. John a long time. He'll hold back something to keep me in line."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Give you my file on Latham, if you'll have it. He's made some threats lately. I wouldn't put it past him to break into the house trying to get them. Beth might get hurt. This way I can let it drop that the papers are no longer in my home. He'll suspect you might have them, of course."

Jerry shrugged. "The day a native New Yorker is scared of some high-class thug from Beantown will never come." Jerry paused. "Well, maybe he does make me a little nervous."

"Good, because he's a very dangerous man." Kenneth looked straight at Jerry. "You're sure you don't mind?"

"Nope. Look over there." Jerry pointed at the chimp cage. One of the apes was high in a tree, throwing its shit at another on the ground. "That's what we'll be doing to Latham soon."

"I'll settle for a return to the established balance of fear," Kenneth said.

"We'll manage," Jerry said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Thanks." Kenneth opened his briefcase. "Now, let's discuss what you're going to do about your appointment with the city officials next week."

"Right." Jerry sighed and stared back at the chimp cage. Sometimes the shit got thrown at you, as well.

Jerry sat on the worn, orange couch, shifting his weight. It was hot outside and his sweaty legs stuck to the cushion through his pants. The waiting room was quiet, except for the male secretary's fingers on the keyboard, muffled voices from inside the offices, and the breathing of the joker woman sharing the couch with Jerry.

Kenneth had shown him what to sign and told him what to say. He'd even offered to come along as legal representation. Jerry said no. It was time he started taking care of a few things on his own. Still, the back of his throat was dry. Several trips to the water cooler hadn't helped. City officials could do that to you. Especially in New York.

He turned to the joker, who was normal except for her grotesquely overmuscled jaws and mouth. "Did you sign them?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Do I have a choice?" Her voice was soft. Talking seemed awkward for her.

"Always." He straightened his shoulders. "I'm not going to."

The joker nodded, but didn't seem impressed. "You an ace?"

"I was once, but not anymore." The lie needed all the practice Jerry could give it. "You remember the big ape in Central Park?"

"Yeah. They took it away to make a movie or something. Right?"

"Right. That was me." Jerry felt a chill crawl halfway up his spine. "Dr. Tachyon cured me, but my power doesn't work anymore."

"Too bad," she said.

"Not really," Jerry said. "It'll keep the government goons off my back. Why are they interested in you?" The woman smiled, revealing two rows of large teeth like polished marble. "I'm what's classified as a type-two joker."

"What's that?"

"Any joker who's something other than just ugly, I guess. My teeth and jaws are pretty strong. I can bite through almost anything." The joker looked around, presumably for something to demonstrate on.

"That's okay, I believe you." Jerry unstuck his legs from the couch. "What do they call you?"

"Susan," she said. "How about you?"

"A long time ago I used to be called the Projectionist," Jerry said. She looked at him with polite blankness. "That was before your time, I'd imagine. Now I'm nobody. People just call me Jerry"

"Regular names are best, anyway," Susan said.

The office door opened across the room. A man in a suit showed a visibly shaken six-legged joker out. "Mr. Strauss?"

Jerry nodded and stood.

The man let him go inside first. He was middle-aged and slightly overweight. His hair was thin and gray. His eyes brown. He took Jerry's hand. Jerry shook it and squeezed hard. The man squeezed even harder.

"Sit down, Mr. Strauss. I'm William Karnes."

Jerry sat. Karnes eased into his chair behind the well-ordered desk. He put a finger to his mouth and opened a file. "I see you failed to sign forms fifteen and seventeen-a. Why is that Mr. Strauss?"

"Well, I'm no longer an active wild card," Jerry said, "so I don't see why I should be subject to conscription in the event of a national emergency. And I believe the other one said I was to notify your office if I were to take any kind of extended vacation. It just seems unnecessary" Karnes rubbed the end of his bulbous nose. "The government has its reasons, Mr. Strauss. Failure to cooperate now may mean some very serious inconveniences for you later on. You're aware of the rumblings in Congress about reinstating some of the old Exotic Powers laws."

Jerry took a deep breath. He didn't want to let Karnes get under his skin. That had been Kenneth's advice. "Yes. I do keep up with current events. But, as I say, I'm no longer a wild card, except in the most technical sense. I believe you have a medical report from my physician to that effect."

Karnes stared at Jerry. "From Dr. Tachyon. We can hardly give that much credence. If you want to undergo testing by some of our staff I might agree to that. But we don't pay much attention to alien quacks."

Jerry could feel the blood hammering inside him. "I don't think I have anything else to say to you, Mr. Karnes." He stood.

"Sit down, sir." Karnes pointed to the chair. "I can make more trouble for you than you can imagine. I have a job to do, and none of your kind is going to stop me."

Jerry felt something go hard inside him. "Really? Well, let me clarify something for you, Mr. Karnes. You're a low-level bureaucrat with a stick up his ass. I'm a multimillionaire with lots of very powerful friends. If I were you, I'd be extremely careful who I threatened. If you're lucky, I'll only come after you with lawyers. Do you feel lucky, punk?" Jerry quoted a cop movie he'd just seen. Karnes opened his mouth. Shut it.

"Stay out of my hair, then." Jerry left the office, shutting the door loudly. He walked over to Susan, who was still sitting miserably on the couch. "He's an asshole. Don't trust him."

"I don't trust any nats," Susan said. "Not anymore. It's just that I can't find a way around them."

Jerry patted her on the hand. "Right. Well, good luck, then."

Susan smiled. It wasn't pretty. Maybe she'd bite a hole in Karnes's desk. Probably not, though. That kind of thing only happened in the movies.

Jerry sat on the bed, oiling the pistol. He'd bought and read a couple of books on gun care. If he was going to have a weapon, he was going to take care of it. He'd been target shooting for a few weeks and the pistol no longer felt awkward in his hand.

There was a sharp knock at his apartment door. Jerry put the automatic in his dresser drawer under some T-shirts and crossed the room. He peered through the peephole and saw a middle-aged man in maintenance clothes. He opened the door.

"I'm here to get you plastered," the man said, smiling. "Right. Just follow me." Jerry closed the door and led the man to where his wall safe had been installed. All it needed was plaster, paint, and something to put in front of it.

The man walked to the wall and looked it over. "Nice safe," he said. "This whole building could burn down and anything inside would be fine. Yes, sir. I kind of hate to be working on the anniversary of the King's death, though. I'll drink a few beers for him later on. Are you a fan?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean?" Jerry said. "Elvis. The King. He died twelve years ago today. I remember that summer. We had the second big blackout. You remember that?"

"No. I was around for the first one, though." Actually, Jerry had caused it, but didn't feel like telling this guy the story. "I liked Elvis when I was younger."

"Can't stop liking the King just because you get older. That's no kind of fan to be. I listen to Elvis every night before I go to bed with the wife. Makes it just that much more exciting."

"You mind if I watch TV while you work?" Jerry asked.

The man shrugged. "Don't see why not. You're the one spending a fortune to live here." He spread out a piece of canvas on the carpet in front of the wall and sorted through his spatulas.

Jerry picked up the remote control and punched up the local news.

"… another apparent jumper crime. A mime says someone else entered his body while he was performing in Central Park, removed his clothing, and inserted a chrysanthemum in his anus. The jumper then paraded the mime around the park and made obscene gestures at passersby."

"Jeez," the maintenance man said. "That's three in the last two weeks. When are the cops going to do something about those jumper assholes?"

"Maybe they're scared," Jerry said.

"I can understand that. It's a sorry day when New York's finest can't handle a few snot-nosed kids, though. Even if they are aces."

"You like aces?" Jerry turned away from the TV and looked over at the man.

"Hell, no. Can't stand them. Put them all in prison." He pointed a spatula full of plaster at Jerry. "That's what they should have done to the fat guy, even if it was just a joker he killed."

"There's two sides to everything," Jerry said.

"Yep, and the lines are getting drawn. If you're for aces and jokers, you're looking for trouble. And a young man like you doesn't need any trouble."

Jerry considered telling the man that they were probably the same age, but that would just make him curious. He turned off the TV and picked up his Cosmopolitan. He was trying harder to understand women, but just couldn't seem to turn the corner. Maybe Irma Kurtz could enlighten him.

Kenneth was expecting him for lunch, but this time it was Jerry who was late. Traffic was at a standstill on Third Avenue. He'd paid off his cabbie and started walking uptown. Within two blocks his shirt was soaked in sweat. He'd started out walking fast, but had gotten stitches in his sides and was just keeping pace with the tide of bodies on the sidewalk.

Kenneth hadn't actually said so, but Jerry figured his brother was going to turn over the material on Latham. He'd mentioned several times that Jerry shouldn't cancel out. That had to mean something. Kenneth didn't waste words.

