Awakening in a speeding ambulance, with the scream
of its undulating siren ripping your brain apart, is not a
pleasant experience. It becomes even less so when you
realize you're in a body bag zipped up tight and you can't
move. Trapped in suffocating darkness, with the rubber-
ized canvas pulling at your flesh, you realize that if this is
death, eternity in a grave will be hell itself.
The strap across my chest and another just above my
knees bound me tightly to the gurney. They kept me with
it as it crashed around in the back, jouncing up and down
or smashing side to side with the fast turns. The driver,
mercilessly pushing the whining engine to its top end,
sadistically pounded his way through potholes as if on a
divine mission to crush them all.
The irritating stink of rubber and the lingering scent of
decayed meat filled my nose. I tried to breathe through
my mouth, but I could not make my lips part. I fought
against the paralysis locking my jaw and quickly discov-
ered the condition extended to my whole body. I could
still feel the straps dig into my flesh and the slick
roughness of the bag against my fingertips, but I could
not make my muscles work. Try as I might, I could not
even open my eyes.
It took no genius on my part to know I was in severe
trouble. Being in a body bag meant the ambulance folks
thought I was dead—and that conjured up all sorts of
horrible images of premature burial or a seriously dis-
tasteful cremation. I started to panic, then fought against
it because a clear head was all I had to get myself out of
this situation.
And getting out of it was even more important that
wasting brainsweat on figuring how I'd gotten into it.
The siren snapped off and the ambulance began to
slow. I heard the crunch and ping of gravel beneath the
tires, then felt the jolt as the gurney clanked against the
inside of the ambulance as we rolled to a stop. The sound
of passenger doors opening and closing cut off the static
from the radio, then I heard the doors in the back open.
I rolled forward, then landed hard on the ground.
"Take it easy, Jack."
"The stiff won't care."
"Yeah, but Harry will charge us for damage to the
gurney." I tagged this speaker as Gruff-voice.
Jack hacked out a cough. "So, we take it out of petty
cash. This guy was loaded. His cards will be worth
something."
"No need to spend what we don't have to." Gruff-voice
took a couple of steps away from the ambulance, his
footfalls moving from my feet toward my head. "Where
are they?"
"They'll be here." Another hack. "See, there they are."
Both men fell silent as I heard another vehicle drive up.
Its engine had a nasty ticking sound and the door slid
open. I immediately imagined it to be a van or delivery
truck.
Jack greeted the newcomers. "Evenin', tulmen."
"The last batch was unsatisfactory." The voice had no
compromise, and even less humanity in it.
Jack managed to keep fear out of his voice, but he
radiated it so palpably that I could feel it from within the
bag. "I know, and I'm sorry about that, but look, this one
will make it up to you."
I heard a pair of clicks and the pressure on my chest
and legs went away. I felt a tug near the top of my head,
then heard the rasping sound of the zipper being undone.
For a half-second the air rushing in felt cool; then it turned
hot and very dry. I smelled dust in the air and the sharp
scent of burned-out engines and steaming radiator fluid.
My nasal passages dried out immediately and I could feel
myself desiccating as they stood there.
Gruff-voice tried to let laughter override his anxiety.
"Look, he's mid-30s, clean and in good shape. No scars.
You can get kidneys, a liver and a heart out of him. His
eyes should be good, too. Hell, you could even take his
lungs and give them to Jack, here."
Panic again surged through me. They're selling off my
parts, but I'm not even dead yet. They can't do this, I have
to let them know I'm still alive!
"Why? He'd just ruin them as well." I felt fingers poke
and prod me. Hands slipped beneath my right shoulder
and lifted me enough to get a brief glimpse of my back.
My head fell back, opening my mouth, and I gasped
aloud. Jack and Gruff-voice jumped back, with one of
them clunking against the ambulance.
"Jesus!"
Yes, there, now they know I'm still alive.
The inspector laughed harshly. "Come now, aces like
you know gasses build up in corpses. Only time you'll
see this deader again is in your nightmares."
My heart sank.
"Well, we don't spend as much time around them as
you Reapers do. We generally get them before they
become spare parts."
"So you do. Still warm. Good. Looks clean. Where did
you get him?"
I heard Jack swallow hard. "Call came in an hour ago.
He was in a squat-shack hotel in Slymingtown. Setup
looked staged, like he had been dumped there. No one
was asking questions, but Scorpion Security was on its
way, so we snatched him and called you. How much?"
"A meg, plus 10% of anything unusual we get."
"A meg? Are you kidding? I could get three megs
piecing him out, and still get a point on DNA applica-
tions."
Jack had sounded angry, but the Reaper called his
bluff. "If you can, do it. You'll find it is a buyer's market,
Jack, not a seller's. I could see going 1.5 megs, but you'll
drop to 7% for exotics."
"With two points on DMA aps?"
"One, and only because I've forgotten how the last two
maggot-ranches you gave me weren't fit for dog food.
Literally, we left them in the desert and the coyotes
wouldn't touch them."
"And we keep the effects?"
"Yes, Jack. We care not for his earthly possessions."
I felt a hand grasp my forehead and work my head side
to side. "Good bone structure and no cranial damage. I
think we can save the brain. This is good. Do we have a
deal?"
"Done. Always enjoy doing business with you Reap-
ers."
"You lie poorly, Jackson, but we tolerate you because
of your product." The Reaper snapped his fingers. "Gord,
Kenny, red tag this one and put him in the back. We want
to do him quickly, before he spoils any more."
The zipper closed again, shutting me away in the
stuffy world of rubber and stale flesh. I sagged into a U-
shape as two people grabbed the handles at my head and
feet. I swayed between them as they carried me along,
then I heard the rumble of a roll-away door sliding up into
the truck's ceiling.
"Which side do we put him on?" one voice asked
thickly.
"You sar him; he's vanilla."
They rocked me three times, then I flew up into the
truck and landed solidly. Something shifted below me
and I half expected to be buried beneath an avalanche of
corpses. I slid a bit sideways, but nothing crashed down
on top of me. The door slammed shut and the engine
coughed to life. Gears ground and we lumbered forward.
I heard another sound in the back of the truck above
the ticking idle of the engine. I first caught it as a cyclical
pinging and noted it remained constant. I wondered what
it was, but not for long: I felt a chill nibbling at my toes and
fingers. The logic of icing down a truck full of corpses did
not surprise me, but the reality of it sent a jolt of
adrenaline through my body.
The cold and adrenaline combined to do what all my
willpower had been unable to manage. I started to shiver.
My limbs trembled uncontrollably. I found myself no
longer locked in the grasp of paralysis.
I tried to move my hand under my conscious direction,
but still found myself unable to do so. Too ambitious, I
decided. I tried to open my eyes, but realized, in the dark,
in a body bag, I could not tell if I had been successful. I
made an attempt at breathing through my mouth, but
found I still could not open it.
Despair opened its jaws wide to swallow my spirit
whole, but the hope inspired by my shivering saved me.
Before you can run, you must learn to walk. Before you
can walk, you need to shiver. Shivering is good. Shiver-
ing is progress. Think cold. Make your body want to do
what you cannot make it do.
I abandoned myself to cold and panic, repeatedly
having to overcome unconscious efforts to control my-
self. I knew each burst of adrenaline that pumped into my
system was helping, yet I felt constitutionally averse to
admitting panic. It represented a total loss of control, and
that spelled disaster. It felt as if part of me believed that
by admitting I was in serious trouble, I would not find a
way out of it.
Though I knew I should have been paying attention to
the motions of the truck, I decided against it. I knew it
would have been simple—a child's game—to keep track
of twists and turns. By counting slowly and estimating
speeds, I could have easily cataloged our journey and
had an excellent chance of backtracking it. I had done it
before, but not knowing where we had started, and
unsure if I ever wanted to return there, I let it go.
I also found, for the brief time I did keep track of things,
that the driver was doing his best to take us through a
very evasive and difficult-to-follow route. We changed
levels several times and traveled both city streets and
highways. We made no more stops, which I pridefully
saw as a reflection of my own value, and ended the
journey with a long downward slope.
My shivering stopped instantly as the truck door
opened. I felt all my senses come alive as if I were trying
to project my mind outside the bag to see where I was.
I could not, of course, and my attempts were interrupted
by the jerk on the handle at my head. My body limply
slithered over other corpses, then I slid free of the truck
and my legs slapped stiffly on the ground.
"Key-ryest, Gord, don't let the legs hit!"
"Geez, Kenny, the guy ain't complaining."
"But the doctor will. Soft tissue damage, she calls it."
There was nothing soft about the way my legs and
heels felt as Gord hefted me up. Hitting the ground had
hurt and I would have screamed had my jaw not been
locked. Anger twisted my belly up and burned like fire.
I wanted to let it run wild like I had the panic, but I
immediately shunted that energy away and calmed
myself.
Then I noticed that the rage—or pain—had caused my
fingers to claw inward. They felt stiff, but they had moved.
One by one I willed them to straighten out again. The
paralysis fought me, but the commands got through. On
my right hand, my little finger snapped to attention first,
then the ring finger and the index. I reissued the order and
the middle finger complied.
My left hand responded more sluggishly, but it did
respond. I tried to curl my toes inward and they also
worked. Concentrating hard, I forced my fingers back in
again and the right hand got almost all the way down into
a fist. The left hand tried, but failed. The fingers did
straighten out again on command, and I managed to flex
all the muscles in my right arm, which gave me great
cause for joy.
So concerned was I with regaining the use of my limbs
that I was unprepared for Gord and Kenny dropping me
on a table. I smacked the back of my head on the surface
and saw stars in front of my eyes. As they sizzled off like
Technicolor comets, I heard the bag being unzipped,
then I was tipped right and left so they could whisk it from
beneath me.
They left me lying naked on a cold metal table.
Despite my eyes still being closed, I could see a golden
glow from outside my eyelids, and I could feel the warmth
of the lights on me. I brushed the fingertips of my right
hand across the surface and felt a shallow groove
running from beneath me toward the edge of the table.
A door opened and I heard a woman's voice. "Oh, this
is a fine specimen. Thank you, tulmen. Andre, roll tape
on this one. We want to document him."
"Yes, doctor."
I heard a wheeled cart roll closer to the table. The clink
of instruments accompanied its arrival and I did not like
how close to my head it all sounded.
From right above me I heard the woman's voice.
"Subject is a white male, six feet tall, approximately 175
pounds, moderate body hair which is dark in color. He is
in excellent condition, with no visible signs of trauma.
Fluids will be drawn and toxicology run to determine
cause of death."
I'm not dead! I made my right hand into a fist.
"Subject shows no sign of male pattern baldness, so
we will attempt to preserve the scalp intact as we go in
after the brain."
I straightened my hand again and slapped it against
the table. There, she has to hear that!
"Doctor, his right hand moved," I heard Andre tell her.
"I think he is still alive."
"Andre, I think you are right. This is a complication."
Had I the ability to do so, I would have smiled.
"Quickly, Andre, over there, the cabinet."
Good, get something to fix me.
"Here?"
Yes, Andre, you idiot, do what she tells you to do.
"Yes, Andre, bring them to me."
"Is this enough?"
"Four? I suppose, but bring a couple more, just to be
sure." I heard her pat the instrument table. "Put them
here. Whenever one is alive there's always more blood.
You can never have enough towels."

The whirring buzz of a bone-saw hovered over me like
a malevolent wasp and wrung the last ounce of adrena-
line out of me. As the saw descended, my eyes snapped
open. The doctor brought the instrument down with both
hands, but my right arm shot up on a desperate collision
course. Forearm to forearm I blocked her, then shoved
back with all my strength.
Her grandmotherly face disappeared in a red mist as
the saw-blade bridged the gap between her eyebrows.
She flew back out of sight with her stool clattering
metallically against the tile floor. I scissored my legs left
over right and pitched myself off the right side of the
autopsy table, then half-collapsed as my legs buckled
beneath me.
I thought that a disaster, but it turned out to be more
fortuitous than I ever could have imagined. As I sank
toward the floor, the snap-kick Andre had aimed at my
head missed cleanly. From below I posted my left leg up
into his groin, and that took all the fight out of him. He
doubled over, moaning. Grabbing a handful of his hair,
I accelerated his face into the tile floor.
I sagged down beside him, almost as limp as he was,
and felt as if I had been de-boned. My limbs moved as if
they were made of lead and powered by the wind, but I
gathered them beneath me. Inch by inch, I climbed up
one leg of the autopsy table and hauled myself back
upright. I glanced over at the doctor. The only sign of life
there was the cutter still whirring away in her right hand.
Andre was out for the count, if not the rest of this
incarnation, which left me safe for the moment.
Now, without knowing where I am or how many
people exist outside, I have to escape. Oddly enough,
quantifying the problem in that way, I did not so much
find it impossible as annoying. It was a time-consuming
complication. Those who had inconvenienced me would
pay.
I stripped Andre of his pants and donned them, despite
their being three inches too short. I likewise appropriated
his shoes—nautical-style loafers that fit after I loosened
the rawhide lacings—and white lab coat. I pocketed the
four scalpels on the instrument tray, then picked up one
of the white towels Andre had dropped.
Crouching next to the doctor, I looked around the
room. Aside from a certain amount of mildew on the
grout between the tiles, the room could have passed for
a hospital emergency ward. The glass-fronted cabinets
housed small drug ampules and stainless steel imple-
ments. Over on a filing cabinet I saw three glass jars with
various organs preserved in them, and noted on a table
back in the corner that four others were open and ready
for filling. The back wall had three rows of small, squarish
doors that I assumed held deaders in various states of
harvesting.
I swished the towel through the doctor's blood puddle,
then pressed the dripping cloth to my head. It obscured
enough of my face that I believed I could pass as Andre,
so I crossed to the door, yanked it open, and slumped in
the doorway. "We have trouble. He was alive!" I shouted
in a voice that matched Andre's with surprising accu-
racy.
People throughout the warehouse-like structure re-
acted. Four steps away a man drew a pistol and sprinted
forward. As he closed, I flipped the towel over his head
and snatched the pistol from him. I snapped the
automatic's safety lever down and pumped a round into
his stomach at point blank range.
The two large men who were unloading bodies from
an ice cream truck onto a cart had started to run toward
me, but the gunshot brought them up short. They clawed
beneath their jackets for weapons, but never got a
chance to complete their draws. Cutting to the left, I
snapped off a shot that sent the one on the right to the
ground clutching his throat. I hit the other in the shoulder,
slowly starting him to spin to the right, then dropped him
with a shot to the middle of his back.
I glanced at the gun to confirm visually what I already
knew about it by feel. Colt Krait. Ten millimeter ammo,
muzzle brake, open sights. Fourteen in the clip, could
have had the first one in the chamber. I'm running four
shy of full.
Above me I heard the hollow clank of a boot on a
catwalk. I dove forward in a somersault, then let my legs
splay out to stop me. Craning my head back, I saw a
woman with a machine pistol sweep a thunderous line of
fire back through where I should have been. Our eyes
met as I pumped one round into her chest and sent her
flying back off the other side of the catwalk.
His black trenchcoat flying open, a slender man leapt
from the driver's seat of the truck. He pointed at me and
yelled in a voice I recognized. It was the Reaper who had
bargained for me. "Shoot him, but not the head. Save the
head!"
What is it about this guy and my brain?
I dropped the Krait on his outline and sent two rounds
into him. They both hit high chest and sent him tumbling
backward. Off to my right two men ran round a corner,
each with a submachinegun in hand, but they discounted
the sight of me because I was in a lab coat. A head-shot
put the first man down and a gut-shot jackknifed the
second man to the slick concrete floor.
I sprinted across open ground to the ice cream truck.
The keys were still in the ignition, so I dropped into the
driver's seat, shifted the pistol to my left hand and
cranked the engine. It sprang to life, still ticking like a
bomb. I jammed the clutch down and forced it into first.
The truck lurched forward and I started it turning in a
large arc toward the ramp and the big doorway that
would take me back up to street level.
Have to get out of this charnel house. Fresh air. The
sky. Life!
In the rearview mirror I saw bodies tumbling willy-nilly
from the back. I also saw two more men with pistols
come running into the area. They triggered off shots, but
I knew that unless they were even better shots than I was,
they had no chance of hitting me. Punching the gas, I
upshifted and steered straight toward the ramp.
I started up the ramp at 30 mph when the Reaper in
black appeared in the driver's-side doorway. Blood
bubbled from the lung-hits he'd taken, but he stood
there, clutching either side of the doorway as if he'd not
been hit at all. He opened his mouth to hiss at me like a
cat and a thin, bloody mist sprayed out. His left hand
grabbed at the wheel and jerked it toward him.
I had no clue as to what this pasty-faced lunatic
wanted to accomplish, but I had plenty of ideas how to
discourage him. I shoved the Krait in his face and stroked
the trigger. His visage disappeared in a cloud of smoke
and fire. He hung in the doorway for a second, then fell
away, anchored to the speeding vehicle by his left hand's
deathgrip on the wheel.
I pressed the Krait to his wrist and fired. The body
dropped away with a thump, but it had hung there long
enough to pull the truck over to the left side of the ramp.
Sparks shot up as I sideswiped a railing, then I jerked the
wheel back to the right. Oversteering, I pulled away from
the railing, but managed to hit a girder stanchion on the
other side at the top of the ramp.
The airbag deployed as the girder crushed the right
front quarter of the ice cream truck. I bounced forward
then back as the vehicle slewed around to the left in a
fishtail that sowed half-frozen bodies all over the ramp
and the landing. The truck hit the closed doors going
backward, which slammed me back into the rear of the
driver's compartment, then I rebounded into the steering
wheel. With a screaming crunch, the roll-away door
snapped off the supports at the top and flowed out into
the street like a metallic carpet.
Shocked and battered, with blood leaking from my
nose, I scrambled back through the truck, over the
bodies and out into the street. Once clear, I turned back
and emptied the pistol into the truck's gas tank. It went
up in a boiling, orange-black ball that rose toward the
sky, but never actually got there.
One hundred feet up the fireball flattened against a
construct of black panels, steel girders and tangled
wires. In its wake it left ablaze a small structure that
looked like a bird's nest built beneath the eaves of a
house. In this case, however, the nest was large enough
to house humans and the eaves were part of a roof over
the whole city. The fire's smoke rolled across the under-
side of the panels like a dark thunderhead, then started
to descend like a malevolent fog.
They roofed over the city! Something inside me
crumpled. The claustrophobic feeling of being inside the
body bag flooded back like a recurring nightmare. The
sky and the sun and the moon meant freedom to me, yet
I found myself trapped like a cockroach beneath a black
steel bowl. How can people exist like this?
I felt a tugging on my pant leg and saw the Reaper's
hand had become entangled in the fabric of Andre's
pants. Revulsed, I shook it free of my leg, then kicked it
back into the blaze choking the doorway into the Reaper's
sanctuary.
All around me the shadows began to move. People
wearing multiple layers of clothing despite the stifling
heat, slowly crawled out of the surrounding tenements.
They shuffled forward, mesmerized by the fire. The reds
and golden yellows provided the only color in this world,
and people stared at it as if it were some mysterious
avatar coming to liberate them from their gray homes.
Where in hell am I? They murder people for their
organs here. They have a roof between them and the sky.
These people are mindless creatures. Why am I here?
As that quandary struck me, an even more horrible
question followed in its wake and left me hollow inside.
My chest tightened and it drove me to my knees in the
stinking street.
Why do I care where this is or why I'm here when I
don't have a clue as to who I am?

I awoke with a start from the nightmare spurred by the
day's events, barely remembering any of it. I had wan-
dered dark, oppressively hot streets. Behind me a roar-
ing conflagration attracted firefighting equipment the
way an open flame attracts moths. Faceless and weary,
with the empty gun tucked in my waistband, I staggered
through the streets and trash-strewn alleys. With each
step I felt the paralysis reassert control over my body
until, stiff-legged and lock-jawed, I stumbled face-first
into a phalanx of garbage cans.
Now, sitting bolt upright, the sheet covering my sweat-
slicked chest slipped down toward my lap. I found myself
lying on an overstuffed couch with crocheted doilies on
the arms and back to hide the spots where the cloth had
been worn shiny and bare. Over in the corner I saw a
television and wondered why there seemed to be so
much cabinet and so little picture tube. The rabbit-ear
antenna hid within a collection of a dozen black-and-
white photographs arranged on top of the TV and a
blocky, black rotary phone sat atop a dais of thick phone
books on a table next to it.
I shivered. I felt as if I had awakened in the first reel of
a 50-year-old cine noir classic film. That impression
deepened as I looked over at a chest of drawers built into
the wall and saw a huge radio with a yellow light softly
glowing in the little window showing a portion of the
tuning wheel. Faint strains of monotone Spanish music
with tinny horns and castanets clicking like the hungry
mandibles of a giant cockroach came from its speakers.
Over on the wall, between two windows with the
shades drawn against the night, I saw a clock. What first
struck me as unusual about it was that it was analog, not
digital. That was not an overwhelming problem. I glanced
at my wrist, where my watch should have been, and
knew whatever I wore there normally had both a digital
and analog readout, so I could decipher the meaning of
the hands and their position. What struck me as abso-
lutely odd was that, instead of numerals, there were little
words at the positions of the clock.
Those words were what made me uneasy. It took me
a second or two to see why. They were in Cyrillic and
corresponded the number at that position on the clock,
which made sense. What baffled me was why whoever
owned the house would have a Soviet clock on the wall.
No one buys Russian if they can avoid it.
In any language, the clock reported it was 11:30.
A giggle caused me to spin and look behind me. A 1ittl e
girl with bright brown eyes looked at me, surprised and
delighted that I saw her. She clapped her hands to her
mouth, then went running back down the dim hallway to
a back bedroom. From my vantage point I could see the
foot of a bed onto which she leaped, then scampered up
toward the headboard. I heard voices but could make no
sense of what I heard.
The bedsprings creaked, then a man of slender build
and average height filled the doorway. He wore a tank-
top T-shirt and was in the process of zipping up a pair of
canvas work pants that were covered with splotches of
brightly colored paints. As he approached, I saw that the
girl's coppery complexion and dark hair could well have
come from him.
He gave me a smile that showed he still had most of
his teeth. "¿Como está usted?"
"Bien," I answered fluidly. "Buenas noches."
"Buenos dias." The man scratched at the thin growth
of beard on his chin. "You have slept for a day and a half.
It is 11:30 in the morning, Señor..."
I concentrated, but still could not recall my name. "I'm
sorry, I'm afraid I don't know who I am. I don't even know
where this is."
"You are in Phoenix." He came around and pulled a chair
away from the wall. My lab coat and pants were folded on it.
The Krait rested on top, but the clip had been pulled from the
gun. "I am Estefan Ramierez. The little girl is my daughter,
Maria. My wife, Consuelo, is still in bed." He set the clothes and
gun on a TV tray and sat down.
"Phoenix?"
What the hell am I doing in Phoenix?
Somewhere in the distant reaches of my mind I knew
there was an answer to that question, but it was beyond
my ability to recover it. "How did I come to be in your
house?"
Estefan gave me a lopsided smirk. "Los Reapers son
muy malos. Word got around fast that someone had
chewed on them real good and many folks thought it was
Coyote. I did not think so, but I went to check anyway,
and I found you."
"Why did you help me?"
He shrugged. "Five years ago I came up here and
someone helped me. 'You don't pay back; you pay
forward,' he told me. I pay forward."
Off to my left, at the opposite end of the house from the
bedroom, I heard a knock at the kitchen door. Estefan
smiled, but after what I had been through, I did not feel
optimistic. I reached for the Krait and he produced a
loaded clip for the gun and tossed it to me. I knew, in the
easy way he did that, he trusted me. As I slid the clip
home and snapped the slide back and forth, I hoped that
whoever I was, I was worthy of his trust.
When Estefan returned to the small sitting room, he
brought with him the tallest man I had ever seen. Ducking
his head to get through the doorway, the African-
American man smiled, then straightened up to his full
height. At least seven and a half feet tall, his loose-fitting
shirt and faded jeans covered a body with enough
muscle to rob him of the string-bean physique expected
of someone so huge. Bearded and balding, he gave me
a wide, white smile and offered me a hand that would
have swallowed both my right hand and the Krait if I
hadn't shifted the gun to my left.
"I'm Hal Garrett. From what Estefan has said, you're
a mystery man."
The name Hal Garrett rang a bell somewhere, but I
could not place it. "You have me pegged."
"Anyone who can anger the Reapers is a friend of
mine." Garrett appropriated Estefan's chair and the
master of the house retreated to the bedroom where he
closed the door. "If possible, I'd like to help you with your
problem."
As with Estefan, I sensed in Garrett's booming voice
and easy manner a basic trust and willingness to aid me.
I found this very gratifying, but likewise suspicious. Still,
when alone in a foreign land, any alliance is a benefit.
"What do you want to know?"
His shoulders heaved like mountains in an earthquake
as he shrugged. "Anything you can remember that will
give us a place to start."
"Us? Is that 'you and me,' or are there other elves who
will become involved in this quest to find my memory?"
"For now it's you and me, but I have friends who might
be able to help solve the puzzle." His manner hardened
a bit, and this pleased me. I decided Hal Garrett was a
man proud of his own abilities, but not so vain that he did
not seek out assistance when he needed it. "Not many
folks wake up in a Reaper packing house and live to tell
about it. That alone makes you remarkable."
"Fair enough. I actually woke up before the Reaper
chopshop. I found myself fully conscious but unable to
move any voluntary muscles. Whatever I had been hit
with, adrenaline seems to help throw it off, and I had
plenty of that coursing through my veins when I heard
they meant to sell me off in job lots."
Garrett nodded easily. "I can see that."
I closed my eyes and found the memories came
easily, which frustrated me because they only went back,
at best, 36 hours. "I was in an ambulance. One of the two
men was named Jack or Jackson. I was not the first
person they had sold to the Reapers. A recent deal
including two bodies proved unsatisfactory. The name
Harry came up as someone who might be a supervisor
with the ambulance company. The ambulance crew said
they found me in Slymingtown."
"That's 24th and Camelback—the Esplanade and
Build-more district. That's north of here a bit."
"Jack said they found me in a squat-shack in a room
that looked like a setup. They said Scorpion Security was
on its way, so they took me and called the Reapers.
Within an hour of pickup, they'd sold me off. The drivers
sold me for 1.5 megs, 7% of exotics and 1% of any DNA
applications from my body. Should I have been flat-
tered?"
"You don't look like a wastoid or twink, which means
your insides should be useful. You could probably earn
that many dolmarks in a week if you wanted to turn
yourself out as a slumming corporator's night-thrill, but
that's a fair price for a worm-buffet." Garrett again gave
me one of his disarming smiles. "You've given me some
real basics, so we can probably track down the drivers.
I'll make some calls."
"Good. Part of their deal was that they got to keep my
effects, which means they might be a shortcut to solving
this thing."
"I hope so." He stood and we shook hands again. "So,
listen, Mr. Mystery, I've got to go to a local gang pow-
wow. I won't be able to help you track these ambulance
dexters down, but I'll send over another guy who will. His
name is Rock Pell. Estefan knows him. He'll get you
around so you can find them—and he can be convincing
if they fan on your questions."
I smiled. "Thank you. One thing."
"Yes?"
"Are you this Coyote Estefan mentioned?"
Hal threw his head back and roared out leonine
laughter. "No, no I'm not. I am, however, acquainted with
him. We have many parallel goals and I am pleased to
help him when I can."
"And will helping me help him?"
"I don't know. I have not heard from him concerning
you, but I suspect your situation will intrigue him. Rock
is another of Coyote's associates, so he may have other
news. I will see you later, I hope."
"I look forward to it. Thanks."
Garrett let himself out and Estefan stayed in the back
bedroom, which gave me time to think. Something Garrett
had not mentioned, but something I was certain he did not
miss, was Jack having said he felt my "death" had been a
setup. It suggested I had one or more enemies and because
of my current memory loss, I had no idea who they were. This
did not bode well for my continued survival.
As Garrett had required of me in recalling details about
the ambulance, I concentrated to see what I could
postulate about myself from my experiences. I appar-
ently was, at the very least, bilingual because I under-
stood and spoke both Spanish and English—though
some of the street slang Hal had hit me with I caught only
from context. I had no idea what a "twink" or "wastoid"
was, but I assumed they were derogatory in some form
or another. Coupled with my shock at Estefan having a
Soviet-made clock, radio and television in his home, I
suspected I did not often frequent this socio-economic
strata.
Whatever had been used on me to simulate death was
not a natural thing. Most animal or plant toxins that
paralyze the neuromuscular systems cause death by
suffocation when the diaphragm stops working. I knew
of none that had as its specific or recommended treat-
ment a dose of adrenaline. Whatever had been used on
me was very special stuff, specifically designed to
paralyze voluntary muscles but not the autonomic ner-
vous system.
That special toxin, and the setup remark, again
pointed to my having some special enemies. By the
same token, my familiarity with the Colt Krait and my
ability to shoot well at extended pistol ranges suggested
I could take care of myself. Even the kick that disabled
Andre had been more reflex than thought, which told me
I'd been trained in martial skills. Taken with my feelings
about Estefan's possessions, I could see myself as
having been a corporate security specialist or something
equally bizarre in the corporate world.
There were still some loose ends that made no sense.
In the Reaper area I had only heard Andre say a couple
of things, but I had pegged his accent and had been able
to mimic his voice convincingly enough to trick at least
one guard. That might have been a natural gift, but surely
one that had been honed by practice. My surprise and
despair at seeing a roof over the city told me I was not at
all familiar with Phoenix. If I was a corporate security
specialist, I had been brought in from outside to deal with
a problem.
That problem, quite likely, had cost me my memory
and almost cost me my life. Without knowing who I was
or what mission I had been given, my chances of survival
were slightly higher than those of a blind man doing a
freesprint across the Autobahn. And, like it or not, those
long odds were what I was betting my life on.