He was in the same block as the restaurant when his right leg cramped up. Jerry leaned against a wall and rubbed the back of his calf. The searing pain began to go away after a minute or two. Every other person that walked by looked at him and shook their head. He reached down and pulled the toe of his shoe toward him, stretching out the muscle. The pain lessened. He started limping toward the restaurant. Ahead, he saw three people go in. They were young and well dressed, but their clothes seemed wrong on them. They looked like kids playing dress-up. Jerry only saw them for a moment, but they seemed familiar. One of the girls was wearing a wig. Jerry had a few of his own and could spot one a mile away. He tried his bad leg and it quickly cramped up on him again. He started hopping slowly down the sidewalk. He started walking again when he stepped inside the restaurant. His leg was sore as hell, but there was. nothing he could do about it. The cool air inside chilled his sweaty back. He smelled sauerkraut and schnitzel.

They were sitting in a booth. The girl in the wig and the boy held on to the other girl. She looked passed out. A body brushed past him. Jerry saw his brother leave the restaurant.

"Kenneth?"

There was no answer. Jerry hobbled out after him. He grabbed Kenneth as they neared the sidewalk and tried to turn him around. Without looking, Kenneth threw an elbow that caught Jerry in the chest and knocked him backward. Jerry fell onto the sidewalk skinning his hands. Kenneth stepped out into the traffic.

"No," Jerry screamed, and struggled to his feet. Kenneth turned, looking disoriented, just like the girl inside had. He snapped his head around at the sound of squealing brakes. The car turned sideways. Its right fender slammed into Kenneth, knocking his body up and back. Kenneth screamed. Jerry heard the crunch of glass. Kenneth bounced off a parked car and slid down into the street. Jerry ran over, the pain in his leg forgotten. Blood was coming from Kenneth's nose and mouth. His body was twisted in a way that meant a broken back. Jerry knelt down next to him. "Kenneth, it's me. Don't try to move." He turned to the gathering crowd. "Somebody call an ambulance, now"

"Jerry" Kenneth's voice was garbled by the blood in his throat. "They did it to me. Switched bodies. So… weird. " He closed his eyes, reopened them. "Hurts so much. Had to be… Latham behind it. Tell Beth…" His body shuddered and then was still.

"No," Jerry said quietly. He held his brother's hand for a moment, then let it go and stood. He looked up and saw the trio of kids disappear around the corner. The boy was carrying a large folding envelope. Jerry ran a couple of painful steps, then stopped. "No."

Someone took Jerry by the shoulders and guided him back into the restaurant. He could tell they were saying something consoling, but he couldn't pick out the words.

They sat him down. A waiter put a glass of water and a shot of whiskey in front of him. "You wait here until the police arrive, sir. If there's anything you need, just ask."

Jerry downed the whiskey without feeling it and clenched his hands into fists. Underneath the disbelief and the pain, there was something cold growing inside him.

Something that would have to be taken care of sooner or later.

Jerry thought about Beth and slumped in his chair. She wasn't up to this, couldn't be. He'd been a shit to her for so long, it wasn't likely he could be much of a comfort now. But he was damn sure going to try.

Jerry heard sirens approaching. He raised his hand for another drink, then reconsidered and waved the waiter away. This wasn't the time.

They were alone on the couch. After the funeral Jerry had hustled the friends and relatives out of the house as soon as courtesy would allow. Beth had held up well, but he could tell she needed another big cry soon.

"I know we haven't had time to talk about it, but I want to apologize for the way I've acted the past few months. I know I hurt your feelings, and you didn't deserve that." Jerry sniffed. Beth wasn't the only one with a cry coming on. "I'm really sorry, and if you'll give me another chance, IT never let you down again." He touched her tentatively on the shoulder.

Beth put her hand on his and looked over at him. "Oh, Jerry, that doesn't matter. I know you're not really hateful. Sometimes these things just happen. What's important is that you're here for me now." She scooted across the couch and put her head in the hollow of his neck. " I need people around me who I can trust, who I can be myself with."

Jerry put his arms around her. He couldn't tell if he started crying first or if she did. They held on to each other, hard. After they were both done, he went and grabbed a box of Kleenex. They blew their noses together and Beth managed a smile.

"I really do love you, sis," he said. "Sometimes I just don't show it very well. It's one of the things I'm working on. I'm trying not to drink so much anymore, either."

She nodded, then dabbed at her eyes. "I'm proud of you for that."

"Are you going to stay here?" Jerry was afraid to hear the answer.

"My brother said he'd be glad to put me up for a while. I haven't been back to Chicago for years. I'm probably due for a visit."

Jerry nodded. He looked at her, but it felt like she was already gone. "That might be best for you."

She took his hand. "It'll only be for a while. I'll be back."

"I'll be waiting," he said.

Tomlin was packed wall to wall with bodies. It was still summer-vacation time for a lot of people and everyone seemed to be trying to get into or out of New York on the same day. He and Beth sat next to each other in plastic row chairs. She hugged her gray carry-on valise and stared out the window at the taxiing airliners. She was quiet. He couldn't imagine how she felt. As terrible as his pain and loss were, hers was worse.

"Eastern flight 178 now boarding for Chicago, with connections to St. Louis and Atlanta," came a soft voice over the public address.

Beth stood and fished her boarding pass out of her purse. She set down her valise and hugged Jerry tight. He knew he was going to cry again, but figured that if he started now, Beth would, too. She didn't need to be a wreck getting onto the plane.

"Good-bye, bro. I'll be back soon, I think. I just have to get out of here for a while. I'll keep in touch."

Jerry picked up her bag, put his arm around her, and steered her toward the boarding entrance. "God, I'm going to miss you. You're all I've got left."

"That's not true, or I wouldn't leave you." Beth kissed him on the cheek.

Jerry handed her the valise. "Call me when you get in."

"Absolutely. Good-bye." Beth turned and handed the man her boarding pass. He took it and smiled at her. Then she was gone.

Jerry sat back down and stared out the window at the plane. He rubbed his eyes and tried to think of his favorite song. Nothing came to mind. He watched until her plane taxied out of sight.

Dead Heart Beating by John J. Miller

"It'sss the General'ssss order, Fadeout," Wyrm hissed, his foot-long tongue lolling out disgustingly over his chin, his eyes as expressionless as a pair of cuff links stuck through the sleeves of a frayed, cheap shirt.

"Since when have I had to be frisked before seeing the old man?" Philip Cunningham asked Kien's loyal watch joker.

"Ssssince the General ordered it." Wyrm's stare was unrelenting.

Cunningham gave his best put-upon sigh. "All right," he said, good-naturedly raising his hands over his head as Wyrm patted him down.

But the easy smile and air of practiced indifference hid the sudden unease running through Cunningham's mind. He knows, Cunningham thought. Somehow the old bastard found out about New Day. That's why he called me in to see him.

Wyrm grunted, stood back. "Okay," he said almost grudgingly. "You can go in."

Cunningham hesitated. He was sure that an angry Kien was waiting for him beyond the closed door to his private office, an angry, vengeful Kien, ready to confront Cunningham with his knowledge of the scheme that would have put Cunningham in his place as head of the Shadow Fists. Cunningham wondered briefly who had betrayed him to Kien, but decided to worry about that later. Now he had something more basic on his mind. Survival.

He could try to make a break for it, or he could bull his way through by putting the blame for New Day on someone else. Loophole, maybe. Or Warlock. That might be his best bet.

He squared his shoulders and opened the door to Kien's inner office. Inside, it was quiet and dimly lit. The only illumination came from the shaded lamp on the edge of Kien's desk. The room's atmosphere was dark and sepulchral, with the glass cases housing the fabulously expensive antique Orientalia scattered around the room playing the part of the grave offerings.

"You wanted to see me?" Cunningham asked as he entered the room. He stopped, frowning. "Kien?"

The shadowy figure sitting behind the huge teakwood desk was only dimly lit by the small lamp. Cunningham stepped forward cautiously, then suddenly realized that the Shadow Fists would have a new master much earlier than even he'd anticipated.

Kien was dead.

If that indeed was Kien seated behind the desk. Cunningham approached slowly, disbelievingly, wondering if his boss was playing some kind of macabre gag. But it wasn't anywhere near April 1 and Kien wasn't the type to pull practical jokes. The body slumped behind the desk was headless, but Cunningham could tell it was Kien from the half hand flopped carelessly in the fine blue powder scattered on the desk surface. And Kien wasn't the only deader in the room. The watchdog joker that Kien normally kept in a jar on his desk was pinned to the desktop with Kien's platinum letter opener, horribly marring the wood's glossy finish.

Cunningham gingerly leaned over the desk, first shifting the lampshade to throw a little more light on the body. Carefully keeping clear of the blue powder sprinkled on the desktop that had mixed with a massive quantity of congealing blood, he reached out cautiously and laid two fingers on the back of Kien's whole hand. The flesh was still warm and pliable. Kien's fingertips were stained blue, and more of the powder clung to the front of his bloodsoaked shirt.