Estefan reappeared, bringing with him his daughter
and a very shy wife who looked barely, if at all, out of her
teens. Without saying a word she went directly into the
kitchen and started clattering pots and pans. Maria took
up a position in the doorway leading to the kitchen so she
could watch me and her mother at the same time.
Estefan again took his chair.
I kept the gun hidden beneath the sheet that had been
draped over me. "Garrett said he is sending another man,
Rock Pell, to help me find the men who sold me to the
Reapers."
"Señor Pell es un hombre bueno. If those men can be
found, he will do it. My wife, she makes us some lunch."
He pointed to the clothes on the tray. "Those do not fit
you. Señor Pell will be bringing other clothes that will.
Con permiso, I will get rid of them."
"Please, and if you can get money for them, keep it in
exchange for the inconvenience I have been." I glanced
back toward the hallway. "¿Dónde está la ducha?'
Estefan glanced down. "We don't have a shower, but
that is the bathroom and you can clean yourself up
there."
"Muy bien, gracias." Wrapping the sheet around me
like a toga, I padded across throw rugs to the bathroom
and closed the door behind me. I hung the gun by its
trigger-guard from a hook on the door, then draped the
sheet over it. As I looked the bathroom over, a depressing
wave of nostalgia hit me again.
All of the fixtures looked old and the pipes supplying
water were not built into the wall. Over beside the low-
water-use toilet I saw a hand crank sitting atop three feet
of pipe. From it led another pipe to a shunt valve that let
water flow to the toilet or up into the newest device in the
whole room: a storage tank that had a heating element
on one half of it.
Below the storage tank, so gravity would feed the
water, was the rust-stained sink with dual faucets—both
of which leaked. Off to the right, next to the door and the
interior wall, a claw-footed tub dug its talons into tile
mosaic floor. The floor, which once had some sort of logo
as the central feature of the design, had been patched
with so many different sizes and colors of tile that the
original pattern had been all but lost.
I reached up and flicked the switch to start the water
heater working, then I sat on the john and bided my time
cranking water into the tank and the toilet. I would have
found that task tedious in the extreme, but after having
lost complete control of my muscles, having them
respond for me in this menial task provided its own
satisfaction. Besides, in the desert, pumping water was
as close as it got to chopping wood, so it was the least I
could do for Estefan and his family in return for my room
and board.
Despite the decrepit conditions of the bathroom,
Consuelo had attempted to make the best of it. The
single window had been framed with frilly curtains. Little
pictures of insufferably cute angels—likely the front half
of old Christmas cards—had been framed and hung on
the wall facing the toilet. A little wall rack held four
magazines, but all of them were in Spanish and three
dealt with soap operas, so I refrained from reading them.
The spare roll of toilet paper hid beneath the skirts of a
knitted doll.
I took a quick glance at myself in the medicine chest
mirror hanging over the sink. While my face looked
familiar and my black hair seemed a bit long, I did not
have a quick flash of insight that provided a name. I
rubbed a hand along my jaw and the black bristles
lurking there, but I saw no razor on the sink and didn't
want to go digging around in the Ramierez medicine
chest.
Besides, I thought, if someone is out to kill you,
adopting a beard might, make target recognition and
acquisition a bit more difficult.
Kneeling in the tub, I pressed the rubber stopper down
into the drain and turned the water on. Like the sink, the
water came out of two faucets, so I scooted back a bit to
avoid getting scalded by the hot water. I really hadn't
needed to bother—in Phoenix the water seemed to come
in "warm" and "a bit warmer than that." The hardness of
the water made it a bit difficult to get good lather out of
the soap, but I managed to clean myself up fairly easily
and dried myself with a threadbare towel that once
belonged to a hotel.
Wearing the towel like a kilt, I returned from the
bathroom and found Estefan talking to a clean-shaven
Anglo roughly his size, with blue eyes and a buzz-cut crop
of red hair. "Rock Pell, I assume?"
"Fully-on, tulman." He tossed me a thick packet just
slightly larger than the Yellow Pages beneath the phone.
"These are some clothes. They should fit you fine. If they
don't, Coy-man said I can drop a couple of aught-aughts
getting you tripped out in gutter-ware."
When Pell said "aught-aughts" I saw Estefan's face
light up. I assumed Pell had meant $100 bills which,
given the way the house looked, would be a vast fortune
to the Ramierez household. At the same time I sensed
from Estefan a fear that Rock would offer him money in
return for the kindness shown me, which Estefan would
refuse—despite desperately wanting it—because he did
what he did for me to return a favor Coyote had done him
long ago.
I also got from Pell the feeling that he would offer
Estefan money—not because he lacked feeling for Estefan
and his family, but because it was easier than actually
figuring out another way to help them. I looked at my
host. "Estefan, did you go out and buy the bullets for my
pistol after you'd brought me here?"
"Sí."
"So you paid street prices for them." I shifted my gaze
to Pell. "If you think Coyote can spare it, you might want
to repay him for the ammo. I will take the gun with me and
I would like the rest of the bullets. Fifty should cover it,
right, Estefan?"
Estefan started to protest that he had not paid that
much, but Pell never heard him. "$50, Estefan? Man,
they sold you a grande line of dookey, you know?"
"I don't think it was a buyer's market, Rock. He was in
a hurry, and I'm happy he did get the bullets, because I
was out."
Pell pulled out a wad of bills and started to peel them
off, one at a time. He stopped at three Reagans and four
Lincolns, then folded them over and gave them to
Estefan. Again my host tried to protest, but I shook my
head. "Putting me up was your favor to Coyote. Buying
bullets for me was your favor to me. I have yet to pay
forward for you, but this will show my good faith."
"Cracias, señor." Estefan pocketed the money and
handed me a nearly full box of bullets.
"De nada. Be with you in a minute."
I retreated to the bathroom and pulled the plastic wrap
off the package I'd been given. Pell had brought boxer
briefs, which I found I did not like, but put on anyway, and
a pair of white tube socks with blue stripes at the top. The
jeans fit perfectly, though were brand-new and still
starchy-stiff. I pulled on the black T-shirt and had to
wonder what the true meaning of having "RoIIerblades
does slalom" emblazoned on my chest portended, but I
was in no condition to complain.
Dressed, I returned to the front room to find everyone
had retreated to the kitchen where Consuelo was serving
beans and rice with tortillas. Pell had taken a place at the
table and eyed the food hungrily. A quick glance at the
pots on the stove told me the Ramierez family would go
hungry if they tried to feed all of us, and I knew they would
make the attempt.
"Rock, let's go."
He looked up at me as if I were mad. "It would be
impolite to refuse..."
"I know, and I hope Estefan and Consuelo can find it
in their hearts to forgive me." I made a show of tucking
the Krait into my waistband at the small of my back. "It
just occurs to me that if someone was out to kill me,
having me here puts them in danger."
Pell hesitated as his hunger fought with what he
thought was best. He finally nodded, then stood. "Be-
sides, we need to get you some real shoes."
"Among other things."
"Right."
I turned to Estefan and shook his hand. "Muchas
gracias, mi amigo."
He smiled. "De nada. Hasta luego."
"Adiós."
Pell led the way from the house and I got my first good
look at Phoenix in the daytime. Of course, given the solid
ceiling 10 stories above us, separating day from night
was difficult. Unlike when I made my escape, I did feel an
incredible amount of heat radiating down from the roof.
Sprayed on the underside of the panels I saw the letters
APS.
"Rock, what is over us?"
"It's Frozen Shade, courtesy of Lorica Industries and
Arizona Public Service—better known around here as
Another Public Screwing."
"Fascinating. So what is it?"
"Solar voltaic cells, man. The city's covered with them
to produce power."
I squinted my eyes and took a closer look at Frozen
Shade. Massive steel girders, rendered black either by
design or thick coats of soot, supported the panels on
either side of their centerline. The panels themselves
looked to be about a quarter of a mile on each side. In a
couple of places I saw little shacks built onto the girders
or bridging the gap between a girder and a nearby
building. I also saw, nestled like a bubble of shadow,
cylindrical housings attached to the panels near the top
of each girder.
"The panels can be moved?"
"Yeah. When a dust storm comes through and coats
everything with dirt, APS tips the panels up about 20
degrees and washes them off with a sprayer system built
into the panel itself. That's the only time it ever rains
down here in Eclipse. The only other time they crack the
panels is if the air gets thick enough down here that it
starts leaking up into the citadels."
We reached his car, and he punched the keycode into
the lock on the driver's side. I found the vehicle an
improbable white. Only the barest dusting of soot had
settled on it. He opened the passenger door on the Ford-
Revlon Elite sports coupe. I pulled the Krait before
getting in, then shut the door and let the car adjust the
safety restraints.
"A sadist designed these belts, eh, Mysterioso?"
I smiled politely as he started the electra-glide engine,
and we set on our way. Thinking to stash the pistol, I
opened the glove compartment. A huge drawer slid
down, revealing a perfectly organized cosmetics tray. At
the same time, my sunvisor flipped down, and the twin
spotlights on either side of the mirror temporarily blinded
me.
"Is this factory-standard, or did you special-order it?"
"Standard. Ever since Revlon bought in, they've really
done the glove box up right. You know the joke, right? 'I
had to get a new Elite because my lipstick was used up.'"
Pell chuckled to himself until he noticed his mirth was
not, in my case, infectious. "I never use that stuff, of
course, 'cept maybe some of the black nail polish and
some mascara when I have to go into Drac City."
"Drac City?"
"Bunch of skanky hippy witches and vamp-punks
from the '90s decided to settle in Scottsdale and breed.
They turned 'The West's most Western Town' into a little
slice of Transylvania. They go for skin bleaching and
canine implants. Got a weird Christian sect there, too,
that claims Jesus rose from the dead because he was a
vampire—you know, 'He shed His blood for you and now
He wants it back' kinda thing."
"I see," I said when I didn't. Even though I had no real
idea who I was, I knew I had nothing in common with the
world Pell was describing. "Look, I need a couple of
things: Some proper footwear, a shoulder holster, some
spare clips for the Krait and a bullet-proof vest. Do you
think Coyote will spring for that?"
"Are we looking for your identity, or are you going to
war?"
"Could be both, dude. Glad you're along for the ride?"
Pell didn't answer, so I settled back in the plush seat
to watch the city go by. Above us I could see the seams
of the solar panels running down the middle of the street.
This made sense if, as Rock had said, the panels were
able to vary their pitch enough to let water and debris run
off. Beneath the panels, buildings varied from old sprawl-
ing ranch-style homes to a variety of tall and short
apartment complexes. Strip malls and convenience
stores dotted the corners of intersections, and occasion-
ally whole huge blocks were taken up with open malls.
In this land of always night, colors appeared muted, if
at all. Some bright neon signs flashed on and off to lure
customers into this bar or that video rental center, but the
thickness of the air seemed to leech the life from the
lights. Racing through the city in Pell's Elite, I felt like a
cockroach scuttling across a kitchen floor in fear that
someone would turn the lights on and squash me.
"How did the city ever get the populace to agree to
putting this thing up?"
Pell shrugged stiffly, and I immediately assumed
anything he said would be half-fabrication. "Phoenix City
Council lost some public referendums in the late '80s.
They decided that was not the way anything could get
done. Working with the Feds, they had the Environmen-
tal Protection Agency sue the city because, with the
ozone layer going wonky, there was an increased inci-
dence of skin cancer. Then they also inspired some
trouble out at the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant. Pinned some
sabotage on an eco-terrorist group they called Blue
Thunder—fried a couple of people because of it.
"All of a sudden, every tree-hugger and anti-nuke
freak pushed for an alternate power source. The city
threatened to annex large parts of the desert to the
southeast of here to blanket with solar panels, but the
same environmentalists protested. In a brilliant compro-
mise, the Sierra Club and other groups that live outside
the city agreed to let the city build the solar collection
panels above the city. We used to be known as the Valley
of the Sun, which is still true up there, but down here we're
the Valley of Midnight."
"Incredible." As we continued on, I noted, in places, a
parallel road system approximately 40 feet above us.
"What's with the dual roadway?"
"In Phoenix, you can't dig down because the ground
is baked hard. The upper roads connect some of the
citadels with each other, though only contract labor uses
them. Notice how they don't have any exits, just run on
straight lines?"
"Yes."
"That's so regular Mikes like us can't get on them. You
enter and exit only at corpvils like Lorica or Honeywell &
Koch. Or City Center—as if we'll ever see the inside of
that place."
I decided I did not like Rock's attempt at including me
in as "one of the boys," and I heard some bitterness in his
voice when he mentioned City Center. I did not know who
or what I was, but I knew I was not the same as him. Even
so, I could see how Coyote could find him useful. The
man had an open face, but used it well to conceal a
scheming mind. Pell had correctly seen that he had not
made a good impression on me, so he sought to change
it. While he failed, his chameleonlike ability would make
him very useful as a go-between with different groups.
Rock pulled into a parking lot and honked the horn. A
garage door in the side of a warehouse opened up, but
only barely enough to let the Elite squeak through. Rock
hit a button on the dash that retracted his antenna, then
pulled forward. "Watch yourself in here. These neo-Nazi
freakos are truly bad, but they know their stuff. Be
careful; these bleach-brains have no sense of humor."
He frowned. "Knew I should have driven the Benz."
Rock let the Elite roll forward into the lightless ware-
house, and that started my palms itching. Behind us I
heard the door roll shut, then suddenly two dozen arc-
lights flooded the place with light. Instant white-out for
me, but as I squinted and shaded my eyes, I saw Pell had
pulled on a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
Okay, Rock, if these are the games we will play...
Rock opened his door and got out. I did the same,
moving slowly and easily to make it obvious to the
silhouettes behind the lights that I was unarmed and very
nearly blind. Throwing his arms wide, Rock greeted a
short man with long, blond hair, exchanging back-
slapping hugs. "Heinrich, you son of an Alsatian bitch,
you look great!"
Heinrich, who looked about as healthy as an albino
mushroom farmer, grinned broadly. "Stein, you have not
changed. What can I do you for today?" He snapped his
fingers, and three-quarters of the lights died.
Rock nodded toward me. "He needs some boots, a
vest, maybe a jacket."
Heinrich came around the front of the Elite and looked
up into my face. "Gut, they are green."
"Pardon?" I knew the German expression I wanted to
use was "Verzeihung," but I felt disinclined to use it for
two reasons, the primary being that his German and his
accent had undoubtedly been learned by watching too
many Nazi wet-dream war movies.
"I said your eyes are green, and this is good. That
means there is no blood from the mud people in you."
I smiled. "Or it means my contact lenses are green."
I thoroughly detest race-hatred, and I was starting to get
angry that Rock had brought me here.
Heinrich leaned close to get another look at my eyes,
but Rock slapped him on the back and laughed. "He was
joking, Heinrich."
"We in the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance do not
take racial purity lightly. I have heard he spent the night
with a beaner."
"Just sleeping, Heinrich, not swapping blood." Rock
gave me a frown, then draped his arm over Heinrich's
bare shoulders and steered him deeper into the ware-
house. "This is business, remember?"
"Heinrich, would it make a difference if I were 'tainted?'"
The little man turned and nodded slowly. "It would
cost Herr Stein more, and get you less. Your attitude may
accomplish that yet."
"Easy, Heinrich, you owe our mystery man here. He
dusted a Reaper lab. Who knows what they were harvest-
ing and selling for transplant."
" Ja, good point." Heinrich turned back and led Rock
into the maze of wide shelving units running from floor to
ceiling.
Their departure gave me a chance to look around.
Aside from the obligatory portraits of Adolf Hitler, Evan
Mecham and Tom Metzger, the place actually looked
fairly normal. This section of the two-story building had
no second floor, but a catwalk ran around the walls at
roughly 12 feet. Armed guards roamed along the cat-
walk, carrying submachineguns and practicing truly
disdainful sneers.
All of the Warriors I saw wore the same sort of uniform
Heinrich had sported. Gray jodhpurs were tucked at the
knee into gleaming cavalry boots. Black suspenders
held the pants up, and only three of them wore anything
more on their upper torso. Those three—one man and
two of the five women I saw—sported gray T-shirts with
a Nazi eagle emblazoned across the chest like a super-
hero insignia.
The Warriors appeared to me to be uniformly lean.
They wore their hair very short, with the men favoring the
high and tight cut of special military forces or corporate
security teams. The women tended toward longer hair or
more stylish cuts, but none of them let their hair get
beyond shoulder length. And, yes, of course, everyone
had their hair bleached white blond.
The odd thing about all of them—and it took me a
moment to catch it—was that they had undergone some
very subtle cosmetic surgery. On the men, the haircut
almost hid it, but I could see how implants had been
inserted beneath their scalp to give their skull more
height. It literally made their foreheads look larger, which
would have made them look smarter if not for the piggish
ignorance in their eyes.
The guns they carried were impressive. I don't know
how I did it, but I identified them as Honeywell & Koch
MP-7s. Like my Krait, those guns took 10mm ammo in
their 30-round banana magazines. Heinrich had worn a
sidearm instead of one of the MP-7s. I did not get a good
look at it, but I guessed it was an antique Walther he kept
more as a memento than because of its firepower.
Rock and Heinrich returned quickly with the items I
needed. The Bianchi shoulder holster fit perfectly and
Heinrich had even strapped two loaded Krait clips into
place on it. The Kevlar vest they showed me looked
sufficient to stop anything this side of a big-game round.
I grunted and tossed it on my seat.
They brought me two pairs of boots, which was
probably Rock's idea. The first was a pair of standard
punk-issue Doc Martin's. I rejected them a priori and
opted for the more appealing Schwarzkopf boots. They
fit snugly, and I laced them up. As I did so, Rock
wandered off and left me there with Heinrich.
"You know, my friend, you should not think so harshly
of us." He opened his arms and took his brethren in with
one generous gesture. "We are here protecting what our
people have earned in this world. You are not a stupid
man. Being in that den, even for one night, would have
told you what kind of people they are. They dilute us and
drag all mankind down to the level of beasts."
I finished knotting off my second boot, then stood
slowly and towered over Heinrich. "By no stretch of
imagination am I your friend. What I saw in that home
was a loving family doing its best to eke out an existence
by any means possible. They are less a threat to you
than, say, I am."
I let my words hang in the air between us. Heinrich
concentrated hard enough to make me combust by an
act of his will, but I just got chills looking at him. A couple
of his roving guards stopped to watch us, and the tension
built as if we were in a crash-dive on a sub. I watched his
eyes and read his desire to draw his gun and shoot me,
but he knew I'd make him eat it.
Rock arrived and folded his arms across his chest. "I
go to make a phone call, and you two are at it again.
Whatever am I going to do with you?"
Heinrich stepped back and Rock tossed me a black
windbreaker. "Good day, Stein. You need not bring this
man back here again."
"Chill, Heinrich, he's new in town. He has to learn the
lay of the land." Rock reached into his pocket. "What do
I owe you?"
The Nazi rubbed the thumb of his left hand across his
right palm in irritation. "$150, and the clips with bullets
are my gift to you, mystery man." He accepted a handful
of bills from Rock. "I hope you become smart enough
that you do not need all of them."
"Don't worry, Hank," I said as I winked at him. "I'll save
the last clip for you."

Once Rock had the Elite back on the road, he flicked
the air conditioning on high, looked and me and shook
his head. "Now I know why Hal turned you over to me.
He saw you as trouble from miles off."
I pulled off the shoulder holster and followed it with the
T-shirt. "I find it curious that the same Coyote who could
inspire loyalty in Estefan or Garrett could condone your
trading with racists."
"Do you?" Pell's face took on a stern expression. "If
you're so sharp, tell me, what did you learn while you
were in there?"
This is a game of one-upsmanship you will lose, Pell.
"Well, we can start with the dozen neo-Nazis I saw armed
with some of the latest in military hardware. They were
not wearing body armor, so they feel very secure in their
hideout there. I further note that Heinrich would not have
had the time to load the two clips in the shoulder holster,
which means he pulled them from a bin somewhere. The
Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance are very well
financed and ready for a war. How's that?"
Pell blinked twice, then doubtlessly put my observa-
tions down to luck. "Close enough for my purposes. If
you saw that much, you know I'm very Protean. Coyote
uses me to keep different groups happy. You saw what
you saw, but I got into their armory and can write up a
report on everything they have. If there's going to be a
war between them and the Blood Crips, Coyote will be
able to handicap it perfectly."
Somehow I doubted "handicapping" gang wars was
Coyote's purpose in Phoenix, but I said nothing as I pulled
the Kevlar vest on and fastened it snugly over my chest.
"Okay, you are a scout, and trafficking with the Warriors
keeps them happy. Just because you're comfortable
with them, don't expect me to become Heinrich's best
buddy."
"Hey, splash him for all I care. I've known Enrico Vitale
since childhood, and I don't think he looks good as a
blonde." Rock turned left onto 40th Street and headed
north. "Look, that phone call I made was to another of
Coyote's people. She's a whiz with computers and
pegged your people as Carl Jackson and Billy Harris.
They work for the Wheel of Life ambulance company.
Their unit handled a call to Slymingtown two nights ago."
I smiled grimly as I pulled my T-shirt back on. "How
do we find them?"
Pell let a triumphant grin twist the corners of his mouth
up. "Jytte pulled Jackson's financial files and saw he
spends a lot of time at the Du Drop Inn. He runs an open
tab on his Digital Express card and happens to have
opened one a half hour ago. A mile past Thomas and
we're there."
I nodded. "Excellent."
"Look, when we get there, let me handle things. The
Du is not a bad place."
"No, they obviously cater to only the finest body
snatchers."
"Okay, okay, I can sense this hostility, and I under-
stand it, but work with me. It's mostly a beer and billiards
place, see? The folks there don't react well to violence."
I narrowed my eyes and nodded. "It's your game, but
I want results."
"Good." Pell brought the Elite to a stop in front of what
had started life as a squat triplex about four decades
earlier. At one time I decided it must have gone for a
western motif because of the broken wagon wheel on the
exterior wall and the aged boardwalk leading to the door.
If not for the Harleys chained to the hitching rail, I could
have been on the set of a billion western mesmervids.
As we got out of the car, the heat hit me like a punch.
I tucked my T-shirt and the tails of the vest into my jeans,
then pulled on the shoulder holster. Rock saw me do that
and grimaced, but I ignored him. I retrieved the Krait from
the glove box, checked to see that the safety was still on,
then slid it into the Bianchi holster. Despite the heat, I
shrugged the windbreaker on and let it hide the pistol.
"You won't need that."
"Then I won't use it."
Walking in behind Pell, I saw the bar's interior had not
substantially changed from its early days, and that
included an exchange of atmosphere. The smoke in the
air softened everything, but coiled neon lights doing a
python around rough-hewn pillars and lots of glittering
silver streamers did give the bar back a bit of an edge.
Tiffany lamps advertising beers no one had heard of in a
quarter century provided the light for three pool tables
over in the far corner. I drifted toward them, remaining in
the shadows as much as possible, while Rock crossed to
the long bar and spoke to the bartender.
Most of the clientele hovered somewhere between
blue-collar workers and white trash looking to cadge
drinks. The waitresses, all two of them, had once been
pretty women, but working here had clearly hammered
any lifejoy out of them. The petite one wheeled and
glared at a man who patted her rump, while the blond
Rubens woman made a great show of bending over and
flashing her cleavage to encourage tips. The drink of
choice looked to be a cut-rate Mexican beer, but shooters
of whisky or tequila also made their way down lots of
throats.
The bartender gave Rock a big shrug about the same
time I heard Gruff-voice groan over the click of balls and
say, "Nobody coulda made that combination."
A guy about an inch or two shorter than me smiled and
answered him. "Wrongo, Billy, I just did."
Something about hearing those voices again let the
terror of my night in the body bag just pour through me.
All of my muscles tightened at once, as if to prove to me
that the toxin could not longer control me. I watched the
two of them for a moment, assessing their every move
and applying it to what I thought was their threat level.
Aside from the pool cues in their hands, I saw nothing to
indicate they would give me trouble, which meant I was
free to make trouble for them.
Deep down inside I hungered to make them as scared
as I had been.
As Jack bent over to lineup another shot, I stepped up
behind him and slapped the butt end of his cue-stick with
the palm of my left hand. He miss-hit a table scratch and
spun around angrily. He started to shout something, then
he saw who I was. His face went ashen. "Jesus Christ."
"You got that half right." I grabbed double handfuls of
his jeans jacket and hoisted him up onto the table. I
perched him on the corner of the table, with his butt right
over the hole. "He returned from the dead, too, but he was
more forgiving than I am."
Gruff-voice started to come around the table, but I
stared him back. "Finding out you're being sold for party
favors can really piss a guy off, Jack. Lucky for you, I can
take a joke." I smiled and Jack aped me while nervous
sweat beaded up on his forehead.
"What do you want?"
I reached over and picked up the 8-ball. "I want you to
think about what I would mean if I called '8-ball in the
corner pocket.'" I pressed the cool ball against his lips.
"You can keep the money you got off the Reapers
because I don't want it, and they won't be asking for a
refund." I let that sink in for a minute, then continued.
"You kept all my stuff, my 'effects.' I want my things
back."
Jack didn't make much sense trying to speak around
the 8-ball, so I pulled it away, yet held it up by his left eye
so he'd remember I still had it. "I don't have your cards
and stuff—I sold that stuff off quick."
I frowned, masking my true feelings. While the iden-
tification and credit cards would have been an easy way
to find out who I was, having them in the hands of others
could be a blessing. With someone out to kill me, and this
Jytte having shown how easy they were to use in tracing
someone, having a whole host of folks using different
cards all over the place was good.
"And my cash?"
"You didn't have much. Only $200, half in dolmarks
and the rest in Lorica scrip."
Dolmarks were coin of the realm, more or less.
Officially the currency in North America was still the
dollar, but their worth generally fluctuated based on the
exchange rate with the Deutschmark, so folks knew they
played the float with any cash they held. Corporate scrip,
on the other hand, was based on the corporation's net
worth and tended to be more stable. Furthermore,
corpscrip could be used at company stores, which
meant it was the hardest currency most folks could get
their hands on.
Generally, though, only corp employees or black
marketeers had that sort of scratch. Did I work forLorica?
"I'll take the cash. What else have you got?"
"Nothin', nothin', honest."
"Nothin' honest kinda sums up our relationship, doesn't
it, Jack?" I looked over at Pell. "Rock, buy this lying remo
a beer because he's going to want to wash this 8-ball
down right quick."
Pell was a quick enough study that he nodded and
ordered one in a loud voice.
"Don't hold out on me, Jack, because I'm in the mood
to run the table, and then I'd have to rack you up. I don't
think you'd like that." I looked up as Gruff-voice again
moved toward me. "Trust me, Ace, he's not that good of
a friend."
"Jack, the wallet. You kept his wallet."
Jack looked like a video preacher who'd gotten a
suspended sentence. "Yeah, I have your wallet. It was
new. I kept it." His hand dived inside his jacket, but I
slapped it away. He looked at me with hurt in his eyes,
then he swallowed hard as he figured out what I had
assumed he was going for.
I let the 8-ball bonk-bounce across the table as I
opened his jacket. Sitting in an interior pocket I found a
wallet that felt more familiar than it looked. I opened it
and started dropping card after card of his from it to the
floor. In the cash compartment I removed everything
except the $200 he said I'd had and tossed it into the air.
I poked around in a couple of other pockets of the thing,
grunted, and slipped it into my back pocket.
"Thanks for the game, Jack." I gave him the coldest
smile I could imagine. "I hope we don't play again
because next time it will be sudden death." Shaking his
hand, I also pulled my watch off his wrist, though I doubt
he noticed the loss for at least a week.
I walked out of the Du without looking back, though I
found myself preternaturally aware of everything hap-
pening behind me. It is difficult to explain, but I felt as if
I could see the fear and awe and suspicion of everyone
in the room. I know I got some of it from the stunned looks
on certain patrons' faces, and other clues from whis-
pered oaths, but there was something more there. I felt
like a shark isolating the signals from a school of badly
scared fish, and what's worse, I found myself viewing
most of them like prey.
Rock remained in the Du for a second or two longer
than I did, no doubt basking in the respect he would get
by being associated with me. I had, after all, spoken to
him and had called him by name. Given the way he
worked, the Du would provide him with both customers
and information. For the foreseeable future, this was one
habitat in which that chameleon would not have to
change colors to blend in.
I, on the other hand, had unconsciously downshifted
into a personality that overpowered the habitat. Walking
in, I had been more than content to have Pell handle the
whole encounter. Had the bartender pointed Jackson
out to him, Pell would have bought the man a beer, spun
a tail about wanting paper on me, and would have
dropped enough of Coyote's dolmarks to buy what I had
extorted. I couldn't tell if I'd acted to embarrass Pell for his
failure in getting the bartender to help, or if I just wanted
to return to Jack a bunch of the fear I'd known when he
sold me. I suspected it was more of the latter than the
former, but seeing the shocked look on Pell's face had felt
good.
Rock left the Du but said nothing until we were sealed
in the Elite's air-conditioned cocoon. "He'd have given
you his wife and his mistress if you'd asked."
"Probably." I pulled the wallet from my hip pocket and
opened it again. I slipped my fingers in behind the piece
of plastic securing the picture and card holder in the
middle of the wallet. I felt a stiff piece of cardboard and
pulled it out. The purple bit of cardboard had a number
printed on it and a serrated edge that told me it had been
torn from a larger piece of cardboard. I flipped it over. "Do
you know where Ernesto's Upstreet is?"
Pell cast a sidelong glance at the valet check I held.
"You were at Ernesto's?"
"Is that a problem?"
"No, just I didn't take you for a snorter. You musta
been there for the games in the back." He gave me a half
grin. "Of course, you could have been there for dinner, I
suppose."
"Do you suppose you know where it is?"
"Yeah, 36th and Indian School, on the second level."
He pursed his lips together. "I'll drive over to a Build-
more access point. That should be good enough to get
us in, though they might only let you go up."
"Let's do it, then."
"Okay. Find anything else useful?"
I nodded. In the cash section of the wallet, stuck to the
inner lip, was a small piece of flexible plastic that had
been sewn into it by the manufacturer. It was designed for
holding spare car keys or house keys, but held neither in
this case. Ripping it up, I slid out a small, flat key with
blocky grooves gnawed out of the lower edge. "Safety
deposit box key. Probably for a hotel, but maybe a bank.
It has a serial number."
"That's interesting." He grinned. "Hidden treasure."
"Maybe." I returned his smile and let Rock daydream
about untold wealth. I sat back and just hoped that the
treasure was the solution to the question, "Who am I?"

The Build-more checkpoint reminded me more of a
secret military facility than it did any sort of urban
subdevelopment. Walls ran from the ground right up
through Frozen Shade above us. Sections of it reminded
me of pictures I'd once seen of the old Berlin wall, with
building fronts as part of the wall with their doors and
windows bricked over. Graffiti decorated the walls in a
few places and tattered handbills in others, but the Build-
more corporate logo predominated.
We tried to enter it at 32nd Street and Camelback but
the Build-more security guards refused to give Rock
access to the drive-up ramp despite his having the valet
ticket and a nice car. "Here, this is the number for my
phone," he said handing me a preprinted card. "You'll
have to go up there yourself and use the Ultra-shuttle to
take you to Ernesto's. When you get your car, head back
here and drive down. If you have trouble, call me."
"Got it." I popped out of the car and shoved my wallet
into my back pocket again. I flashed the valet slip to one
of the guards who had refused us earlier. He took it from
me and, resting his Armalite Stormcloud on his right
shoulder, carefully scrutinized it. He turned from me and
held it under an ultraviolet light. That caused a green
barcode to glow on the face of the ticket and a red laser-
beam flickered across it to read it. Seconds later some
data came up on a small video display.
"Checks." He took a pass from his desk and pushed
it down into his timestamp machine. "This will get you on
the second level, sir. The Ultra-shuttle will be along in 15
minutes or so."
I smiled and accepted both the valet slip and the travel
pass from him. "Thank you."
"Sir, one thing." The guard leaned in close to me. "I
know you execs find playing in the shadows down here
exciting, but I do not recommend it. Every so often, one
of you doesn't make it back, if you know what I mean."
Yeah, 1 have a vague idea. "Thanks for the warning,
Bud. I'll remember it."
He pointed me toward an elevator marked "Tran-
sient," and I stepped into it. In accordance with the verbal
instructions the elevator gave me, I inserted the travel
pass into the slot, and it immediately climbed to the next
level up. The door opened and directed me to the transit
station on my right.
Being 40 feet up gave me a different perspective on
the city. From here I could see the labyrinth of upper level
roads very clearly. They appeared positively deserted
compared to their counterparts below. They also looked
clean and well maintained. They avoided repetition of
the grid pattern used on the streets below, but from what
Rock had said, I gathered they only went to places of
importance, so they did not have to go everywhere.
Looking out over the city, on a level just about 15 feet
above most of the streetlights, I could see a number of
tallish buildings, but they all stopped before they hit
Frozen Shade. They looked like little seedlings languish-
ing in the shadows of the massive corporate citadels.
Looking south I could make out, in the distance, the
Lorica complex and more to the west, the solid wall that
formed the City Center.
Consulting a sign I saw, the circuit that would take me
to Ernesto's had an estimated transit time of 15 minutes.
I stepped over to an autovend newsstand and shoved a
Lincoln into the slot. I mulled over the selection, noting
for the first time that it was the middle of June, and finally
chose a Phoenix Metro magazine. If I'm stuck here, I
might as well know something about the place.
I collected the magazine and the two copper Colum-
bus dollar coins the autovend offered in change. Thumb-
ing through the magazine I recognized a face from a
picture. In a column called "Where Are They Now?" I saw
Hal Garrett surrounded by smiling kids. I read:
When Hal Garrett walked away from a 5.5
million dollar one-year deal, most folks figured
he'd end up in the State Hospital at 24th and
Van Buren. "It was quite a large amount of
money to pass up, but I felt I was past my
prime." Garrett, who had averaged 28 points
per game with the Phoenix Suns the previous
season, appeared to be set to play well into his
40s, so his refusal to play another year stunned
most bystanders.
Garrett, today the CEO of the charitable
Sunburst Foundation, says he misses basket-
ball, but not the big leagues. "When I have a
chance I go down to the park and play with
some of our kids. Sports can be a way out from
living in the Eclipse, but it's for the lucky few.
Our kids have to learn to stop killing each
other, then to get a job, if they want to make life
better for themselves than it was for their
parents."
I gathered from context that the Sunburst Foundation
helped get kids the materials or training necessary to
complete their educations. The article noted that living at
36th Street and Palm Lane was not that far from his
former home in City Center, but that Garrett said he felt
far more at home now than he did during his playing
days. Reading that brought a smile to my lips for reasons
I could not fathom, but I let the smile remain anyway.
The blue and yellow Ultra-shuttle arrived with brakes
squealing. The doors opened, and I stepped aboard. I ran
my pass through the reader beside the driver, and my
destination appeared on a little screen on her right. She
snapped the doors shut and started the vehicle forward
before I found a seat, but I defied inertia and sat without
mishap.
The article about Garrett put some things into per-
spective about this Coyote and his organization. I knew
from Estefan that Coyote had helped him when he
showed up in the city. It seems equally likely that he
noticed Garrett's efforts with Sunburst and created a
liaison so they could share resources and avoid duplica-
tion of effort. Rock Pell, on the other hand, was useful as
a gadfly who could flit between various groups and
gather information. That, in turn, could be used by
Coyote and Garrett to head off trouble.
My piecing together those bits of the puzzle helped
ease my mind. Lurking in the back of my brain had been
the nagging question "Why are they helping me?" The
answer, it seemed to me, was that they were helping me
because I was in trouble. I also suspected that they would
want me to help them in the future. That harkened back
to Estefan's "paying forward" remark. Because they
both helped other unfortunates, I knew I had not been
singled out for special treatment, which dulled my
feelings of paranoia.
In another squealed brake symphony, the Ultra-
shuttle let me off in front of Ernesto's Upstreet. It looked
like a nice restaurant and, if the line of very expensive
automobiles parked along the side was any indication,
one patronized by some of the city's more successful
mid-level management. The building's facade had been
done in faux marble, with smooth Doric columns and a
down-scaled copy of Michelangelo's David, modestly
augmented with a figleaf.
The doorwoman waited with her white-gloved hand
on the door's handle, but I shook my head and walked
over to the valet's station. I handed the ticket to the
pimple-faced kid sitting inside the tiny shack. "It's been
here for the past two days. I was detained."
The kid shrugged his shoulders and set down a comic
book. He flashed the ticket through a reader similar to the
one the Build-more guard had used. "Not a problem, it's
still here. Gonna have to charge you for the storage,
though. $27.50."
I pulled three Reagans from my wallet, and he dutifully
passed the coded end of them through the barcode
reader. "Keep the change," I added.
The kid looked unimpressed, but ran off to get my car
anyway. I glanced at the screen but I could not decipher
any of the coding except where it totaled my charges. I
suspected somewhere in that jumble of numbers and
letters I could have learned a great deal about my life, but
I was blind to it.
I was not blind, however, to the car the kid drove up.
Fire-engine red, the General Dynamic Motors Lancer
looked less like a car than it did a shark cruising for
pedestrians. Sure, it was of domestic make, and prob-
ably had been put together in GDM's west Phoenix plant,
but could smoke the international competition with ease.
I dimly recalled seeing a street sprint evaluation of the
Lancer up against the Mitsubishi-Ferrari Kamikaze that
might as well have been the Battle of Midway II.
The smile on the valet's face came not from the
Reagan I offered him, but from driving the car on the short
run from the parking lot. "I took good care of it."
"And I appreciate it, believe me." I slid in behind the
wheel, and he closed the door behind me. I fastened the
lap belt, but before I did up the double shoulder straps,
I popped open the glove compartment. It was not as large
as the one in Rock's Elite, nor did it have cosmetics, but
it did contain something that was more valuable to me
than gold.
I pulled the rental receipt and unfolded it. Paydirt! I
smiled as I read the car had been rented to Mr. Tycho
Caine. I didn't recognize the name, but I rolled it around
in my mouth a couple of times and it worked okay. Cool
name, cool car. Find out who wants you dead, and you
could be in good shape. I refolded the paper and slipped
it into my windbreaker's pocket.
Locking in the shoulder restraints, I slipped the car into
gear and eased it out onto the road. The Lancer rode as
easy as water gliding across ice. On the upper shot of
32nd Street there was no traffic in front of me, and I felt
sorely tempted to wind the car out. Glancing in the
rearview mirror for Scorpion Security vehicles—which I
realized I could not have identified anyway—I noticed a
Chrysler LeBoeuf pull in behind me and come up fast.
Somewhere in my head a part of me started to
calculate the rough odds of someone coming after me so
immediately. In a metropolis that boasted over 3 million
people, the odds started long, but became short fast. The
last place I was known to have been was at Ernesto's.
Clearly I left there with someone else, or not under my
own power. I was moved down to Slymingtown and left
for dead. If whoever had wanted me dead had looked for
an obit on a John Doe, he would not have seen it. If he
then heard about the problem with the Reapers, he might
set up a stake-out on my car to see if I claimed it.
I felt my heartbeat quicken as I decided I was being
followed by people who knew something about what had
happened to me. The chase made my blood race and my
nostrils flare. I felt the same energetic jolt I had when I
confronted Jackson. The urge to stop my car, pull my
Krait and start shooting nearly overwhelmed me.
At the same time as bloodlust rose up in me, I shunted
those feelings aside. As I made a quick right turn onto
Camelback heading east, I knew there was only one way
to determine if these folks were following me or not. At
36th I took another right and the LeBoeuf stayed right on
my tail. Furthermore the driver decided he'd been spot-
ted, so he hit the accelerator and pulled into the left lane.
A hand with a gun appeared through the driver's side
window.
I tapped the gas and the Lancer's engine roared
loudly. The car lunged forward, and the LeBoeuf surged
ahead to catch up. As I hit the brakes and dropped the
car out of gear, the Chrysler rocketed past me. The
passenger pulled the trigger on his pistol as fast as he
could, but tracking my car while his sailed on was well
nigh impossible.
I yanked up on the hand-brake, immediately kicking
the Lancer into a bootlegger's turn. As the LeBoeuf again
appeared in my rearview mirror, I hit the foot brake,
jammed the car into first and popped the clutch. The
Lancer bucked a bit, forcing me back into the driver's
seat, but it shot off like an arrow. At my first intersection,
I cut right and left the Chrysler behind.
As I entered this narrow side street in the limited
network of roads above the city of Phoenix, I realized that
one important factor in evading pursuit is having a better
knowledge of the battleground than your enemy does. I
clearly did not have this, or I would not have entered a
street marked "Dead End." A hundred yards later, as I
brought the Lancer to full stop just before the roadway
came to a full stop, I wondered if that sign might not have
been prophetic.
The Chrysler filled the street at the far end, offering me
no chance to get around it. Its headlights flashed in
tandem off the guard rails lining the elevated roadway. It
came forward slowly as if a mechanical beast stalking
prey.
I popped my restraining belts and stepped out of the
Lancer. Moving a couple of paces toward the LeBoeuf,
I pulled my Krait and flicked the safety off. Dropping to
one knee, I held the gun in both hands and sighted
carefully.
Something about being under fire causes most folks
to panic. The LeBoeufs passenger, to forestall that
happening, leaned out of his window and aimed back at
me. His first two shots wounded the tarmac to my left. I
returned his fire, and when he flopped limply in the
window with a lot of blood leaking over the rest of the car,
the driver decided I was his.
In his position I could see his thinking. As I discovered
when I shifted over to target him, the LeBoeuf had been
specially fitted with bulletproof glass and puncture-
resistant tires. The body had been armored too, so all I
managed to do was strike sparks from the hood or
spatter lead on the windshield.
The driver hit the gas. I swapped out my spent clip for
a new one and triggered two shots as I stood. The car, its
engine howling demonically, charged straight at me.
The driver corrected as I took one step to my right, lining
me up with his hood ornament. At the last second he
even began to ease off on the gas as he did not want to
sail on into my car and off the upstreet.
I leaped back to the left, barely avoiding the dead
passenger's flailing arms. The driver started to apply the
brakes, but I triggered off three shots that stabbed
through the open passenger window. I don't know where
they hit, but they did, and he lost control of his vehicle.
As I crammed myself up against the guard rail, his
LeBoeuf slammed my driver-side door shut, then started
my car tumbling.
The Lancer rolled perfectly, with fiberglass side panels
shattering and flying off into the air. The windscreen and
rear window both blew out, sending sparklies of glass hail
down into the streetlights' halo below. With a hideous
cracking sound, the Lancer flattened the wooden barri-
cade marking the end of the road and plummeted out of
sight.
The Chrysler, its frame sparking as it scraped over the
edge, careened after my Lancer.
I threw myself to the ground as the fireball from their
final collision lit up the street. Debris pelted me and a
secondary explosion shook the roadway. When I looked
up, little fires burned like votive candles to mark the cars'
passing at the end of the roadway. Flames from below
licked up as if yet hungry for more and, in the distance,
I heard the keening wail of sirens.
I tucked the gun away and jogged along the roadway
until I came to one of the concrete stanchions holding the
roadway up. The concrete relief decorations on it made
climbing down simple enough, and the added light from
where two cars had crushed a chiropractic office and set
it on fire provided all the light I needed to see where I was
going.
I found a 7-Eleven and dropped a copper Columbus
coin in the slot. Fishing Rock's card from my pocket, I
dialed him up. "Rock, this is your mystery man. My car
was a Lancer."
"Was? What happened?"
"Nothing much. Pick me up, and I'll tell you about it."
"How will I find you. Where are you?"
"I'm not sure," I laughed, "but I've set a signal fire. You
can't miss it."
I hung up the phone and found my hands were
shaking. I knew it had to be the physical aftereffects of the
adrenaline rush I'd felt up on the overstreet. As I looked
at the fire burning a block distant I also knew I felt afraid.
A fraction of a second slower and I would have been
jammed between both of those cars. I would have been
roasting in that fire and that realization sent a shiver up
my spine.
I sincerely hoped my shots killed both men before their
car went over.
Scorpion Security cordoned off the area fairly quickly
and their firefighting arm came in and had the blaze
smothered in no time at all. When Rock rolled up, fire
marshals had started picking through the steaming,
foam-covered wreckage. They repeatedly looked at the
half-melted cars, then back up at the upstreet and at the
wreckage again.
"Roger,"Rock said into his carphone as I sat down and
pulled the door shut. He glanced at the flaming wreckage
and winced. "If I ever offered to let you drive one of my
cars, forget it."
A weak smile lightninged across my face. "My name
is Tycho Caine. The Lancer was a rental."
"Glad you know your name." Rock pulled a wide U-
turn in the road and headed us away from the fire. "I
talked to Hal. He heard from Coyote. You're in for a big
palaver with a bunch of us. Coyote has decided your
problem is our problem."