"Rapture," Cunningham said to himself, stepping back from the desk. The blue powder was manufactured in Kien's own Shadow Fist labs. It enhanced the pleasure of anything, turning food into ambrosia, a simple touch into an orgasm. It also had some unfortunate side effects. In a way, Cunningham thought, it was ironic justice rarely seen out of bad television shows that Kien had been using his own wares.

Cunningham didn't think of himself as a stuffed shirt, but he was old-fashioned in his choice of recreational vehicles. He stayed away from the pernicious new stuff, with the often correct notion that he wasn't going to fool around with any kind of chemical until it was proven relatively safe by countless others. He was too bright to be anyone's human guinea pig.

The thing of it was, though, Cunningham could have sworn that Kien had a more conservative attitude toward drugs. When Kien played Kubla Khan In His Pleasure Dome, he would occasionally indulge in a pipe of opium, which had a long history of acceptance in Chinese culture. But that was it. He used no other drugs and was only a light drinker. It was a surprise to discover that Kien was a rap head.

Or was he?

Cunningham carefully considered the death scene. Why would Kien kill his own watchdog joker? And if Kien hadn't killed the sorry little bastard, who had?

The person who had taken Kien's head as a souvenir. But why steal the head of a dead man?

To keep the memories locked in Kien's dead brain away from Deadhead.

Perhaps. If that were the case, then this was an inside job. Knowledge of Deadhead's unique ability to access the memories of dead brains wasn't exactly widespread outside the Shadow Fists.

Cunningham tugged the letter opener from the batrachian joker's chest, then set it aside. A small box stuffed with elegant wrapping paper sat on the edge of Kien's desk. The box was stamped with the name "Lin's Curio Emporium," an expensive antique store that was part of Kien's far-flung commercial empire. Besides importing costly Asian antiquities, Lin's was also a high-class drugstore where well-heeled clientele could pick up anything from marijuana to heroin. To rapture.

Cunningham put the jokers body in the box. The joker might be dead, but that didn't mean he couldn't be questioned. Not as long as Deadhead was available.

Cunningham took a long, careful look around the room. There were no windows and the room's only door led to the antechamber guarded by Wyrm. He sighed. It looked like a classic locked-room mystery. Too bad he never read Agatha Christie.

Only the door to the office wasn't locked. It suddenly opened and Wyrm stuck his head in, saying, "Excussss…" and stopped before he got the first word out.

Leslie Christian stood behind Wyrm. Cunningham didn't like the weathered-looking British ace who'd appeared from nowhere the previous year and had somehow stepped right into the Shadow Fist Society as Kien's personal confidant. He was a smug, supercilious bastard who stank of unsavory secrets.

The two in the doorway stared at the scene inside Kien's office, then Christian said laconically, "So, finally made your move, old boy?"

There was a moment of shocked silence, then Wyrm howled in anger as Christian's words finally penetrated his stunned brain. The joker rushed into the room, his foot long tongue whipping back and forth, his fangs bared and dripping poison.

Wyrm wasn't very bright, and he was intensely loyal to his master. When he got an idea through his skull, it tended to stay there. And now he had the notion, neatly planted by Christian, that Cunningham had killed Kien. Cunningham knew he wouldn't have the opportunity to talk things over with the insanely jealous joker.

He faded. Fading made Cunningham as blind as he was invisible, but his other senses had been sharply honed by continual practice. He called a picture of Kien's office onto the video screen of his mind, and moved around a freestanding glass case that contained a selection of delicately inlaid and enameled snuff bottles. He headed out of Wyrm's path and to the office door.

But Wyrm's angry screams got closer. Rapidly. Cunningham ducked and there was a loud crash as Wyrm hurled himself forward, barely missed, and smashed through the front of the display case. The angry joker floundered through shards of shattered glass and broken bits of priceless antiquities, hot on Cunningham's trail despite his total invisibility.

What the hell was going on? Cunningham thought, then felt on his face the wet caress of Wyrm's ultrasensitive tongue. The bastard can smell me, Cunningham realized. Then Wyrm was on him.

He twisted away as the, joker grabbed at him and one of his flailing hands caught in Cunningham's shirt. Wyrm pulled him close. Cunningham could picture the wide gaping mouth, sharp fangs running with saliva like the drool of a mad dog.

He was no match, Cunningham knew, for Wyrm's wild-card-enhanced strength.

He faded in his eyes to see Wyrm ferociously biting empty air and brought his right knee up hard between Wyrm 's legs.

Wyrm screamed and Cunningham pulled away, glancing quickly around the room. That bastard Christian had disappeared, pulling the office door shut behind him. Crossed on the wall near the door were a pair of antique ceremonial daggers, their hilts encrusted with pearls, rubies, and emeralds. Cunningham sprinted across the room, cursing Wyrm under his breath as the joker hobbled after him. He ripped the daggers from their wall mounts. Wyrm's hot breath was on the back of his neck as he faded again, taking the daggers with him to invisibility.

Wyrm slammed into him, smashing him hard into the wall. The breath exploded from Cunningham's lungs as he turned and slashed with both daggers. But the weapons, centuries-old antiques, were no longer useful for anything but show. One glanced harmlessly off Wyrm's forearm, the other snapped on his rib cage.

Cunningham wanted to swear, but he couldn't catch his breath. Wyrm caught his face with one of his inhumanly strong hands, his clawed fingers raking furrows on Cunningham's cheeks. One of the joker's fingers found its way into Cunningham's mouth, and ace bit down hard.

He tasted blood in his mouth as Wyrm screamed and instinctively pulled away. His lungs laboring for air, Cunningham staggered back across the room to where he remembered seeing a viable weapon: the letter opener he'd put down next to the lamp on Kien's desk. He faded in his eyes just as he ran into the desk. Pain flashed through his knees as he bashed them against the edge of the desk, then he skidded across the stinking, sticky mixture of congealed blood and blue powder. He slid over and off the polished surface and landed on the desk chair and Kien's cooling corpse. Somehow he managed to grab the letter opener as he went sailing by.

Wyrm followed him, leaping over the desk with outstretched talons and dripping fangs. Cunningham thrust out his right hand, holding the letter opener, as Wyrm slammed into him, flipping the chair, Cunningham, and Kien's corpse all to the floor.

Cunningham was stunned by the double impact of colliding with Wyrm and smashing into the floor. It took him a moment to realize that he was still holding the letter opener and that something wet and sticky was running down his hand. The letter opener, he finally realized, had penetrated Wyrm's throat, angled upward through the joker's mouth and into his brain. The joker's blood was pulsing thick and warm on his hand.

Cunningham lay there for a moment breathing in the cloud of swirling blue powder.

It tasted so good to be alive.

Kien's chair felt comfortable against Cunningham's body. It was soft and plush and swiveled silently on well-oiled casters. Cunningham spun around in it idly, knowing that he should get going, that Christian could return at any moment with a goon squad, but somehow he just couldn't help savoring the feeling of complete triumph over his onetime boss. He stopped twirling around in the chair and rested one foot on Kien's headless corpse, another on Wyrm's rapidly cooling body.

So this is what it felt like to be head of the Shadow Fists. It was a heady mixture of power and mastery flavored with the anticipation of sweet riches to come. Of course, Cunningham realized, some of this flight of fancy had been caused by the rapture he'd breathed. He had to get it in gear. He couldn't afford to get _caught napping now.

He reached out gingerly, careful not to disturb any more of the fine blue powder that had settled back down upon the desktop, and picked up the telephone hanging precariously on the desk's edge. He dialed.

"Fadeout," he said into the phone. "Put me through to Warlock."

He hummed as he waited for his co-conspirator, the head of the Werewolf street gang, to get on the line. Warlock was tall and strongly built; no one, not even Cunningham, knew what form his jokerhood took. He always wore a mask. The Werewolf custom of wearing a common mask originated with him, as his followers aped whatever celebrity mask he wore for however long he chose to wear it.

"This is Warlock." The head Werewolf s voice was deep and emotionless, though there was something of cold, dispassionate danger in it. The Werewolves were, in Cunningham's opinion, mainly just a bunch of jokers with delusions of toughness. Warlock, though, was authentically dangerous. Even his ace power, which Warlock called his death wish, was eerily perilous.

Warlock would simply wish a target dead, and within twenty-four hours he'd get his wish. Sometimes the victim's heart would give out, or a blood vessel would burst in his brain. Sometimes they'd be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a runaway taxi would do the job. Once one of Warlock's victims had had the cosmically bad luck to be drilled between the eyes by a micrometeorite. No one knew how he did it, but Warlock's death wish never failed. He was a man to be cautious around.