Rock drove me to what looked like an abandoned
executive garden office building. A chainlink fence topped
with concertina wire surrounded the place and had signs
on it that threatened prosecution of trespassers. The
windows facing the street had been boarded up and a
couple of walls had been decorated with graffiti. When
Rock drove up, he punched a code number into a keypad
beside the gate and it rolled back automatically. Once we
were in, it shut again.
Rock took us around back and parked the car in some
covered parking. Using another security code, he let us
in through the back door. Once he made sure the door
had closed, he pulled a nasty little Nambu automatic
from an ankle holster and set it on the table in the
anteroom. He glanced at my holster and I reluctantly did
the same with my Krait.
I followed him into another, larger and more well-lit
conference room with a big table in the middle of it.
"Everyone," Rock announced to the five other people in
the room, "this is Tycho Caine, the man with many
enemies and no memory. Hal Garrett you already know."
I nodded and shook Hal's hand again. "I hope your
meeting went well."
"As well as can be expected."
Rock pointed to a well-dressed Hispanic man. "This is
Alejandro Higuera."
Higuera offered me his hand, and I shook it firmly. He
looked similar enough in build and features to me to have
been Estefan's cousin, but there was a world of difference
between them in culturalization. Alejandro was clean-
shaven except for a thick moustache. His hair had been
professionally styled, and his suit cost easily three times
what Estefan made in a good month. A gold Rolex watch
glinted on his left wrist as he adjusted the knot of his tie,
and a diamond-encrusted ring flashed on his little finger.
"Charmed."
"As am I, Señor Higuera."
Rock pushed on and pointed to an unlikely pair of
individuals in the corner. "These are Natch Feral and
Bat."
Natch Feral, I gathered, was the girl's street name. At
first I thought her sloppily groomed, but then I noticed her
long, kinky hair had been bound and stuffed down the
neck of her leather jacket to make it difficult to grab in a
fight. Her eyes had a hint of almond-shaping to them, but
her hair and cafe-au-lait complexion suggested more
than just oriental blood in her mix. Small and undoubt-
edly quick, she wore fingerless gloves that exposed
daggerish fingernails painted black. Her bright blue eyes
shot old Heinrich's racial heredity theories down in
flames.
Bat, on the other hand, looked like an ancient, square-
jawed socialist hero statue that had come to life. He was
not as tall as Hal Garrett, easily surrendering eight inches
in height to him. On the other hand, Bat had to outweigh
Garrett by at least 25 pounds, tossing him up into the
325+ pound class. From what I could see beneath the
plain white T-shirt he wore and through his short-cut
black hair, that weight had been distributed 90%/10%
between muscles and scars. Bat carried his fists balled,
and I saw thick lines of scars on his knuckles. Whoever
this man was, he had been in a lot of fights and, by the
look of him, he'd won more than his share.
"Hello," I offered.
Natch squinted at me, then grunted. Bat let her answer
serve for him as well.
The next person in line offered me her hand. "Hello, I
am Marit Fisk, Mr. Caine."
I smiled broadly, and I saw reflected in her blue eyes
her pleasure at her effect upon me. "Tycho, please, Ms.
Fisk"
"Then you must call me Marit."
"As you wish." As I took her hand and shook it, I
sensed some anger from Rock. I glanced in his direction
and saw the tightness around his eyes, but I did not care.
If he had a problem with Marit, that was for him to deal
with. I did not know if they were lovers, had been lovers
or, in Rock's dreams, would be lovers, but I could not fault
him for his taste.
Tall for a woman, Marit had broad shoulders that
tapered to a slender waist. Her long black hair covered
her shoulders and went to the middle of her back.
Obviously athletic, she was one of the very few women
who could successfully wear a Spandex bodysuit and not
suffer for her audacity. The two-inch heels on her boots
accentuated the length of her legs. Her smile brightened
a beautiful face and, as she directed it at me, I realized I
had met the woman with whom I wanted to spend the rest
of my life.
From the corner of my eye I caught Natch smiling at
me.
"Where's Jytte?" Rock snarled.
"Right here. I had work to complete."
Something about the woman appearing in the room's
other doorway shocked me. At first glance I would have
called her beautiful. The long locks of golden blond hair
cascaded in waves over her shoulders and nearly reached
her tiny waist. Though the jeans jumper she wore was
hardly stylish, she did belt it in the middle, allowing the
dress to hint at a very appealing body beneath. Her
striped blouse was not quite the height of chic and she
wore it buttoned down at both wrists and up at the throat
as if to hide as much of her bare flesh as possible.
As she stepped forward into the light, I saw what had
set off unconscious warning bells in my head. Her face
had absolutely no animation at all. She looked to be
wearing more of a mask of beauty than the real thing,
though all I saw was her flesh. Her dark eyes did not
match the blond hair or her fair complexion, and while
she was statuesque, she moved with a coltish awkward-
ness that reminded me of the herky-jerky motions of a
manual transmission car driven by someone who's not
yet gotten the hang of the clutch.
I extended my hand to her. "Hello, I am..."
"Tycho Caine, I know." When I looked shocked, her
eyes tightened a millimeter or two. "Rock reported the
crash, and I managed to tap into the Scorpion site
commander's datafeed. Tracing the car tag numbers
and identification numbers got me the rental record. I
have your financial file, and I even have your Digital
Express bill. The Mizuno Sheraton in City Center still has
your room and is racking up charges each day."
Marit rested her right hand on my left shoulder and, in
a husky voice, introduced me. "This is Jytte Ravel. She
is our communications coordinator and, lucky for us,
one of the better computer empaths in the world. It was
probably more difficult for her to hide her tracks than it
was for her to get any of the information she's compiled."
I knew computer empaths were what once had been
simply called hackers. Using an uncanny amount of
intuition and frighteningly competent programming skills,
they were able to burrow into computer networks. Clearly
this Jytte had the run of the city's computers, which
made her very valuable. I gave her an appreciative smile
and acknowledged her skill with a nod.
Jytte seemed to warm up beneath Marit's praise. I
extended my hand to her, and she took it after a
moment's hesitation. Her flesh felt cool to the touch, and
her arm oddly light. She held my hand rather gently, and
we shook once before breaking.
Hal moved to the chair at the head of the table. "Jytte,
any information on the two bodies Tycho here put
down?"
The blond automaton nodded slowly as she took a
seat toward the middle of the table. "I have caused one
to be identified as Tycho Caine, and I sewed enough
discord in that file to keep it that way for a couple of days.
The other is Paul Gray. He was a private investigator who
worked mostly for Lorica Industries. He used a man
named Wallace Griffin on a lot of his contracts, so I
suspect this is who the other body was. The LeBoeuf was
a Lorica fleet car."
I think her face made an attempt to frown as she added
one other point. "Mr. Caine used his own credit card to
secure the rental car, but the bills were going to a Lorica
dummy corporation. Someone on the 101st floor was
picking up some of his bills."
I took a chair opposite Hal, and Marit seated herself at
my right hand. Natch sat across from Jytte, Alejandro sat
next to her and Rock sulked in a chair between Jytte and
Hal. Bat remained in the corner with his massive arms
folded. "Lorica was paying my bills? Why would they put
someone on me, in that case?"
Hal shrugged. "Perhaps whatever you were supposed
to do had a time limit, and you missed your deadline.
Someone might have wanted to take their retainer back
out of your hide." He glanced at Rock. "Anything juicy
going down with Lorica?"
Rock shook his head. "No beheadings at board meet-
ings, if that's what you mean. The Witch has fully
consolidated her power since the takeover two months
ago. Nerys Loring does not look like that much of a
change from her father, Nero, but the way she ousted him
was a work of art. He might have been old, but not that
old. Engineers get a lot of use out of their experience, and
the man who planned Frozen Shade and the maglev
circuit should have had a couple more projects in him."
Natch made a clicking sound with the corner of her
mouth. "Word on the street was that some loyalists
retired Daddy to Casa Vacío real fast. She doesn't know
where he is, and wants him found." She looked at me with
an evil grin. "You good at hide and seek, Caine-man?"
"I don't know." I put my hands flat down on the table.
"So far I've only been good at shooting things and
starting fires."
Everyone grinned except for Bat.
He chuckled.
This did not make me feel good.
Marit patted my hand, then left her fingertips touching
my wrist. "Hal, looks like a double tie back into Lorica to
me. It occurs to me that if we could get Mr. Caine into the
Lorica Industries reception in City Center tomorrow
night, we might be able to shake something loose."
The big man smiled broadly and nodded. "Good idea.
Can we get him in?"
Alejandro nodded confidently. "I have an invitation to
go."
Marit grinned like a predator. "Good, we can make it
a threesome." When Hal's head came up, she added,
"You don't think, Hal dear, they would even try to keep
me out, would you?"
Again Bat chuckled, and Hal shook his head. "No, I
don't suppose they would. Good, your being there will
unsettle things enough that we might get very lucky."
"Jytte, can you alter the Mizuno files enough to move
Mr. Caine to another room if someone checks?"
Jytte nodded an affirmative answer to Marit's ques-
tion. "You will want me to change the door combination
to the room his things are in, correct?"
"Yes. If you do that, we can get his things back." Marit
looked over at Hal. "Depending upon what he has in his
room, we may have to buy him some new clothes for the
reception."
"Go to it, Coyote said he has carte blanche."
Jytte confirmed Hal's statement with a nod. A phone
began to ring in the room she had come from, so she got
up to answer it.
Rock leaned back in his chair. "Okay, sport, after we
get your stuff at the hotel, I know a place we can get some
crush'n duds for you."
"Accent on the dud there." Marit slipped her left hand
through my right arm. "I'll take him to his hotel, then to
buy clothes. This is a party in the clouds, Rock, not some
Eclipse soirée where the highlight is crushing beer cans
on your forehead."
Her remark stung Rock deeply, but before he could
reply to it, Hal cut him off. "She's right, Rock. Besides, I
need you here. I want a full report on what you saw in the
Warriors' warehouse. I got the Blood Crips to hold off
from a major offensive, but I'm going to need you to use
your charm on WAWA and the Zombies." He looked at
the rest of the group. "Keep your eyes and ears open. If
you hear anything odd going down with Lorica, call in to
Jytte. She's coordinating with Coyote for us."
As if summoned by the use of her name, Jytte
reappeared in the doorway. "Mr. Caine, Coyote would
like to speak to you." She held out a solid lump of a black
phone to me.
I took the handset and brought it up to my ear. In the
background I heard a humming sound as if some
electrical device was causing light interference. "Hello?"
"Ah, Mr. Caine, how good to speak with you. You have
been a busy boy since you came to our city."
"Apparently."
"Indeed." He paused for a second, and I realized I
found his voice a touch mechanical. No doubt machine
altered to make it difficult to identify. "Mr. Caine, my
people and I will do all we can to solve the mystery of your
identity. I know we will succeed, but I have one thing to
ask in return."
I smiled. "Paying forward, you mean."
"Precisely." I heard a bit of laughter in his voice. "I'm
glad you are so quick because, you see, one of the people
in the room with you is a traitor. I would like you identify
and deal with him before he succeeds in killing you."

Strapped into Marit's GDM Ariel, I remained silent as
she sliced through traffic on the Squaw Peak Parkway.
She drove quite well for someone bent on doubling the
speed limit, and the low sports coupe clung to the
roadway as if its wheels were made of Velcro. The
roadway itself went up and down like a rollercoaster,
providing me an occasional glimpse of upstreet facilities
from a downstreet roadway.
I kept a smile on my face so Marit would view my
silence as mute approval of her driving, but I also used
it to hide my confusion as I mulled over what Coyote had
told me. I had only just met his people, and I was coming
to trust them, when he sent a cruise missile through my
confidence window. Immediately I began putting each of
his aides into a box and examining them for motives.
The basic problem I had, of course, was that I did not
know enough about them to start making any judg-
ments. Rock Pell was easy to put on the list as the top
candidate because he could have used his car phone to
alert Lorica that I was going after my car. Then again, I'd
already rationalized a workable explanation for why they
were waiting, so the only mark against Pell was that I
found him self-centered and uncaring, but if that was a
capital crime, I'd run out of bullets long before dispensing
justice to all who deserved it.
Coyote had not said how he wanted the situation dealt
with, but I had no doubt he expected me to kill that
individual. Oddly enough, that didn't cause me any
problem, which helped convince me I was a trouble-
shooter that corps brought in to deal with problems. I just
found myself hoping I could uncover the traitor before he
or she got a chance to do me. I also hoped Coyote's
problem wasn't bigger than he imagined, because a
second or third traitor in the group would severely
confuse any effort to find one of them.
"Cover your eyes," Marit directed me.
"What?"
"Cover your eyes, we're leaving Eclipse." Marit sig-
naled and pulled the Ariel into the right exit lane. Above
us I saw a sign announce: "You are entering City Center.
Unauthorized vehicles are subject to confiscation ,and
the owners will be prosecuted."
"City fathers have no sense of humor, eh?"
"No." She hit the gas as the car started up a steep
incline. "For nearly 20 years they did everything they
could, from having festivals to sponsoring a Grand Prix
to get folks to come to downtown. The harder they
worked to get folks down here, the more folks went out
to the hinterlands to watch ostrich festivals and medieval
fairs. It was only when they restricted access to the sort
of uppercrust clientele they wanted anyway did the rush
to rediscover City Center begin."
"Forbidden fruit?"
"Exactly, now cover your eyes."
I got my right hand up just in time as her car nosed its
way over the peak of the incline and into daylight. The
sunlight hurt my eyes at first, but they quickly adapted,
and I lowered my hand. "My God, that's beautiful."
"From Tartarus to Olympus we are bound."
City Center looked like a shining crystalline city of the
future that had risen through a glossy black ocean. The
base of the urban island spread across the western
horizon for almost five miles and extended upward for
about five stories. A dozen towers stood like mountains
above that, with three extending over 100 stories into the
air. Copper trim and rosy marble blended with mirrored
silver towers to create a jewel of a city floating in the
photovoltaic sea.
Off to the right I saw the gray supports for what looked
to be a magnetic levitation train line running into City
Center at the southern edge. I looked back along the line
and saw two more smaller man-made islands to the
south. "What are the little ones?"
"Directly south is the Sumitomo-Dial citadel and back
southeast is the Honeywell & Koch complex. One maglev
circuit connects all seven of the satellite citadels with
each other, while others connect them with City Center.
If you live in the towers, your feet never have to touch the
ground."
The roadway sloped back down, and I saw it ran
straight into the middle of the island approximately eight
stories above the Frozen Shade. We passed through the
mirrored glass walls, and I suddenly found myself inside
what could have been seen as a massive mall. Above
me, covered walkways and peoplemovers crisscrossed
the sky to move bodies from one tower to another.
Below, descending for another two very tall stories,
escalators took people to an incredible labyrinth of white
marble corridors and stores of every description pos-
sible.
Marit pulled off the roadway at a valet parking area.
We both got out, and a fresh-faced kid got into the Ariel.
He handed her a ticket and she tipped him $5. As we
stepped up on to the curb, he headed the car down a
narrow roadway that led to a tunnel.
"Where's he taking your car?"
Marit slipped her left hand through my right arm.
"We're currently four levels above Frozen Shade, which
is roughly 18 stories above the ground. Level Five, the
one just at Frozen Shade is a vast parking area. When we
get set to leave, they will bring the car to whichever road
exit we have chosen."
I frowned as we walked forward and got on an
escalator going down. "City Center is a rather big place.
How do we get around without a car?"
"All around the outside of Level Six, and at crossing
points on Level Seven, shuttle-coaches will take us
wherever we need go to." With her free hand she pointed
diagonally across the wide plaza. "The Mizuno Sheraton's
lobby is on Level Seven, otherwise we would take an
elevator down to Six and go around."
"Let me see if I have this straight: Level Five is a
parking garage and Level Six has a train."
"A train and shops. Down there are mostly depart-
ment stores like Comrade Montgomery Ward or book-
stores, newsstands and drugstores. Anyone can go
down there, and that's where we have theaters, arcades
and restaurants that are best suited to kids. Level Seven
has some fine restaurants and some of the finer specialty
stores. Mostly European or top-of-the-line Latin prod-
ucts available there. Level Seven even has the new
Mercado, which looks just like a Mexican Village. It's
delightful, you'll love it."
As she spoke and we slowly ascended through Levels
Eight and Nine, I saw some familiar store names. Clearly
prices escalated as one ascended in levels, as did items
of quality. Level Eight might as well have been sliced out
of Tokyo and flown over. Level Nine seemed to cover
most of the German manufacturers and some of the very
best American companies, with the latter's stock in trade
being fine weapons.
"If access is restricted, who gets in?"
Marit gave my arm a reassuring little squeeze. "Those
who work in the shops and the offices here take up Levels
One through Four. They seldom spend time outside
work above Level Six, but they are allowed. Many folks,
I am told, celebrate anniversaries or special occasions by
attending functions up here. The executives or career
folks live in the various towers—offices tend to start at
Level 15 and work up. The ultra-rich, like Nerys Loring,
live above the clouds. Folks between her and the normal
working folks also live out in Paradise Valley, if they can
afford it, and commute in. Eclipsers cannot enter City
Center on their own, but they can come here as guests."
"So that means seldom, if ever."
"'Cept when they look like you," Marit grinned.
We left the escalator and started walking through the
crowds toward the Mizuno Sheraton. It did not look
familiar to me, but then nothing had, so that was not a big
shock. The crowds were not that big, but it was easy to
see, from the gawking and pointing, who were the
untermenschen who had come up to see City Center and
who were the folks who spent too much time here to be
impressed. Despite the fact that they looked clean and
well-fed, I felt a certain pity for them. They seemed less
people than hamsters trained to wander through a maze
to amuse their master.
At one point in the big mezzanine, I saw a whole city
park that had been transplanted upward. A cute little
white picket fence bordered it, and toy boats floated
across a central pond. Nannies in uniforms watched little
boys and girls playing ball or using the swing-set. The
children all wore very fine clothing, with shorts, knee-
socks and white shirts predominating among the boys
and frilly dresses, gloves and bonnets among the girls. I
looked around for a sign to indicate this was some sort
of play or costume drama, but every indication I saw
suggested what I was looking at was real.
"Do people actually make their kids dress like that to
play in this oversized terrarium?"
Marit nodded solemnly. "Burton Barr Park is only for
those who can afford it. They want their children to have
the best of everything. You're looking at a breeding
ground for the people who will someday control City
Center and the corpvils surrounding it."
When we finally arrived, two young women greeted us
at the hotel doorway. We smiled politely, and Marit
laughed as one girl whispered her name to the other.
Without pausing, we swept through the lobby, and Marit
directed me to the correct bank of elevators. Having
gotten the information on my room from Jytte while I
spoke with Coyote, she led the way on our quest.
"Four-three-three-seven," she breathed as she
punched the combination into my door. The red LED
shifted to green, and the door clicked open. She waited
for me go through the doorway first, and I obliged her. I
hoped against hope that something in the room would
seem familiar enough that it would spark my memory.
No such luck.
The room had a west-facing window in it, which gave
us a breathtaking view of the setting sun, but other than
that it was unremarkable. It was, after all, a hotel room
and allowed no room for personalization. Moreover,
aside from some change in an ashtray, it hardly looked
as if I had been here at all.
I sighed audibly. "Time for a careful, methodical
search."
Marit agreed with a nod. "I'll start with your closet."
She opened the door and whistled appreciatively. "You
have good taste. Italian, I think, for the suits. The shoes
are definitely Bucci Imports."
I smiled as I opened a dresser drawer. There I saw four
pairs of jockey shorts all folded neatly. Beside them were
four pairs of colored socks, likewise neatly folded in the
middle. The next drawer down had four shirts. Three
were white and the other was a light blue. Each looked
freshly laundered and well starched.
"This is odd." Marit had taken one of the suit jackets
from the hanger, leaving the pants hanging over the
hanger crossbar.
The jacket looked like a normal black, double-breasted
jacket with dark buttons on the front and sleeves.
"What's wrong?"
Marit frowned and pouted delectably with her lower
lip. "I know this is an Armando suit—one of the last photo
shoots I did had a man modeling this design."
"And?"
"This one has no tags." She opened the jacket so I
could see the lining. "The designer label, washing in-
structions and size tags have been cut out."
I glanced back at the shirts in the second drawer.
"Same thing here. Do you think that suit has been worn?"
"Perhaps, but not folded up in a suit bag—no way."
I crossed to the bathroom and flicked the light on.
Arrayed neatly on the counter I saw a shaving kit that
purportedly belonged to me. The toothpaste tube had
maybe one squeeze gone from it. The toothbrush looked
new, as did the blade in the razor. The can of shaving gel
might as well have been brand new. The bottle of aspirin
had not, in fact, been opened.
Returning to the room puzzled, I saw Marit had shifted
from the closet to my dresser. She'd opened the other top
drawer and had appropriated the sunglasses therein.
"Serengeti Vermillions, very nice. Christian Dior sweater,
an Iceberg sweater and a nice set of gold cufflinks set with
a diamond. Whoever bought these things for you has
good taste, and was probably getting a kick-back from
the merchants."
I shook my head. "I don't follow you."
Marit lifted up the sweater that, while it had no labels,
I trusted to be made for Christian Dior. "This is your size,
and even a style that would look good on you, but this
powder yellow is not your color. You have such gorgeous
green eyes and strong features that you'd not want a soft
color like this. And the cufflinks—none of your shirts
have french cuffs. I suspect the buyer got a gift in
exchange for taking them off the merchant's hands."
"What are you saying?"
"What I'm saying, my sweet, is that this might have
been your room, and you might actually have stayed
here, but this stuff was in here and waiting for you when
you arrived."
I glanced back at the closet. "Even the suit bag and
suitcase there?"
She smiled. "Not even the remnant of an airline
baggage stub on them." She shrugged. "If this room has
any secrets, they're going the be the devil's own to
unlock."
"Unlock." I slammed the heel of my right hand against
my forehead. I reached for my wallet and fished out the
safety deposit box key. "Maybe the secrets are locked
away in their vault.
With the key in hand, getting whatever treasure I had
locked away in the vault was not a problem. A perky
young woman at the concierge desk required me to sign
my name on the signature card they had given me when
I put things into the vault. I found it very easy to forge my
own signature. Satisfied, the girl took the key and
returned from the back with an aluminum attaché case.
I thanked her, then Marit and I walked through the
hotel lobby. Before we stepped out into the central mall
area, I excused myself and retreated to the nearest men's
room. I checked the stalls, then chose the last one and
locked myself in. Seating myself as comfortably as
possible, I pulled the case into my lap.
The case had two latches, each with a three-digit
combination. Looking at it I realized I had no idea what
the correct combination was, and I did not think I had
time to experiment with all the various possibilities. Most
folks, when setting such a combination, will chose a
number or date significant to them so they would not
forget it, but I'd forgotten who I was, so that was of no use
to me.
I knew, from everything I had seen in my unconscious
activities, that I was a very methodical person. The lack
of memories did not destroy my underlying personality.
I still functioned the way I normally would, but I did not
know who I was. I needed to let myself run on autopilot
to figure out the combination.
Given the way I reacted to things, I doubted sincerely
I would have opted for a personal date or significant
number. That would be easy to crack if someone got a
line on me. Chances were I used a random selection of
numbers when setting the combination. If I did that, I
either memorized the result, or had a gimmick for
remembering it.
Mnemonic tricks are an interesting phenomena. Roy
G. Biv is one that recalls the different colors in visible light
by grouping their first initials: red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo and violet. I knew I remembered the differ-
ence between port and starboard because port and left
have the same number of letters in the English language.
I knew that whatever mnemonic trick I used, it would be
something simple, like the left/port examples and just as
constant.
Staring at the combination, a possible solution struck
me. Down and even have the same number of letters. If,
in locking the case, I took the correct combination and
moved all the even numbers down one position, then
moved all the odd numbers up one position, the mne-
monic would likewise solve for the combination. As long
as I tested that down-even/up-odd theory using odd
numbers for position changes, the formula would re-
verse itself.
Smiling, I set to work. Somewhere, in the back of my
mind, I worked out that the key number had to be 1.
Tycho Caine has 10 letters in it, which reduced to 1 when
you add the two digits. Keying things to my name worked
well because, except in weird circumstances, no one
forgets his name.
And, if you are careful about picking an alias, you can
vary your security procedure on each job.
That thought hit me like a slug right between the eyes.
Maybe I'm not Tycho Caine after all.
I applied my thumbs to the latch buttons, and the case
popped open. I carefully lifted the lid and chewed my
lower lip. No wonder the Krait felt so comfortable.
Inside, nestled in a bed of black foam I saw a number
of things. The first was a Colt Krait. The only difference
between it and the gun I wore in my shoulder holster was
that this automatic was blued-steel, not bright, and a
florescent orange pip marked the front sight. It was
loaded and ready for action, with two spare clips in a
foam cut-out by the grip.
Above and around it I saw all the pieces of an Armalite
M-27 "Keyholer" sniper rifle. It fired a copper-jacketed
7.62 NATO round, and I had three clips of 30 bullets each
and one small clip of five bullets that looked to have been
drilled and patched to make them explosive. The re-
ceiver had been fitted for an Allard Technologies Espion
UV laser scope. Pressing the battery check button in, it
showed it was ready to go and had been sighted out to
750 meters. The rifle, I knew, had a midrange trajectory
variable of +2-inch at the sight's focal distance, but could
hit a target at a klick and a half if the shooter was good
enough.
Somehow I knew I was good enough.
Aside from the weaponry I found four stacks of $100
bills bound in 10 meg packets. I slipped one of them into
my pocket. Another small hole in the foam yielded 10
gold eagle coins, each worth approximately 600 dolmarks
in a bank, or roughly double that on the black market.
Lastly, a slit in the foam produced a passport and driver's
license for me in Tycho Caine's name.
I carefully closed the case and reset the combination
as per the mnemonic.
Marit smiled sweetly as I rejoined her. "Did you learn
anything?"
"I think so." I slipped on the Serengeti sunglasses from
my room. "I am Tycho Caine. And as nearly as I can tell,
I'm not in Phoenix for my health, nor anyone else's, for
that matter."

"So you're not a doctor? So much for my mother's
dreams of me marrying one." Marit again took my arm
and led me from the Mizuno Sheraton. "What is it you
would say you do, exactly?"
"I don't know, exactly. I appear to be a troubleshooter
who specializes in retirement." I let my reluctance to
discuss the matter bleed into my voice. "I am, however,
now well financed. Given that packing up and formally
checking out of the hotel would likely set off some alarms
somewhere, I will need some new clothing and other
essentials."
"And you need something for the reception tomorrow
night."
"In fact, I do." I pointed out into the tree-lined mall area
with the case. "Please lead on."
Marit had not struck me as the type who would shy
away from shopping. We ascended to Level Eight and
started wandering the broad walkway encircling the
open mall area. Marit laughed and pointed to various
window displays. She paused for a moment or two to
study a rainbow collection of sequin-studded shoes, then
pulled me in the direction of another store. "If I look too
long, I'll just have to buy a pair. I can no more resist them
than someone else could resist a puppy in a pet store
window. Here we are."
I glanced up at the sign and read the kana symbols.
"You have to be kidding."
She frowned. "No, The Gentleman's Wardrobe is
probably the best men's clothing store and haberdash-
ery in City Center."
I read the English name of the store for the first time
as she said it and laughed. "Do you know what the
Japanese name for this place is?"
"No."
"Dansei no ningen. That means 'virile man.'"
"Trust me," she giggled, "you can pass."
"You know how to flatter me."
The men working in the store recognized Marit almost
immediately and, when assured I was her friend, they
became very attentive. Roger, a man I would have
guessed as being a year or two younger than me and of
a similar slender build, whipped a tape measure from
around his neck and set to work. As he figured dimen-
sions, he announced them to one of two aides standing
behind him, pen pointed and pad ready.
"Will Caine-san require just a suit, or are we looking for
a whole change of image here?"
Marit smiled coyly. "Mr. Caine wishes a complete
wardrobe. Good looking, but a bit conservative. He will
require formal wear for the reception tomorrow, two
business suits and four days of casual wear. He'll also
need underwear, socks, and a full shaving kit."
"Understood, Ms. Fisk." Roger stood and lifted my
arms away from my sides. He looped the tape measure
around my chest. "And should we account for both the
shoulder holster and bulletproof vest, or just one of
them?"
" Just the vest, I think, Roger," I replied. He grinned as
I added, "Conservative on all the clothing except, per-
haps, what I will wear to the reception tomorrow. I want
to make an impression."
Roger rolled his eyes to heaven. "If you are with Ms.
Fisk, you will. Still, I think we can accommodate you. "He
turned from me and started giving numbers to his
assistants. One of them scurried off to gather up the
items he had ordered, while the other continued to
faithfully record everything Roger said. At the end Roger
took the pad and pen from his aide and dispatched him
with a wave.
Roger flipped the page on the pad over and squinted
at me. He sketched something on the paper, frowned,
then added heavier lines. He looked at me again, made
one last adjustment on his picture, then smiled and
showed it to me. "Here, what do you think of this? It has
traditional elements and will be in style, yet is different
enough to get you noticed. You'll also note, cut this way,
we could easily conceal the holster if you still wish to use
it."
I studied the drawing for a moment, then smiled. "And
you can have this ready for tomorrow night?"
"You'll know it was a rush job only by the price you
pay." Roger raised his left eyebrow. "The boy-mayor
may have to attend in last year's suit, but no one notices
him anyway."
"You do very good work, Roger."
"So kind of you to say so, sir."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the $10,000
stack of bills. I saved ten of the Trumans for myself and
handed him $9000. "Let's put this on account. You have
my measurements, and you can do custom work. Tip
your staff generously for their help. I will have more for
you to do."
Pocketing the meg, I turned to Marit. "If you're hungry,
we can get something to eat, then pick up the off-the-
shelf stuff later."
She shook her head. "Roger, just have it delivered to
my apartment. We can get it there, later."
"Very good, Ms. Fisk. Mr. Caine, it has been a plea-
sure."
"Nine meg poorer and nothing to show for it," I
laughed as we walked away from The Gentleman's
Wardrobe.
"You can trust Roger. He'll gouge you on the price of
the suits, but he's honest otherwise." She looked out
across the vast open gulf between one half of the mall and
the other. "Do you like Japanese food?"
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Feeling adventurous?"
"Marit, I've been living an adventure for the last 36
hours. I've been shot at, chased, and nearly dissected.
What could a restaurant offer that could worry me?"
Without answering me she pointed to a restaurant a
quarter of the way around the mall from our present
position. "Osome, you'll love it. C'mon."
I offered her my elbow, and we set off. "I have this
impression, Marit, from the hotel and the store staff, that
you have a bit higher profile than most of the other people
I met today. Am I correct, or has my amnesia begun to
slop over into my reasoning?"
"I'm more notorious than I am famous, I am afraid."
Her right hand swept up over her head as she tucked hair
behind her left ear. "There was a time when I would not
have been allowed access to City Center—just like
everyone you met today except for Alejandro and,
maybe, Hal. Like the others I grew up a Mike..."
"Mike?"
"Ah, bureaucratspeak. Marginal Income, Knowledge
Exiguous, Sterile. MIKES was a classification used by
United Nations bureaucrats to classify various popula-
tions in the newly freed Eastern Europe in the 1990s.
They were the ones that were judged to be able to
maintain a minimal existence without government hand-
outs, yet their chances for advancement in the society
were seen as non-existent. The term has bled over into
popular use." She looked toward the people crowding
City Center. "To the folks here it retains its original
meaning and is something you threaten young, misbe-
having children with becoming. The folks in Eclipse, on
the other hand, cling to it defiantly. Every time something
in their lives improves, they've beaten the margin and
take pride in the victory."
We arrived at the restaurant and removed our shoes
at the door. After we put on slippers, we were taken to a
low table by a Japanese woman in traditional dress. The
tables were cunningly arranged over a pit into which
people could put their legs if they could not tolerate
kneeling throughout dinner. I put my case down in the leg
well and knelt.
Marit watched me and pouted slightly. "Now we can't
play footsie."
I smiled, but shook my head. "Very poor manners in
a fine restaurant like this. You're a big girl, you should be
able to behave yourself for a little while."
"A little while, perhaps. I'll just save it up."
The waitress came, and we ordered sushi a la carte.
Marit also ordered a whisky sour, but I refrained from
getting a drink. "Marit, you were saying you grew up a
Mike?" I kept my voice low as I asked the question.
She nodded. "My parents owned a small store at Oak
and 36th Street. That's fairly near the Lorica Citadel, so
we got some traffic from the Proles working for them. I
made it through high school, then someone mentioned
that Lorica was hiring candidates for their security forces.
I applied and, because of some complicated quota
formula put together by Nerys Loring, I was accepted as
a cadet. I trained and, after six months, was put on the
force. That was five years ago."
"How did they train you?"
"Weapons training, both handguns and long guns,
unarmed combat, antiterrorist tactics and crowd control.
We also took courses in proper manners for parties, how
to be discrete, and some very basic detective skills. For
the most part we were trained to be seen but not heard,
to protect our execs and keep folks from unauthorized
access to the citadel."
"Interesting." As she spoke I cataloged information on
the potential threat level of opposition at Lorica. "Still,
that's not the sort of duty that's likely to make you
infamous."
She smiled shyly but her blue eyes sparked mischie-
vously through a thin veil of black hair. "No, no, it isn't.
I had been with the security force for just over a year when
Lorica decided it needed a corporate video to instruct
their executives how to act in various security situations.
At times the gang wars in Eclipse threaten the citadels,
so we wanted our people to know what to do in that sort
of emergency. I was picked to be one of the security
people in the video."
She fell silent as the waitress brought our food and her
drink. Marit broke apart her chopsticks and rubbed them
together to get rid of splinters. I aped her, unknowing if
I knew how to use them. As I tried to imitate the way she
held them, the chopsticks dropped perfectly into place
in my right hand. I picked a single grain of rice from my
plate and ate it.
Marit nodded her appreciation of my dexterity, then
continued. "Back in those days, I was not much to look
at. My mother belonged to a rather repressive church, so
cosmetics and clothes like these were seen as the devil's
tools. I guess I'd grown up figuring that I'd meet my Prince
Charming when he off-loaded beer flats into my father's
store, so I never set about dolling myself up as bait."
"So Cinderella awaited the cinematic fairy godmother's
touch?"
She smiled. "Ugly Duckling tale from beginning to
end. When they got through with me, I couldn't recognize
myself in the mirror. All of a sudden I looked beautiful. In
shock, I think, I did everything I was told to do on the set
and the video became a hit within Lorica. I'm told copies
have even showed up in rental shops under 'Action/
Adventure—Do It Yourself' headings.
"That video brought me to the attention of the market-
ing department in Lorica. All of a sudden I found myself
shucked out of flak-suits and stuffed into slinky gowns so
I could 'smile and point at the product.' An agent found
me, and I signed a modeling contract, though Lorica
hired me exclusively. Suddenly I found myself one of the
Nomenklatura."
"A gnome."I spread some wasabeon tekka-maki and
smiled. "Such success leads me to find your spending
time in Eclipse rather odd."
"Oh, the first year was wonderful. I moved my parents
into the Lorica Citadel, and I bought a place of my own.
I traveled, I attended parties and even had a couple of bit
parts in films shot in Hollyweird. I was on top of the world.
I had just turned 20, and I was definitely an enfant
terrible." She sipped some green tea. "As they say, 'Pride
goeth before a fall.'"
"Actually, it's 'Pride goeth before destruction, and an
haughty spirit before a fall.' Proverbs 16:18."
My correcting her brought her head up. "You are rather
amazing, Mr. Caine." She smiled. "Of course, with that
name, why should I be surprised at your quoting the
Bible."
Why, indeed? A man with a killer's name and an
assassin's rifle quoting the Bible. Is that irony, or some
inside joke I missed until noow?" So, how far did you fall?
From enfant terrible to enfant perdu ?"
"Not quite that badly, I think. A highly placed Lorica
executive decided that since Lorica owned my contract,
they owned me. When he tried to press his claim, he
discovered that Lorica's security training is very effec-
tive. I broke his perfect smile and severely dented his self-
image. His wife made his life a living hell after that and
her mother, a substantial stockholder, made Lorica get
rid of me. News of a scandal was leaked to the tabloids,
and they managed to wedge it onto the front pages
between stories about UFO baby-eaters and a man who
impregnated his grandmother to give his father the
brother he never had."
"That sounds horrible."
"It was, for a while. My agent got me some work in
Japan, so I lived over there for a year. When I returned
here everything seemed smoothed over, but there were
still ripples. Through friends of a friend I met Rock and
bought a handgun. Rock introduced me into Coyote's
circle and I, in turn, was able to get a number of people
to patronize Alejandro's gallery down on Seven. It's part
of the Mercado."
"I would like to see it at some point." I reached across
the table and caressed her left hand. "So, for the past two
years, you have given Coyote entré into the City Center
society."
"More or less. Coyote does not have me introduce him
to people. I've only met him twice—and that's if you care
to define meeting as talking to a shadow in the middle of
a dark warehouse. Most often I get instructions through
Jytte or by phone, just like you did today. Coyote
generally describes a problem to me and asks if I think
there is a gnome who would be willing to help with it."
"Gnomes would help with a problem in Eclipse?"
"Sure, if it's presented to them in the right way." She
dipped the tip of her index finger in her drink, then licked
the liquid off. "Most gnomes are good people, but they
are very wrapped up in their lives and careers. With some
you appeal to their sense of fairness, especially if you
know of a parallel from their own life where they could
have used some help. Others get caught up in the
delicious danger of dealing with someone from Eclipse.
Others act because they want to exact revenge on
someone in City Center and the best way they can hurt
them is to screw up some sort of power play going down
in Eclipse."
Marit smiled impishly. "I just do my job and collect
information, rumors and lies that I funnel to Coyote.
Then, when he needs me to do something, I do it."
"Like help me?"
"Exactly."
I squeezed her hand. "Jytte seems rather different.
What is her story?"
Marit shrugged uncomfortably. "Jytte is very private,
but she has told me something. Do you mind if I don't
violate her confidence?"
I shook my head. "I'd be upset if you did. I just want to
put her into perspective. She's clearly had body aug-
mentation surgery. I gather it did not go well."
Marit took a sip from her drink. "Every so often you
hear rumors about someone or something that gets
tagged with the name Pygmalion."
"Like the sculptor from Greek mythology."
"Right. It's said he likes bringing beauty to life. He
kidnaps people who are not beautiful and changes them.
I think this would be a good thing, if he actually asked
the people he worked on if they minded."
I nodded. "From the job done on Jytte, this Pygmalion
could make a great deal of money with his skills."
"Ah, but that would necessitate two things: his doing
what the client wants and his willingness to let his clients
leave. Jytte escaped and, in the process, has blanked out
much of what she endured at his hands. She has no idea
who Pygmalion is. There are other times when a beautiful
corpse gets dumped in Drac City or Boxton and Eclipsers
just assume it is one of Pygmalion's failures. Most of
those are suicides. I guess some folks can't stand being
made pets."
"I can't blame them."
"Nor can I." Marit smiled. "Jytte is slowly coming to
terms with herself, but she feels much more at home with
her machines. I can't remember when I last saw her
outside the meeting place."
We spent the rest of the meal eating in relative silence
because the tables filled up around us. In many ways I
think we would have run out of things to talk about
anyway because Marit was better at getting information
out of people than she was sharing it. Despite her having
been open about what had happened to her, she had
been detail-vague, so that I would have had to work hard
to attach names with people. I suspected that might be
a natural defense mechanism, especially after having
been up so far and then having fallen so low, but I also felt
Coyote would have encouraged that tendency in her.
Of course, had the discussion turned to me, it would
have ended soon enough. So far in the day I had
discovered I could read Japanese, could quote the Bible
and had excellent taste in weapons of individual destruc-
tion. I doubted those revelations would have made for
good table conversation. That went double for my
excursion with the Reapers.
I paid the bill and tipped well, but left the money on
Marit's side of the table so the waitress would remember
her and not the boy-toy escort she'd had. Marit noticed
what I had done and laughed loudly enough to draw
attention to herself, and that triggered a host of whispers
that covered me with anonymity as we left the restaurant.
Marit led me all the way around the mall to the elevator
bays between the Goddard Towers. One stood not as tall
as the other and she, naturally, pressed the button for the
larger, grander of the pair. "Where are we going now?"
"You'll see."
A bit uneasy about venturing off to a mystery destina-
tion, I let myself take solace in the fact that in the
briefcase I had enough hardware to hold off almost
anything this side of a heavy weapons squad of security
guards. As the elevator doors closed, Marit inserted a
coded card into a slot on the wall.
"27th floor selected. Thank you, Ms. Fisk," the eleva-
tor intoned.
"Cute."
She smiled. "It gets better."
She was right. The elevator took off swiftly enough to
put a bend in my knees. "Thanks for the warning."
"De nada."
As we reached the 27th floor, the back of the elevator
opened, and we stepped into another box. Marit pushed
the "Close Door" button. The cage shut itself up, then
sent us hurtling along sideways. It eventually slowed and
moved to the left before stopping. When it did, the front
of the cage opened up, revealing the foyer of a sprawling
apartment.
"Welcome to my home."
I stepped from the transversor box, and the doors
clicked shut behind me. The foyer, which was easily the
size of Estefan's living room, opened on to a living room
and dining area that could have accommodated his
whole house. The wall I faced, which looked out to the
south, had a full view of the Sumitomo-Dial corporate
citadel and, beyond it, to South Mountain Park. With
nightfall all I could see was the black outline of the
mountain against the stars and the red beacons atop the
broadcasting towers there.
The rooms themselves looked like layouts from a
home decorating magazine. The living room featured
white leather couches and chairs, with glass tables and
track lighting arranged to illuminate the abstract pictures
hanging on the walls. The dining room was a bit more
traditional with a cherry wood table and matching chairs
that were so polished they all but glowed. A hutch and
some smaller wooden pieces contained crystal and
china. A gold and crystal chandelier hung over the
middle of the table, ready to impale the bowl of fruit that
served as a centerpiece.
Marit pointed to the right and the shorter half of her
apartment. "That way is the kitchen. Anything you can
find in there you can eat. I don't really know what I have,
but Juanita and Anna never seem to complain about the
food when they are here during the days."
Pointing off in the other direction she indicated the
doors on the right side of the long paneled hallway.
"Those are the guest bedroom, my office and my media
room. At the end of the hall is the master bedroom. The
doorway on the left is the guest bathroom."
I frowned and set my briefcase by the wall. "I don't see
the things we bought earlier."
Marit thought for a second, then shrugged. "Roger
probably had one of his boys hang the suits in a closet
and put the other clothes away for you. We might have
given Roger the wrong impression." Her smile slowly
grew. "Of course, we do have to figure out where you are
going to stay tonight."
I don't think I'd been making any assumptions, but
that question had never occurred to me. Clearly going
back to the hotel was as potentially dangerous as
retrieving my car—perhaps more so after Paul Gray died
trying to kill me. Similarly, returning to Estefan's home
would be unwise. Not only would it put him in jeopardy,
but it would make me easy to find again. Estefan might
like Coyote and feel that he owed him, but that did not
mean his neighbors had not seen me or could keep their
mouths shut if they had.
"The hotel and Estefan's place are out." I looked down
angrily. "And, without credit cards, all the money in the
world will not get me a hotel room."
Marit shook her head. "You misunderstood me. I
always assumed you would spend the night here. I was
just trying to determine if you would have the guest room
all to yourself or, if, perhaps, you felt adventurous."
I raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean, Ms. Fisk, you
would give me the master bedroom?"
She came to me and slid her hands up over my chest
and around my neck. "I could do that or you can consider
this: You can remember, what, the past 48 hours?"
I brushed her lips with mine. "Approximately."
"And during all that time people have been trying to
kill you?"
"It seems that way."
She slipped my jacket off and let it fall to the floor.
"Then why don't we spend time tonight ensuring that
tomorrow, when you think back on your life, you will
have something to smile about."