"New Day is on," Cunningham told him with raptureinduced exuberance in his voice. "Now"

"Already?" Warlock asked thoughtfully. "It wasn't scheduled until next week. No one's in place-"

"We have to move now," Cunningham interrupted, and told Warlock about Kien's death. "I don't know who did it or why, but Christian's got to be involved somehow," he finished. "He showed up here too damn conveniently, and left after sitting Wyrm on me."

"What's his motive for wanting Kien dead?" Warlock asked.

"I don't know," Cunningham admitted. "But we'll find out when we get ahold of him. Right now we've got to move. Fast. He's already tried to pin the killing on me once. I figure he might bring Sui Ma in next."

Warlock made a sound deep in his throat and Cunningham knew that he'd pushed the right button. Even though both gangs belonged to the Shadow Fist Society, there was no love lost between the Werewolves and the Immaculate Egrets. The Wolves were jokers. They had the smell of the street on them. The Egrets were nats, for the most part smug, snotty nats. Though they worked the streets like the Werewolves, somehow they thought themselves superior to their brothers in the Fists, an attitude actively encouraged by their leader Sui Ma, Kien's sister.

"Put the Wolves on alert," Cunningham said. "Find Chickenhawk. Contact the Whisperer. I have a feeling idea we may need him before this shakes out."

"Lazy Dragon?" Warlock asked.

"Still missing," Cunningham said. "Last time I checked his place his sister was living there, and she hadn't heard from him in months. I'm afraid that Christian-or whoever's behind Kien's killing-might have already taken him out."

"What about Loophole?"

Cunningham made a dismissive gesture. "Leave him for now. He probably knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, so he may be useful later. But I can't see how he can hurt us now. He's just a lawyer."

"All right," Warlock said. "You want me to send a few of the brothers along to keep an eye on you?"

"That's a good idea," Cunningham said. He looked at the box with the tiny joker body in it. "I'm going to head for the Lair, but first I have to find Deadhead. I've got a little something for him here."

Fortunately Cunningham knew just where to look.

Cunningham knew the rapture was still playing tricks with him when he had to fight down the urge to buy half a dozen sandwiches at the Horn and Hardart at Third Avenue and Forty-second Street. He walked firmly through the food line, reminding himself that he was there looking for someone and not to stuff himself with mystery-meat sandwiches.

Although the eatery was crowded, Cunningham spotted Deadhead sitting by himself in an otherwise deserted corner. It was as if the automat's patrons-not usually considered a finicky crowd-were instinctively avoiding the half-mad ace. Cunningham couldn't blame them. At the best of times Deadhead was a repellent figure. His clothing was one step up from a bum's, his hair hadn't been washed since the Reagan presidency, and his corpsewhite face was continually dancing with nervous twitches and tics that made him look like he was suffering through electroshock therapy.

"Hello, Glen," Cunningham said carefully as he approached Deadhead's table. He looked at the empty plate before Deadhead and sighed. The deranged ace was often difficult to handle after a meal. "What'd you have to eat, Glen?"

"Not much," Deadhead said defensively. He refused to look Cunningham in the eye. "I can feel the sun and see the rolling plains. The grass tastes good."

"Christ," Cunningham muttered. "You didn't have a hamburger, did you?"

"Mooo," Deadhead said, loud enough to make people stare.

Cunningham pasted a smile on his face and put a hand on Deadhead's arm, lifting him from his seat. "We have to go now," he said. "I have something for you to do," he added quietly.

Deadhead nodded and got down on all fours.

"Up we go," Cunningham said in a voice that tried to be casual. "Time to go home."

"Mooo," Deadhead replied.

Cunningham kept a smile on his face, but leaned down and whispered fiercely, "Get ahold of yourself. I'm not going to drag you to the damn car."

Deadhead nodded and stood, straightening his clothes as best he could. His eyes darted around the automat. "I'm fine. Really. Just wait a moment."

He went to the cash register and bought a pack of gum. He unwrapped all the sticks with shaking hands and popped them into his mouth one by one. He let out an ecstatic sigh and chewed contentedly. Cunningham flashed a knowing smile at the cashier and led him out of the automat.

"Come on," he said, pulling him down the street to the parking garage where he'd left his Maserati. Deadhead followed him meekly, his eyes fastened on the faraway scenes playing in his brain as he relived the life of the cow who'd been part of his lunch. At least, Cunningham told himself, counting his blessings, Deadhead hadn't collapsed into an insensate stupor like he often did after ingesting meat.

He deposited Deadhead in the passenger's side of his Maserati, locked the door, and stood. A man was standing in front of his car. He hadn't been there a moment ago. He was Asian and wore mirror shades that gave his youthful face a blank, hard-edged look. His hands were in the pockets of his satin jacket that Cunningham just knew had a large white bird embroidered on the back. He could afford to act casual. The two similarly attired thugs standing behind him were carrying Uzis.

It took Cunningham a moment to put a name to the face: Jack Chang, a lieutenant in the Immaculate Egrets. He smiled at Cunningham. "Sui Ma," he said, "wants to see you. It's about her brother's missing head."

"Careful," Cunningham said as Chang parked the Maserati by carelessly wedging it between a pair of overflowing garbage cans in a narrow Chinatown alley. "You'll ruin the paint job."

The Egret grinned. "What's the matter? Don't you have insurance?"

Cunningham didn't like Chang's attitude, but he kept quiet about it as they got out of the car and waited for the other Egrets to show. Macho posturing was a waste of breath. He preferred to remember insults, mark them down, and act on them later under the proper circumstances. And Chang had just made his list.

The Egrets following in the van screeched to a halt right behind Cunningham's Maserati. The driver laughed as he tapped Cunningham's car with the van's bumper, pushing it forward gently against the brick wall in front of it. Cunningham kept his expression impassive, but added another to his list as the Egrets piled out of the van, laughing. Two dragged a stupefied Deadhead by his arms. His payback list, Cunningham thought, was going to be very long before this day ended.

"Let's go," Chang said. "Little Mother is waiting." Like her late brother, Sui Ma was something of a sinophile. In her case, she made the Egrets who guarded her headquarters wear costumes out of what looked to Cunningham like the road show of Anna and the King of Siam. Though, Cunningham noted, discreetly holstered opposite the guards' stubby-bladed Chinese swords were very modern-looking machine pistols.

Sui Ma's headquarters always made Cunningham feel uncomfortable, and it was not just because of the feeling that he was entering the den of the Dragon Lady. Behind the staid brick facade that was the outer wall was a fantasy land of silken tapestries and screens, electric torches glittering in wall sconces, and the heavy scent of incense billowing on the air.

Sui Ma herself was waiting for them in her reception room, sitting on her intricately carved wooden throne that was decorated with hundreds of peacock feathers. She wore robes of dark blue silk embroidered with the dazzlingly white birds that were the sigil of the Egrets. She was a short woman, rather plain and chubby, just coming into middle age. But her mild appearance masked a powerful mind as ruthless as her brother's. And right now she didn't look exactly pleased to see Cunningham.

"Your ambition," she said coldly to Cunningham, "has finally driven you too far. Not only have you slain my brother and his faithful bodyguard, but you then mutilated my brother's corpse. You'll pay for both acts."

Cunningham couldn't tell if she sincerely believed that he had killed Kien or if she was just using the circumstances as a convenient excuse for taking him out. He shook his head. "I'll take the blame for Wyrm, but it was self-defense. Christian sicced him on me. I'll give you even money that he was the one who told you that I'd killed Kien."

An expression flitted across Sui Ma's face that told Cunningham he'd given her something to think about. He spoke rapidly to press his advantage. "If I killed the General, what did I do with his head?"

She smiled. "You took it to feed to that disgusting creature of yours to learn all the secrets of the Shadow Fist Society."

"That's a fine theory," Cunningham admitted, "if I had the head in my possession. I don't."

"Then why," Sui Ma asked triumphantly, "did you go immediately from my brother's murder to pick up Deadhead at the automat?"

"Because I had something else for him," Cunningham explained. "The body of the watchdog joker that Kien had kept in a jar on his desk. The murderer killed the joker to keep it from blabbing about Kien's death. Someone seems to be running around behind the scenes trying to pin the blame on me."

"Christian," Sui Ma said thoughtfully. She gazed off into the distance for a long moment as Cunningham felt something like hope sweep over him for the first time since he'd been brought into her presence. "Where's the body of this joker?" she asked him.

"In a box in the glove compartment of my car," Cunningham said. Sui Ma glanced at Chang and nodded. He gestured at one of his goons, who immediately left to fetch it.

"And Deadhead?" Sui Ma asked.

"We have him in the antechamber," Chang said. "Bring him."