Awakening in a dark typhoon, with its deafening winds
shrieking, is not a pleasant experience. I sat bolt upright
in the bed, clawing the sheets with my right hand to find
Marit, but she was gone. Sweat poured off me as if it were
blood and my throat had been cut. I tried to swing my legs
off the bed, but I met resistance. As I looked down I saw
the lower half of my body had been wrapped in a gray silk
cocoon.
When the wind's howls changed from sound so keenly
sharp that it made my teeth buzz to colors no less painful
or vibrant, I realized I was dreaming. Even so, the
knowledge that I was trapped in a dream did not drain the
fantasy of its power. Instead the rainbow winds became
a vortex that focused itself beyond the window looking
east and eclipsed the dawning sun. The whirlwind flashed
with crimson and a neon green, then pulsating, electric
blue tendrils climbed up through it like ivy assaulting a
wall.
I hate dreams and always have because here my mind
creates problems it knows I cannot solve. It confronts me
with situations I would avoid. Like an ancient oracle, it
poses riddles that it calls answers, then leaves me to
agonize over meanings that are trivial at best and drawn
from experiences I do not really remember.
Dreams drain off the mental strain that would drive the
sane mad.
This dream, however, was different, and I recognized
it instantly. While it did not surprise me that I might feel
this dream alien, given its womb was made of memories
I had no way to access, I felt this dream came from
outside. This was not a dream of my making, yet it
imposed itself on me and used the symbolism I would
use. Like a cancer, it masked itself in things I recognized
so I could not escape it.
The sizzling blue tendrils hooked over the vortex's
event horizon as the plane of the dream shifted. I saw the
tentacles thicken as whatever they were attached to
pulled itself up out of the hole that now lay parallel to the
floor. As the thing neared the top, the tentacles lost their
suppleness and hardened into a thin blue outline-chitin
with spikes and bumps and horns kinking its flesh. The
creature itself, to my eyes, became a thing visible only as
a thick, smoky-gray translucence that leeched light from
the sun it eclipsed.
Talons and elbows appeared first, with two arms
becoming four as it heaved its bulk out of the hole. I could
not see its face, but atop its head I saw a crown with seven
spires surrounding one grander tower in the center. I
could not tell if this was something the creature wore, or
was part of it.
One pair of legs appeared, then another to clutch the
edge of the hole. The creature remained perched there
like some arachnoid gargoyle watching me from the roof
of a church. One arm stretched out in my direction, each
segment of exoskeleton telescoping out like an antenna.
Three talons, each set at a 120-degree angle from the
other, reached for me, and I heard the chitin click as they
met and missed barely a millimeter from my nose.
"The pet no longer wishez my carez?" The creature
spoke in scents and colors, but I heard words form in my
brain. "Iz the pet infirm?"
Behind me, suddenly, where nothing could stand or
be, I sensed another presence. When this one spoke, I
actually heard the words with my ears. I wanted to turn
to look at him, but I found myself held even more rigidly
than I had been in the toxin's grasp. This is a dream. Your
body is asleep. Not moving is natural.
Somehow, knowing that, I still panicked.
"So you use the term pet to define slaves?"
The creature looked up and focused beyond me. "If
your power matched your audacity, you might be ztrong
enough make a zlave of me."
"But never a pet, I think."
I felt hands on my shoulders. I moved my head enough
to glance at my right shoulder and there saw a shadow
hand with a golden ring on the appropriate finger. The
ring had a design that looked to be, at first, the Egyptian
Eye of Horus, but it was different as well. Still, the green
eye stared back at me, and my panic began to drain.
The creature again reached for me, but I managed to
jerk back enough to avoid the second swipe. "Do not
interfere with my pet! It belongz to me. Give me what is
mine."
"Your pet belongs to himself. He is not yours, nor is this
place yours. Be gone."
Golden lightning played through the blue outline,
sparking gold from the crown's spikes. The thing reached
back with a hind leg to grasp the far edge of the hole, but
missed, and the whole beast swayed as it fought to regain
its balance. Throwing all four pairs of arms wide, it braced
itself like a huge mechanical crane, but its limbs trembled
with the strain.
"You zmall creaturez zo revel in zuch inzignificant
victoriez." Its voice started to distort as if the creature was
both close and far at the same time. "Yoooouuuur raze
izzzz owwwuuurrrrzzzz to devouuuurrrr aaazzzz we will it."
It looked down at me. "Come ttttoooo mmeee, my pet.
I willlll rewaaarddd your fiiiiideliteeeeee."
"Be gone," repeated my guardian.
"I will come again." The creature struggled against
the vortex, then, like a diver who surrenders to gravity in
the midst of a dive, it straightened its limbs and slipped
from sight. The light at the edge of the hole brightened,
but only because the hole itself started shrinking. I sat up
taller in bed and saw it tightened down from the size of a
truck tunnel to a pinpoint, then it vanished.
Behind me I heard mild laughter. I turned to look, but
only caught a fleeting glimpse of a human silhouette. It
evaporated instantly as the sun's rays poured through
the master bedroom's unshaded window. I glanced back
and felt the light skewer my brain, then my arms
collapsed, and I dove nose first into a pillow.
"Dispénseme, señor."
Squinting I looked toward the corner of the room just
beyond Marit's vanity table. Pretty, despite being a bit
heavy, a woman smiled at me. She wore a gray dress—
a uniform really—that buttoned up the front and had
been trimmed collar and sleeves in white. "Senorita Fisk,
she say to let you sleep, but Señor Garrett will be here in
a half hour to speak with you."
I nodded and rolled over on my back. The cocoon I had
dreamed enfolding the lower portion of body was, in fact,
one of the lavender silk sheets on the bed. It probably
ended up being good that I'd wrapped it around myself
because—despite having triggered the dream—I was
naked beneath it, and it saved me some embarrassment
in this encounter. "Juanita o Anna?"
"Juanita, Senor."
My stomach growled. "What time is it?"
"Noon. Senorita Fisk said to fix you breakfast when
you woke up." Juanita smiled. "I have put fresh towels in
the bathroom for you, and I can make food while you
shower."
"Good. Just a sandwich, I guess."
"Bueno, señor."
"Gracias," I said to her retreating back. I freed myself
from the sheet and wandered into the bathroom. Shut-
ting the door behind me, I saw myself in the triptych
mirrors and realized I'd not shaved for at least three days.
My beard was coming in black and gave my lean face an
edge. Maybe I won't shave it all off.
Unlike Estefan's home, here I did not need to pump
water up to a holding tank. The oval tub was set
diagonally across one corner of the room and was almost
big enough to have given my ill-fated Lancer a good
washing. I stepped in and thought for a moment that I
might need a ladder to climb back out again. Pulling the
curtain shut, I turned the water on and began washing.
Freed of any important tasks, my mind started mull-
ing over the dream I'd had. The only vivid symbol, aside
from the monster, was the strange design on the shadow
man's ring. It had been formed by melding the letter R
with the Eye of Horus design. I could not remember
having seen it before, but it could have been something
floating to the surface from before I lost my memory. I
made a mental note to ask Hal about it.
The presence of the monster and its referring to me as
its "pet" did not really surprise me, especially after Marit
used that term to describe Pygmalion's victims. I was not
in control of my current situation and, in many ways, it
did feel like others were toying with me. The shadow man
was clearly a metaphor for my hidden identity or Coyote.
It seemed obvious to me that the message of the dream
is that with help, I would be able to put all of this behind
me.
I smiled. Dreams are never that simple.
I turned off the water and dried myself off. Using the
electric razor in the shaving kit Roger had sent up, I
removed all of my beard except for a narrow band
running the line of my jaw to my chin and on up as a
moustache. While I knew that would be insufficient to fool
anyone who was hunting for me, I liked how it made me
look.
Back in the bedroom I scouted around and discovered
my clothes had, in fact, been placed in the master
bedroom. I matched a blue button-down shirt with my
jeans and boots. I wore the vest beneath the shirt and
ended up adding a navy blue sweater. Marit kept her
apartment cold.
I found Hal waiting for me in the living room. He stood
and gave me a warm smile. He wore gray sweats with the
Suns logo emblazoned on his chest. "You look better and
better each day. How do you feel?"
"More myself?"
Garrett laughed, then joined me as we walked toward
the dining area. I saw Juanita had set two places and an
open beer stood at each one. "Hope you don't mind.
Juanita offered, and I can't remember ever having turned
down a meal."
I took the place at the end of the table, facing the
windows. "By all means. I'd rather have someone to talk
to while I eat."
Hal sat at my left hand. "Marit is out making some
arrangements for a little problem Coyote has to deal with.
She will be back in a couple of hours to start getting ready
for this evening."
I nodded to Juanita as she set a plate in front of me.
"This problem, it has to do with the Warriors and the
Blood Crips?"
Hal picked up his turkey sandwich and held it in both
hands with his elbows on the table. "The Warriors are
looking to expand their territory or, at the very least,
reclaim some turf they lost two years ago. They are
pushing the BCs east, which is backing people right up
against Lorica. The BCs don't really want the area the
Warriors seem determined to take, so I've been trying to
negotiate a solution. It's tough going."
"I imagine." I crunched a potato chip. "Anything new
in my situation?"
The black man wiped a little mayonnaise from the
corner of his mouth." Jytte says you're still dead as far
as any official sources are concerned. The funds you
gave Roger have been pushed aside into an account
named Uriah Thompson just to keep the fiction of your
death intact. Roger knows, and the change was made
before anything showed up on his computer anyway. We
have even dummied an inquiry from San Francisco from
a relative of yours inquiring about obtaining your re-
mains from the crash."
I thought for a second as he attacked his sandwich
again. "Roger works for Coyote?"
Garrett's eyes hardened a bit as he swallowed. "Coy-
ote helped Roger at one point, same as me, same as all
of us. So, yes, he reported on you to Jytte." Hal glanced
over at where I had left the case I had gotten from the
hotel's safe. "And, no, Marit has not told me what is in the
case, but she did mention you had it so that Jytte could
erase any notice of its having been recovered."
"How did he recruit you?" I lifted my own sandwich to
my mouth and bit down.
Garrett smiled in spite of himself. "One night I got a
phone call. I had been on the fence about retiring from
basketball. I felt the attrition rate on highly paid players
was getting a bit high, and the law of averages and I were
on a collision course. I had already formed the Sunburst
Foundation, but thought I could spend my last year in the
NBA plugging it and get more money to fund it.
"This caller, who was calling on my unlisted home
phone, identified himself as Coyote. I'd never heard of
him before, but he told me that if I decided to play that
season, I would have my left hand broken in the 10th
game of the year. I would come back in time for the drive
to the playoffs, but I would die in a seventh and deciding
game against the Nicks."
"Hmmm." I nibbled at the edge of my sandwich. "In
your shoes, I would have taken him as a madman, or
someone being paid frighten me."
"Oh, he did frighten me, but I knew, just listening to
him, that he was no threat to me." Hall took a pull on his
beer. "Somehow he managed to add my fax number to
an owners' network, and I saw enough stuff coming
through that I knew the season was being scripted in a
way that certain teams would make the playoffs and,
while there would be a winner, their victory would be, at
best, pyrrhic. The sum and total of the season would be
grimly disappointing."
"You opted out."
"Right. I threw myself into the Sunburst Foundation.
Anonymous donations filled up my war chest and now
even the southside gangs will hold off on making war
long enough for me to try to find a more peaceful solution
to their problems." He smiled. "Every so often Coyote
tips me when something really strange is going down, so
I can forestall it. Gang violence is down over 30% from
five years ago."
"Now Heinrich and his boys want to make it a growth
industry again."
"You got the picture."
I thought about the sniper rifle in my case. "If he
becomes an obstacle, let me know."
Hal shook his head. "You and Bat think the same way.
The solution to this situation is figuring out what Heinrich
wants and then figuring out some way to get it to him
without making the other gangs lose face or their tem-
per."
"That is not an easy line to walk, my friend." I picked
a brown chip from among the others. "Some folks will
listen to reason and," I snapped the chip in half, "some
folks need killing."
Hal leaned back in his chair. "That's pretty cold
coming from a man who woke up in a body bag."
"Truer than either one of us wants to know." I reached
out and plucked the pen he had clipped to the collar of
his sweatshirt. Smoothing out my napkin, I drew for him
the symbol I'd seen in my dream. "Do you know what this
is?"
His hand descended on the paper like a giant brown
tarantula and spun it around. "I can't recall seeing it
before. What is it?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, I saw it in a dream. You want
another beer?" He nodded and I called out, "Juanita, dos
cervezas, por favor."
"A lot of people believe in dreams, but not me."
"Why not?"
"Because all I ever see in them are the shots I missed."
Juanita appeared from the kitchen with a beer in each
hand. She set the bottles on the table, then saw the
napkin. "El Espectro!" She quickly crossed herself.
I grabbed the napkin and held it up to her. "You know
this?"
She held her hands out to shield it from her eyes. "Por
favor, Señor, por favor." She turned and fled.
Hal and I exchanged confused glances. "What did she
mean by 'the ghost?'"
Garrett shrugged eloquently. "In Eclipse there have to
be about a billion 'ghosts.' I've heard stories that 'real'
vampires live in Drac City, or that some weird brujo is
waging war against demons and devils on a daily basis.
I've also heard mutant wolves and other monsters roam
the countryside, and after the tinkering with the Palo
Verde Nuclear Plant, who knows. As far as I'm con-
cerned, it's all fiction."
I raised an eyebrow. "Which is what others might say
about Coyote."
"There's a difference with Coyote."
"And that is?"
"He's real. I've seen him, talked to him. I know when
he has gone to war, and I know the people he's helped—
through me or through others. Marit is one, for example,
and Estefan another."
I crumpled the napkin. "You're right. We'll leave
ghosts to fight dreams." I patted my vest. "And I'm
content to let Coyote handle reality."

After we finished lunch, Hal headed back down to the
Mercado on Level Seven to make arrangements with
Alejandro concerning the Lorica reception that evening.
I offered to go with him, but he said no. "You're dead right
now. Jytte says she can keep you in the grave until
tonight, at the very least. Tonight your unanticipated
resurrection might shake some folks, and that will help
us unravel the whole thing."
"Works for me." I shook his hand. "One last thing, has
there been any word on Nero Loring?"
"None."
I didn't let his hand go. "Was Coyote involved in
getting him free of his daughter and corporation?"
Hal tightened his grip a little. "If he was, he did not
involve me in it."
We broke our grip by mutual assent, and Hal retreated
into the transversor. I saw by the red readout of a digital
clock that it was already 1 p.m. I had no idea when Marit
would return or when the reception was, so I wandered
down to her media room, found a remote control and
started a survey of the television landscape.
Television, despite having 178 channels available,
proved more desolate than South Mountain's Desert
Preserve. Aside from premium channels that started
racking up special charges when I flitted across them—
as denoted by the total accumulating in a small LCD
panel down in the corner—the vast majority of stations
were only transmitting in black and white. With a wall-
mounted HDLCD unit from Sony like the one Marit had,
that was the rough equivalent of using a professional
Cuisinart to process dried out dog food. I expected
television to be banal, but having one whole channel
devoted to rebroadcasts of 40-year-old Soviet grain
harvest films was a bit excessive. Still, I did imagine they
looked very good on the Soviet sets that most folks
owned.
The city's public-access channel did provide a bit of
insight into the nature of Phoenix. Programs on it alter-
nated between promotional videos that featured an
incredibly optimistic artist's rendition of what Phoenix
would look like in five years, and utterly bizarre fare in
five- and 10-minute bites that reflected the sharp split
between City Center and Eclipse. Chiropractors and
naturopaths diagnosed problems and offered back ad-
justments for those patients who would press their backs
against the screen. Psychics warned of hideous calami-
ties and conspiracies that no one but they knew about.
Members of every bughouse club from Arizonans for the
Preservation of the Black Scorpion to the Phoenix Skep-
tics did their bit to proselytize their causes, filling the
airwaves with an unending stream of contradictory and
confusing "facts."
"The city could call this channel the good, the bad and
the ugly," I muttered as Heinrich's face appeared on
screen.
His program was called "People of Purity." In it he read
report after report of crimes committed by people of
color while videotape copied from news reports played
in the background. At the end, while a video of him and
his "honor guard" kicking the life out of a black youth
played, he said, "People of Phoenix, come to us. Take
back your city. The phoenix is destined to rise to
greatness from the ashes. Mud people are the ashes of
humanity. Join us, and reclaim your heritage!"
Unconsciously I sighted down my index finger and
brought my thumb forward like the hammer falling on
my Krait. "Some day, Heinrich."
Behind me I heard clapping. I spun around in the
capsule chair and saw Marit standing in the doorway. "I
didn't hear you come in."
"This room is soundproofed. I like your taste in targets.
Getting to know your foe?"
I shrugged. "Hal doesn't think a 180-grain bullet
whizzing along at 3000 or so feet per second would
improve Heinrich's disposition, so no hunting permit." I
turned my left wrist over and looked at my watch. "It's six
now. What time does the party start?
"Depends. "She gathered her hair back into a ponytail
and fastened it with an elastic band. "I'm going to start
getting ready as things officially kick off at 7:30. We
won't arrive until an hour after that, but why rush? I'm
taking a shower. Want to scrub my back?"
The television started showing a Phoenix Skeptics
tape proving bodies found in the desert definitely were
not trolls. "Garbage in, garbage out." I hit a button on the
remote control, and the screen went black. "After watch-
ing all that stuff, I definitely need a bath. Lead on,
m'lady."
Two hours later I stared at my image in a trio of full
length mirrors. I wore black shoes and socks, black
slacks with creases sharp enough to shave with and a
heavily starched white shirt with onyx studs and cufflinks.
At the collar I wore a large, silvery, rectangular-cut
hematite stud and no tie. The collar itself, which had no
lapels, pressed uncomfortably against my Adam's apple.
"I feel like a wolf in priest's clothing."
Marit glanced up from her vanity table and looked at
my reflection in her mirror. "Pleased to meet you, Father
Caine. Would you care to minister to my spiritual needs
later?"
I gave her a smile. "You say that only because I look
neither pious or holy."
"Oh, I'd say you look like a holy terror to me."
"You're not the one I need to impress tonight."
"Coming back from the grave, you'll look like an
unholy terror to them."
"Amen." I slipped on the Bianchi holster and settled
the blued Krait beneath my left armpit.
Mascara brush in hand, she paused. "Do you think
that is necessary?"
"I hope not, but you know the saying: 'Praise God, but
pass the ammunition.'" I pulled my jacket off the hanger
in the closet. "Will they let me keep it?"
"Normally, no, but I trained with the guy heading up
the security detail on this reception. I told him I was
bringing a bodyguard along. He'll let you pass."
"Good."
I pulled the jacket on and smiled broadly. Roger had
put together a jacket that did triple duty. It was appropri-
ate for the gathering, stylish enough to get noticed, but
not weird enough to be laughed at—and it concealed the
gun perfectly. As I had seen in his drawing, he started
from a basic waist-cut jacket, then had flipped over and
extended the left lapel of it so it attached on a diagonal
that ran from my right shoulder to just past the midline
at my waist. In effect I had a black asymmetrical double-
breasted jacket with enough room in the left flank to
mask the presence of my gun. Furthermore, because
Roger had left a gap in the velcro that closed the jacket,
I could reach inside with my right hand and draw the Krait
without being forced to open the suitcoat at all.
I tugged at the waist and looked at myself in the mirror.
The slight dip in the jacket's fabric at my throat left the
hematite visible. The jacket hung perfectly and felt
comfortable on me. Even the trace of beard on my jaw
fit with the image the clothes had created, that being
someone who could quite possibly be as dangerous as
I was afraid I might be.
Marit walked up behind me and kissed my right ear.
"If I tell people you're a priest, you'll have women wanting
to confess and convert all evening."
I winked at her reflection. "Tell them I take my vow of
celibacy seriously."
"Ha! Fuel thrown on the fire, that would be." Her
darkened eyes narrowed. "That tale might even attract
the attention of the Witch herself."
"Nerys Loring?"
Marit's nostrils flared. "She Who Would Eat Her Own
Young." She shook her head. "I don't even want to think
about her right now." Taking two steps back, she held her
hands out. "Well, tell me how beautiful I look."
Turning around, I did nothing to hide my look of
pleasure. Marit wore a strapless crimson leather minidress
which clung to her somewhat tighter than oxygen clings
to hydrogen in water molecules. Her lipstick matched her
dress, as did the pair of two-inch stiletto heels on her feet.
She bent over to smooth her white stockings, then
innocently glanced up to see if the sight of long legs had
affected me in the desired manner.
I cleared my throat. "Do that at the party, and I'll be
forced to shoot."
She giggled and straightened up. She added a ruby
pendant and matching earrings to her outfit, then pulled
on a black jacket that had been cut high enough to reveal
the lower edges of her breasts. "We're a pair. I'm dressed
to stun, and you're dressed to kill."
To get to the party we took the transversor to the
elevator, then descended to Level Nine. From there we
walked to the Civic Center Tower and boarded an
express elevator to the 45th floor. Because of the tower's
height, the elevator shafts could not run all the way up to
the top and, under normal circumstances, our car would
have moved sideways into another shaft to take us the
rest of the way up to the party.
The circumstances surrounding the Lorica Industries
Reception, however, were nothing even close to normal.
We stopped at 45, and the doors opened slowly. Bright
video lights blasted into the box and bleached all but the
brightest color from us. I raised my hand to shield my
eyes, but Marit reacted to the light like a plant seeking the
sun.
Flash strobes went off like explosions in an air raid and
left tracer-like afterimages on my eyes. People in the
crowd called Marit's name, and she turned toward their
voices, smiling like a fox eluding hunters. Lorica security
guards cleared a path for her through the press of
reporters, and I followed in her wake. A reporter asked
who I was, but Marit waved the question off with casual
disregard.
A security man guided us to a short corridor that led
to an express elevator to the top of the tower. Marit
preceded me through a metal detector, then turned and
spoke to the security force lieutenant seated at the desk
beside her. "Hi, Charlie. This is Günter, my bodyguard.
I told Captain Williams about him."
The white-haired older man stood and motioned for
me to step around the barricade.I1 did so and opened my
jacket. He reached in and pulled the Krait from the
holster. Hitting the thumb release, he slid the clip free,
then worked the slide and popped the live shell out into
his hand.
"I like the Krait, Mr. Günter." He returned to his desk
and opened a drawer. He pulled out a fluorescent orange
stop-tab and inserted it into the chamber. He closed the
gun on it, leaving an orange tab protruding from the open
breech about a quarter of an inch. He shoved the clip
home, then returned the pistol to me. "Standard proce-
dure. We don't want personal security shooting first. If
you see anything strange, you report it to one of us, got
it?"
"Got it." I made my voice sound like that of someone
I could imagine being named Günter. "Could I have my
bullet as well?"
The old man nodded. "Sure."
He tossed it to me, and I put it in my pocket. Closing
my jacket, I smiled at him, then followed Marit to the
express elevator. A white-gloved attendant pushed the
button, and we watched as the numbers in the LED
window above the doors counted down from 90.
I jerked my head back in the direction of the other
elevators. "Quite a zoo there."
Marit smiled and gave my right forearm a squeeze.
"Local press. They want gossip and stars to brighten their
newscasts. Local celebrity stuff always goes down well
with the folks in Eclipse. It lets them dream about getting
to City Center at some time in their lives, I guess. I know
that's what I used to fantasize about when I lived there."
The elevator arrived, and we stepped into it. The
attendant, a black woman, smiled politely and turned the
key that sent the box skyward. We did not speak as we
ascended and, as we sailed past Floor 80, Marit did a last
minute check of her makeup in the elevator's mirrored
walls. "Ready if you are."
The doors opened, and I braced myself for another
light show, but none materialized. We stepped into a
small lobby that looked perfectly normal, even if the
lights were a bit dimmer than normal in commerce. Off
to our right, double doors stood open into a reception
room that actually occupied both the 90th and 91st
floors of the Civic Center tower. The room's floor lay a
half level below the lobby and an upper balcony over-
hung the entrance. The lights, both crystal chandeliers
and wall mounted, art deco lamps, were tuned down to
low intensity so the room's light would not cause too
much in the way of reflections on the exterior glass walls.
As I moved from the lobby to the reception area I saw
the room was, in fact, a doughnut that revolved around
in a slow, almost imperceptible counterclockwise mo-
tion. The core of the 91st floor was greater in diameter
than the lobby below it, providing the overhang. I smiled
as I noticed a slight drift in the crowd in a direction
opposite the motion of the room. Without thinking,
people were desperately trying to maintain their position
relative to the landmarks outside.
The windows showed a truly wonderful panorama of
Phoenix. The entrance pointed east toward the Lorica
Citadel. The rising full moon backlit the corporate towers
and made the maglev train tracks look like buttresses on
the exterior of an old cathedral. Blinking red and blue
lights on top of the towers matched the winking of the
stars in the night sky and, in the background, I saw the
distant lights of a plane coming in for landing at the
regional airport southeast of the city.
What surprised me the most was how well the black
panels roofing over Eclipse reflected the stars and
moonlight. As far as the stars were concerned, the
photovoltaic cells could have been a placid ocean and,
without my feet planted firmly on the floor, I would have
had a hard time telling exactly which way was up. The
moonlight—twin slivers outlining the Lorica silhouette—
collected in sharp lines at the seams, but looked no
different than it might have on a dark sea.
Marit stepped into the reception room, and immedi-
ately a number of people called her name. She de-
scended into the throng, kissing cheeks or hugging
people. Some of the men held her closer and longer than
she might have liked, and for those she really detested,
she put up a mock protest that immediately darkened
the expression on the face of the man's date.
Before I could trail after her, a man in a midnight blue
suit cut me off. "I'm Captain Williams, Brad Williams."
"Günter."
"Günter, good." He looked over at Marit and smiled.
"Look, these are the ground rules: Don't speak unless
spoken to. If you spot trouble, you report it to me. If Marit
looks like she's trapped in a boring conversation or a
situation that is getting ugly, walk over and tell her she
has a call. If something weird does go down, leave the
shooting to us. If you find you have to extricate Marit from
a situation, try not to kill any of the guests."
"Not a problem."
"Good. No drinking for you, but help yourself to food."
"Thanks." I drifted into the room, leaving him to pick
off the next bodyguard and brief him. I spotted Marit
working her way around to the right, still in greeting
mode. Descending another step, I gave the arc I could
see a quick look to spot any potential problems and saw
none. Knowing I would not feel secure until I had done a
full circuit of the room, I descended the rest of the way to
the floor and headed off on the trail Marit had blazed.
The reception itself, while being sponsored and hosted
by Lorica Industries, was for the Make-A-Wish Founda-
tion. At a number of places around the room, and on the
interior, nonrotating wall, paintings and sculptures had
been set up with a small tote board beside each. A Lorica
employee stood next to each work and spoke about it
and the artist who had created it. I also noticed them
accepting small pieces of paper from people and, after
reading them, punching numbers in on a small keypad.
On the toteboard, beside the pieces, an LCD display
flashed up the current bid in what appeared to be a low-
key silent auction.
The guests appeared to represent the upper crust of
Phoenix society. I easily identified a white-haired, aristo-
cratic-looking man as Darius MacNeal, the man who had
created the Build-more Corporation, because of the ads
I'd seen on television earlier in the day. I could not,
however, place a name on the two young women
clinging to his arms, though judging by age, I imagined
they had to be his granddaughters. He laughed uproari-
ously at the joke Phoenix's boy-mayor told him, then
showed how affectionate his family was by nuzzling one
woman's long neck.
Waiters and waitresses wandered throughout the
gathering bearing trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. I
passed on placing a drink order, but did indulge in food
when a woman carrying a tray of sushi came within
striking range. The tekka-maki tasted good enough that
I wondered if Osome was doing the catering.
Marit came back for me and linked her arm in mine.
"Incoming. You'll want to see this performance, I'm
certain."
Without saying another word, she dragged me half-
way around the room until I got to where a broad sta irway
descended from the 91st floor suite to the reception
room. We took up a position just upstream of the bottom
of the stairs and slowly drifted down toward them. Off to
our right I spotted Alejandro, but before I could point him
out to Marit, Nerys Loring made her appearance at the
top of the stairs.
My instant assessment of her was that she was a
strikingly handsome woman. She looked to be in her
mid-forties and had a mature confidence in herself that
made her actively seductive. She wore her black hair cut
to hang just above her shoulders and to frame her strong
face. Her dark eyes and brows combined with her
incarnadine lipstick to make her face seem almost
vampire pale. The bodice of her black, strapless gown
sparkled with a decidedly modest number of sequins and
hugged her hourglass figure in a most flattering manner.
The velvet skirts flared out to hide her feet, yet she did not
appear the least bit inconvenienced as she descended
the stairs. A string of pearls encircled her throat and a
diamond ring glittered from her right hand as she main-
tained her balance through feather-light finger-contact
with the bannister.
She smiled with the pleasure you might expect to see
on the face of a potentate being welcomed by groveling
peasants. She knew she deserved the homage, but she
also welcomed it. Part of me resented her basking in our
attention, but I knew that was like the sun resenting the
beauty of a flower it nourished. Here was a woman who
was attractive, smart and powerful—a nasty and very
erotic combination—and she clearly knew that she could
use one or all of those assets to get her anything she
wanted.
As she reached the same level as the rest of us, people
whispered greetings almost reverently. Nerys paid them
scant or no attention and headed straight out into the
room. I felt Marit pull herself up to her full height and turn
her smile on full force as Lorica's CEO homed in on her.
She braced herself for what might, in light of her history
with Lorica, be a very nasty encounter.
Nerys dismissed Marit with a casual glance, then
offered her hand to me. "We've not been formally
introduced. I am Nerys Loring." She enfolded my hand
in a firm grip and gave me a smile that threatened to
swallow me up. "Had I known you were in Phoenix, Mr.
Caine, I would have invited you to our party myself."

Even given twice the warning I had, the late
Shakespearean actor Mel Gibson could not have cov-
ered his surprise at her greeting. I saw my surprise
reflected in her eyes, and her grip tightened ever so
slightly. I forced a smile and let blood flush my cheeks.
I met her black stare, then looked down.
"Forgive me, Ms. Loring. I would have let you know,
but I knew you were quite occupied with business." I
reforged eye contact. "I also felt it would have been
presumptuous of me to wheedle an invitation out of you.
Ms. Fisk asked me to accompany her, so I felt this was
the easiest solution to the situation."
"Ah, Marit," Nerys said without looking in her direction.
"You are looking quite...fit, Nerys," Marit returned.
She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. "Dar-
ling, I think I'm going to bid on a picture for my place. I'll
be back."
She retreated, and Nerys let a satisfied grin twist up the
corners of her mouth. "You are an interesting man, Mr.
Caine. I understand two of my employees left Lorica
because of you, yesterday."              '
What game are you playing? "Independent contrac-
tors, they must have been. They were clumsy and stupid,
so I assumed they could not have been yours. I don't like
being spied upon."
She slipped her arm through mine, leeching away the
warmth lingering from Marit. "I prefer jobs to be super-
vised. I think of it as quality assurance."
With forewarning, I was able to conceal my pleasure
at her admission that I had been hired to perform a job.
Given the equipment I found, and the amount of money
I had been given, I felt certain I'd been hired to kill
someone. If what Natch Feral had said was true, that
Nerys had been looking for her father after a snatch had
been put on him two months ago, I thought chances were
good that he might have been my target.
I kept a plastic smile on my face as we began to stroll
through the party, but let an edge drop into my voice. "If
you hire a specialist to do a job, what standards can you
use to judge his performance?"
"Please, tell me, Mr. Caine."
"End product."I looked up and out the window. "I think
you'll find your problem has just dropped off the edge of
the earth."
She smiled appreciatively, but kept a note of caution
in her voice. "The world is round, Mr. Caine."
"Only to those who don't know how to find the
corners." I patted her hand and gently disengaged it from
my arm. "I should not monopolize your time, for you
have many other guests."
"You are an interesting man, Mr. Caine. I had not
expected to actually meet you. If not for the men who
recently left my employ, I would not even know what you
looked like." Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and
down. "The cost of a professional specialist is very high."
"But the cost of an amateur is yet higher. Don't worry,
your money was well spent."
"As I expected, based on Fiddleback's excellent rec-
ommendation." She opened her hands and encom-
passed the entire party. "Please, enjoy yourself—despite
your unfortunate choice of companion—and if you
choose to bid on anything, I would find myself in debt to
your generosity."
I brought her right hand to my lips and kissed it gently.
"It has been my pleasure to be of service to you."
She answered with an elevated eyebrow, then she
withdrew and quickly greeted those individuals she had
snubbed when she saw me. Their resentment melted like
wax beneath a blowtorch, or their spirit died beneath one
of her withering stares. Within 10 seconds she had
vanished from sight and part of me wondered if she had
been there at all.
"La Bruja took to you like a vampire to a hemophiliac."
Alejandro sipped a slender glass of champagne. "Did
she say anything useful?"
My eyes half shut as I concentrated. "Whatever I was
here to do, it was because she was paying the freight.
She'd put the two guys from Ernesto's on me, but she
made no apologies for their having tried to kill me. I
wonder if they weren't working for another faction within
Lorica as well?"
"I don't know." He fingered the buttons on his double-
breasted, navy blue pinstriped suit jacket. "I do know
there is still some factional fighting within Lorica. There
have been a couple of purges."
"Is there any chance you can find folks who knew her
father before the ouster? Long-time aides who got
booted after he was gone?"
The art dealer nodded. "That's easily doable, I should
think. Some of them even live in City Center."
"Any in Eclipse?"
"I can find out."
"Excuse me, Mr. Higuera?" A middle-aged woman
touched Alejandro on the right sleeve.
He turned and smiled broadly at her. "Mrs. Rosson,
what can I do for you?"
She smiled and mouthed the word "Hello" to me, then
spoke to Alejandro. "I don't recall ever seeing other surrealist
work by Elizabeth Turner in your gallery before, but the piece
being auctioned here is being offered by you. Is she another
one of your exclusive discoveries?"
Alejandro nodded conspiratorially to her. "I found her
two months ago. She's been doing these pieces for years
and just sticking them away. I've convinced her to part
with some of them."
Mrs. Rosson smiled sheepishly. "I must confess the
piece she has here is already too much for me, but I would
be interested in other examples of her work. Shall I call
on your shop tomorrow?"
Alejandro nodded solemnly. "I have two other pieces
I've not yet framed. I will look forward to your visit." As
she walked away, he looked back at me. "Sorry, that
pays the rent. Anything else from Loring?"
"She used the word 'Fiddleback' as if it were a code-
name for someone. Sound any buzzers?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
"Maybe it will with some of those ex-employees, if you
can find any."
"We can hope."
Marit came walking over and restaked her claim to my
left arm. She wore a big grin on her face, and I sensed her
mood had shifted greatly since she departed. "This is
wonderful!"
"Yes?"
"There is the most ghastly piece over there—no
offense, Alejandro—called 'With a Not in my Stomach,'
by Elizabeth Turner. It's, well, it's..."
Alejandro pointed toward the place where the painting
had been set up. "You have to see this thing to believe it."
Marit nodded in agreement, so the three of us cut
through the crowd to look at this picture. It was a painting
of a human form, but it was done in necrotic flesh tones
with hints of the green-gray of dead skin. The figure's
flesh appeared to be more rubber than skin and had been
tightly wrapped up into a ball at the center of the piece.
The contorted body's face was hidden in shadows, but it
had a mouth, complete with clenched teeth, situated at
the figure's right heel.
I shivered. It was truly a horrible vision, yet I could
sympathize with it because I saw myself in it. The hidden
face was my lost identity, and all that it would take to
unlock the mouth to spout the truth would be a some
trigger memory. The flesh being sloughed off was how I
felt about trying to shed whatever I had been. Nerys
Loring clearly felt she had hired me as an assassin to kill
her father, and I might have actually come to do that, but
I had no desire to be a murderer.
"It is definitely an expressive piece," I offered.
Alejandro smiled. "It spoke to me when I saw it.
Hideous image, but excellent technique and command
of anatomy."
"But could you live with it in your house?" I asked him.
He shook his head, and Marit giggled. "That's what is
so delicious." She herded us back away from the piece
before she said anything more. "I think it is morbid and
creepy, but I've placed a bid on it. Nerys immediately
topped my bid, so now I have a little war going on with
her. She'll win, but it will cost her."
I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know she isn't just
bidding you up to stick you with the painting?"
Our male companion shook his head. "Nerys never
loses, except, perhaps, when her father overrode her and
let Marit out of her 'noncompetition' clause in her
contract. That is the soul of their animosity. She will
never give in."
"Which means she'll have that thing to look at for the
rest of her life," Marit hissed.
Up on the 91 st floor balcony, I saw Nerys staring down
at the painting. She nodded slightly and a new bid went
up on the tote board. With that I saw a satisfaction on her
face, but I knew it came from more than her having
topped Marit's latest bid.
She, too, identified with the painting and, I felt certain,
would enjoy staring at it for hours on end.

The next morning, when the elevator doors opened, I
thought certain I had descended into hell. The heat hit me
with the force of a punch. I stepped out into it, hoping,
expecting that I would pass back into another cool zone,
but I did not. The blazing heat remained constant and, as
I breathed in through my nose, I felt the air cauterize my
nasal passages.
Natch Feral crossed the street. "Welcome back to
reality, Caine-man."
"Good evening...." I started to say to her, but I realized
it was noon. "I mean..."
"Save it. It's always night down here in Eclipse." She
turned and walked away, silently willing me to follow her.
"I think we have a line on a dude you'll want to jaw with.
Gotta get Bat first, though."
I nodded at her back and quickly caught up with her.
At the party Nerys Loring made short work of Marit's
bidding war, and Marit, bloodied but unbeaten, made a
great show of retreating. Because Nerys had spoken with
me for a short but visible amount of time, Marit nibbled
on my ear as we left, suggesting Nerys might have won
a battle, but the war had yet to be concluded.
We returned to her home, and she apologized most
eloquently for having used me so shamelessly to get
back at Nerys.
I awoke without remembering any dreams and left
Marit to her well deserved rest. In her media room I
punched up the Municipal Library's online index service
and sought any information I could find on "Fiddleback."
The best thing I got was a very authoritative article on the
brown recluse spider, which is also known by the name
Fiddleback. While they are present in Phoenix, the black
widow is much more prevalent, and fiddlebacks are
treated pretty much like myths.
Like Coyote.
By 10 a.m., Alejandro called and said he had worked
with Jytte to come up with a list of people who fit the
parameters of Lorica old guard being retired when Nero
Loring was Leared by his daughter. He said the majority
of them were in retirement villas around the state, with
their bills and "care" paid for by Lorica. He left no doubt
in my mind that they were being held by Nerys until any
information they had concerning the company had lost
its market value.
He did point out that Jytte had uncovered the name of
a man who had been with Lorica for as long as the
company had been around. Phil Costapain was a black
man who had worked as a janitor for his full tenure at
Lorica. The reason she added him to the list was because
he was Nero Loring's first employee and Nero himself
had attended the man's retirement dinner. She noted the
two of them always took their vacations at the same time
and Alejandro said she thought they might have been
very good at keeping their friendship quiet.
"Natch, do you really think you know where Costapain
lives?"
She nodded. "I do, but he's real scared of something.
Word's been spread that he's dead."
"Dead?"
She shrugged. "There's dead and there's D-E-A-D,
Caine-man. Costapain doesn't want folks finding him, so
outsiders hear he's dead. I just happen to know better."
She glanced at the street, then nimbly darted between
the cars. On the other side, she looked back at me and
shook her head.
I waited for a bit more survivable break in traffic, then
joined her on the sidewalk in front of a concrete bunkerish
building. "I'm dying in this windbreaker and jeans. How
can you be wearing so much?"
Another shrug elevated and dropped the padded
shoulders of her oversized leather jacket. Beneath it she
wore a loose striped shirt and beneath that a dark green
leotard. Her jeans had been expertly slashed in parallel
lines from hip to ankle, revealing black Spandex-clad
legs. Her white high-tops looked new and the laces
certainly had never been tied.
"Man, I've lived down here all my life. This is only the
end of June. It don't get hot for another month. Damned
slush duck." She jerked her head toward the bunker
door. "C'mon, in here."
I eyed the building with suspicion. "Where is 'here?'"
"Here is 'The Trench.'" Natch jammed her hands in
her pockets and headed for the door. "Bat works here."
That little amount of information made me very
dubious about the place, and stepping through the door
confirmed everything I had imagined, and more. Be-
cause The Trench lacked sufficient light, the first thing I
noticed about it was the reek of sweat and smoke and
blood and beer. Human bodies huddled in shadows,
slumped in chairs as if they'd been lashed to them by the
shoulders and had their spines removed. The Du Drop
Inn was to this place what the Lorica reception had been
to my encounter with the Reapers.
Realizing my eyes would only adjust to the gloom in
geological time, I followed Natch into The Trench by feel.
I caught, in the backlight of a cash register, a glimpse of
a bar running the length of the left wall. Avoiding
waitresses who looked gorgeous except in the eyes, we
plunged deeper into The Trench until we approached
what looked like, to me, to be a line of people facing the
absolute blackness of the back wall.
Then the lights in The Trench went on.
The bar had taken its name from its most interesting
aspect. In the back a pit had been dug that bottomed out
about 20 feet below the level of the floor. The sides had
been carved into narrow terraces, each being fitted with
a railing that had little holders for plastic cups of beer. At
either end, up at floor level, catwalks extended over pit
level corridors to let the servers get from the bar to the
patrons watching the pit.
The rectangular pit had been fitted with boards and
plexiglass walls that looked to me to have been salvaged
from some hockey rink. Where the glass had been
shattered, chicken wire or strips of chain-link fencing
replaced it up to the level of the bar's floor. Above that,
secured to the bar's ceiling, more chain-link fencing
formed a dome that made the pit a world of its own.
Natch led me along the catwalk on the right side, and
a bouncer at the top of the stairs let the two of us past. We
descended to the level of the floor and stood in the
corridor. Through the blood-streaked plexiglass at the
end of the pit, I saw Bat turn and face the last two of his
opponents.
Bat had looked big when I'd met him two days ago, but in
the center of the pit he looked herculean. Blood dripped from
his bare chest and washed over his bare legs, but I knew it was
not his. His muscles tensed as one man came in and his whole
body twisted as he smashed a pile-driver right hook into the
man ribs. I winced when I heard something pop, then cringed
as Bat's left fist arced in and nearly twisted the man's head off
with a solid punch.
The last man had, at one time, been trained as a
martial artist. He flew through the air aiming a kick at
Bat's head. Bat, ducked his head out of the way, but held
his left forearm up to split the flying man's legs. The
collision of bone with groin involuntarily doubled over a
number of the spectators and brought an agonized
screech from the fighter. But before he could fall to the
ground, Bat's right hand closed on bunched muscles at
the man's spine, then he took a run at the wall and
slammed the man against the plexiglass.
Then he pulled him back and did it again and again
and again. When the man hung like a limp rag in his
hands, he tossed him aside and began to look around the
pit for another victim. The other four men hastened their
belly crawls to the door at the far arena end, and Bat
encouraged them with brutal kicks. With a wicked smile
on his face, he broke the outstretched arm of one man
reaching for the doorway, then laughed loudly as the
man begged for mercy.
I looked at Natch, and she shrugged. "Amateur night.
It's never pretty."
Bat walked back to where the martial artist lay. He
picked him up by the waistband of his pants, then
dragged him face first through the dirt before tossing him
out the arena door like a sack of garbage. Then, alone in
the arena, he raised his hands in triumph. Half the crowd
roared in his favor, but other people taunted him and
threw plastic cups of beer at him. They splashed against
the wire to mix with the blood and the dirt in the arena,
but left Bat untouched.
As Bat turned to soak in the adulation of the crowd, I
saw his eyes. He watched the people surrounding him
like a wolf studying a flock of sheep. They were prey to
him, and he'd clearly not had his fill in breaking the five
who had faced him. Furthermore, and by far the most
chilling of my observations, I knew he was not in the pit
for the money or the praise or the need to prove himself
at the top of the food chain.
He fought because he loved inflicting pain on others.
The lights dimmed again, and Bat left the arena. In the
half-light I saw the steel mask of cruelty on his face soften
when he saw Natch. It flashed back on his face as he
looked over at me, and in that flash of his dark eyes I
knew I had an open invitation to fight him any time I
wanted.
I shook my head. "If I want a sanity trial, I'll have it in
a court of law."
Natch looked confused for a moment, then stepped
back beyond the catwalk and opened a door into a locker
room. Bat cut immediately to a shower cubicle in which
a half-dozen nozzles hit him with harsh spray from
various angles. The mud melted off, and the blood ran
down the drain. Bat shut off the water, shook his head to
flick water from his hair, then stepped out of the shower
and went for a locker.
Natch tossed him a towel that had probably once been
fleecy and white. Bat doffed his boxing trunks and dried
himself off, though he seemed more interested in any
blood the towel absorbed than he did getting dry. That
made sense in that, in the heat, evaporation would draw
the water off quickly enough and summon sweat to
replace it.
The towel came away clean, but Bat looked to have a
nasty bruise developing on his left shoulder. He sat on the
bench beside his locker and opened the door. Whereas
I expected to see the sort of pin-up pictures decorating
other open lockers, inside Bat's door I saw a drawing of
a winged angel bearing a spear, driving a demon off a
cloud. Bat touched the picture reverently with his right
hand, then crossed himself.
He looked over at me. "Ask."
I frowned. "Ask?"
"What do you want to know about me?" He pulled on
some underwear. "Get it over with."
"Okay. Why 'Bat?'"
He shrugged, but Natch answered for him. "His real
name is Chwalibog Kabat. It's Polish—his parents came
over just before Eastern Europe opened up."
"Bat is easier, and folks don't get it wrong." I nodded,
understanding why folks would not even want to try to
pronounce his name and risk offending him. His back-
ground also made understanding the angel picture easier.
"St. Michael?"
Bat nodded.
The patron saint of warriors. Being Polish meant he
was probably raised Catholic, and that created a rather
strange paradox. Here was a Christian who followed the
teachings of the Prince of Peace, yet he worked as a pit
fighter because he loved hurting people. Thinking back
on what I'd seen in the pit, I had no doubt that whoever
his confessor was, that priest got hazard duty pay, and
Bat got penance that didn't quit.
"One last question: How are you and Coyote con-
nected?"
Bat stood and tucked a T-shirt into his jeans. "I used
to fight on the professional circuit. A promoter kid-
napped a friend to get me to throw a fight. Coyote freed
the hostage, and the promoter died when my opponent
flew from the ring and crushed him in his seat."
Natch, perched on the end of the bench, drew her legs
up and hugged them to her chest. "After that fight, a
Lorica janitor thanked Bat for winning. He'd bet a lot of
money on him—money he needed for his wife's medical
treatments. She ended up dying anyway, but in a gang
drive-by shooting, not from her disease."
I folded my arms across my chest. "That janitor was
Phil Costapain, which is why you're coming with us.
Costapain trusts you?"
Bat gave me a single nod as he closed his locker. He
didn't lock it, but just looking at him told me why he didn't
have to. He held out his right arm, Natch grabbed hold,
and he lifted her to her feet in one smooth motion. They
both smiled at each other, then headed off into The
Trench.
I followed, but until we got to the street, I don't think
they noticed.

Phil Costapain had managed to choose a hiding place
that would have kept him safe from the best trackers in
the world. Aside from being thought dead, he had the
advantage of living in an area where two mobile home
parks had mated and metastasized to all the neighboring
areas, including what had once been the Greenwood
Memorial Cemetery Park. Interstate 10 thundered through
the middle of the community and, just beyond it, twisted
through the interchange known as the Stack, but had no
real effect on Boxton.
Getting there proved less difficult than I imagined
when I learned neither Natch or Bat had a car. We hopped
a gypsy bus that angled us across the west side of
Phoenix as it dropped folks off and stopped for other
riders flagging it down. Big and painted with colors that
glowed in the gloom of Eclipse, it lumbered through the
grimy streets like a beetle with elephantitis.
The three of us took up a position behind the driver. As
Bat boarded, he paid his fare, then stood and stared down
at some drugged-out wastrel sprawled across a bench.
The guy looked up and saw that his current trip had just
veered into the land of bad vibes. Bat waited for him to
clear out, then he let Natch and an old black woman sit
down.
The guys toward the back looked nasty enough for me
to think we might have gotten on a Department of
Corrections bus by mistake. Bat grabbed the overhead
rail and glared at our fellow riders, which inspired most
of them to get off or hang loose in the very rear of our
transport. I ended up standing right behind the driver,
trying to give the old woman sitting in Bat's shadow a
reassuring smile.
The bus' dim headlights hid more than they revealed,
but they gave me a strong impression of the nightmare
that made up chunks of Eclipse. Buildings that had once
been useful now lay in total disrepair. Whole blocks
looked like they had been abandoned and had trash
barricades surrounding them. Oddly enough, the barri-
cades looked as if they had been put up to keep things
in that section instead of out. Even more strange was the
lack of children playing on or around those barricades.
Because the streetlights in this area of town had been
pulled down, shot out or rewired to provide power for
squatters living near them, small bonfires had been lit to
illuminate the area. The lunacy of starting fires on hot
desert days was further compounded by the clouds of
oily smoke that hung low, trapped beneath the Eclipse
panels. Some of the squatter's nests built on the under-
side of the panels looked like soot-smudged tumors
hanging in place. They could not have been habitable in
any serious sense of the word, yet blank faces looked
down at us from above regardless.
A passenger jostled me when he came aboard, and I
felt my billfold disappear from my back pocket. Before
he squeezed past Bat, I drew the Krait and poked him in
the back of the head with it. "As long as you have my
wallet, you might as well take this, too. You want it in
pieces?"
The man swallowed hard, then turned and offered me
a picket-fence smile. "Sorry, I'm trying to reform. Re-
ally." He held my wallet up, and I took it from him.
He tried to make his way by Bat, but Bat stopped him
and grabbed his right hand. He held it up and spread the
fingers out by pressing it against his left hand. "You gotta
pay the toll."
"Toll?"
"Toll?" Bat's face lost all emotion and his eyes dark-
ened. "Which is your favorite finger?"
"W-what?"
"Wrong answer." Bat's muscles bunched in his shoul-
der and arm as he jerked the man into the air by his wrist.
He smashed the man's hand into the bus's roof, and the
fingers broke like dry spaghetti. "There, now you're
reformed."
The man screamed, but the mere threat of a cuff
silenced him. He clutched his broken hand to his chest
and stumbled back, being jostled from seat to seat by the
bus's motion and the angry riders he leaned against.
Finally, in the back, he met a gang who forced him to
"high-five" them with his broken hand before they put
him into a seat.
"Thanks, I think."
Bat nodded. "Quick. Good."
I sensed some respect in his voice for how smoothly
and swiftly I'd reacted, and that pleased me. Still, I found
it disquieting that I felt good about respect from a man
who had so casually broken the hand of a man who had
done nothing to him. Yet, even as I examined that
circumstance, I recalled his religious bent and realized he
had only inflicted on the man a punishment for his sin of
theft. Within his world, he was being amazingly consis-
tent, and I imagined he would even confess to what he
had done here, adding to his burden so he could be
absolved of it.
The bus stopped a block from the edge of our desti-
nation. Natch preceded me off the bus and crossed the
street to where a group of four youths loitered on the
corner watching little kids play kick-ball. The youths all
wore jackets that had a black disk sewn on the back, and
the words "The Plattermen" embroidered beneath it.
When they saw her they started preening and moving
like lazy snakes. They eyed me suspiciously, trying to
figure if I was undercover for Scorpion Security or a mark
to be taken. Bat stepped from the bus, and they sharp-
ened up considerably.
Natch went through an elaborate ritual of knocking
fists, slapping hands and pointing with one of the youths,
then invited me over. "Caine-man, this is Zinger. He was
maxin' in Florence, then he beat the bricks and crawled
back under the Nixrock."
Zinger, a long, lean and languorous black youth kept
his hands in the pockets of his bluejacket. "Caine. Is that
like in candy cane?"
I shrugged. "I'm not bent, and it'll take more than you
to lick me, so I'd say not. It's Caine."
"Like the killer," Bat added quietly.
Zinger looked me up and down, then dismissed me
with a sneer. "What chu want, Natch?"
"Paying our respects to the dead."
The youth thought for a second, then nodded slowly.
He turned to a confederate wearing a red bandana over
his head. "Buc will take you."
"Gratz."
Zinger grabbed Natch's shoulder. "If anything hap-
pens..."
Like a striking snake, Bat snagged Zinger's wrist and
squeezed until the hand opened like a flower. Natch
turned and stroked Bat's free arm. "It's okay, Bat, no
harm done."
"Not yet." Bat smiled in a most horrifying way,
displaying strong, sharp white teeth. "You were in a
crack, Zinger." He released his hand. "She got you out."
The street boss pulled his hand back but refused to
show it had hurt at all. "Girl, you gotta get that man some
lithium or sumthin'. He needs to chill. Buc, go."
Buc, smaller and stockier than Zinger, walked all
loose and open like he'd been put together with rubber
bands instead of muscles. He didn't say anything and
sauntered along as if he wasn't connected to us in any
way. Other folks on the street called out to him, and he
winked or hissed or hooted at them, but never said
anything I could decipher as words.
Boxton lived up to its name. Mobile homes and more
conventional buildings were stacked up in crenelated
clusters that brushed the underside of Frozen Shade at its
highest points. Rubbish-choked alleys ran between the
trailers, turning Boxton into a rat's warren of twisting
trails and dead ends. In the places where the pathways
were wide enough for, say, a Scorpion Security vehicle
to pass between buildings, the paths themselves doubled
back constantly. It took no genius to see the vehicle
would be slowed to a crawl and left very vulnerable to
antivehicle rockets or automatic weapons fire.
Buc led us into one trailer at the bottom of a pyramid.
We entered without knocking and Buc never even
acknowledged the family huddled toward the rear of the
building. I only saw them in the light of a boxy television,
and the slack-jawed look of stupification on their faces
led me to believe they never saw any of us. Grandfather,
sitting in an easy chair and sucking on a beer, scratched
his belly through the thin material of a stained T-shirt.
Mom and her eldest daughter both dandled children on
their knees, while two other young kids sat on the floor
and close enough to the set that I could only see their
eyes.
Looking at the reality of the trailer, it did not surprise
me that the only spark of 1ife I saw in their eyes came from
the TV's reflection. Both stove burners had pots en-
crusted with what might have been rice and beans, but
they'd been there for days and the beans looked like a rat
had fed itself at some point. Pizza crusts and grease-
stained boxes littered the little table that folded down
from the wall. The faucet bled rusty water into the sink,
and it coagulated into an orange stain on a plastic plate.
The place stunk of too many people and too much
beer. The sour scent of stale beer managed to cut
through the thick, musty odor of human habitation, but
near the sink it lost to the sharp smell of whatever was
growing beneath the unclean dishes. Mildew fur ringed
the base of the leaking faucet and had spread to the
plastic splashboard.
We passed through the patio doorway into a trash
midden at the center of the pyramid. Buc scrambled up
an aluminum ladder and entered through a hole in the
bottom of another trailer. Natch followed him and Bat
brought up the rear. If not for the additional clue of thick
smoke and the exchange of a grandmother for a grand-
father, I would have sworn we'd returned to the trailer
down below.
Our trek took us through four more trailers; the only
cause for hope was that the deeper we went, the degree
of decay lessened. I realized, of course, that residents
who lived closer to the core of Boxton had gotten there
by virtue of either longevity or strength, hence their
accommodations had changed hands less often.
The core residents evidenced more life, but only in the
fact that they greeted Buc or seemed to recognize Bat.
They were neither cordial or hostile to me—they just
treated me like I did not exist. Their homes looked a bit
less worn down than the fringe ones we'd visited, but
even they were leaky, stinky man-nests. Had hamsters
somehow evolved to human size, they would have been
comfortable in these places—and in most they would
have found a layer of newspaper already laid down.
Buc led us through a tunnel that ran beneath the
freeway, then down a narrow pathway that took us
through a hole in the fence around the Greenwood
Cemetery. There, deep in the heart of Boxton, the trailers
had only been stacked two high and looked in very good
condition. Here, behind the walls of their own transient
citadel, the leaders of Boxton had it very good. They drew
running water from what used to be the cemetery's
sprinkler system, and it looked like they pulled power by
tapping the overhead cells directly.
The gang member did not lead us to one of the trailer
mansions, but directed us to where a mausoleum had
been built into the side of a manufactured hillock. The
name above the door read "Freeman." "Inside, cats,
you'll find what you want."
In through the dark doorway and down two steps we
found a small room with a canvas cot arranged in a
corner. A small candle burned on the bottom of an
overturned coffee can. Seated beside it, with a pillow
under his rump, an old man leaned against the cold,
concrete wall. In his gnarled hands he held a paperback
book with the cover torn off. Outside we could hear the
roar of cars and trucks speeding along the highway.
He tucked his half-glasses back up on his white-haired
head and blinked at us. "Who are you?" He put a
postcard in the book to mark his place, then set it down.
Natch knelt on the other side of him, putting her back
against the cot. Bat tucked himself back into the corner
beside the door, and I remained in the shadows near the
foot of the cot. Natch gave him her sweetest smile, which
bought us some time, and answered him. "We are here
to ask you about Nero Loring."
Costapain shook his head slowly. "I don't know nuffin'
'bout no Mister Lorin'."
I dropped down to my haunches to put my head on the
same level as his, and he drew his legs up reflexively. "I
know you have no reason to believe us, but we know you
knew Loring. You were his first employee, and he
attended your retirement dinner." I jerked a thumb at Bat.
"You know Mr. Kabat, and you know he would not have
come if we were going to harm you. Please, this is
important."
His voice lost the mushmouth slurrings of an
uneducated man. "Son, I don't know shit about you.
Bat's just a pit Fighter, and I've seen him work. He doesn't
care squat about what happens to me. Natch I've seen
around, but she's not from Boxton. You, you look like a
Lorica corporator to me. Now unless you want to con-
vince me of something, I've got reading to do."
I nodded and rested my forearms on my knees.
"Straight out—I haven't got a clue why, but two bottom-
feeders being paid by Nerys Loring tried to off me. I think
finding her father and keeping him alive will annoy her,
and I'd like to do that. I'd like to do that a lot."
"You won't find him. Noone will." He smiled wryly, and
his face got a far away look as if he was remembering one
of the vacation trips he took with Loring. "I don't even
know where Nero is." As he spoke, I saw an unholy red
glint play in his left eye.
"Buc," I shouted, "come here, now!"
"Wha chu wa...aarrgh!"
Buc eclipsed the red targeting laser I'd seen reflected
in Costapain's eye. As if blasted into the room by the rifle
report and not the bullet that preceded it, the youth flew
down the stairs and flopped to the floor. His jacket had
a small hole midway down the back on his left side, but
already a black puddle leaked from beneath him.
Costapain reached out and bodily lifted Natch up. He
deposited her on the cot, then got out of line with the
doorway himself. As he moved to where I had been
crouched, I scrambled up the steps to the outside, then
rolled to my right. As I got to my feet again, I leaped back
and to the right, then filled my hand with the Krait.
Up on the highway overpass I saw a bleached blond,
bare-chested young man lift his rifle and start trotting
toward the Volkswagen Kartoffeln van. I ran up the little
hill as people streamed out of their houses. I gave the
knob below the Krait's rear sight two twists, then dropped
to one knee and snapped the safety down. From the top
of the hill I aligned the sights with the sniper as he shoved
the rifle through the van's sliding door.
I stroked the trigger twice. I saw the sniper pitch
forward, but at that range I couldn't have been certain if
it was because the bullets whizzed over his shoulders or
passed between them. I triggered off two more shots,
smashing the passenger side mirror and punching a hole
in the door, but the van smoked its tires and slam-
merged into a stream of horn-honking traffic.
At the base of the hill Bat eyed the distance from me
to the car. He nodded once, then chuckled lightly. Natch
and Costapain came up beside him, and the old man had
blood on his hands, shirt and tan pants. "Those sons of
bitches tried to kill me."
I looked down at him. "Did they?" I pointed with the
gun at the clear killzone from the highway to the front of
the mausoleum. "I think it was the Aryan Warriors going
for a target of opportunity. They saw Buc outside and
decided to pop him. I was lucky I saw the laser light. If Buc
had moved faster, he could have gotten to cover."
Costapain wiped his hands on his pants. "Could be
what you said."
"Could be. Now, tell me, why would anyone want you
dead?" I slid the Krait back home in the shoulder holster.
"You said you didn't know where Nero Loring was."
The old man's shoulders slumped, and he suddenly
looked his age. "Natch, go get me my book. I have a
postcard that shows the place we used to go fishing. It
isn't signed or anything, but I know it's from Nero. He's
alive and well."
"Do you think he's there?"
Costapain shook his head. "That place was an open
secret. If his daughter wanted him dead, she'd have him.
No, he's not there." He took the book from Natch and
flipped open to the postcard. "It is postmarked 'Sedona.'
Lots of retirement stuff up there. Pretty country. Best I can
do is tell you he might be there."
"Thank you." I walked back down the hill. "I think you
should come with us and talk to Hal Garrett about finding
another place to stay. The Plattermen are not protecting
you."
"What?" He pointed to the overpass. "If I go back out
of Boxton, I'll be killed."
"If you stay here you'll die. Ask yourself this: If they
meant to keep you alive, why are you in a place where
a straight shot from the interstate can kill you? They've
got you on ice, but accessible." I looked over at Buc's
body. "Likely they were waiting until Nerys Loring got
agitated enough to offer a good price for you."
"Is that so?" He folded his arms across his blood-
stained chest. "And do you think this shot was a drive-
by, or aimed at me?"
"As I said before, likely a drive-by."
"Yeah, as likely as your calling out to Buc was to get
him safe."
Bat, I could see in his eyes, knew. Natch didn't want
to know, and the old man knew the truth didn't matter
one way or another. "Mr. Costapain, you're more valu-
able to me alive than dead. You know things and can
remember things that might be useful. If for no other
reason, I'd like to keep you as a resource."
The old man looked at me, then scratched the back of
his head. "That's probably as close to honesty as I've
heard in some time. I'm getting damned tired of sitting on
my ass with people hunting me. I'm not up to fighting
back myself, but if you need a hound to point you to the
fox, I'll join the hunt."