Chang nodded and also left, leaving Cunningham alone with Sui Ma and the half-dozen impassive guards who stood behind and around her peacock throne. She continued to stare silently at him, as -if weighing the value of his life. He decided that now wasn't the time to annoy her with idle chitchat.

The goon returned with the joker in the box. He presented it to Sui Ma. She looked in the box, nodded, and gave it back to the Egret who placed it at her feet on the upper tier of the throne's dais. A moment later there was another short, respectful knock on the door, and Chang led in two Egrets dragging Deadhead between them.

The disheveled ace stared around the room with his dark, confused eyes, mumbling something to himself that no one else could understand. He looked at Cunningham, nervously licking his lips. "You have a job for me?" he finally asked.

Sui Ma nodded and pointed at the box. "In there." Deadhead stepped forward and removed the box's lid with shaking hands. "It's so little," he said. Cunningham nodded. "Consider it an appetizer." Deadhead's smile turned broad and fixed. A line of spittle ran down his chin as he reached into his pocket and took out a small leather case. Inside were a number of small, shiny, sharp implements. He chose one and began to saw, humming to himself. Cunningham looked away as Deadhead cut through the tiny skull. Sui Ma watched fixedly.

It took Deadhead only a few moments to cut away the top of the joker's skull. He glanced furtively at Cunningham and Sui Ma as he finished, then hunkered over the body. Half hiding his actions, he scooped out the joker's brain and popped it in his mouth. He chewed hastily, noisily, then swallowed. He knelt on the middle step of the dais before Sui Ma with a dreamy smile on his face, the tics and spasms that usually contorted his features subsiding into satiated serenity. His eyes closed.

"How long will this take?" Sui Ma asked with more than detached interest.

"It depends," Cunningham said. "The corpse was rather… fresh

… so that should cut down on the time it takes him to assimilate the memories."

It took a few moments, but then Deadhead finally began to groan and squirm. "Noooo!" he cried, twisting as if to avoid a fatal blow.

Cunningham leaned forward eagerly. "Who killed you?" he asked.

"Red hair," Deadhead panted in his trance. "Smiling face. The boy likes it, he does." He squirmed again and let out a long, keening cry.

"Is he alone? Is there another in the room?" Deadhead whipped his head back and forth. "Another. Too far back. Blurry. Can't see who-"

Cunningham cursed to himself. The joker who'd guarded Kien's desk had been terribly myopic. "What about Kien? Is he in the room?"

"At his desk."

"What's he doing?"

"He is afraid. He opens the box, though he doesn't want to. He is saying, `Why are you doing this to me? I don't want to. Don't make me do this.' He puts his face down in the box-"

Cunningham and Sui Ma looked at each other. "Mind control," Cunningham said, and Sui Ma nodded. "Someone-the redhead-made him inhale enough rapture to kill a whole platoon of r-heads."

"Redhead," Sui Ma said. "Mind control."

"Dr. Tachyon," they said together.

Sui Ma frowned, shaking her head. "I don't get it," she said. She looked critically at Deadhead, who was panting like a dog and tossing and jerking spasmodically on the floor, caught up in the aftereffects of brain-eating. "Why would Tachyon make Kien kill himself?"

"Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was some other redheaded mind-control artist." Cunningham shrugged. "Deadhead can draw a picture of our man when he comes out of it." He looked at Sui Ma. "You can see, anyway, that I was telling the truth. I didn't have anything to do with your brother's death."

Sui Ma again looked into the distance. "That may be true," she admitted, "but since when did truth have anything to do with deciding upon the proper course of action?" She looked at Cunningham. "My brother is dead and I shall be the new supreme power in the Shadow Fist Society. I do not think that you'd care to work for me, Fadeout, and frankly I don't think that I would trust you."

"So I'm still dead," he said with as much flippancy as he could muster.

"Let us say that the firm is eliminating your position," Sui Ma said with a smile.

"Okay," he said. "In that case, fuck it."

He faded to total invisibility. He didn't know the layout of Sui Ma's room as well as he did Kien's, but he'd done his best to memorize it in the last few minutes. He hit the ground, rolled, and came up dodging as he heard Sui Ma shout and her guards blunder around the room. There was a short burst of gunfire, an anguished scream, and then Sui Ma shouted, "Use your swords, idiots, and guard the door!"

He moved 'toward the sound of her voice, and stumbled over what sounded like a moaning Deadhead. He landed silently, rolled, stood, and bumped into someone else. His hand slashed out and sunk into firm, muscular flesh, and he felt sudden, searing pain as a sharp blade chopped down into his upper thigh. He stifled a scream, and struck up at where he judged the sword wielder's wrist would be.

He struck flesh again, and pulled away. The blade came with him, still lodged in his thigh. He set his teeth together and yanked the sword from his leg, fading it out. Clasping both hands around the hilt, he swung in a great figure eight, feeling it slice through meat like a hot knife through butter.

Sui Ma shouted again at her guards, and that was a mistake because now he knew where she was. He started to circle toward her, holding the invisible sword out before him like a blind man might hold out his cane, and to the confusion and panic running through the room something new was suddenly added.

There were deep, hoarse shouts in new voices, and the sound of gunfire blasted deafeningly through the chamber. Cunningham risked fading in his eyes for a moment and had to stifle a cry of relief as he saw that the cavalry had arrived in the form of a Werewolf squadron led by Warlock himself.

There were more than a dozen Wolves wearing leathers and delicately featured Michael Jackson masks, and armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and combat shotguns. One of them had a portable boom box, and the song "I'm Bad" was blasting through the chamber louder than the reports of their weapons.

Sui Ma was standing before her throne, more anger than fear on her face, braced by two of her guards, who were dropping their swords and fumbling for the guns holstered at their sides. Cunningham gauged the distance between them and slipped back into total invisibility. He lunged forward silently, swinging his razor-sharp blade.

He felt something warm and sticky splatter on his face and faded in his eyes, knowing that the mask of blood he was now carrying would give him away anyway.

One of the guards was down, but the other was turning toward him, gun up and ready. Cunningham tensed to dodge, but before the Asian could fire, a shotgun blast from the hands of a Werewolf cut him down. He fell forward, thudding down the steps of the dais, and Sui Ma was standing unprotected and alone before her throne.

She looked at Cunningham. "You seem to have won for now," she said, almost graciously.

He nedded. "You were right," he said. " I could never work for you. And I don't think that you could ever work for me."

He thrust the blade up and into her stomach, and she gasped, collapsing backward onto her chair. She looked at him for what seemed a long time before her eyes glazed over. Cunningham sighed and turned away. He'd killed before, but it made him feel funny to kill a woman like that. He couldn't totally console himself with the thought that she'd been prepared to do the -same for him.

In the rest of the chamber the Werewolves were wrapping up the last few of their surprised, outnumbered foes. Warlock stepped over Deadhead, cowering on the floor, and came up to join Cunningham at the top of the dais.

"Got here as soon as we could," he said, "after one of the brothers spotted you being hustled out of that laundromat. Finally figured, what the hell, bust in and-"

He stopped and stared at Cunningham. Cunningham supposed that he was quite a sight. His leg was throbbing like hell. The sword cut he'd taken on the thigh was bleeding like a goddamn river, and the blood of the guard he'd killed was splattered all over his face. Warlock was staring at his face. From the look in his eyes, peering through his Michael Jackson mask, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. The blood, Cunningham realized, must make him look like he'd taken a bad head wound.

"Don't worry"-he laughed-"I'm all right. This isn't mine." He wiped at the blood, smearing it but managing to remove some of it from his features.

Warlock seemed to catch himself. "Right," he said. "Glad you're okay. But we'd better move it before more of these damned gooks show up." He gestured at Sui Ma's corpse. "They're not going to like that."

"Okay," Cunningham said. He looked away from the corpse-littered room. Most of the bodies were Egrets, but a few Werewolves had gone down at the hands of Sui Ma's men. "It's back to the Lair. We've got to figure out where that damned head is."

But despite the death surrounding him, despite the pain he himself felt, Cunningham couldn't keep back a wide smile. It was over. The New Day had come. He was the new head of the Shadow Fists.

In the far-gone days when the Bowery had been noted for its fashionable nightspots, the decrepit building now known as the Werewolves' Lair had been a famous luxury hotel. When things started going bad for the neighborhood, the hotel had been turned into apartments. When the neighborhood really hit the skids, it had degenerated into a flophouse, then been abandoned for well over a decade, sinking even further into pathetic decrepitude before the Werewolves took it over as their headquarters.

They'd made some effort to clean it up, though Werewolf sanitary standards were not exactly those of the Ritz.

It was a smelly warren of dirty little rooms the heart of which was Warlock's Sanctorum. This was a large chamber behind double wooden doors that had a crude pentacle surrounded by the legend 666: LAIR OF THE BEAST Sloppily lettered on them in drippy red paint. It was dimly lit and cluttered with books overflowing their shelves and piled against the walls and sitting on the dusty furniture where they competed for space with occult gimcracks ranging from real human skulls to bundles of dyed chicken feathers that looked like they'd come from Auntie Leveaux's Hoodoo and Love Potion Shoppe.

Cunningham had co-opted Warlock's normal seat behind a desk piled high with more occult stuff, under a rather badly executed portrait of a bald and jowly Aleister Crowley, Warlock's patron saint. Warlock sat in a chair across the desk that was usually reserved for visitors. He was watching Cunningham closely. The ace sat with his bandaged leg held stiffly in front of him, his voice low and thoughtful as he mused on the day's wild events.

"It's Christian," he muttered, "it's got to be Christian. But how did that limey bastard think he was going to get away with taking over? He's too much of an outsider in the Shadow Fists to have a real power base."

"Unless he was conspiring with Sui Ma," Warlock suggested.

Cunningham shook his head. "She seemed genuinely surprised that her brother was dead. I think she really thought that I did it."

"There's Loophole," Warlock said. "He might figure in somewhere."

"He might," Cunningham agreed. "That's why I sent a few of the brothers to his office to pick him up. Maybe he can clear up some of the mystery." He fingered a sheet of paper lying on the desk in front of him. "Like who the hell this is."

It was a sketch done in colored pencil of the redhaired mind-control artist who'd killed Kien's watchdog. Deadhead was really a talented artist, and he'd caught an expression of cruel delight in the kid's smile that was doubly horrific on such a young, otherwise sweet face. There was a respectful knock on the Sanctorum's double doors, and Cunningham looked up from the sketch to see two Werewolves come in with Edward St. John Latham between them.

Latham was a lean, handsome man in a dark gray Brooks Brother suit with a light, almost imperceptible purple pinstripe. His face had no expression at all as he entered the room and nodded at Cunningham. He ignored Warlock as he sat down in the chair next to him, crossing his leg casually, ankle over knee. "I suppose congratulations of a sort are in order," he said.

"Thanks, Sinjin." Cunningham knew that Latham disliked being called Sinjin as much as he could be said to dislike anything. He was an emotionless, supposedly utterly loyal bastard. It was hard to see where he'd fit into a conspiracy against Kien. "But there's still some things I'd like to clear up."

"Such as?"

"Such as are you with me and Warlock, or the general and his sister?"

Latham smiled without humor. "I've already heard about the late general and his late sister. There's not much of a decision to make, is there?"

"I'm glad to see that you're being sensible. Tell me. What do you know about Leslie Christian?"

"Christian?" Loophole frowned. "Why?"

"He's the missing ace from the deck. I've got, the Werewolves scouring the city for him, but he seems to have disappeared. Not, however, before trying to pin Kien's murder on me."

Loophole looked faintly surprised. "Then you didn't kill Kien?"

Cunningham shook his head. "No. Would I do a thing like that? I figure Christian had to have been involved in the killing somehow. He showed up right after I'd found the body and tried to frame me, then he disappeared."

"Why would Christian kill Kien?" Latham asked.

"I don't know. But what do we really know about him?" Cunningham asked, ticking the points off one by one on his fingers. "He's an ace of some kind. He's foreign. He drinks. Somehow he wormed his way into Kien's confidence. He could have half a million reasons for wanting Kien dead, but we don't know enough about him to guess what they might be."

"Whereas," Latham said dryly, "you just had one reason for wanting the general dead."

"Okay," Cunningham conceded. "We're being honest with each other. I admit it. I wanted to be head of the Shadow Fists. I had… plans. But I didn't kill Kien." He reached across the desk and handed Latham the drawing of the youthful mind-control artist that had skewered Kien's batrachian watchdog. "He did."

Latham took it, glanced at it. Something flickered across his face, and for a moment Cunningham could swear that the usually unflappable lawyer was unsure of himself.

"The joker saw this kid mind-control Kien and make him shove his face into a bag of rapture. Then the kid killed the joker."

"Interesting," Latham murmured.

"You have any idea who this could be?"

Latham looked at him a long while, then said, "Perhaps. "

"Do you want to let me in on it?"

Latham considered it for another long moment, then nodded. "In the interest of truth," he said without a trace of irony in his voice, "and justice."

Cunningham suppressed a smile, but Warlock let out an audible snort.

"He runs with a street gang that's done some work for the Shadow Fists," Latham said. "His name is Blaise. He is Dr. Tachyon's grandson."

A half-dozen derelict jokers were sitting around the entrance to the boarded-up old movie theater in the heart of the Bowery, sharing a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag and soaking up the last rays of the autumnal sun like a clutch of bloated lizards.

"How's it going, fellows?" Cunningham asked the bums. A few looked up as he spoke. "Maybe you guys could help me. I'm looking for someone. This kid." He waved Deadhead's drawing. "I heard he hangs out here with a gang." He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a twenty. That elicited a little more interest.

One of the joker's eyes rotated forward like a chameleon's and focused on Cunningham. "You a cop or something?"

"That's right," Cunningham told him.

"You look like a cop. Kind of clean-cut, anyway. A cop on television. That right, boys?" There was general murmured assent, and Cunningham decided that he'd better bring the conversation back on track.

"What about the kid?"

"That bratty asshole. Him and his gang of assholes. The theater used to be ours before they moved in. Now it's loud music every time of the day and night and you really gotta be careful. They know when the welfare money comes in and they'll take it right from you."

"Is he inside now?"

"Yeah," the joker said. "Him and his expensive clothes. You can tell he's rich. He don't need to hang out here. He should give it back to us and go home to Manhattan. Him and all those brats."

Cunningham smiled, and dropped the twenty-dollar bill. It fluttered onto the bum's lap and he grabbed at it as the other derelicts surged to their feet. Cunningham watched them scramble for the loot, and then weave and stagger to the liquor store across the street in the wake of the lucky stiff who'd grabbed it.

He crossed the street himself and looked into the window of the car idling at the curb. Warlock was driving. Deadhead was in the seat next to him, looking jittery and unsure as always. Latham was in the backseat, flanked by a pair of fierce-looking Werewolves. There were three cars parked at discreet distances behind this one. All were loaded with heavily armed Werewolves.

"Okay," Cunningham said. He took a deep breath. "This looks like a job for Fadeout." He smiled. "I'm going to try the back door. I want you guys to wait here for now" Warlock nodded. "Be careful," he said.

"I will. Trust me on that." He-nodded to the Werewolf and recrossed the street.

The theater's back door was locked, but the lock was old and cheap and yielded easily to Cunningham's probe. The door opened into musty darkness, a dank, garbage-choked passageway that apparently led behind the movie screen, then forked into the auditorium. Cunningham froze in his tracks as the sound of gunfire suddenly blasted through the theater. He crouched in the darkness, listening. The sound had an unreal quality to it. The voice shouting over it was familiar and almost inhumanly loud. There was a thundering crash, the sound of roaring engines, and the plaintive cry, "I can't die. I haven't seen The Al Jolson Story yet!" and Cunningham suddenly realized what was happening.

Someone was screening a movie, apparently the hideous remake of Howard Hawkes's classic Thirty Minutes Over Broadway. Cunningham waited in the darkness as the sound of a plane going down filled the theater. There was a loud explosion as it crashed on the Manhattan shoreline, then cheers and whistles from the audience. There were apparently few Jetboy fans in attendance.

Cunningham went on down the passageway. He brushed past a thick, dusty cloth hanging and found himself in the auditorium. It wasn't crowded. There were twenty, maybe twenty-five kids sitting close to the screen in the center section. Few seemed very interested in the images flickering before them. Some were gorging themselves on candy and ice cream, others were making out though making out was a rather tame term for some of the acts Cunningham witnessed in the light reflected from the huge white screen.

One boy, though, was riveted to the action on the screen, despite the underaged siren rubbing up against him like an affection-starved cat. Even in the darkness, Cunningham could make out his gorgeous red hair and delicately handsome features. It had to be Blaise, the kid Latham had identified as Tachyon's grand-brat.

His eyes were glued to the screen, where people were now turning into rubber and plastic monsters courtesy of cheap special effects as the wild-card virus rained down from the sky. There was a scene cut, and Dudley Moore was suddenly strutting across the stage in a grotesque parody of Tachyon, wearing a ghastly red wig and an outfit that would have done justice to a drag queen.

Moore clutched at his hair as if he were searching for cooties. "Burning sky!" he swore. " I warned them! I warned them all!" Then he broke into an hysterical fit of weeping.

Blaise stood, throwing aside the girl who had been squirming against him and licking his ear, and drew a handgun he'd had holstered at his side. Cunningham shrank back against the wall as Blaise squeezed off a round. The report was startlingly loud within the confines of the auditorium, making the soundtrack explosions sound like harmless popguns in comparison.