We retraced our steps out of Boxton and got to a small
convenience store where Natch used a pay phone to call
Jytte. She gave Jytte a fairly full debriefing and when she
hung up, told us that Rock was on his way to give us a
ride. I bought some soda for the lot of us and Costapain
snagged a pack of cigarettes.
His hands shook so badly that Bat had to help him light
the coffin nail. The old man looked up and saw me
watching him. "Nasty habit, I know. I quit 10 years ago."
I shrugged and looked the street over. "Stress will do
that to you. The nicotine will calm you down and sharpen
you up a bit. It'll just kill you later. You ever hear the word
'Fiddleback?'"
Costapain thought hard, then shook his head. "I take
it you don't mean the spider."
"Nope. Something connected to Lorica."
"Not that I can recall."
"Do you know what Loring was working on when he
was ousted?"
A shrug and a cherry ember glowed brightly. "The last
link in the maglev line was just about finished, so I
suspect he started his post-product evaluation. He al-
ways did that sort of 'after action' report on his projects.
Helped him figure out what he'd done right and wrong."
That hardly seemed the sort of thing to get him forced
out of Lorica Industries, but it was possible. He could
have uncovered massive price gouging and collusion
that drove up costs on the project. His daughter might
have been feathering her own nest. If Nero was going to
blow the whistle on her, she would have wanted him
stopped. Perhaps she ousted him from power before
having him killed to eliminate a motive?
"Natch, if Nerys had her father killed, which security
agency would handle it?"
"Scorpion. They handle the city's legal business on
the east side."
"Could they be bought off?"
"You mean, would they hide evidence that linked her
to the killing? Probably not. Scorpion's headed by a real
cowboy who thinks of his people like the Arizona Rang-
ers. They're fairly incorruptible, but the jails might as well
have a revolving door. Here you get the finest justice you
can buy."
"Something is not clicking here." I frowned and tried
to figure out what Nero Loring could know that would be
important enough to get him killed. The scandal of
revealing price gouging would get smothered under a
blanket of bribes. It might be personal between father and
daughter, which would explain the ouster before execu-
tion, but I suspected there was something more there.
Rock pulled up in front of the store in a Mercedes Benz
750 SLX. The locks all clicked open, and we moved to
the vehicle while Rock kept the engine running. Bat and
Natch sandwiched Costapain between them in the back
seat while I dropped into the passenger bucket beside
Rock. The second I shut my door, he started us forward,
then shivered. "You get into trouble in some of the worst
places."
"I'm glad the cavalry comes when called."
"Yeah, sure." He glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Natch, you wanna pitch that butt out the window? Sorry,
Pops, no smoking in here."
Bat took the cigarette from Costapain and held it for
him. Rock's face twisted down into a snarl, but he knew
better than to bait Bat. He turned to me. "No Marit with
you? I heard your evening last night turned out to be a
bust because you had to leave early. You must miss her."
I shook my head. "No, we slept in late today."
Rock hit his horn and swerved around a very surprised
Audi driver. Bat smiled and even Costapain looked
amused. I pulled my Krait and twisted the sight elevator
nob back down to zero it at 50 feet. Rock snarled at
another driver, then punched a keypad and lowered the
air conditioning to 72°F. He also started a DAT of "The
Rolling Stones—Live at Leisure World" playing.
None of us said anything in the rest of the journey.
Talking over the music was difficult, but hearing the
familiar strains of "Can't get no wheelchair traction"
helped take the edge off all of us. If I was going to talk, I
wanted to grill Rock about the Warriors of the Aryan
World Alliance, but I did not want to do it in front of
Costapain. If he thought we had any ties to the people
who killed Buc—and I felt certain a WAWA shooter had
done the job—he'd not tell us anything.
Rock got us to the Coyote cell headquarters I'd visited
previously and dropped us off. We went inside as he
roared off, and I deposited my pistol on the table in the
anteroom before heading into the briefing room. Hal
Garrett was already there, and I could see Jytte's outline
in the light of a computer terminal in the next room.
"Mr. Costapain, I'm Hal Garrett. I'm glad you're safe."
"So am I, Mr. Garrett. It's great to meet you. I'm a big
fan of yours." Costapain pulled out a chair and sat, as did
the rest of us.
"Thank you." Hal looked at me. "I heard what hap-
pened. What do you make of it?"
I chewed my lower lip for a second. "I think we're
looking at three distinct problems. The first is figuring out
where Nero Loring is. His daughter obviously wants him
dead for a reason. We can find that reason out in a
number of different ways, to be sure, but I think hearing
it from Loring will be the easiest. Not only can he tell us
what her problem is, but I suspect he has a solution
already worked out and we could use that, too."
Garrett nodded. "Ever since Natch called, Jytte has
being trying to locate any sort of computer information
on Sedona that might tie to Loring. Unless she's found
something in the last five minutes, there's nothing."
Costapain opened his hands. "Honestly, that is the
best I can do. I don't know where he could be if not there.
If he's moved on since he sent me that card, I can't help
you."
"Oh, I think you can help us a great deal, Mr. Costapain."
I patted him on the right shoulder. "You worked for Loring
for 40 years. You have to know the ins and outs of the
Lorica Citadel like no one else. If you'd be willing to lend
us your expertise, we can start developing plans. If there
is a problem in Lorica, knowing the layout could make
solving it much easier for all of us."
"I can see that."
"That's the first problem, Tycho. What's the next
one?" Hal asked.
"The second is 'Fiddleback.' Nerys used the term as
if it were a person or corporate identity. The way she said
it tied it to my background and had very heavy conspira-
torial overtones. It might be another facet of the problem
Nerys has with her father. I think finding out what
Fiddleback is could be crucial to solving the problem
with Lorica."
I leaned back in my chair. "The third problem, I think,
is tied in with what you're trying to do in keeping the
Blood Crips away from WAWA. A Warrior shooter did
one of the Plattermen in Boxton. I may or may not have
gotten him, so things could be even."
Hal's face darkened. "What's your estimate of the
chances the Aryans are being paid by Lorica to incite
trouble?"
"Low. I don't see the benefit in it for Lorica. Boxton is
in the shadow of Genentech-Carbide. The Blood Crips
are near Lorica. A race war isn't going to do either one of
them any good." I held my open hands up. "I do think the
Aryans are being financed by someone, but it would
have to be someone who wants to cause trouble for all the
companies in the southern half of the valley."
"Agreed, which cuts down on suspects, but not many."
Hal made a note on a piece of paper, folded it, and stuck
it away in his shirt pocket. "You have any solutions to
these problems?"
"Sure. Let's hit them in reverse order. You need to
continue to keep the Blood Crips and the other gangs in
check. See if you can get them to work with Scorpion to
keep an eye on the Aryans. I know they won't want to, but
a war is going to get a lot of folks killed. You don't want
that, and they don't want that." I sighed heavily. "If worse
comes to worse, direct intervention might be necessary.
I don't think the Blood Crips are any closer to being saints
than the Aryans, but the Aryans have not shown they can
be reasonable. Capping them might well put things on
hold."
I saw in his face that Hal no more liked the idea of
assassinating Heinrich now than he did before. "We will
cross that bridge only if we have no other choice. I think
I can keep the lid on. The Aryans do not have the
manpower they need to be as overwhelmingly powerful
as they would have to be to win a war, so we have some
time.
"What do we do about Fiddleback?"
I smiled. "I have an idea that I want to discuss with
Alejandro. Trust me, it will shake something loose, I
think."
"Okay. I'll let Alejandro know you're coming to talk
with him. What about finding Nero Loring."
"Barring Jytte's success, I think going up to Sedona
would be a good idea."
For the first time I saw fear in Hal's eyes and shock in
Bat's. Both of them reacted as though they had been hit
with an electric stunner. Bat slowly folded his arms
across his chest while Hal clasped his hand together with
fingers interlaced, and rested his elbows on the table.
"You may want to reconsider that idea, Tycho."
"I'm not backstopping your bullet, Hal. Why?"
He drew in a deep breath and Match fidgeted uncom-
fortably in her chair. "Sedona is different."
"Different?"
Garrett nodded solemnly. "Twenty, 30 years ago
Sedona was a hotbed of 'mystical' activity. Folks used to
go up there and meditate in the power nexuses referred
to as 'vortices.' More and more people moved to that
area and formed up into little cults following this guru or
that. At first they were very peaceful, but as the govern-
ment and ranchers tried to restrict their access to private
or wilderness preserve land, the cults took on a positively
survivalist attitude."
Natch grinned weakly. "Think Aryans who check the
color of your aura instead of your skin, Caine-man."
"Exactly." Hal stared at the table about two feet in front
of his hands. "The local press talks about weird things
going on in Sedona, and the local talk radio stations have
whole programs devoted to 'psychic phenomena' going
on up there. When some shooting broke out seven years
ago, both KFYI and KTAR lost news teams covering the
story."
I blinked away my astonishment. "Are you telling me
folks go up there and don't come back? Is there a
Lectorium upthere where folks get eaten or something?"
"Or something."
I looked up as Marit framed herself in the doorway.
"What do you mean?"
"There are, as Hal said, cult groups up there. If you're
not careful they can brainwash you pretty easily. The
techniques have been around since before the Korean
War. As long as you stick close to another rational person
and don't interact too directly, you can go in and come
out again."
I winked at Bat. "I'm not afraid to try. Bat will go with
me, won't you?"
Bat shook his head. "Bust my head, fine, but not my
mind."
Marit walked from the door and stood behind me,
resting her hands on my shoulders. "I'll go. I've been
before and survived it."
Hal's head came up. "Are you crazy?"
"No, that's why I'll go. I've got a Range Rover II in a
garage in City Center. It will get us there and back. I can
even arrange for a local guide—I know a guy from a
photo shoot done up there for the Arizona Highways
swimsuit issue." She gave my shoulders a squeeze. "We
can leave in the morning and be back tomorrow night."
Jytte came in from the other room with the cellular
phone in her hand. "Coyote wants to speak to you,
Tycho."
Given the tail of his message last time, I took the phone
with a bit of trepidation. "Caine here."
"Ah, Mr. Caine, it is good to hear your voice. I have
nothing but admiration for your ability with a gun. I trust
you were not injured."
"No sir, only one of the Plattermen caught a bullet. We
got Mr. Costapain out of there, and he has agreed to help
us."
"Excellent, though it is too bad about the Platterman.
You realize finding Nero Loring is a key to recovering
your identity, don't you?"
"Yes, sir." I had a feeling Hal would not try to stop Marit
and me from going to Sedona, but I wanted to ice the trip.
"Toward that end, Marit and I will be going to Sedona to
follow up on our only lead about Loring."
"Sedona?" The mechanically altered voice hesitated
for a moment or two. "That will be dangerous, but I
believe you have the skills to handle yourself. Be careful,
and do not mistake foolhardiness for courage. If you feel
threatened, get out of there."
"Understood, sir."
"Excellent. Good hunting. Now, if you will, please let
me speak with Hal."
I passed the phone to Hal. He listened closely, then
offered two or three "Yes, sirs," before shutting the phone
off. "He cleared your trip and told me to offer you any help
you need."
"Great." I stood and took Marit's hand. "We'll see
Alejandro right now, then head out in the morning. We
will call in before we leave, at noon, four and every four
hours after that until we get back. If you don't hear from
us for 12 hours straight, send out the cavalry, or write us
off."
Hal nodded. "You want more firepower than what your
normally carry?"
I thought for a second, then shook my head. "If I have
to start shooting to find Nero Loring, the problem will be
one too big to handle no matter how huge the gun. With
any luck at all, I won't have to fire a shot."
We took Marit's car back to City Center and beat the
post-work crowds to the Mercado. We found Alejandro's
gallery in an adobe-like building in the center of the
Mexican pseudo-village. The exterior had been deco-
rated with Spanish and Amerindian designs, but the
colors used were bright pastels unknown to the ancients.
As it was, that made it right at home with the rest of the
Dizzyland village simulation—and alien to the nation and
culture from which it purported to be drawn.
The interior of the gallery, on the other hand, could
have been taken from any fine arts center anywhere.
While the semi-circular foyer got plenty of natural sun-
light, Alejandro had it set up with comfortable chairs and
a small refreshment center. A couple of framed, print-
quality posters hung on the walls to advertise past or
coming shows, but the real art was kept in the upper and
central viewing galleries.
Opposite the foyer, the gallery became long and
narrow. The stairs doubled back on themselves, starting
near the central gallery and coming out toward the foyer
before twisting and climbing up to the upper gallery. On
the ground floor, at the switchback, a pretty receptionist
sat behind a massive mahogany desk—rather rare these
days. I could see from one unfortunate chip in the corner
that the desk was genuine wood—not a press or extruded
plastic product.
The receptionist smiled at Marit. "Ms. Fisk, how good
to see you again."
"Good afternoon, Paz. Is Alejandro in?"
The dark-haired woman nodded. "He's with a client,
but they should be finishing up very soon. If you wish to
wait..."
"We'll look around the gallery."
"I will tell him you're waiting."
We walked into the central viewing gallery and slowly
began to stroll along, admiring the work hung there. The
walls had been painted a neutral beige, which, along with
the charcoal gray carpet, offered no competition for the
art being displayed. Track lighting provided just the right
amount of illumination to bring the colors out without
bleaching them or casting inappropriate shadows on the
statuary.
"Alejandro is known for obtaining new and profes-
sional work for a very discriminating clientele. Most
people think he has the ability to spot excellent invest-
ments before they become astronomically priced." She
pointed to a surreal fantasy piece featuring a sylvan
woman in a pink cloak standing on the trail to a mystical
city. Behind her sat a cloaked warrior with a sword and
a small, non-human creature playing at some sort of
game with painted sticks. "This is another picture by the
woman who painted the piece I tried to buy last night."
"Turner something?"
"Elizabeth Turner. Alejandro tracked her down from
some commercial work she'd done. He's sold a number
of her paintings."
I looked a bit closer at the picture. The artist had a good
technique and was able to convincingly portray the
fantastic as real. "Does he ever arrange commissions?"
"I do, indeed." Alejandro greeted Marit with kisses on
both cheeks, then shook my hand. "Did you want
something painted? A portrait, perhaps?"
"Not exactly. Is there some place we can talk?"
"My office." He headed back out toward the foyer.
"Marit, are you coming?"
She shook her head. "No, actually, I'll leave you here,
Tycho, and go start things rolling for tomorrow. It will
save us some time."
I gave her a quick kiss. "I'll meet you at your place in
an hour?"
Marit shook her head. "No, meet me at Danny's Place
about 8. Have dinner first." She smiled impishly but said
no more and left the gallery. I, in turn, followed Alejandro
up the stairs and back through the upper viewing gallery
to a doorway in the back. He unlocked it and waved me
into his office.
His workplace was as clean and open as the gallery.
He had an antique standing desk that he kept clear
except for a black phone, blotter and pen and pencil set.
Because he worked standing, he had a conversation
nook in the corner to the right of the doorway, with three
comfortable, black-leather chairs surrounding a small
circular coffee table. It was to these he directed me, but
the pictures hung on the walls diverted my attention.
Behind his desk I saw a piece that had to be by Picasso,
yet I did not recognize it. A Monet hung on the left wall,
along with a Cézanne and Pollock. Back beside the door,
I saw a Wyeth Helga portrait and opposite it a Van Gogh
that looked to be another of the Sunflower pieces. I
looked closely at the Van Gogh and knew I could not
place it within any catalog of his work, yet I found it as
beautiful and entrancing as any of his other work I had
seen.
Alejandro closed the door. "You like Van Gogh?"
I nodded. "I do indeed, but this can't be genuine. If it
were, you would have far more extensive security mea-
sures in place here. Because this isn't a copy of a known
piece, it's not a forgery, but if you were to sell it as a
recently 'discovered' piece, you could get a fortune for
it." I glanced at him. "Did you do this?"
He shook his head. "My lot in life is to recognize talent,
not possess it myself. That was done by an associate of
mine who died several years ago. These other pieces
were painted by others."
I smiled wryly. "I imagine it would be very tempting to
offer a wealthy client a piece that he dare not have
authenticated, especially after, say, a robbery of an art
museum that has gotten a certain amount of publicity."
"It would, indeed." Alejandro folded his arms. "In fact,
having done that was how I first became associated with
Coyote."
"How so?"
"Coyote had decided, for reasons known only to him,
to relieve someone of a private art collection. One of the
pieces he got was Dali with a questionable pedigree."
Alejandro sat down and tugged at the knee of his slacks
as he crossed his legs. "I heard of the theft, then got a
phone call. 'I am Coyote,' he said, 'your people do very
good work, and your clients would doubtless be inter-
ested to know just how good it is.'"
I sat across from him, on the edge of one of the chairs.
"Did he blackmail you?"
The art broker half-closed his eyes. "Not blackmail
per se, but an offer of protection. He said I could get
pictures into places, and that I had information that could
be valuable to him. He suggested if we worked together
we would both find it profitable."
"I'm unclear. What did he mean when he said you
could get pictures into places?"
Alejandro smiled like a cat who'd gotten the cream.
"You would be surprised by the number of people who
remove their valuable paintings from a room being swept
by security experts. They seem to assume that those
who are in charge of security are capable of going rogue
and stealing that which they hold most precious. A
passive bug is very difficult to detect, and one that is not
present in the room when you do the sweep is positively
impossible to find."
"I see." I could easily imagine being surprised and not
a little scared at getting a call from Coyote exposing my
error, then offering an alliance. It was interesting to note
that with Hal, Coyote had offered a warning, and with
Alejandro he had used gentle coercion. I imagined with
Rock he must have employed a powerful motivator.
"So, what is it you want done, Tycho?"
"What I want is a painting of Phoenix in which a giant
Fiddleback spider has spun its web from the tops of the
citadels and City Center. I want it grasping for or nesting
at Lorica Industries."
"Interesting. What style do you want?"
I thought for a second. "As close to photo-realistic as
possible, I think. It will be a surreal fantasy piece by any
definition, but I don't want it that widely open to interpre-
tation. The original should be on display, but listed as not
for sale. Noting lithographs will be made might not be a
bad idea."
Alejandro nodded his head. "Bait. You want me to
keep track of whoever asks about it, right?"
"Dead on target." I stood. "I'll pay $5000 for the piece
to be done. Who can you get?"
"You'll want it fast, I assume." I nodded, and he smiled.
"Estefan Ramierez works in that style and fast. He could
use the money."
I remembered seeing paint on his clothes. "Good, that
will be pay back for what he did for me. How long?"
"Possibly as soon as two days from now. He works
quickly."
"Great."
Alejandro stood and offered me his hand. "Very good
doing business with you, sir."
"And you, sir."
"Any thought to a title?"
I nodded. "Have the spider about to chomp down on
Lorica and we'll call it 'Devouring Its Mate.' If that doesn't
shake something lose, nothing will."

Leaving the Higuera Gallery, I decided to get some-
thing to eat without leaving the Mercado. Rather loud and
boisterous crowds filled the two Mexican eateries, so I
settled on a Chinese restaurant called Sesame Inn. Why
it had located a branch in the Mercado I was uncertain,
but I found it a familiar and serene sanctuary in the land
of plastic Aztec jaguars and gringo-ized Mexico.
I ordered a Tsingtao, still amazed at how China
managed to export foodstuffs while failing to feed its
masses, and settled back into the booth I had been given.
The interior decor had a lot of intricate woodwork and
scenes delicately drawn on rice paper graced the walls.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I had been
here, or in a similar place before, but my amnesia
frustrated my attempts to mix my present with my past.
Getting the Fiddleback solution underway made me
feel pretty good. Given that Alejandro's clientele in-
cluded some of the richer folks in Phoenix, word of the
painting would get around quickly. If we tracked and
could sweat anyone who showed an interest in the
picture, we might be able to figure out who or what
Fiddleback was. I felt certain the picture would draw
someone out, and, as Alejandro suggested with his
experience, Coyote would be more than capable of
convincing them to cooperate.
In enumerating the problems we faced for Hal, I had
left one out. That was the problem of the traitor within
Coyote's cell of aides. I would not have minded confiding
in Hal, but the presence of the others in the room at the
time made me hold my tongue. Anyone there could be
"it" and, while I had a front-runner, I knew better than to
make any assumptions.
Hal Garrett, however, I considered worthy of trust.
Coyote had told me that the traitor would do his best to
kill me. While any of the people I met would be physically
capable of pulling a trigger and ending my life, I did not
think Hal would do that. Twice he had counseled against
violence and his whole drive with the Blood Crips and
other gangs was to stop them from retaliating for actions
the Aryans might take. Because he balked at having me
end the WAWA problem by application of a lead injec-
tion to Heinrich, I put him down as someone dedicated
to breaking the cycle of violence.
My prime candidate for traitor, of course, was Rock
Pell. I found him a callous and shallow individual who was
too chummy with the Warriors of the Aryan World
Alliance. He clearly felt a loyalty to himself first and
foremost. His selling out to a higher bidder, whoever that
might be, was not hard to imagine. Still, since Coyote did
not direct me to him, I knew there had to be other
candidates—perhaps even more than one.
Bat, obviously, was capable of violence, and I had to
be certain not to let his apparent respect for my skills lull
me into believing he could not betray me. Marit, too, was
a candidate, though she had certainly had ample oppor-
tunity to kill me when I was defenseless. Alejandro had
direct daily contact with just the sort of people who had
brought me into Phoenix in the first place, which meant
he could be hired to deal with whatever sort of embar-
rassment I might present. Natch struck me as being a low
probability, but a child of the streets learns that unpleas-
ant things may have to be done to survive. Slitting my
throat could be just one such thing. Moreover, if she and
Bat were in league, they would be a very difficult pair to
deal with.
Jytte, in many ways, presented the greatest and the
least threat. Because she functioned as the communica-
tions center for the cell, she certainly had more informa-
tion than anyone else. I did not imagine she passed
everything on and that she, if anyone, had the keys to
figuring out who the traitor was. Extracting that informa-
tion would be difficult and, if she was the traitor, I would
get directed at another, totally innocent member of the
group.
Coyote, on the other hand, had given her an implicit
vote of confidence when he routed my communications
through her. She was strange enough, with her Barbie-
doll looks and computer skills, to be able to monitor our
conversations. Had Coyote suspected her, he would
have contacted me outside her sphere of influence, or
had me work with another cell to uncover the traitor in
this cell.
Still, this did not give me the freedom to tell her what
was up. While her skills in navigating through computers
could probably have uncovered everything I needed to
know, I couldn't count on Jytte to keep secrets from
whoever the traitor might be. If, for example, Marit were
the mole and Jytte felt a debt to her because of their
friendship, the traitor could be tipped to my inquiries and
either act to end them, or skip the city altogether.
I was alone in this. Coyote knew it and, I think, wanted
it that way. I got the feeling he wanted me to find the
traitor, but he also wanted something else. Until I could
puzzle out what that was, however, I could only continue
my investigations and hope that the luck that had kept
me alive so far would continue to hold.
The waiter came and I ordered both hot and sour spicy
soup and tangerine beef. I took a pull on the beer and
savored its sharp bite. It struck me that the only way I
would uncover the traitor was to begin to parcel out
information on a limited basis. When my enemies started
acting on this specialized information, I would know who
had gone over to the other side.
The food arrived quickly, and I forced myself to eat
slowly. The soup was spicy enough to make my nose
run, with not too much vinegar. It was so good, of course,
that I sniffled my way right through it and on into the
tangerine beef. That was another hot dish that masked
its heat with a sweet, yet tart, sauce. I liked it so much that
I knew, had I ever tasted it before, I would have recalled
it and broken my amnesia block. I ate my way around the
slivers of dried red pepper and ended up far more stuffed
than I had intended.
Cheer up, I told myself, if Sedona is as bad as Hal
thinks, this might be the last good meal you manage to
have.
I paid my bill and strolled back out into the Mercado.
Threading my way through the winding, cobblestone
streets, I found an interactive City Center directory.
Working my way through a series of touch sensitive
screens, I located the listing for Danny's Place. I had to
go up one level and then halfway across the center to get
there. I had plenty of time before I had to meet Marit, so
I decided to walk instead of descending to take one of the
trains.
Walking through City Center, virtually all of which was
new to me, I got a chance to really see the world in which
people like Nerys Loring and Marit lived. White marbled
walkways shined and bronze trim on the buildings bore
no trace of fingerprints. All smudges had been painstak-
ingly scrubbed from windows and clean, cool water
bubbled up in a number of fountains. The plants all
proved to be lush and green, making City Center more
a rain forest than an oasis in the midst of a desert.
As I strolled along I saw one maintenance crew
struggling to lever a barrel cactus, pot and all, onto a
trailer hitched to an electric utility cart. Each of the three
men looked sharp in his starched and pressed uniform.
Sweat appeared in circles beneath their armpits and in a
dark stripe along their spines, but that hardly seemed
unnatural given how hard they were working. Lifting in
unison they managed to heft the plant onto the trailer,
then one of them picked up a broom to sweep away the
dirt that had spilled from the pot.
All around them people passed as if the men did not
exist. Each of the men, in turn, had a broad smile pasted
on his face. Even with sweat pouring down from their
scalp and into their eyes, they maintained their idiot-
grins of pleasure. I wondered for a moment if they were
doped up, but the sharp quick look in their dark eyes told
me this was not the case.
Hispanics all, they wore the smiles like masks. Here
they were, blessed beyond all possibility, working in City
Center. Probably born in the dark slums of Eclipse,
somehow they had broken into the light. They were
determined not to sink back into Eclipse. While they
might still live there, and they would never progress
beyond their station, their children or grandchildren
might profit from this toehold in City Center.
Looking around I saw other invisible people working
throughout City Center. Uniformed women washed win-
dows. Young men with brooms and scoopers patrolled
the mall, snatching up any litter thoughtlessly deposited
by the denizens of this place. They bowed and side-
stepped, smiling in the face of unkind comments and
jumping to show their superiors courtesies that were
never returned.
Social Darwinists, I knew, would point out that the best
and most able to survive of current society were due
everything that generation upon generation were able to
give them. They would also note that these industrious
members of the under-class were, as one would expect,
rising up to fill a niche that the superior society left open.
In this way they would slowly but surely evolve into the
upper class themselves.
In theory, I could see, this was true. Alejandro Higuera
had his own gallery, yet I suspected his parents or
grandparents had come to Phoenix from below the
border. Estefan Ramierez would employ his talent for art
to make a bid at joining the well-to-do, but the gulf
between him and Nerys Loring was more than money
alone could bridge. Racial, social and economic barriers
would all hamper him and frustrate him. Were Estefan to
make it in this society, it would be as a curiosity, not a
man accepted on equal terms. A pet.
The word "pet" echoed around inside my skull as I
rode the escalator up toward Danny's Place. "Pet" was
what that thing in the dream called me. I wondered if I
had a keeper, a patron, that kept me much as I would
expect some rich art maven might keep Estefan. Could
that person be Fiddleback? That would explain the
arachnoid form in the dream.
The most heartbreaking aspect of what I saw in City
Center was this: It would take generations for people like
Estefan to attain what people like Marit had now. In that
time, of course, the rich would have become richer.
There would always be a buffer between the new and the
old, which could only irritate and frustrate the new. A lot
of energy would be wasted resenting those who really
should have been beneath their contempt.
Those emotions, I knew, could be positively explo-
sive. Heinrich and his boys were a perfect example of
that. Angered by what they saw as a loss of what they had
a "right" to, frustrated whites lashed out at the minorities
they saw taking over. Not only was their notion of racial
superiority baseless, but their claim to America was
purposefully blind. The Amerindians were here first and,
especially in the southwest, the Spanish came before the
Anglos. Using unsound logic and fabricated science
designed to inspire fear and hatred, the Aryans sought to
destroy that with which they could not compete.
Logic dictated that, because all humans are equal at
birth, all should be treated the same throughout their
lives. The realities of the world ignored logic, pigeonhol-
ing people and limiting their possible progress. Grants
and welfare programs ensured that people would not
starve, but they offered no incentive to try to better one's
lot in life. The whole system, while it might soften the
savagery of life, also doomed people to live in a twilight
existence that would not kill them, but could not provide
them with happiness or anything I would call life.
Working in City Center allowed the people of Eclipse
to see what could be theirs. It also showed them how
difficult it would be to attain. It guaranteed an escalating
spiral of misery and bitterness on the part of the Mikes,
and blissful ignorance of the building resentment by the
gnomes.
When it all fell apart, it wasn't going to be pretty.
I stepped off the escalator and looked at Danny's
Place. Through the big window I saw faded decorations
that immediately tagged the place as a neo-retro-'60s
bar. With a sinking feeling of dread in my stomach, I
walked into the place and let my eyes adjust to the harsh
glow of blacklight posters on the walls. Back in the corner
a wide-screen projection TV showed an episode of some
old sitcom about four young men in a band and The
Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" blared out over the
speakers in the ceiling.
I saw Marit wave at me, and I threaded my way through
the bar. In doing so I noticed two things that struck me as
very odd. All of the waitresses were tall and slender,
wearing long wigs with straight brown hair. Each wore a
baggy-sleeved shirt, a polyester vest and bell-bottom
slacks to match, though getting that much peach fabric
had to have been a special order. Each wore a button that
said, "Hello, have a Partridge Day."
Odder than that were the bartenders. I think they were
all male, but I could only be sure of the two that had full
beards. All of them were similarly attired in hot pants,
knee-length boots with two-inch heels, a flowery blouse
and a long, blond wig. While all of them wore their shirts
open enough to see the hair on their chests, they all also
wore a bra that was sufficiently stuffed to make them a
very strange sight indeed. After an evening's worth of
drinks I imagined it might be possible to mistake one of
them for a woman and try to pick her up, but it would
make for quite a surprise later when the truth was
discovered.
" '60s-retro with transvestite bartenders." I gave Marit
a kiss. "You do know some interesting places."
Marit, wearing a jeans jumper that probably had been
new when people still thought Spiro Agnew was a cattle
disease, kissed me back with enough passion to impress
the other two people at our table. "The bartenders aren't
really cross-dressers, but the owner, Danny, likes them
dressing that way. They say they get good tips."
"Not my choice of careers." I offered my hand to the
man seated across from me. "Tycho Caine."
"Watson Dodd, Build-more Operations." Slender to
the point of looking malnourished, Dodd wore a denim
vest that emphasized his lack of shoulders and accentu-
ated his pencil neck. His John Lennon glasses, while
appropriate for the setting, kept slipping down his hawk-
beak nose. His Adam's apple bobbed like a harpoon
barrel attached to a sounding whale and the flour-sack
shirt he wore hung off him as if he were shedding his skin.
He shook hands as if he thought I had the plague and
was still contagious.
Dodd put his arm around the woman with him. "This
is my little baby factory, Dottie."
Dottie shook hands more firmly than had her hus-
band. The Mama Cass Levi's tent on her did not hide the
fact that she was pregnant. Her face looked puffy and
judging by both her expression and size, I guessed she
was about a month shy of expanding the upper class.
"Pleased to meet you," she said, and meant it.
Dottie smiled at me. "Marit says you're going to
Sedona tomorrow. Watson and I met there."
"I hear Sedona is quite beautiful."
"Spiritually enriching, really," offered Watson. He
adjusted his glasses and did his best to look wise. "We
studied under Chief Probitananda White Feather while he
channeled Kesh-Hur, the 23rd Wizard-Emperor of
Lemuria. In the Church of Searing Illumination we walked
on fire and, had I not opted for this job, we would have
learned to walk on water."
I managed to restrain my laughter. "Walk on water?
Quite a trick, that."
Watson remained serious. "No trick, Ty, but real. With
the fire walk we learned we could overcome any ob-
stacle. We could use the power of our minds to insulate
ourselves so that we would not burn when walking across
a bed of glowing red coals. This is in our bare feet, mind
you, and on coals that spouted little bits of flame now and
again."
"But I thought I saw on the television, Wat, a show
where the Phoenix Skeptics said that was all non-
sense..."
His nostrils flared, stopping his glasses from a suicidal
leap to the table. "Idiots. They ridicule what they don't
understand. There are things that cannot be quantified
by science. The mind is the key to unlocking all possibili-
ties. With another year of studies, we would have been
able to walk across an ocean."
"Quite a useful skill here in the desert," Marit offered
archly.
"I wanted to learn how to fly, but Watson is afraid of
heights." Dottie smiled at her husband. When he glow-
ered at her, she stroked her swollen belly with her left
hand, letting the bar's light glint from her wedding ring.
Immediately the anger left his face, and he was himself
again.
A waitress appeared and took drink orders. Marit
opted for Ripple with a twist and Dottie requested a Virgin
Daiquiri. Watson, no doubt looking to win back some
macho points, ordered bourbon straight up, adding,
"double, rocks," as the waitress looked at me.
"I'll have a Virgin Daiquiri as well." I gave Dottie a wink,
then gave Marit's knee a squeeze under the table.
Something about Watson made it constitutionally
impossible for him to carry off a look of smug superiority.
A new song started and Marit grabbed my hand.
"Come on, Mr. Caine, dance with me." When I raised an
eyebrow she leaned over and whispered in my ear,
"There are those who think dancing is the same as
having sex standing up. Care to test that theory?"
I nodded, and we joined a vast throng crowding the
dance floor. Bodies mingled and jostled us until we
reached a fairly stable area near the center. The song
itself had a basic beat which made it easy to dance to,
though if I ever hear the lyric, "I think I love you," again,
it will be far too soon. Surprisingly I slipped into the
repetitive and rhythmic motions of the retro-dance with-
out much trouble.
Marit, though clad in a '60s dress and moving to '60s
music, was not old-fashioned at all. She abandoned
herself to the music and flowed through a series of very
sensuous and fluid steps. With her hair hiding then
revealing her face like veils, she kept her azure eyes on
mine and a devilish grin on her lips. There, in the middle
of the floor, she danced for me and were my mind on
anything even remotely approximating science, I would
have deemed her theory relating dancing and sex proven
beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The thing about proving theories is, of course, that the
experiment must be repeatable. As that first song faded
into "I Woke Op In Love This Morning," she danced close
and kissed me, then ran her hands down my chest and
drew away. Behind her, barely registering on my con-
sciousness, I saw Watson and Dottie cutting through the
crowd to join us. I looked back toward our table and saw
the waitress distributing our drinks. I also saw someone
standing beside her, someone I thought I knew.
It took me a few seconds to place that pasty white face,
and then I realized why I didn't recognize him immedi-
ately. Except for the blue, star-shaped scar on his cheek,
he looked just like a twin of the Reaper I'd shot in the face
my first night in Eclipse. As I watched him unseen, his
gloved hands came up, and he made a motion over the
table, but I couldn't actually see what he had done. I did
notice, however, his left hand seemed smaller than his
right.
Without thinking, I started wading through the crowd
to get at him. He looked up and saw me, then turned and
began calmly walking away. He glanced back over his
shoulder at me and, when he saw I was about to clear the
edge of the dance floor, he bolted and ran out the door.
I knew, instantly, I would never catch him. I made it as
quickly as I could to our table, then dropped to one knee.
On the ground I found half of a gelatin capsule that had
a residue of white powder in it. I put that in my pocket.
Straightening up, I saw a thin dusting of powder on the
table in an arc that connected my drink to Dottie's.
As Marit came up, I purposely bumped the table with
my stomach and tipped it over as I leaned on it to steady
myself. The drinks crashed to the floor, and I managed
a blush that made me feel hot enough to combust.
Marit leaned over and rubbed my back with one hand.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded slowly and righted the table. Laurie, our
waitress, gave me a concerned look. I held up a hand.
"Sorry, just dizzy. I get that way, some times, when I
dance. Low blood sugar." I pulled a $50 note from my
pocket. "Here, get us another round, and keep the
change for the inconvenience."
Marit tucked a wisp of hair behind her left ear as the girl
went off to get a cleaning rag. "Something wrong?"
Sure, I just saw someone who might be back from the
dead try to poison us.
"Just thought I saw an old friend."
"You remembered someone?"
"Yeah, I did." I shrugged, "What I remembered is that
he's dead, and has every reason to want me that way,
too."

When I fully explained what had happened, Marit
became more shaken up than I was. She managed to
cover her discomfort as Watson and Dottie returned to
our table, but she quickly made an excuse for us and got
us out of there. Without speaking we went to the elevators
and headed home.
When the doors closed, she hugged me, and I could
feel her trembling. "Easy, Marit, it is not that bad. Nothing
happened—no one was hurt."
Hiding her face in a curtain of black hair, she sniffed
and wiped a tear from her right eye. "I know, Tycho, but
all of a sudden it hit me that I might lose you. I'd not
expected that sharp a reaction." She looked up and
stroked my cheek with her tear-damp finger. "You're in
my blood, Tycho Caine."
I kissed her hand. "And you are in mine." The elevator
slowed, and the doors to the tranversor opened. "Early
to bed and early to rise, and we'll be in Sedona before the
assassins even open their eyes."
Despite Hal's reservations about Sedona and the
attempt on our lives, I slept well. I had half-expected
another monster dream but, to my surprise, I did not
dream at all. I awakened quickly and felt excited about
the trip. After a shower and a quick breakfast, I joined
Marit in the tranversor, and we headed down to pick up
her Range Rover.
Marit was dressed in knee-high boots, khaki jodhpurs
and a khaki safari shirt with four shotgun shells in the little
loops at her left shoulder. She carried a gun-case that
contained a pump-action Mossberg with a pistol-grip
and a shortened barrel. On her hip rode a Colt Python
.357 Magnum and enough spare shells to win a small
war. Dark glasses and a black baseball cap completed
her outfit.
I had to rely on my boots, jeans and one of the dress
shirts Roger had provided me. As always, I wore my vest
beneath the shirt, my shoulder holster over it and the
windbreaker over that, concealing the pistol. I carried
two full spare clips and stuck a box of bullets in Marit's
gun case. While I didn't think we would have much cause
to shoot anything, being safe beats being sorry by a long
shot.
The bright red Range Rover, which still dripped water
from the washing it had been given, had been gassed up
and stocked with a cooler. Anna had filled the cooler with
soft-drinks, some sandwiches and a bag of grapes. I set
Marit's gun case on the back seat, then climbed into the
navigator's seat. Marit slid in behind the wheel, and we
set off to Sedona.
Even leaving as early as we were, I expected some sort
of a commuter rush of traffic. I mentioned this to Marit,
but she just shook her head. "You must remember,
dearest, that people working in City Center generally live
here, or commute in from Eclipse through the elevators.
Those who work in the corporate citadels likewise live
there, or commute via the maglevs. In fact, the only time
there is any sort of traffic rush around here is when,
generally in August, Phoenecians invade San Diego to
escape the worst of the monsoon season."
"Monsoons? In a desert?"
"Monsoons. They generally start a week from now,
with the beginning of July. Lightning storms like you've
never seen." She smiled to herself. "It's funny, but the
only time they crack Frozen Shade is to clean up after the
storms, and there are enough clouds left that the folks
still can't see the stars."
As she spoke, Marit guided us through a labyrinth of
narrow streets running between legions and legions of
parked vehicles. Most of them were covered in shrouds,
and those that weren't looked as if they had been
dusted—if not waxed and polished—already that morn-
ing. Aside from the utter jumble of manufacturers repre-
sented, it would have been easy to imagine we were in the
hold of a cargo ship bringing in imports.
Finally Marit started us gliding down an on-ramp that
brought us onto I-10 heading west. We joined the inter-
state just beyond the tunnel through which it passed
beneath City Center and almost immediately hit the
intersection with I-17. As we made the transition to the
northbound road, I craned my neck to see if I could spot
the Boxton cemetery where Buc had died, but I could not.
We rolled along beneath the Frozen Shade and traffic
was light enough that Marit used her high beams most of
the time. "We want to be able to see freesprints in time
to avoid them. Poor bastards."
"What do you mean?"
"The system will take care of folks. If you can't do
anything, you can sell your vote proxy to the corps or
pols and they'll take care of you. That's good enough for
most folks: three meals a day, enough beer to stupefy
you, and all the television you can watch to finish the job.
That's a hell of a lot for folks who can't hold a job."
I frowned. "I don't think the lot of a ballotman is very
good."
"True, but it sets a base level one cannot sink beneath.
It does not prohibit you from doing anything to improve
your lot, though many folks who opt for that way of living
have really surrendered. They just sort of die inside and
wait for their bodies to catch up."
"So what is this about freesprints?
"They are freeway runners. They get frustrated and
decide to kill themselves, yet they realize they have a
responsibility to their families. Because of that, they run
onto the highway and force you to run over them. When
a car is traveling 100 mph, the way we are now, they do
considerable damage to the vehicle and could easily kill
us."
I suddenly saw what she was working toward. "They
think their family will get an insurance settlement from
your insurance company."
"The tale of a big payoff is an urban legend. The
insurance companies, using the proxy votes from
ballotmen, have gotten a law passed that states anyone
engaging in freesprinting is, in fact, guilty of assault with
intent to kill. The law not only absolves the insurance
company from any responsibility for paying off in
freesprint cases, but it makes the victim or his estate
responsible for reparations for the damage he does to the
car." She shook her head. "I've seen families ruined by
that sort of thing, and I don't want to be any part of it."
Interstate 17 took us north out of Phoenix. We left
Eclipse just beyond Del Webb's Near-Dead City—the
remnant of what was once a thriving retirement commu-
nity. Outside, where the temperature was already hitting
110°F, I saw desert that, for the most part, consisted of
cracked tan earth and scrubby, leafless brush that
sprouted cat-claw thorns. A bit further north the road
started the long climb up the Mogollon rim toward
Flagstaff. It took us through pleasantly named places like
Big Bug Creek and Bloody Basin and terrain that looked
like broken red pottery.
As I looked at the land I knew it was totally alien to me.
Rocks, rocks and more rocks abounded, somehow
balancing on the side of steep hills that had long since
had all their topsoil eroded away. Cactii somehow took
root in the hard-baked earth, and I had no doubt that
scorpions and rattlesnakes lurked in every niche and
shadow I saw.
As the vehicle made the long climb up out of the
valley, the landscape began to change a bit. It went from
desert to arid prairie, yet looked no more hospitable. The
few trees I saw were stunted and dried out. The tan
grasses looked the appropriate color for them to be ripe
for harvesting, yet they lay in the fields in patchy clumps
that rose no further than knee-height.
I looked for the cattle I would have expected to see
grazing, but I saw no living creatures in those fields.
I didn't even see any road kill.
I looked over at Marit, but she seemed oblivious to
what I saw as abnormalities. That concerned me for a
second, then I recalled that my grasp on reality was not
all it could have been. I took my cue from her and tried
to relax.
"Marit, how did you get involved with Coyote? You
explained a bit of it the other night, but not the whole tale."
She glanced over at me and looked as if she had not
heard the question, but before I could repeat it, her face
closed up a bit. "I had hoped this would not come up, but
you have a right to know. Rock brought me into the
group."
She searched my face for judgment, but found none.
"I had known Rock for a long time and, well, ran into him
during a time when I was very vulnerable. We started
seeing each other, socially, then a problem came up that
he thought I could help Coyote solve. He set up a meeting
and that was that."
I smiled grimly. "That answers a number of questions
for me. How long ago did you and Rock stop being
lovers?"
She looked straight ahead at the road. "A year and a
half ago. Rock has been jealous ever since, but our
worlds seldom intersect, so there is nothing he can do
about it." Marit smiled weakly. "I hope you're not mad.
Talking about one's past lovers is not a good idea, but
Rock acts like an ass fairly often, so I feel better getting
this off my chest. You aren't mad, are you?"
"I don't own you. I did not know you a week ago. How
can I be angry about a situation where I did not exist?" I
patted her right thigh reassuringly. "If he bothers you, on
the other hand, and you are disinclined to deal with it
yourself, my services are at your disposal."
"Ah, gallantry is not dead." She hit the blinker switch
and turned off onto Arizona Route 179 to Sedona.
"Sedona and the red rock country is very special. It's
been two years since I've been there, but it was gorgeous
back then. I hope it hasn't changed much."
Not having been there before, I could not gauge the
amount of change, but I agreed that it was very beautiful.
The red rock format ions rise up from the canyon floor like
mountains that have been transplanted from Mars.
Aspens and other verdant vegetation thrived along the
Oak Creek and contrasted beautifully with the rich
bloodstone color of the land itself. Even if all the sup-
posed power vortices did not exist, Sedona would attract
a lot of visitors just because of its beauty.
Unfortunately the power nexus points did attract a
large segment of the population. We rolled on into the
town of Sedona and parked in front of the Guest Center.
It looked like a perfectly normal geodesic dome except
for the UFO mooring mast rising like a spike from it. The
sign beside the door had a greeting written in French,
English, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Span-
ish. It also had three sets of bizarre symbols, most of them
based on geometry, that I chose to assume were "Wel-
come" in extraterrestrial languages.
Marit debated it for a second, but decided to leave the
shotgun in the Rover. We entered the building and were
immediately assaulted by thick, cloying mesquite in-
cense clouds. The Muzak being played in the back-
ground remained frustratingly elusive, fading in and out
without any rhyme or reason as nearly as I could tell. The
posters on the wall mixed retro-'60s stuff with chamber
of commerce shots of the surrounding landscape and
had UFOs caught in the act of hovering or air-brushed in
after the fact.
The man behind the counter smiled at us and looked
normal until I noticed the tinfoil lining his "See Sedona,
I Did" baseball cap. "Greetings. Didn't I know you during
our lives in the Court of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen?"
I returned his smile. "I don't know, friend. We were
wondering, for my father, if you could give us some
information about retirement communities in the area.
He's in his 70s and will be retiring. We want to move him
up here and get him out of Phoenix."
"The City in the Lake." The man scratched at his hat,
and I saw his name tag read "Ramses."
"Is that a retirement community?"
"No, that's what we call Phoenix up here." Ramses
bent down and clacked away on his computer keyboard.
He glanced up at the old television he was using as a
monitor, hit it once on the side, then squinted at the
screen. "Does your father have any group affiliations?"
I shook my head. "Group affiliations?"
"Masons? Illuminati? Chief Probitananda White
Feather's Church of Searing Illumination?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
Ramses hissed as he took a breath and typed on the
keyboard again. He hit the return key, then looked up at
me. "The search will take a moment, but I would not hold
out much hope."
"Why not?"
The man smiled a sympathetically as he could. "Most
of our group homes up here are run by the various
foundations, churches, associations, networks and stel-
lar unions who come to Sedona for the power here.
Without an affiliation, I don't think we'll find anything."
The computer beeped at him and he stared, surprised, at
the screen. "By the Goddess!"
His reaction caught both of our attentions. "Yes?"
"This is strange—Marie must have entered this one
last week." Ramses gave me a broad grin. "You are in
luck Mr....don't tell me, I am a psychic..."
"Caine," I said.
"Lane, of course. Well, Mr. Lane, it appears the
Fiddleback Farm may be just what you want."
"Excuse me, the name is Caine. Now what did you call
that place?"
"Fiddleback Farm. It is a retirement home for execu-
tives that opened up about two months ago, but has just
gotten into contact with us. Says here, 'We welcome
pets.' You drive out of town on Von Falkenberg Road
about four miles, and you should see it." He circled a
location on a placemat road map and handed it to me.
I nodded. "Thank you, Ramses, you have helped me
a great deal."
"You are most welcome, sir. Any time you and Mrs.
McLain want to come back and see us, well, we'll be
happy to have you here."
Marit and I beat a hasty retreat to the Rover. As she
opened her door then popped the automatic locks, she
shook her head. "You get the feeling this is too easy?"
"Not if those clouds keep rolling in fast."
"That's Arizona for you. If you don't like the weather,
wait a minute, and it will change."
On the horizon, but coming in fast, stampeding thun-
derheads slid across the sky. Yellow lightning flashed
from one cloud to another. Below the clouds hung a dirty
brown curtain that moved across the landscape, swal-
lowing features of it whole.
"What is that?"
"Dust storm. This one will be nasty."
I pulled out my Serengeti Vermillions and put them on.
I knew the tinted lenses filtered light in a way that
normally helped me see more detail in fog or dust storms,
but not so this one. As far as my sight was concerned, it
might as well have been a wall.
"Do we go, or do we wait this out in town?" Marit turned
the key in the ignition, and the engine kicked over.
"You're behind the wheel. It's your call."
She glanced at the local map, then smiled wolfishly.
"We go for it."
I snapped my seatbelt in place, and we took off down
the main road winding its away through Sedona. On the
other side of the town we saw the turn off to Von
Falkenberg Road. Following the map we had been given,
we turned off 197 and onto the dirt road that wound its
way up through a small canyon. As we drove, a small
dust cloud swelled up in our wake, obscuring our view of
the town and the storm that tracked us.
We came around a particularly sharp hairpin curve
and darkness descended on us as if we were back in
Eclipse. The wind bellowed like a wounded ox and sand
hissed as it ripped across the Rover. Gravel and stones
clunked and thumped against the car as the dust storm
hammered us full on forward. Marit hit the headlights
instantly, punching twin light cones through the brown
haze, but a sharp crack killed the passenger-side light.
A huge tumbleweed launched itself through the light
and dashed itself to bits on the windshield. Marit yelped,
then tugged at the wheel. "I've lost it! The road. It's gone!"
For one, sickening, agonizing second, the Rover's
travel became smooth, as if we were once again on
Interstate 17 racing back toward Phoenix. Then gravity
pulled the Rover back down to earth, and gave us the ride
of our lives.

Awakening in a dented and broken Range Rover with
a raging dust storm clawing at your eyes is not a pleasant
experience. Realizing that obnoxious scent you smell is
leaking gasoline makes it even less so. Half hanging from
my seat belts, with the deflated airbag draped over my
knees, I shook my head to clear it, but I only succeeded
in making it hurt more.
I raised my left hand to my forehead, and it came away
bloody. I twisted the rearview mirror around and saw a
nasty abrasion on my forehead over my left eye and that
I was bleeding from it and my nose. The blood had
actually flowed across my forehead toward the right
because, with the car on its side, that direction lay toward
the center of the earth.
"Lucky to be alive." I hit the release button on my
seatbelt, then crashed to the ground. Both my knees
ached from where they had slammed into the dashboard
during the crash, and my head started pounding. I shifted
around and wormed my way out the narrowed slit that
was where the windscreen had been before it blew out.
I knew from the condition of the vehicle that we'd rolled
down an arroyo, but until I got outside the Rover and got
a chance to look at it, I had an optimistic view of the
accident.
Panels and pieces of the vehicle littered the landscape
for as far as the dust storm let me see. The hood, some
of which still remained in place, had been torn in half like
a piece of tissue paper. The aft end of the Rover bent
down where the frame had snapped. The passenger
compartment had not completely collapsed, but only by
the grace of God as the roof showed some deep dents
and a couple of jagged puncture wounds.
Standing there, with the storm winds battering my
back, I dimly recalled someone else having been in the
vehicle with me. "Marit! MARIT! I shouted in competition
with the wind. No driver door! I started scrambling up the
hillside we had tumbled down, calling her name and
trying to find her amid the dust-milked tears in my eyes.
As the howling dust storm died, I found her. She had
been thrown clear of the wreck and, by some miracle,
appeared largely uninjured. She lay on her left side, her
face shrouded by her black hair. Kneeling beside her, I
rolled her onto her back and brushed the hair from her
face. Pressing my fingers to her throat I found a strong
pulse and saw she was breathing normally.
Her left forearm, however, had been seriously broken.
Her hand lay flat against the ground while the top of her
arm had twisted more toward the sky. The jagged end of
a bone poked through her skin and blood formed a
bracelet around her arm. It had to be painful, and would
be even more so were I to attempt to set it. Shelter. She
needs shelter, then I need to get help.
Even in my state of shock I realized enough to know
that I could not carry her to safety. I'd suffered a
concussion, as had she. I might be able to walk back to
Sedona and get Ramses to send some folks out here to
get Marit, but I could never bring her with me. I had to
hope she would be all right while I went off, and I took the
dust storm's death as a good omen for my chances of
success.
Then the thunderstorm began.
Even suffering from amnesia, I knew I had never seen
a storm like that one before. Black clouds appeared, that
from my vantage point were darker and more substantial
than Frozen Shade. Multi-tined lightning forks blasted
down, their brilliant light momentarily revealing the
depth of the cloud cover. Thunder exploded like concus-
sion grenades and ripped through me like bullets.
The first raindrops hit big and fat and hard. Their
warmth surprised me. They felt more like blood than they
did water. Like an invasion force, the heavy drops
pounded down into the desert, their frequency building
swiftly until I felt the blackness had been given the
substance necessary to finish the job the crash had
started.
The landscape remained dark and invisible until a
dazzling lightning bolt drenched it in silver fire. In that
second, with the sensation of blood being poured over
me, I saw in the red rocks visual confirmation of what I
felt. Wind-whipped rain scourged me as I used my body
to shield Marit from the storm's violence.
All around the ravine in which we crouched, lightning
assaulted the ground with no mercy. Bolt after bolt fell in
lockstep, their thunder becoming one nearly constant
roar in my ears. The light froze sheets of rain in midflight,
stopping them for a second, then freeing them to pum-
mel me.
Almost as quickly and savagely as the front hit us, it
pushed on, leaving a light drizzle in its wake. For a
moment or two I remained braced for a renewal of the
onslaught; I knew the storm was tricking me. I knew the
second I tried to stand, it would chop me back down to
my knees. We had dared defy it, we had tried to outrun
it, and it had taken us down, like a falcon trained for the
hunt.
As the thunder trailed off, and the ringing in my ears
began to die, I stood and looked around me. I realized at
the fastest rate possible for my befuddled thinking, that
I could see things. The tallest rocks standing sentinel
around the canyon glowed with a purplish fire. I reached
out toward the nearest one and felt no heat from it.
I pulled my hand back and discovered on each finger
a cone of the purple fire. It traveled down my hand and
to the elastic wristband of my windbreaker. It circled my
arm with a nimbus of fire, yet the only thing I felt was a
gentle, playful tickling sort of tingle. It was almost as if the
storm, after having abused me, now wanted to make
amends.
A golden glow from behind me cast my shadow long
over Marit. I turned and raised my hand to ward off the
brightness. A shimmering gold ball with a coppery
corona floated six feet from me at the height of my head.
It slowly began to circle me, as if watching me and trying
to decide exactly what this dripping creature could
possibly be.
Somewhere from the back of my brain came labels for
all I was seeing. The purple fire on the rocks and my body
was St. Elmo's fire. The sphere was ball lightning, and I
knew the atmospheric conditions were perfect for both of
them to exist. Intellectually, I understood these things to
be naturalistic phenomena, but standing in that arroyo,
the lone survivor of the thunderstorm's blitzkrieg, I felt
fear in my heart. Whatever these things were, whatever
explanations dispassionate scientists might have given
them, I knew they were not natural at all.
The gold ball completed its circuit, then shot straight
up into the air to a height of 20 or so feet. As I watched
it began a strange metamorphosis. The gold shifted to
green as the sphere began to lengthen into an egg-
shape. It continued to grow beyond that, into a bluish rod
that crackled as it hovered. In the midst of the shift from
egg to rod, it shed a number of tiny green spheres that
reminded me, in both size and color, of peas.
These little balls, in numbers too great for me to count,
spilled down toward the ground. Before I could move to
stop them, they blanketed Marit, sealing her in a glowing
green cocoon. As I reached my right hand out to scrape
them away, the blue rod swooped in on me, hissing and
sparking as it came. I leaped back and smelled the stink
of melting plastic as it lanced through the edge of my
windbreaker.
It shot on past me and impaled the Rover's leaking gas
tank. The blue light died amid a roiling ball of red-gold fire
that sent the flaming wreckage cartwheeling across the
canyon floor. It made a run halfway up the far side, then
lazily tumbled back down to wallow in a pool of fire.
The Shockwave hit me hard and knocked me down
over Marit. My knees hammered into the ground, renew-
ing the pain caused by their impact with the dashboard
in the Rover. I managed to get my hand under me, so I
didn't fall full on her, and I felt pressure as a rock
punctured the palm of my left hand. As I pulled my hand
back I saw the cut in it, but the stigmata gave me no pain.
Focusing beyond my hand, I saw the green light had
vanished. In the flickering light from the burning Rover,
Marit's eyes opened, and she turned her head toward me.
"Take it easy, Marit. We had an accident. You've been
hurt. I'll get you help."
She frowned and rolled up onto her right elbow. She
reached out and grabbed my left wrist with her left hand.
"Looks to me, love, like you're the one who is hurt."
I stared down at her left arm. The compound fracture
had been healed. The blood had been washed away. I
looked more closely at her arm and couldn't even see a
scar from where the wound had been. "Your arm. It was
broken."
Her left hand rose past my eyes and gently probed my
forehead wound. "Are you sure? How do you feel?"
Did I imagine that? "I'm not crazy, Marit. I know what
I saw. Your arm was broken, then the gold ball be-
came...." My voice trailed off as I realized how truly mad
my story would sound. "We have to get out of here."
"I agree." She scrambled to her feet and helped me up.
A wave of dizziness passed over me, and I started to fall,
but she held me up.
"Thanks."
"No problem. That knock on your head looks nasty."
She guided me around to a rock and eased me down.
"You sit here. I can go back into Sedona to get help."
"No, I'll make it. I will!" I felt weak and confused. My
clothes suddenly felt heavy and cold and I started to
shiver. In the background I heard the rumble of thunder,
but it slowly faded—as did my confidence in the reality
of anything I had seen.
My head jerked up as a bright lightning flash silhou-
etted two creatures on the edge of the canyon. Their
outlines looked all spiky and cruel, like people sculpted
from barbed wire. I had a sudden urge to draw my gun
and empty the magazine into them, but I couldn't be
certain they even existed, much less were as evil as
something inside me was telling me they were.
The question of their reality solved itself quickly
enough as they started their horses down a narrow trail.
In the firelight I saw they were clad in big, black slickers
and wearing cowboy hats. As they came closer I heard
the clop of hooves on the ground, the jingle of spurs and
the creak of leather. They reached the canyon floor and
skirted the fire, backlighting themselves against it as
they approached.
"Howdy, folks," the lead rider greeted us. "'fraid we
don't have triple-A out in these parts."
Marit, despite being rain-soaked and bedraggled,
turned on the charm. "Storm took us by surprise."
"That happens." The man spit to his left, causing me
to recognize the bulge in his cheek as a chaw. "We were
checking some head when the storm rolled in. We were
heading back home when we saw the fire. We decided to
check it out."
The second rider came forward, and I realized she was
a woman when she tipped her head back and presented
me a soft profile. "We can take you back to the house, get
you fixed up, then drive you into town in the truck." She
laughed gently, but it sounded unspontaneous enough
to put me on my guard. " 'Lessin you're of a mind to stay
here while we ride back and call this in to the police."
The man looked at her. "If the storm didn't take the
phone lines down again."
"True, this was a nasty one." She smiled at Marit. "I
reckon I have some dry clothes that would fit you, if you
won't mind cinching them up a might tight."
The man cleared his foot from his stirrup and offered
his left hand to Marit. She put her foot in the stirrup and
swung up behind him. He looked at me and shrugged.
"Gotta even the load for the horses." To her, over his
shoulder, he said, "Now you hang on tight to me, darlin',
so you don't go and fall off."
The woman brought her horse forward and reached
down to me. Because Marit had so willingly gotten on to
the man's horse, I resisted my immediate urge to pull her
from her horse and pump five or six rounds into her. I put
my left foot into the free stirrup and was amazed at the
strength with which she helped me up.
She reached back and grabbed my left buttock.
"Snuggle up close here. I don't want you to slip out of the
saddle when we go up the hill. Just put your arms around
my waist and hang on." She pulled me forward, then
settled my arms around her more to her satisfaction and
comfort than mine. "Don't be afraid," she whispered, "I
won't break."
We left the burning Rover behind quickly enough, and
I actually did have to tighten my grip to remain in the
saddle as we went up over the lip of the canyon. Up top
I could see a dim, distant horizon line where the clouds
were thin enough to let sunlight lay down a gold layer
between the mountains and the sky. Over the vast, flat
plain across which we rode, I could see lightning strike
from time to time. In the backlight I made out the squat,
angular shape that marked the house toward which we
rode.
As we got closer the house appeared to be old and
well-weathered. "Looks like the power is out."
The woman nodded at the man's comment. "Looks
like we'll have to use candles, again."
The man half-turned toward Marit. "Know anything
about horses?"
"I have ridden quite a bit, actually."
"Good." He dismounted in front of the house, then
turned and caught Marit around the waist. He lifted her
clear of the saddle and set her down gently. His hands
lingered on her waist a bit longer than I thought neces-
sary, but neither Marit or the woman seemed to notice it.
"You can help me put the horses up while your friend and
my wife rustle up something to eat."
"Don't mind working for a meal," Marit smiled.
"Good."
The woman eased me down from the saddle, then
dismounted quickly, turned around and accidently
bumped belly to belly with me. She steadied herself by
grabbing my waist, then smiled. "Sorry, didn't think
you'd still be standing there." As her husband took the
reins to her horse, she grabbed my right hand and pulled
me toward the porch steps.
Marit, lost in a whispered and giggled conversation
with the man, didn't notice.
A wood-burned sign tacked to a porch pillar read "The
Donners."
The woman opened the door without benefit of keys.
"Out here we don't have much cause to go locking doors.
We might get a coyote in the yard from time to time, or
some New Agers looking for a vortex, but they're never
any trouble."
Inside and out of the rain, she doffed the slicker and
hat. She struck a match and set it to a candle on a table
just inside the door. Once the scent of burning sulfur
cleared my nostrils, I caught the musty smell of an old
house with older furnishings. The air seemed a bit
stagnant, as if the house had not been lived in for a while.
This made me suspicious, but I put it down to the
paranoia I'd been suffering since the Rover's explosion.
It could have been that they had been away from the
main house for a while, living in another building on their
property while they tended their herd. Even more plausi-
bly, the contrast of the clean smell of a rain-washed
desert and this house accounted for my misgivings.
The woman moved away from me like some fey
creature. She touched the candle to a half-dozen others,
literally blazing a trail toward the kitchen. In the candle-
light I saw what my hands had confirmed during the ride.
Though an average-sized woman, she had a very narrow
waist and full hips. The damp jeans she wore looked
more like a second skin than a garment, and this woman
compared quite favorably to Marit in all ways.
The candlelight burnished gold highlights into her
long, blond hair. As she turned and caught me staring at
her back, she smiled as if she welcomed the attention,
then laughed throatily. "Let's see if we can find some-
thing in here to quench your hunger."
As if in a trance I followed her into the kitchen. She
drew a long bread knife from a block near the stove, then
pointed with it toward a huge, rectangular spectral hulk
in the corner of the room. Light from several small flames
played along the blade's sharp edge. "In the icebox you'll
find some meat. We can take slices off the rump roast for
sandwiches."
I looked away from her, albeit very reluctantly, and
crossed to the refrigerator. I felt so confused that I didn't
attach any significance to her having called it an icebox.
Nor did the true meaning of a light going on when I
opened the door hit me. I knew lights came on when
refrigerator doors were opened. My brain was unable to
connect the supposed lack of power to the house with
this being a problem. It did not sound an alarm in my
brain.
Seeing an old man's head on the top shelf did. Lidless
eyes stared at me, instantly transplanting the terror of his
last moments to me. Below his head, on the different
levels, various body parts had been stacked quite care-
fully. A charred hunk of meat sat in congealed juices on
a plate, right next to two-thirds of a liver wrapped in
plastic-wrap.
Adrenaline jolted through me like lightning. I whirled,
my right hand going for the Krait. As I moved out of the
light, it washed full over the mad woman rushing at my
back with her knife upraised. She slashed down through
where I had stood, then snarled at me like some feral
monster in human form.
I snapped the Krait's safety lever down and stroked the
trigger. The first bullet caught her in her flat belly and
tossed her back against the kitchen counter. She re-
bounded from it, the knife flying from her fingers, and I
shot her again. That bullet slammed into her left shoulder
and spun her to the ground.
I leaped over her, but as I did so, she clawed at and
caught my ankle. I stumbled and went down, landing
hard on my left arm. As I rolled onto my back, she rose
up like a malevolent shadow in the refrigerator's light.
Without conscious thought, I stabbed the gun at her and
tightened my finger down on the trigger.
The first shot sent her flying back into the fridge. The
old man's head bounced up and over her body. My
second shot hit solidly and sprayed crimson over the
refrigerator's interior. The light shifted to a lurid red as my
last shot blew a chunk from her head and destroyed a
bottle of wine on the top shelf.
Blood mixed with wine ran down and flooded out onto
the floor. I kicked the old man's head away from my feet
and stood. I glanced back at the woman again and was
prepared, at the least little twitch, to shoot her yet again.
Then I heard a scream from outside. Seeing an image of
Marit's head replacing that of the old man, I sprinted
down the hallway to the door, outside and along the
porch. I vaulted the railing and started running toward the
small stable.
The man, pulling Marit along behind him by the wrist,
ran out the door and around the corner. I hit top speed
crossing the open ground, then flattened with my back
against the stable. I took a quick peek around the corner
and saw the man standing there, weaponless, with
Marit's right wrist held tightly in his left hand. I pulled my
head back, took a deep breath, then cut around the
corner and dropped my gun on him.
They were gone!
I darted forward, to where they had stood, right there,
out in the open, and could see no trace of them. Then,
one step beyond that, I caught sight of them again, but
they appear far further distant than they could have
gotten in just a second. "Let her go!"
The man stopped and his slicker melted back into a
cape. The red-checked shirt and jeans I imagined him
wearing became a scarlet tunic and blue pantaloons. His
cowboy boots shifted into the floppy-top boots I associ-
ated with ancient corsairs. His hat even shifted into a
black velvet beret and sprouted a long, green feather. His
ears, I noticed for the first time, were pointed.
Marit clawed at his wrist, and he released her. Then,
striking faster than a cobra, he backhanded her and
knocked her flying. She hit the ground and lay still. His
eyes glowed with blacklight intensity as he brought his
right hand forward. "Now you are in my realm, man-
child! Here you will die."
St. Elmo's fire sprouted from his fingertips and con-
densed into a large ball of fire. It arced toward me, but I
triggered two shots, and it imploded when my bullets
pierced its shell. I shifted my aim point and pulled the
trigger twice more. Both those shots hit him in the chest
and toppled him backward.
Wary because of his wife, I ran up and pumped the rest
of the clip into him. I saved the last bullet for his head, then
slapped another clip into the Krait and watched him for
a while to make sure he was dead. Slowly, still keeping
my eye on him, I backed toward where Marit had fallen
and found her amid some yellowish ground fog.
She had a bruise on the side of her face and blood
dribbled from a split lip, but otherwise she looked fine.
Though she remained unconscious, I smiled and stroked
the uninjured side of her face. "Don't worry, kid, I'll get
you home."
As I listened to the regular whisper of her breathing, I
realized I didn't hear any more thunder. I stood and
turned back toward the house, but no gravel crunched
under my feet. The ground fog was possible in Arizona,
especially after a thunderstorm, but why yellow ? Com-
pleting my turn I saw no house, no stable, nothing. As far
as I could see, the landscape was gray on purple with
yellow-mist trim.
I looked up expecting to see stars, but I saw nothing.
My paranoia roared back with a vengeance, and I
instantly regretting being so generous with the bullets I'd
used on the man, if, in fact, that was what he was.
Kneeling beside Marit again, I waved the mist away
from her face. "I'll get you home again, Marit. I promise."
Just as soon as I figure out where the hell we actually are.

"You might try tapping your heels together and re-
peating 'There's no place like home,' but I doubt its
efficancy in this case."
I looked up and saw a man or, more accurately, the
cameo of a man. It seemed, to me, to have all the
dimensions of a normal body, but it was black on black.
Still, I did not get the feeling he was black in a racial sense.
In fact, doubtlessly projecting from myself, he could have
been me except for the outline of a full goatee and his
ring.
While his entire body was made of shadow, the fourth
finger on his right hand had a bright gold band on it. As
his hand moved, I saw the same curious design on it that
I had seen in my dream and drawn for Hal. It was the
symbol that Juanita said belonged to El Espectro.
"The first time I saw you I was dreaming. Am I
dreaming now?"
The shadow laughed politely. "No, you are not dream-
ing, and if you were, this would certainly be a nightmare."
"According to Mark's cleaning woman, you are El
Espectro."
The man laughed again, but more heartily this time.
"I supposed that is, indeed, possible. I have lost track of
how many different names I have worn." He opened his
arms to indicate the area surrounding us. "I also think we
had best leave this place."
I looked around the smoothly featureless plain. "Where
are we?"
El Espectro moved over to the dead body and prod-
ded it with his toe. "I believe this is the protodimensional
haven he has used for centuries to gain access to our
world. This is not good because it bleeds into his home
dimension, and that could cause us some trouble."
"Dimension? Who is this Donner guy, anyway, and
what do you mean by dimension?" My mouth began to
get dry, and I detected a sulphurous tinge to the yellow
fog. "What is that smell?"
He turned back to me. "I will answer your questions,
perhaps not to your satisfaction, then we must move if
you want to leave this place. You will have to do
everything I tell you to do, without questions. Do you
understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. This was a Draoling—consider it a sociopathic
human for all intents and purposes. This one has been
around a long time. He took the place of Lewis Keseberg
at Truckee Lake in 1846, inspiring the acts of cannibal-
ism surrounding the Donner Party legend. When the
crimes were discovered, he returned here and left the real
Lewis Keseberg to face the music. This one, or another
of his vile race, was responsible for the Jack the Ripper
murder spree and, 40 years ago, may have signed the
name 'Zodiac' to a series of murders in California. This
one had a sense of humor, hence his use of the Donner
name."
He pointed off  in a direction I sensed was south. "Tell
me what you see."
"Gray landscape, patches of purple." As I spoke I
found myself focusing more clearly on things. "The
purple is textured. It might be rock formations or vegeta-
tion. I also see the yellow mist in hollows like this one."
"Good. What do you smell?"
"Rotten eggs, sulphur."
"Excellent." He walked over to me and probed my
forehead with his right hand. The shadow touch felt not
unlike the St. Elmo's fire in that it didn't hurt and actually
tickled a bit. "The blow to your head is clearing up. You
will continue to have increasing sensory acuity in this
place. Someday you may even learn to come here
again."
"I don't think I would like that."
"I understand your reticence, but you might find this
place useful to you at some point." El Espectro held out
his left hand, with the palm skyward, and lifted. Marit's
unconscious body floated up in the air and hovered at
waist height. "Being here makes this much easier for me.
If you are ready, we can begin traveling. We should have
you home in under two hours."
"On foot? Fat chance." I glanced at my watch and saw
something very odd. The analog portion of it seemed to
be functioning perfectly. The second hand swept on as
if the whole watch were brand new. The little LCD
window, by way of contrast, flickered and flashed with
lines and dots. The patterns, when they looked anything
but random, seemed to be playing out an infinite se-
quence of numbers determined by a formula that was
well beyond me.
I decided, at that point, that if I gave too much thought
to what I was seeing, my head would begin to hurt a lot
more than it did now, and the situation would not get any
better. "Home, did you say?"
"Yes, back to Eclipse, I think. You will find nothing in
Sedona that will aid your mission." El Espectro began
walking south, and Marit drifted smoothly behind him. In
a few steps he got far distant, it seemed, but when I ran
to catch up with him, I reached his side in only a few
strides.
"How do you know what we were doing in Sedona?"
"I know because I know." He gave me a sidelong
glance that, despite being totally blank to me, had to
have contained some amusement in it. "In this case I
know you came to Sedona searching for Nero Loring.
You came to Sedona because a friend of his received a
postcard from Loring that was postmarked Sedona."
"Okay, that's right. How do you know?" Could the
traitor be selling me out to him?
"No, your traitor and I have no connection. And I know
about the postcard because I am the one who sent it, at
Loring's request."
I stared at the shadow man. "You read my mind. That,
or you are Coyote."
"Me, Coyote? Please, no. I have met him, and he is a
most interesting individual, but I am not him." He led me
up and around a grayish standing stone topped with a
thorny, purple-leafed bush. "I am able, in certain places,
at certain times, to pick off surface thoughts. Right now,
because of your injury, you are confused enough not to
be exerting as much control over your mind as you might
otherwise. Even in a dream state your control is admi-
rable. And if you really do want to bet a million dolmarks
that I am insane, I can find you plenty of takers for that
wager."
I blushed. "Forgive me, but my memory goes back
less than a week. All this dimension stuff is confusing
and, quite frankly, unbelievable." I followed him down a
hill and through a cloud of the yellow fog. " I assume, if
you sent the card for Loring, you know where he is now?"
"I do."
"Tell me. It is imperative I find him."
El Espectro shook his head as we cleared the mist. "I
will not do that without Nero's permission. I will not
violate his confidence or security."
I knew, just in hearing the words and a sense I got from
him, that El Espectro would brook no argument and
would not waver. "You will tell me if gives you permission
to do so?"
"Death itself could not keep me from giving you the
news."
He made that declaration with enough confidence that
I found myself believing him. Sure, I believe a man made
of shadow in a dimension that apparently lies parallel to
Earth will come back from the dead to share information
with me.Hell, he's called 'the Ghost' by some of the city's
Hispanics. Maybe he's already dead.
"Who in God's name are you?"
"Names will mean nothing to you, and I sincerely
doubt that, 'in God's name,' I am not much of anyone at
all. I am someone who, years ago, while the world was
still rational, learned secrets I should not have learned. I
walked places men were not meant to go, and I saw
things that were meant to torture the soul. I discovered,
in myself, powers and abilities the normal world would
not recognize. They told me things upon which I was
compelled to act, but ultimately proved unable to stop.
"In many ways I am like your Coyote. I chose to battle
things I see as evil, to help people beset by troubles. The
difference between us is that Coyote acts in the material
world because he lacks even the nascent empathic skills
that allow one to discern anything in this place. I act here
or in the realm of dreams to delay and defeat abomina-
tions."
I shook my head. "I'm not even going to pretend I
understand any of this."
"At this point, a wise choice." He held up a hand and
crouched. Marit floated back down to the ground, and I
crouched next to him. "I had not expected this."
I looked off in the distance but could only make out a
dull gold ring lying on the ground in the distance. "What
had you not expected?"
He reached out and laid his left hand over my eyes. For
a half-second I saw darkness, then I saw the distant ring
through eyes much sharper than mine. Around it I saw
a dozen or so individuals wearing clothing reminiscent of
that on the Draoling I had killed. "Keseberg's friends?"
"I doubt it, but I don't think they will be granting you a
reward for killing him." He took his hand away from my
face, and my own vision returned. "How many bullets do
you have."
"Twenty-eight, but they're split into two clips."
I saw his brow furrow in profile. "And that is a 10mm
Colt Krait?"
"Yes."
"A bit small. Figure three bullets per Draoling, pro-
vided you don't miss."
"I don't miss." I conjured up my memory of shooting
the sniper in Boxton.
"Fascinating." He stood and brushed unseen dirt from
his knees. "We will be there in a very short time. That ring
is a dimensional gate that will take you back to Phoenix.
It is important, therefore, that we gain control of it. If we
have the time, you can account for nine of them. You will
only need to get six, I think. Speed will be of the essence,
however, because the amount of power we release in
killing them will attract all sorts of attention."
"I understand."
"Good. I will leave Ms. Fisk here, then bring her along
when it is safe."
I took the Krait off safety and eased the hammer back.
"Ready when you are."
"Let us proceed."
In the back of my mind I knew my head injury had to
have affected me more than I could tell. As we rushed
forward, the distance between us and this dimensional
gate melted away. The Draolings standing around it did
not notice us until we were at optimal range. El Espectro
pointed at them, clenched his hand into a fist, then flung
his hand open as he twisted it palm up.
One of the Draolings in the center of the group
spontaneously combusted. He screamed in a language
I've only heard whispered in nightmares. His compan-
ions turned toward him, then recoiled and started to run
away. The flaming Draoling flailed about, catching on to
one of them, but the others escaped and those who ran
in our direction made a nasty discovery.
I knew El Espectro assumed it would take three bullets
to kill a Draoling, and my experience with the Donners
suggested he was very right in his assumption. By the
same token I knew it would only take one to attract some
attention. In rapid succession I pumped one round into
each of three humanoids, then let the nearest have two
more before I blew the head off a fourth with a lucky shot.
I started cutting to the left, drawing the Draolings off as
El Espectro went right.
The four of them closest to me closed like sharks
smelling blood. One had already been hit, and he went
down when a shot hit him in the shoulder and all but tore
off his right arm. Two bullets in the stomach jackknifed
one Draoling forward, and the Draoling running behind
him vaulted over his dying body. I met his long, clawing
dive with a left foot in the face. That snapped his neck but
the impact still knocked me down, and his dead body fell
on top of me.
The last one kept coming in. I twisted to the right,
turning toward him. My first shot missed, but the second
broke his right thigh and dropped him face first to the
ground. He tore at the ground to crawl forward, but the
next two bullets disrupted his higher brain functions and
put an end to his desire to kill me.
I tossed the dead Draoling from me and stood. Across
the circle, near an obsidian obelisk trimmed in gold, I saw
El Espectro. Around him burned a number of Drao-fires.
I waved, and he returned the gesture, then slumped
against the obelisk. Holstering my pistol I ran to him and
helped support him.
"Do not concern yourself with me. I will survive." He
pointed back in the direction we had come and Marit
floated toward us, but not as high as she had before. "Get
her before I drop her."
I ran over to Marit and accepted her in my arms. Only
when my left hand smeared blood on her sleeve did I
realized El Espectro had been bleeding. "You're hurt."
"A scratch. Nothing." He urgently pointed to the circle.
"Get in the middle. I will send you to Eclipse. I do not
know exactly where this will come out, but wherever it is,
get out of there quickly."
"Why?"
"Because I was careless. There are things out here that
sensed the power we have used. They also sense our
vulnerability. I must send you through, then destroy this
portal or they will find you—and you would not like that."
I leaped over the gold and obsidian ring and ran to the
middle. The black stone inlays looked like decoration,
but ran along the gold ring and looked almost identical
to the pathways on printed circuits. Every so often they
ended at cloudy quartz lozenges that had a pulsating
gray-pink light in the middle of them.
The gold began to glow with a bright light that cycled
around and became more intense. "What about you?" I
shouted over the keening shriek rising from the circle.
Worry not about me, Tycho Caine. Fiddleback and I
have played this game many times.
The light and sound reached an inaudible and invisible
climax at the same time, and suddenly I found myself in
the dark basement of a tenement building. Across from
me I saw a set of stairs leading up and the weak light of
a sodium lamp bleeding down it. I stepped over what
looked like a yellow circle painted on the floor, then
carried Marit up the stairs. We raced through the building
as fast as possible. I shifted her to an over-the-shoulder
carry as I shot down a hallway and out through the
opening to the outside.
True to his word, El Espectro had delivered us to
Eclipse again. Across an open killing ground I saw a
barricade. As I ran toward it I recognized the area. Off to
my right, I saw the clutter of trailers comprising Boxton.
Without a second thought I scrambled up the barricade,
then slid down off a car on the far side.
Behind me something flashed white-gold. For all of a
second Eclipse saw the sun at its heart and knew what
it was to be out from under Frozen Shade. I set Marit down
and turned around as a rumbling sound started. The
middle of the tenement began to crumble. Dust filled all
the windows, then gusted out as the building caved in on
itself. In a handful of heartbeats the building went from six
stories to memories.
I looked at the fallen building, then stooped and lifted
Marit up again. He said he and Fiddleback had played
together many times. I hope he made it. Then I remem-
bered his promise. "I know he won," I laughed aloud.
"Fiddleback didn't stand a ghost of a chance against
him."
And yet, even laughing, I looked at my left hand and
still saw wet blood.