But Blaise wasn't shooting at Cunningham. He hadn't even seen him. He'd put a bullet through the screen right between Dudley Moore's eyes. The ragtag audience of juvenile delinquents cheered, and Blaise sat down, a malevolent smile on his lips. In that moment Blaise looked as hardened and evil as the most twisted characters Cunningham ever had to deal with in the Fists. It was frightening to see such an expression on such a young face.

Cunningham shuddered, and moved on.

The lobby was dirty, dark, and deserted. The afternoon's last light filtered in through the cracks between the plywood boards haphazardly placed over the theater's glass doors. The concession stand was empty and dusty, though fresh popcorn was in the popper and cardboard boxes half-full of candy treats were stacked atop the counter. The confections all looked recent, probably brought in by the gang to devour while watching the main feature. They had, Cunningham remembered, also been eating ice-cream bars.

He went to the portable ice-cream cart parked next to the candy counter and opened the door in the top. He looked in it for a long moment. There, nestled among a couple dozen ice-cream sandwiches, was Kien's head, raggedly cut off at the neck.

Cunningham found himself oddly reluctant to touch the cold, dead flesh. He wasn't squeamish, and he'd had no great love for Kien when the general had been alive, but there was something ghastly about his manner of death that disturbed him. He looked down at the glassily staring eyes and sighed.

There was no way he was going to get any answers unless he got the head to Deadhead. He picked it up. It was cold as a block of ice. Somehow he felt better after he'd dumped a box of candy bars behind the counter, put the head in the box, and faded it all to invisibility.

He peeked into the auditorium. The movie had progressed through the scene where Tachyon had saved Blythe van Rennsaeler from a gang of crazed joker lootersto accompanying hisses and boos from the watching gang. They were just raggedy-ass kids. Sure, some were armed and Tachyon's grand-brat was a mind-control artist, but Cunningham had a couple of carloads of Werewolves outside waiting for his call. He crept back into the lobby and set the box with Kien's head in it on the candy counter. He went up to the lobby doors. They were pulled shut with a chain looped around their bars. with an open padlock dangling from the chain. He creaked the doors open cautiously and peered out the front of the theater.

The bums were back, but they were too engrossed in squabbling over the newly purchased bottle of booze to even notice Cunningham. He gestured at the cars parked at the curb across the street, waving vigorously, and doors opened and Werewolves got out. They crossed the street. The derelicts noticed them and realized at last that something was about to happen. They moved off silently down the street, clutching their paper-bag-wrapped bottles as if afraid the Werewolves were going to try to take them away.

"What is it?" Warlock asked as they approached. "It's Blaise and his fellow delinquents, all right. Round 'em up, but don't start anything rough. Watch out for Blaise. He's got a gun and some kind of mind-control powers, but he should be smart enough not to start anything when he sees there's a bunch of us. And Deadhead." The insane ace looked almost guiltily at Cunningham. "I've got something for you."

"The head?" Warlock and Latham asked at the same time.

Cunningham nodded.

The Werewolves filed silently through the lobby. There were a dozen of them, big, tough mothers dressed in leather and armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and shotguns. Cunningham was at their head, after showing a happily drooling Deadhead the cardboard box on the candy counter and leaving him to it.

"Remember," he warned the Werewolves, "keep it quiet, but if that Blaise brat tries to start anything, blow him loose." He turned to the Werewolf leader. "Warlock, stick close to Latham. Make sure he behaves."

"You heard him," Warlock said. "Let's do it."

Inside the auditorium the movie had progressed to the famous scene between Dudley Moore as Tachyon and Pia Zadora as Blythe van Rennsaeler, with Moore, rose in mouth, playing an elephantine melody on the piano while Zadora sang of "alien love" and the audience roared with laughter.

Time to end this, right now, Cunningham thought. He stepped into the auditorium, drew his pistol, and fired off a round into the ceiling.

That got everyone's attention. Candy and popcorn went flying as the teenage delinquents leaped to their feet and made abortive attempts to flee.

"Hold it, everyone!" Cunningham shouted in his best authoritative voice. Either his tone of command worked or the sight of a dozen heavily armed Werewolves did. Everyone froze. Everyone but Blaise.

He stood slowly, and faced Cunningham from across the auditorium. "What do you want?" he shouted over Zadora's sudden squeals of ecstasy as Dudley Moore had his way with her on the piano bench.

"Just to talk," Cunningham said. "There's nothing to fear."

"Sure," Blaise said. He sauntered up slowly to the head of the auditorium, fully aware that everyone's eyes were on him and playing his role as gang chieftain to the hilt. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked Cunningham casually.

Cunningham jerked his head back to the lobby. "In there." He looked at the Werewolves. "You five keep an eye on the kids. The rest of you come with us."

The Werewolves followed Cunningham, Blaise, Warlock, and Latham back into the lobby. Deadhead looked around guiltily. "Chinese food," he said through a full mouth, and turned back to his task.

Blaise frowned. "Oh," he said. "I see you found it. Too bad. He said I could have it."

"He?" Cunningham asked, leaning forward eagerly in anticipation.

"Me," a new voice drawled.

Everyone turned to look at the stairs leading up to the projection booth to see a middle-aged, blond, weatherbeaten man standing there, smiling. Something in his smile made Cunningham feel cold.

"Christian," he said, swiveling his gun toward the British ace. "I knew itl Why did you do it? Why did you kill Kien?"

Christian's sardonic smile widened as he ambled casually down the remaining stairs and joined the others on the floor of the lobby. "But I didn't," he protested.

"You can't deny that you were this brat's accomplice."

"I'm not denying that at all," Christian said blandly. "I'm simply denying that we killed Kien."

"What?" Cunningham asked.

As if on cue, Deadhead suddenly moaned and turned and faced them. "Why are you doing this to me?" he whined. "Why are you stealing my body? Why, Kien?"

A cold wind blew through Cunningham. "Kien?" he repeated softly.

Christian leaned against the candy counter. "Of course," he said with a sardonic smile on his tanned features. "You've been plotting and planning to take my place for a long time. I got sick of it. I decided to flush all the conspirators into the open, using," and he nodded at Blaise, "my jumper friend here to provide me with a perfect cover."

"No," Deadhead whined. "Please, no. I've been loyal…"

"Jumpers?" Cunningham said. The realization that Blaise and the others were jumpers made him turn cold. "You changed bodies with Christian and faked your own murder?"

"Exactly. Latham had brought the jumpers into our sphere of influence some time ago. I decided, however, to bypass him this time and approach Blaise directly. I used him to switch bodies. Since then I've been using Christian's astral projection to keep track of you and the others."

That explained a lot, Cunningham thought, grateful that he was surrounded by a band of friendly Werewolves. "Too bad, in the end, you miscalculated." He turned to Warlock. "Waste him," he said.

Warlock's face was unreadable behind the Michael Jackson mask. He lifted his pump shotgun, then turned and placed its barrels directly under Cunningham's chin. "Sorry," he said.

Christian-Kien-laughed. "Splendid!"

"What are you doing?" Cunningham demanded. "Kill him! Kill him and it's all over."

"It is over," Warlock said gently. "You see, my power allows me to see death on people's faces. I saw it this morning on yours at Sui Ma's. I knew then that you would die before the day ended."

Cunningham felt sudden sweat spring up on his forehead. "But kill him! All you have to do is kill him!" Warlock shook his head and Kien laughed and laughed. Cunningham turned to face him. "You were dead. I thought you were dead-" he started, but Kien held up his hand, stopping him.

"No excuses. No lies. I have flushed out a traitor, but find myself trapped in an old, badly abused body. I think," he said, looking hard at Cunningham, "that I would like to trade it in on a younger model."

"No!" Cunningham screamed. He tried to fade and run, but he heard high, tittering laughter from Blaise and a hand of cold metal clamped down on his naked brain. The room spun and he was somewhere else. His legs were young and strong, but everything was whirling about, making him dizzy and nauseated, and he couldn't get them to work. His perspective shifted again almost immediately and he'fell against the candy counter. He bounced, hit the floor, and started to crawl away, but his body was old and tired and his head was swimming and confused.

He heard faraway laughter, and an eager young voice said, "Let me!"

Someone turned him over and he saw blazing red hair and a young, horrible grin, but most of all he saw a huge gun barrel pointing right at his face.

He closed his eyes and tried to speak, but no words would come. He may have heard the horribly loud, terribly frightening explosion. But that was all.

Nobody Gets Out Alive by Walton Simons

Jerry stood across the street from Latham's apartment building. A cool wind stirred up the dry leaves around his feet. The late-September heat had given way, at least temporarily, to the first cold snap of the season. He was dressed in a maintenance man's outfit. The steel blue. 38 was tucked away in his work box, along with a few other things. He was as ready as he was going to get. He waited for the light to turn and walked across the street.

He showed the doorman a fake work order he'd manufactured. The doorman was more bored than suspicious and let him in. Jerry walked quickly to the far elevator and put an oUT of oRDER sign over the button, then pushed the button and stepped into the waiting car. Latham, naturally enough, had the penthouse apartment. Of the two cars, this was one that went all the way to the top. One of the things Jerry had learned about in the last month was how elevators worked. He opened the control panel and set the car to go all the way up. His knees almost gave way as the elevator started. Jerry made his features and skin tone Oriental. He pulled his change of clothes from his work box. It was mostly leather. The finishing touch was a fake immaculate Egrets jacket. He'd had it made from the videotape he'd gotten from Ichiko.

Once fully dressed, he tucked the gun into his jacket. The car stopped. Jerry clipped one of the wires. For now, the elevator was going nowhere. He could rig a bypass in a hurry if it came to that.

Jerry stepped out and walked to Latham's door. He fingered the lock and let himself in, closing the door softly behind him. The penthouse was quiet. Except for a light in what appeared to be the bedroom, it was dark as well. Jerry took a deep breath, padded across the carpeted floor to the lighted doorway, and stepped in.

Latham was lying naked on the bed. His body was covered with sweat and his hair was a tousled mess. The sheets were knotted on the floor with a red robe. Latham looked lost in a moment of private satisfaction. He glanced up and saw Jerry-the-Egret. His narrow smile slipped. "Who sent you? How the hell did you get in?" Latham's voice lacked the assurance Jerry was used to hearing.

Jerry pulled the. 38, but didn't point it. "I'll ask the questions. Tell me about the jumpers." He had to have the truth before he could shoot Latham. He wouldn't be able to deal with killing him otherwise.

A young naked woman stepped out of the bathroom. It was the bald-headed girl. She had powerful, welldefined muscles, almost to the point of being unattractive, and bikini-waxed blond pubic hair. Jerry leveled the gun at her chest. He'd been watching for two hours and hadn't seen her go in. He didn't know if he could kill a girl. Even if she did have a part in Kenneth's death.

"He made us," she said. "All of us. With that." She sat on the bed, bent over, and kissed Latham's flaccid penis. It twitched under her tongue.

"Not just yet, Zelda. Business first." Latham put his hand under Zelda's chin and pointed her face at Jerry. Jerry felt something that might have been pain if it had lasted more than a few seconds. His vision blurred for an instant. When it cleared, he was looking down at Latham's penis. There was a pleasant warmth between his legs, like nothing he'd ever felt before. He tried to sit up, but his body felt heavy and clumsy. A hand grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back.

There was an Egret in the doorway pointing a gun at him. Jerry felt his hands being twisted behind his back. Cold metal surrounded his wrists, and he heard twin clicks. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was his Egret body that screamed.

The Oriental face began to melt and flow. The Egret tore at the satin jacket and shirt, exposing his chest. Breasts began to form there. Jerry's pirated body closed its eyes and screamed again. He felt another moment of vertigo and found himself staring at Latham and a handcuffed Zelda. She was still screaming. The lawyer pushed her off the bed. Jerry brought his body under control and squeezed his trigger finger, but Zelda had dropped the gun. He ran.

He dove into the elevator and pulled a bypass from his work box. It slipped from his sweaty fingers. He picked it up and clipped it into place, then punched the ground floor. He looked up. Latham had the gun pointed at him. Jerry dove to one side and heard the shot at the same time. The bullet tore into the car wall behind him. The doors closed and it started down.

Jerry changed his clothes and appearance back to the maintenance worker. His insides tingled and his skin was cold. He straightened hImself and took several deep breaths.

It didn't help. He was still shaking when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor. He walked in measured steps across the lobby and out into the cool New York night.

He stopped at a bar near his apartment and ordered a double. He figured he needed it. Jerry knew he'd been lucky. He hadn't counted on Zelda being there. But she hadn't counted on not being able to control his shapechanging ability. Jerry was so used to it himself that he didn't have to think about it anymore. Without that, he'd have wound up like Kenneth and the rest. Latham probably wouldn't figure out exactly what happened, but he'd damn sure be paranoid from now on. That would make him even harder to get to.

"Have another?" The bartender looked down at Jerry's empty glass.

"Why not?" Jerry slammed the whiskey down before the glass could make a ring on the polished wood bar.

He sat down next to the grave and tossed pebbles into the newly cut grass. He didn't look at Kenneth's headstone. It made talking to his dead brother seem more stupid than it already was.

"Sorry, I screwed up again," Jerry said quietly. "I don't know what to do now. Got any ideas?"

The wind gusted in the treetops, tearing loose leaves with a whistling clatter. He heard a car pull up down the hill. A car door shut. He turned. Beth was walking slowly up the hill. She waved from below the shoulder. It looked like it took all her strength. Jerry stood and started down to meet her. When he reached her, they hugged silently.

"You didn't answer at home or at the apartment, so I figured you might be here." The wind whipped her hair into her face; she pushed it back and held it.

"I wish I'd known you were coming. I'd have done something special," Jerry said.

"I'm not up to anything special right now" She shivered. "I'm not up to staying at the house yet, either. Can we go to your apartment?"

Jerry blinked and opened his mouth, but said nothing. "It's not that," Beth said. "I just want to be with somebody who cares about me. I just want to be held." Jerry nodded, both disappointed and relieved. She'd given him a big compliment if he was willing to see it that way. "Let's go," he said.

Jerry did his best to clean up the apartment while Beth unpacked her luggage. He tossed all the dirty clothes in the hamper and stacked his film magazines and books at right angles. Beth opened a drawer and giggled, then held up a pair of crotchless, tiger-print panties. "What's this?" Jerry covered his mouth for a moment, then recovered. "Relics of a bygone age." He sighed, remembering. "Veronica."

Beth set them back into the drawer. "Did you really love her?"

"I thought I did. I obsessed about her. I wanted to make her happy. I damn sure wanted to fuck her." He shrugged. "I've learned just enough about love to be very confused about it. Maybe I've got ape residue in that part of me, or something."

Beth smiled. "I think that part of you is fine. You just don't know what to do with it."

"Neither does anybody else, apparently. I haven't had a date in months." Jerry sat down on the couch. He and Veronica had used it often. He tried not to think about that.

"Give it time." Beth sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her head. "Way to go, Beth. Say one thing and do another."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, when I was in Chicago, I spent some time with an old boyfriend and we wound up in bed together. I think he was just trying to make me feel better." She bit on an already ragged fingernail. "I knew it wouldn't help, but I guess I had to prove it to myself anyway. The sex was nice, but it really didn't matter. When it was over, Kenneth was still gone. And I'll never get him back."

Jerry got up quickly and walked over to her, but she was already crying. He didn't want to start himself. He wanted to be strong for her. "I wish…" There was nothing he could say that would comfort her, and he knew it.

Beth leaned into him and held on tight. He could feel the warmth of her tears through his shirt. "There are some things you can't really share, and I have to sweat out the worst of this on my own. But, Jesus, I'm glad you're here." Jerry held her for a few minutes, stroking her hair, not saying anything. She stopped crying and looked up at him with puffy eyes.

"You want a Coke, or something?" He needed something himself, but wasn't going to drink in front of her. "No." Beth pulled away from him, picked up her overnight bag, and headed into the bathroom. "I just need to go to bed. It's been a long day."

"It's been a long year," he said. "And I could use some sleep, too."

Jerry told her his entire supply of stupid jokes before they got into bed. He was tense and wanted to defuse the situation if he could. It had been months, since Fantasy, since he'd actually been in bed with a woman.

Beth turned out the lights and curled up facing away from him. She pulled his arm around her and kissed him lightly on the back of the hand.

"I love you a lot, Jerry."

"I love you, too, sis." She'd never felt more like family to him than now.

Beth slipped into sleep quickly. Jerry had tried for hours, but just couldn't manage to relax. His penis had gotten hard a couple of times, but he clamped down on it with his legs until it calmed back down.

Finally, he went to the bathroom for a couple of sleeping pills. He washed them down with a drink of water and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was the same. It hadn't shown a day of age since Tachyon saved him from apehood. He felt changed, though. Felt like he finally had something to offer people, like his affection and caring made a difference to them. Maybe this was what growing up was.

He resisted the temptation to change his face to Bogart's and said, "Here's looking at you, kid." He flipped off the light and went back to bed.

He settled carefully in between the sheets. Beth moaned and jerked her free arm. Jerry took her gently by the wrist and pulled it down to her side, then kissed her on the back of the neck. She quieted and her breathing became even again. He looked outside. The sky was turning dull red behind the curtains. He hadn't realized it was that late. Jerry pressed his body close to Beth, closed his eyes, and gave sleep another try.