Once I got Marit back to her apartment, Juanita called
a doctor and we put Marit to bed. The doctor checked her
over and said she looked fine to him, if a little dehydrated.
He questioned me closely to determine if I had hit her, but
he accepted my story that we had been slumming in
Eclipse and had been involved in an unsuccessful mug-
ging.
He left a prescription for some heavy-duty ibuprofen
tablets, and Anna ventured out to fill it. The doctor
insisted Marit rest in bed and get plenty of fluids. He also
took a look at me, cleaned up my head wound and taped
a bandage into place. "You may want to take one or two
of her pills if you start having headaches. If you have any
serious neurological symptoms, call me and get to the
Phoenix General Tower."
"Thanks, Doc." I showed him to the tranversor, but he
had to wait as the box was in use. When the door opened,
a messenger stepped out, and the doctor vanished
behind the closing doors. "Can I help you?"
"I have a message here for Mr. Caine. Would that be
you, sir?" The fresh-faced kid held a clipboard out. "Sign
at number 33."
I scrawled my name, and he handed me a small ivory
envelope with no return address. My name had been
carefully calligraphed across the front. I flipped it over
and opened it. I found another smaller envelope inside
the first, again with my name carefully written across it.
From that second envelope I pulled a square piece of
very expensive printed cardstock. It read, "Ms. Nerys
Loring requests the pleasure of Mr. Tycho Caine's pres-
ence for a private dinner this evening at 8 p.m. Dress will
be formal, with cocktails at 7 p.m. RSVP by return
messenger."
I tapped the card against the fingers of my left hand.
Despite the drive to Sedona and the bizarre adven-
tures so early in the day, El Espectro had returned us
to Eclipse before 2 in the afternoon—or so the digital
part of my watch reported. The analog portion, before
I reset it, said 10 p.m. Glancing at my watch, I saw that
I had three and a half hours before Nerys expected me,
and I knew I could not refuse the invitation. This
should be fascinating.
I looked up. "You're waiting for the reply?"
The messenger nodded.
"I accept."
"Very good, sir. I was told to tell you that a VIP pass for
the maglev to the Lorica tower will be waiting for you at
the Madison Street station. You can use the upper
lounge. You will be met when you arrive."
I punched the button to summon the tranversor again,
then handed him a 10 dolmark bill. I left Juanita watching
him until he departed, then retreated to Marit's private
office. In her Rolodex I found a number for the Sunburst
Foundation and dialed it. I was not surprised to hear Hal
answer the phone.
"Hal, it's Caine. We're back." I filled him in on the
outing, but left the bizarre parts out. As I told it to him, we
got a lead, got caught in a strange storm and arranged
for alternate transport back to Phoenix. I let him know
Marit had been hurt but not seriously, then I dropped the
bombshell of Nerys' invitation.
"My, my, you do travel in, ah, fast circles. Eight
o'clock dinner? You should be through and free by
midnight, unless you're planning to spend more time
with Nerys."
"Thanks, but I don't think so." I remembered the
picture she had purchased during the auction. "I don't
think her idea of fun and mine overlap."
"Good. I have a meeting scheduled for here, at my
home, at 1 a.m. I'd like you to be here, if possible." He
hesitated, and I heard some ambivalence enter his voice.
"I'm meeting with the leadershipof the Blood Crips, Jade
Dragons and Diablos here at my house. They are getting
harder to calm down. I'd like you to be here to show them
I have the tools necessary, if it comes to that, to restrain
the Aryans."
"You're the velvet glove, and I'm the steel fist?"
"Something like that. I don't need you shooting any-
one, but you have the stone killer act down as well as
anyone. A new face will make them think I am making
moves that will keep things on the level for them."
"I understand. I'll be there."
"Thanks. I'll see you later."
"Later."
I quickly made one more call. None of the clothes I had
were formal, so I dialed up Roger's number at The
Gentleman's Wardrobe. "I'm afraid I have to impose on
your services, Roger."
"Not to worry, Mr. Caine," he said soothingly, "We
have already begun work on your tuxedo. It will be styled
similarly to the other suit we made for you. Ms. Loring will
be impressed."
"Do you read minds, Roger?"
"Would that I did, Mr. Caine. It would save me oodles
of money that I now pay catering services to furnish me
with guest lists for parties." He tried to sound world-
weary, but I heard plenty of self-pleasure in his voice.
"Your name came by this morning, and we started work
immediately."
I frowned. "Why would a catering company need a
guest list?"
"My dear Mr. Caine, you would not expect the social
doyens of our glittering metropolis to give substandard
soirées, would you? The caterers in this city have a
massive database with information about everything
from dietary restrictions to social feuds. They toss the
guest list into this vast program, and it sets menus,
provides seating charts, settles questions of protocol and
even sets distances between guests depending upon
how torrid their affairs are or how amicable their divorces
were. You are guaranteed that you will never taste the
same entree in a calender year and, if you own a winery
or distillery, your table will be supplied with the best you
have to offer. It is quite impressive."
"So I see." I thought for a second, then asked, "So, if
you have a guest list, perhaps you can tell me who else
will be there."
"Well, Mr. Caine, only because you are such a good
customer. The party will be quite intimate this evening.
You are the only guest and, from what I see of the menu,
Ms. Loring may even be intending to have you for
dessert."
"I consider myself duly warned. Thank you, Roger."
"Thank you, Mr. Caine. We will have your tuxedo for
you by six o'clock."
Roger was as good as his word. When the tuxedo
arrived, Juanita awakened me from a dreamless nap.
I showered, taped a new bandage over my forehead,
then dressed. The tux fit perfectly. I opted not to bring
my Krait, but I did still wear my bulletproof vest
beneath my shirt. While I hardly expected anything
weird to happen, the encounter with the man at
Danny's Place made me cautious enough to want
body armor.
Juanita was kind enough to give me instructions on
how to get to the Madison Street maglev station. I
noted amusingly that she referred to it as the "mangle
train," but I gathered the term came more from the
hopes and wishes of the folks in Eclipse than any
actual historical incident. Armed with her directions,
I took the elevator down to Level 20, then took a
people mover from Goddard Tower #1 to the Southern
Pacific Tower and down to Level 10. There I found the
maglev station, and after identifying myself, was
given a pass and admitted to the VIP lounge.
A poster on the wall gave me an overview of the
whole system. "Local" trains ran from City Center to
the various corporate citadels. "Circuit" trains ran
counterclockwise around the corporate citadel cir-
cuit. The bullet train, which ran on the ground, left
from the Madison Street/Southern Pacific terminal
annex in Eclipse to go to the regional airport southeast
of the city. It ran through a tunnel for the entire length
of the trip through Eclipse, so no one would be
subjected to having to see how the majority of people
in the city lived. Moreover, each of the windows had
been fitted with a flat, LCD screen that could be tuned
to the local TV stations or, if a passenger so desired,
a "scenery" channel that, no matter time of the year,
presented simulated real-time views of the desert
outside.
To complete my journey, I had to take the local train
from the Madison Street station to the Honeywell & Koch
local station. From there I would only have to walk across
the VIP lounge to the circuit side and catch the next train
out, which would deliver me directly to Lorica Industries.
Taking a local train to Lorica would have forced me to
travel across City Center to the Randolf Road station.
Given the relative speeds of the maglevs with the local
trains in City Center, the less direct route would save me
a minimum of 15 minutes.
The maglev train that rolled slowly into the station had
a triangular shape to it. The lower, wider section serviced
the workers from City Center heading out to catch the
circuit train and the people who were coming into City
Center for the evening. The smaller, upper deck on the
train car was reserved for VIPs who, from the look of the
other people waiting in the lounge, were corporate
officers or visitors from foreign nations.
I waited for a handful of people to disembark, then
I got onto the train. The upper deck's luxurious ap-
pointments rivaled the beauty and comfort of Marit's
apartment. Instead of the tightly packed, lightly pad-
ded fiberglass benches down below, we had plush,
velvet upholstered couches and a ring of televisions
up along the sloped roof. A uniformed stewardess
greeted us and helped us fasten seat belts. She
pointed out how to tune the little earpiece she handed
me, then she tended to the others and signaled the
engineer we were read to depart.
We rocketed out of the station at 6:30 p.m. The
dying sun cast long shadows from City Center over the
eastern half of the city. As we rode high above Frozen
Shade, I could easily see how and why the world views
of those who lived in Eclipse and the corporate execu-
tives never meshed. From this vantage point the
people of the corporate power set saw a city of
unparalleled beauty. Frozen Shade, except where the
sunlight glinted up from panel joints, appeared a flat
black, pacific ocean. The corporate citadels rose from
the black waves like mighty island nations. The pro-
trusions of natural rocks like Camelback Mountain
and Squaw Peak to the north or South Mountain to the
south turned the whole valley into a Zen garden
maintained by giants.
From here there was no clue to the grimy, grim
conditions in Eclipse. Like angels in heaven, or gods
living high in mountain strongholds, the privileged of the
world did not have to dirty their feet with the affairs of
mortals. Frozen Shade gave them the power they needed
to make their world function, and it also shielded them
from having to even acknowledge the people living
outside their domains.
The local train took me into the heart of the Honeywell
& Koch citadel. I made the transfer easily to the circuit
train and arrived at Lorica with 10 minutes to spare
before I was supposed to arrive. I wondered very briefly
how I would recognize my escort or I would be recog-
nized, but I dismissed my concern as I knew Merys was
a clever woman.
Only when I stepped from the maglev train did I realize
exactly how clever she was. I saw three men waiting for
me. Two were improbably large and wore suits big
enough to have been tailored for cement sewer piping.
The third man was not dressed as well as I was, but
certainly better than when I had seen him last. His eyes
shaded behind dark glasses, he extended his hand to me.
"Welcome to Lorica, Mr. Caine. I am Radu Leich. Ms.
Loring sent me to get you."
Close up the man did, in fact, have a star-shaped
scar on his right cheek and a limited amount of left-
right facial asymmetry. It looked as if the cheekbone
on the right side of his face had been pared down. Still,
the scar did not seem nearly as pronounced as it had
only yesterday in Danny's Place. His left hand, which
was not gloved, did not look that much different than
his right, though the bluish veins did not show through
the pale flesh quite as well.
Coincidence I told myself. Yes, Leich looked remark-
ably like the Reaper I had shot in the face, and the star
scar could have been a reminder of that injury. That was
assuming, of course, that having forced a bullet through
his head and out the back of his skull had not killed him.
That, I knew, was patently impossible.
Then again, returning from Sedona by strolling through
a land of gray and purple was impossible as well.
"Please, Mr. Leich, take me to your leader."
He nodded and preceded me from the VIP lounge.
From the narrow walkway we used to get from the lounge
to a central elevator cylinder, I was able to get a good look
at the entire Lorica Citadel. The cylinder formed the hub
of the complex with walkways going off in six directions
like spokes. Unlike City Center, which had been done in
white marble and bright colors, the Lorica Citadel boasted
mostly dark colors and mirrored trim. The whole of the
complex, from there in the middle, looked like a tunnel
created to connect heaven and hell.
The two apes dropped in behind me and said nothing.
I sensed from them a high degree of boredom tinged with
anticipation of possible excitement. That anticipation
grew as we stopped at an elevator, and Mr. Leich inserted
a card into the slot. A car descended through the clear
elevator tube and stopped before us. The door opened to
an empty car, but Leich shook his head. "You two will
wait here."
I entered the capsule behind Leich, and he inserted
another card into the panel there. The elevator did not
speak to him, but silently whisked us up into the rarified
reaches of the Citadel. I watched floor after floor race
past through the smoky glass walls, then we passed
through a section that surrounded us with blank cement
walls. We stopped after 20 feet of cinderblock, and the
door opened.
Initially the similarity in color and design between the
foyer and the dimensional gate nearly overwhelmed me.
The elevator opened onto a small room with black
marble on the walls and floor. Gold joints joined the
blocks. The ceiling, done in a burnished gold, reflected
light down from panels hidden at the tops of the walls. Off
to my left, two black satyr statutes held up a block of
black marble as a table and above it, on the wall, hung
a gold mirror so guests could make last minute adjust-
ments to their dress.
Across from the elevator stood two doors plated with
beaten gold. As I approached them, they slowly opened
and a white, foglike mist rolled out and over me. I caught
the faint scent of pine as I walked through it, then felt the
light breeze as the doors swung shut behind me. Stand-
ing still, I waited for the mist to settle down, which it did
quickly, leaving me with the impressions that I had some-
how ascended into heaven.
In complete and stark contrast with the foyer and the
whole of the Lorica Citadel, Nerys' domain had been
done every possible shade of color save black. The over-
all impression of the place was that she had chosen white
as her color, and doubtlessly that would linger in the
minds of casual visitors, but it painted a woefully inaccu-
rate picture of her lair.
As the last of the mist dissipated, I found myself on a
white marble walkway between two gurgling streams.
The streams looked as if they had been lined with
mother-of-pearl and, though the water doubtlessly made
my task impossible, I could see no joints between
sections of inlay throughout the 12-foot lengths I saw. As
nearly as I could tell, Nerys had located some unknown
species of gigantic tube-oyster and had fashioned the
streambeds from the halves of its shell.
Above them, strung between two Doric columns of
white marble, white silk sheeting formed softly billow-
ing walls. Where they parted I saw other columns and
sheets that formed, as nearly as I could determine, a
ghostly labyrinth that could change in an instant. Still,
there were times when I could see a fair distance
through the area, and it seemed to me that Nerys'
home might well fill the entire top of the Lorica Citadel,
giving me roughly 1.5 square miles in which to search
for my hostess.
The impression that Nerys had found talented oyster
artisans continued as I walked forward toward a pulsing
fountain. As the water rose and fell from the central spiral,
I decided it reminded me most of a spiral horn of some
sort. I would have guessed it had come from some
mutant narwhal, but I knew the last of that species had
died four years before. Moreover, the spire had the same
opalescent, mother-of-pearl look as the streambeds.
That coloration extended to the basin surrounding the
fountain and the trough that caught the excess water and
channeled it into the streams.
I crossed a small, crystalline bridge over the stream to
my right and walked down the white corridor before me.
My steps sounded hollow, but the silk walls absorbed any
echo they might have made. At the end of the corridor I
turned right again and smiled at the beautiful young
woman standing there. I kept my smile polite even
though, aside from the strip of dark blue silk tying her
black hair back and the matching loincloth, she wore
nothing at all.
"Please, Mr. Caine, follow me."
"As you wish." Following her was not difficult, but the
addition of other women similarly clad did provide a
certain number of distractions. The apes' anticipation
and disappointment were now clear to me. More impor-
tantly, Mr. Leich never even made a move to look in
through the doors, as if the potential glimpse of such
beauty meant nothing to him. Oddly, though, I had not
gained the impression he was a homosexual. Instead, I
thought, he might have just seen me and them as a
source of revenue for the Reapers or, worse yet, had the
same use for us as the Draolings.
My guide led me to an island inside the stark white
world. It necessitated my crossing another stream on a
crystal bridge, and I noticed how the pulsing, soothing
sound of the water enhanced the beauty of the surround-
ings. Off to my left I saw a gold and glass cart with a dozen
decanters of various liquors, a clear ice bucket and a
number of cut crystal glasses. Standing beside it a blond
woman in an emerald green loincloth waited to take my
order.
Not desiring to drink when Hal wanted me to attend his
meeting later, I smiled and ordered a club soda with a
twist of lime. She set about making the drink while I
looked around the island. Aside from her, me and the
cart, the circular room described by the white curtain
walls was featureless. I had the annoying feeling that I
was being watched, but I could not determine a focus for
that sensation.
The woman crossed to me and handed me my
drink. I thanked her but she said nothing to me. I
noticed her green eyes matched the color of her
garment and she, too, had her hair bound back with a
green strip of silk. She seemed happy and quite at
ease with being half-naked while I was fully and
formally clothed. While she was certainly attractive
enough to interest me, her casual attitude toward her
nakedness stole carnality from our encounter while
still making it exotic and erotic.
"A pretty child, is she not?"
I turned around at the sound of Nerys' voice, a bit
disturbed that she managed to have made it over the
bridge I had crossed without my seeing or hearing her.
My irritation quickly faded as I looked at her, and a
smile spread across my face. She wore a black gown
with a mandarin collar and sweetheart neckline that
showed her throat and bosom to great advantage. The
bodice hugged her tightly, then flowed gently from her
hips to end at ankle height. The long sleeves even had
a bit of a triangular tab that covered the back of her
hands. She wore a cinnabar necklace in which parallel
strips of the stone formed a crescent at her throat and
which was matched by two cinnabar earrings that
were carved like cameos. The earrings showed a
spider design on each, though the arachnids depicted
looked to be black widows, not fiddlebacks.
"Her beauty evaporates in your presence." Unaware
if her servants constantly worked in this state of undress,
I saw the wisdom of her having them do that. Surrounded
by such beauty, yet clad in a garment that revealed little
and promised much, Nerys Loring became much more
mysterious and seductive. Her mature beauty and strength
of character made her the equal of her quiet servants
while her charm and intelligence pushed her well beyond
them in desirability.
Nerys walked over to me and brushed her hand along
the front of my coat. "Roger does superior work. This suit
flatters you."
Her perfume smelled of orchids and conjured up a
momentary, fleeting memory of heat and darkness. I
tried to capture it, but it faded in a flash. "Thank you. You,
of course, look absolutely lethal in that gown."
"You have an amusing way with words, Mr. Caine."
Nerys nodded to the woman, and she brought her what
I assumed to be straight vodka with a twist of lemon.
Nerys accepted the drink with her right hand, then
gently caught the woman's chin in her left hand. With
its long, curved incarnadine nail lightly brushing tanned
flesh, Nerys' thumb stroked the bartender's cheek,
then she released her. The girl retreated as she had
after serving me, but I detected a certain joy in her step
at having passed muster with her mistress.
"You doubtlessly noticed, Tycho, that I have a number
of beautiful women here to serve me. Do you know
why?"
I shook my head and sipped my drink.
"You will agree they are all spectacular. I find their soft,
gentle lines pleasing to the eye. They move with a fluid
grace that fits with all this." She pointed at the silk
curtains and the moat surrounding us, then caressed my
shoulder with her left hand. "They are not, like men,
angular and hard and bellicose. They are the yin of my
world, while the outside is the yang. They serve me in my
sanctuary from all that would distress me."
I smiled appreciatively. "You are fortunate that you
can isolate your world so easily."
"My goal is insulation, not isolation. I find running a
multinational corporation very draining. When I have
been vampirized by business demands, I am able to
retreat here and recover amid this paradise." Keeping
her hand on my shoulder, she slipped behind me and
whispered in my ear. "If I thought you wanted her, I would
give her to you. And, at my request, she would give
herself to you. She would doubtlessly enjoy it, as would
you, I am certain. You could live here forever with her or
others, but I sense in you aspirations for something more
than being kept as a...pet."
I drank a bit more to cover my discomfort at her use
of the word 'pet,' "What would lead you to believe that?"
She completed her circle around me, having spi-
raled in closer so we stood as close as I had with the
female Draoling that morning. "I had understood it
was your custom, once you had completed a task, to
return home to await your next assignment. I also
know that in preparing for your visit here, you would
have studied Lorica and its situation quite thoroughly.
I know you would have seen the possibilities here. You
know, very soon, I will be able to offer you limitless
power."
I looked into the depths of her black eyes. "And for this
power, what would you have me do?"
"I'd not ask you to be my consort. Your talents, while
they might be considerable in that area, are too valuable
to squander on sexual excess. There are others who can
sate my hungers, but you have skills I need. Poor Radu
is the best I have in that area and, as you know, he is
barely competent." She reached up and caressed the
side of my face, "Now, you should tell me what it is you're
doing by remaining in Phoenix."
I needed time to think because a number of things
were beginning to cascade together. "As you suspected,
I decided to remain to study the situation. I wanted to get
the lay of the land, as it were."
"Oh, you did—you're living with her," Nerys laughed
aloud. "Were dear Marit half as pretty as she is vain, I
might have even offered her a place, here in my sanctu-
ary. And yet, here is how much I wish you to work for me.
If you so desire, I will accept her here and even tell Mr.
Leich to refrain from killing her—not that he accom-
plished anything with his pathetic attempt yesterday."
"I would appreciate that."
Nerys' eyes narrowed as she turned away from me.
"You went with her to Sedona today. Why?"
I decided to see if I could make her jump. "I heard a
rumor about your father."
She did stiffen for all of a second, then she dipped a
finger in her drink and let the liquor drip from her nail onto
her tongue before she curled it back into her mouth. "I
thought that situation had been handled."
"As had I, which is why I decided to follow up this lead."
"How did it turn out?"
"A dead end, or so it seems." I shrugged lightly. "I will
continue to pursue it."
Nerys swung back around and her face had hardened.
"And you will report to me when you hear anything?"
"I will."
She nodded once, curtly. "You will have to forgive me,
Mr. Caine. I have suddenly developed a headache." She
looked over at the bartender. "Lilith, dear child, you will
entertain Mr. Caine in my stead. You will see that he is,
in every way he desires, satisfied."
The woman nodded solemnly.
"Remember this, Mr. Caine," Nerys hissed in a whis-
per, "Whatever pleasure she gives you, I can extend
beyond infinity. This I will do when you tell me this rumor
business is ended. But also realize that my ire with failure
similarly knows no limits and cannot be escaped."

Nerys' sudden and very sharp twist of mood put a
severe damper on what could have otherwise been a
very pleasant evening. Lilith excused herself while an-
other of her compatriots led me to the dining alcove. As
with the rest of this place, silken curtains described the
boundary of the room, but it had been left open on one
side to supply us with a full and glorious view of City
Center in the darkness.
I sat in a chair at the end of the rectangular table, with
the window to my right. At the other end of the short table,
beyond two candelabra and an orchid centerpiece, the
dinner setting originally meant for Nerys remained in
place. Lilith, when she returned, sat at my left hand and
was provided another table setting. Despite her lack of
physical presence, I very much sensed Nerys was still
with us.
Lilith, when she returned, had put on an emerald green
gown that was, in terms of design, identical to the one
Nerys had been wearing. Lilith also turned out to be
intelligent and quite entertaining. She had a quick sense
of humor and was polite enough to laugh at my jokes.
This made the meal survivable because, if not for the
laughter, I would have thought myself at some bizarre
sort of wake.
Each dish, from salad and soup through entrees to
dessert were served first at Nerys' empty place and to
me. After a minute or two, Nerys' place would be cleared,
then a plate with smaller portions would appear for Lilith.
I had no doubt that the food she ate had been taken from
Nerys' plate, though the exact symbolism behind that
reality escaped me. Lilith, for her part, seemed not to
notice and, in any case, finished all she had been given.
I regretted Nerys' departure because she, more than
anyone else I had met, knew enough to help me redis-
cover my true identity. As solving that mystery was the
only thing that would have satisfied me in all I desired,
Lilith could never do what her mistress had demanded of
her. She did, however, make for a charming dinner
companion and, in the face of Nerys mercurial mood
shift, let me relax more than I would have otherwise.
Had Nerys still been there, a phone call would never
have interrupted dinner. A woman in blue brought me a
small radio-phone. "Excuse me, Mr. Caine, but it is for
you, and it is urgent."
"Thank you." I took the phone and pressed it to my
ear. "Caine."
"Mr. Caine, you must leave there immediately. A car
is waiting for you in Eclipse. Go, now!" The caller hung
up with a click, but I had no trouble in recognizing the
faintly mechanical voice. Why does Coyote want me out
of here?
I snapped the phone shut and handed it back to the
woman. "Lilith, I have to leave, there's been an emer-
gency."
Lilith reached for the phone. "I will call a car for you."
"I have one waiting, thanks." I smiled at her and kissed
her right hand. "I'm afraid all I need is for you to show me
the door."
She took my hand, then gave the phone back to the
serving woman. "Call and make certain the elevator is
waiting for us. Have them lock it out for express service."
She glanced at me, then added, "To Eclipse."
Navigating by some system I could not puzzle out, she
took me through a direct route to the elevator lobby. The
door stood open, waiting, and the car was empty. "Get
in and hit any button. It will take you to Eclipse."
"Thank you." I frowned. "My leaving like this will not
cause a problem for you, will it? Nerys won't be angry,
will she?"
Lilith kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Do not concern
yourself. She is very understanding. You desire trans-
port, and I have provided it. She will understand. Go."
I stepped into the elevator and pressed the "Close
Door" button. The second the doors slid shut, the cage
began a near freefall. Floors blurred as they rushed past,
and I stumbled back to grab onto the railing. For a
moment I imagined the bloody heap I'd be if the elevator
never stopped, but by that time the mechanisms had
begun to slow my descent. With nothing more than an
elevated pulse to mark the ride, I emerged in Eclipse.
A horn honked, and I saw Alejandro waving from the
driver's side of a green Mazda Dragonfly convertible. I
sprinted over to him and vaulted into the passenger seat.
I snapped the seatbelt shut and we started off, acceler-
ating almost as quickly as had the elevator. "What's
happened?"
"Hal's been shot. The Warriors of the Aryan World
Alliance tried to assassinate him."
I glanced at the dash clock—11:30—an hour and a
half before Hal's planned meeting with the southside
gangs. "Details?"
Alejandro punched the gas and popped ahead of a
smoky truck. "Three kids, not yet part of WAWA, came
to Hal's house and said they wanted to help him. He let
them in, and they opened up on him. His kids are okay
but his wife didn't make it. He was hit. Looks like she tried
to shield him. Two ran away. One panicked, ran into a
closet, and it shut behind him. Bat's watching him now."
Alejandro swung the Dragonfly wide to pass a Cadillac
and sped out onto McDowell Road at the 46th street exit
from the Lorica Citadel. We fish-tailed wide, bumped the
curb, then straightened out and shot down the road. In
the distance I could see a set of flashing lights reflecting
from Frozen Shade.
"Who knew about the meet?"
"Everyone. It was not a secret."
"Heinrich sends in some kids so he can deny having
had anything to do with this."
"Looks like it." The art broker shot through a red light
at 44th, squealing brakes and angry horns in our wake.
"Glove compartment."
I opened it and found a .38 snubnose in a clip-on
holster. "Thanks. Is it that dicy?"
"The Blood Crips, Jade Dragons and Diablos have
surrounded Hal's place. The already nailed one of the
kids who escaped, and they're waiting for the one we
have in the house."
The red light at the intersection of 36th and McDowell
threatened to stop us, but Alejandro needed to make the
turn, so he cut across the corner of the lot and bumped
over the curb on 36th. He cranked the wheel to the right,
getting us back into our lane, then cut through a driveway
opening to park the car on the sidewalk next to a school
yard. We ran across 36th and forced our way through the
crowd lining the street near Hal's condo.
"No cops?"
Alejandro shook his head. "Scorpion stays away from
this area."
I ran past the ambulance and into the living room.
There I stopped. Blood covered the carpet and soaked
the couch. Bullet holes lined the walls, starting low and
tracking on up into the ceiling. A bloody handprint on the
wall to my right and a trail of blood led to a back bedroom.
I followed it, passing by Bat as he stood guard beside a
closed closet door.
"Alejandro, who's got the kids?"
"Natch has them. She's taking them to stay with their
grandparents over on the west side. Diablos granted
passage and the Blood Crips are running as outriders."
"Good."
Two EMTs worked feverishly in the back bedroom
with their equipment boxes and monitors spread all over
the place. They had Hal on a stretcher with an oxygen
mask over his face. His shirt had been torn open, and
they had two compression bandages on him. Both were
already soaked with blood. One had been a high hit on
the left and the other was stomach. He already had an IV
drip punched into his right arm and that wrist had been
fastened to the stretcher by a restraining strap.
When Hal saw me he started to stir. One of the
emergency medical technicians turned toward me, say-
ing, "You wanna tell him he can't wait no more? He's
gonna die if..." The man paled.
"Hi, Jack!" I greeted him enthusiastically. "Long time
no see. Played pool lately?"
Ignoring anything he said, I knelt beside Hal's head.
"Hang on, Hal."
Hal grabbed my sleeve with his left hand. "My kids?"
"Safe."
"Candy?"
"She's gonna be fine, Hal," I lied. "You gotta let these
guys get you to the hospital. Your job is to recover. We'll
take care of things here."
A painful grimace contorted his features. "Take care
of my kids, Caine. No war."
I nodded. "No war."
"Caine, no killing. Not while you have another choice."
"No killing, Hal. Let them get you out of here."
His grip tightened on my arm. "Promise me, no
killing."
"No killing, Hal. I promise, as long as you promise not
to die."
"Deal."
"Deal." I freed his hand from my arm and stood. "Get
him out of here." I grabbed Jack's shoulder as his partner
wheeled Hal outside earshot. "If he dies on the way to the
hospital, or I find his wife didn't make it to the morgue,
you'll take a long time to die. You understand me?"
"Y-yess."
"Good. Leave me that green trauma box. You can get
it later."
"S-sure. Just let me out of here."
I followed him out into the front room, but stopped
beside Bat. "The kid in the closet?"
The big man nodded. "No bullets. No blades."
"Take him out, blindfold him and bind him." I pointed
to the wide pool of blood on the floor. "I want him kneeling
there."
I stepped outside as the ambulance slowly started to
make its way through the crowd. I saw a large number of
people, black, brown yellow and white, staring at the
house and talking to each other. They managed to
segregate three other groups of individuals who, I imag-
ined, were the three gangs Hal had planned to meet.
Off to my right I saw a knot of Hispanic men, all
wearing sleeveless black T-shirts with an inverted star
screened on the shirts in bright red ink. It had been
stylized to look like blood dripping down from the design.
As had WAWA people, the Diablos had also chosen to
undergo some cosmetic alteration which, as nearly as I
could see, constituted the addition of little horns on their
foreheads and a peaking of their ears. They wore black
fingernail polish and the older male gang members had
grown very devilish Van Dykes.
The Jade Dragons had also engaged in body aug-
mentation. Most notable, of course, was the scaly flesh
covering their faces, throats, chests, backs and hands.
Unlike the Diablos, who apparently ranked each other by
the length of their horns, the oriental gang differentiated
themselves by scale color. The younger members had
pale blue scales while the older Dragons had graduated
to a deep green hue edged with gold. The eldest mem-
bers also had modified their ears to lengthen and flatten
them, making them look like bat wings covered in lizard
flesh. The Dragon I thought to be the leader also had a
sagittal sail that rose and fell like a fish's fin as he
breathed in and out.
The Blood Crips, by comparison, looked positively
normal in their red and blue leather jackets. Once arch-
enemy gangs, they had consolidated their forces around
the turn of the millennium because of the pressure from
other gangs. Their augmentation looked, to me, to be
fairly utilitarian. Their brows and cheekbones had been
enlarged to sink their eyes back to less vulnerable
depths. Likewise the backs of their hands looked im-
probably smooth, as if each had inserted a weighty
prosthesis to increase hitting power and help control the
recoil on automatic weapons. They had also adopted the
tradition of their Afro-American ancestors in employing
ritual scarring on their faces.
I pointed at the two Diablos members with the longest
horns. "You two, in here." I picked out the leader of the
Dragons and the person who looked most like his
lieutenant. "Inside, now." Lastly I turned to the Blood
Crips and knew their leadership had to be embodied in
one of the surliest individuals I'd ever seen. "You and your
second, let's go."
The leader just let his body slump half sideways as he
made a big show of crossing his arms. "Fancy man don't
order me."
The other gang leaders stopped, waiting to see how I'd
handle this revolt. "Seeing as how you have nothing
better to do with your time, and Mr. Garrett asked me to
act in his stead, I request the pleasure of your company
inside, now.."
"Or else what?"
My voice dropped to a low growl. "I didn't give you an
'or else' because I don't make idle threats. I'll tell you this:
It's obvious that the possible alliance Hal was engineer-
ing has some people scared. If you're together, no one
can hurt you. If you want the Blood Crips to be outside
the fold, fine. You walk away now." I turned and walked
back into the house, with the two Diablos and the two
Dragons following me. The Blood Crips came a bit later,
moving at their own pace.
Keeping a decent space between each other, the gang
members stood there and silently regarded the Aryan
kneeling in the blood. It had already begun to soak into
his faded jeans and white socks. Bat had bound him hand
and foot, then used a torn strip of material from the boy's
thick white T-shirt to blindfold him. The kid shivered and
swayed a bit.
"This, gentlemen, is one of the three assassins who
tried to kill Hal Garrett. Though Heinrich will deny it, he
sent these three boys out to do a job with no training. You
can see by the bullet tracks in the walls that the guns
recoiled unchecked and tracked right out of the killing
zone."
I dropped down on my haunches in front of the kid.
"What's your name?"
"Screw yourself, nigger-lover!"
The Blood Crip leader took a half-step forward and
aimed a kick that would have crushed the kid's skull
except that Bat grabbed the ganger by the collar and
jerked him back. "What chu do that for, man? I'll do the
murdering piece of shit."
I shook my head. "No. No killing. Hal made me
promise no killing."
The Blood Crip leader jerked his thumbs back at
himself. "Hey, Rafe didn't promise Hal jack!"
"And I didn't promise Hal I wouldn't kill you, so we're
even, aren't we?" I grabbed the white kid's jaw. "What's
your name?" Fear radiated off the kid like heat from a
bonfire. He wanted to defy me, but his last outburst had
seriously depleted his nervous courage. Blind, kneeling
in a sticky liquid that was chilling his knees and toes, he
knew his situation couldn't get any worse.
He held his head up. "Ich heiße Willem."
"Good. Now listen, Willem, I know it's probably futile
to get you to say anything against Heinrich. There is very
little I could do to scare you into that, especially since I've
already said I'm not going to kill you. Therefore I've
decided to do something else that might, oddly enough,
save your life. You won't like it, but it's for the best, really."
I looked over at Alejandro. "Get me the green box from
the bedroom, please."
Emphasis on the word green made Willem uneasy. I
took advantage of that. "I'm sure, Willem, that Heinrich,
your fearless leader, has told you all sorts of things about
the 'mud people.' He's told you how they're savages, and
Rafe here would love to dance a little tattoo on your head
to reinforce that message." I quickly read the name
embroidered on the breast of Rafe's lieutenant's jacket.
"Jalal, on the other hand, is rather quiet and civilized.
You've been twisted by stereotypes, and I mean to let you
correct those lousy impressions."
Alejandro set the box down beside me, and I flipped it
open. I quickly located and tore open the biggest syringe
I could find. I gently slid it under Willem's nose as I might
have done with a fine cigar. "This, my friend, this syringe,
will be the instrument of your enlightenment. You know,
of course, how whites are the superior race because our
blood is pure. Well, Willem, I'm afraid your name is about
to become Mud."
Rafe looked hard at me. "What chu doing man? You
want answers from him, not to edjukate his sorry ass.
Leave him to me, I show him who's the deffest race. Then
we go and kill us some lilywhite priss-boys."
"Shut up, asshole, or I'll tell Bat to twist your head off
and use it as a bowling ball." Willem started laughing, but
I cut that short with one hard slap. "Moron, your arms and
legs will be the pins, and there won't be picking up any
spares for you. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to
fill this syringe with blood, and I'm going to pump it into
you, Willem. Your blood will become tainted. Then we're
going to take you out in the desert and leave you in the
sun so you darken up nice and good."
"Oh, man...," wailed Rafe. "I'll get you whitey blood by
the buckets."
"That's it!" I pulled a needle from the trauma box,
broke it out of the paper and fixed it to the end of the
syringe. "Rafe, since you seem to have a single function-
ing brain cell, I think I draw from you first. Bat, bare his
arm."
Rafe tried to move out of the way, but Bat jerked his
jacket down to pinion the black man's arms at his
elbows. A nice, fat vein pulsed across the top of Rafe's
bicep. "Stay away from me, man. I ain't givin' no blood
to that trash."
I shook my head and laughed. "That trash? By what
warped sense of equality do you see yourself as superior
to him? You're the bonehead who's all hot to go out and
start a war, and over what? Over the shooting of man who
wanted anything but a war! Lying on a stretcher with a
hole in his chest and one in his gut, he made me promise,
dammit, promise I'd not let a war get started. Hal Garrett
apparently saw a lot more in you than I do, because he
figured you had enough brains to see that dying doesn't
help anyone. Hal, on the other hand, was offering you a
way out of the hellhole."
I turned and looked at the other gangers. "You can all
walk out of here and pick up guns if you want to, and go
off to shoot the hell out of the Aryans. I'll make sure that
any of you who survive that stupidity get slabs in the
morgue together. Hell, maybe I'll just see to it you get
pieced out by the Reapers, with the money going to the
Sunburst Foundation, because that's the only way a war
is going to benefit anyone."
I grinned at Rafe. "Maybe after I take some blood from
you, I'll pump some of his back into your veins. Make you
blood brothers because you're both of a like mind."
"Don't you go touchin' me with that thing." Rafe's eyes
grew wide, and he struggled helplessly against Bat.
I popped the plastic cap off the needle. Rafe saw it, and
his eyes rolled up in his head as he fainted dead away. Bat
looked positively surprised as the ganger went limp. I
motioned to Bat to lay Rafe down, then I pantomimed
drawing blood. "Oh, yeah, Rafe, that's great. Dark,
steaming, this stuff will do the trick."
As I moved back in front of Willem, I saw Jalal edging
toward the door. "Where do you think you're going?"
The Blood Crip smiled at me. "I brained out as how if
you pump that much black bride into Willem there, he's
going to change fast. I was going to send some of the
posse to get him some fried chicken and watermelon."
He exaggerated his words, turning a racial slur into a
statement dripping with sarcastic sincerity.
"That's very considerate of you."
Jalal grinned broadly. "Anything for a brother."
Reaching back into the trauma box, I pulled out a
small vial of epinephrine. I drew enough of the synthetic
adrenaline into the syringe to give Willem a real jolt, then
swabbed his arm down with alcohol soaked cotton.
"Won't hurt a bit, son." I looked over at the Dragons.
"After this takes, I'll want a donation from you so we can
give him almond eyes and make him better at math.
Then from you Diablos I want enough blood so he can
speak Spanish and eat jalapenõs without a problem."
"Anything to save him from Aryanism."
I plunged the needle into his deltoid muscle. "There
you go. Boy, look at that. It's starting already."
Willem, helped along by the epinephrine, started to
shake. Jalal nodded his head, "Color of weak tea, but it's
building."
"Si, soon he looks the color of beans."
"Mahogany, really," commented the Dragon leader.
I ran my hand through his hair and mussed it up nicely.
"And look at the hair darken. Rafe, you've got great
blood."
"Billy," Jalal taunted, "you got a woman? My sister
needs a squeeze."
The lead Diablo shook his head. "No, my sister will
want him."
Willem broke a sweat that started to soak the blind-
fold. "No, you can't be doing this to me. You can't."
"We have, Willem, and it'll stick once we get you out
into the sun. Once we do that, you're going to be one of
the mud people forever! Have you ever read the book,
Black Like Me? No? You should have tried it while you
had the chance. It's old, now, but I'm sure Jalal and the
others will give you the pointers you'll need to survive.
Anyone got a watch? What time is it?"
"Midnight."
I let air hiss through my teeth as I breathed in. "Damn,
he changed quick, but we've got six hours 'til sunlight. He
may revert unless we can fix the change. Anyone know
of a tanning salon near here?"
"Yeah, there's one at 30th and Thomas, about a mile
and a half from here." Alejandro slapped Willem on the
back. "I can have Bill over there in no time."
"No, you can't."
"Got to, Willem, otherwise you'll change back to your
old, stupid self." I laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and
squeezed it sympathetically. "My hands are tied, son."
"No, please! No." He began to cry and shake uncon-
trollably. I knew a chunk of it came from the drug, but he
was scared down to his soul and then some. "No,
please."
"Willem," I began in a slow voice, "you're asking me
for a favor here, but you helped shoot a friend of mine.
You have to show me you're sorry and you're willing to
make amends for what you've done. You nearly killed a
man who invited you into his home because you came
asking him to help you. If I hadn't promised him, you'd
be dead right now."
"What do you want from me?" His cry echoed with
desperation. He slumped to the side against Alejandro.
"You have to answer me a question."
"If I know it, yes, anything."
"Hang on, Willem, you're almost home."
I stood and drew the gangers with me into a knot near
the door. "You know Garrett wants you at peace, right?"
I got shakes and nods in response. "Good. The answer
he's going to give me would probably prompt all of you
to do something less than prudent. Garrett trusted me to
deal with you, now you have to trust me to handle this.
You have to leave and take your people with you. Okay?
Leave this to me."
The Dragon leader's ears spread then retracted once.
"Done." He looked at the other two gangs' members.
"Continue the truce at least until Garrett's back on his
feet?"
Jalal and the Diablos agreed to that. Jalal nodded at
me. "I'll keep Rafe in line."
"Thanks."
Jalal hauled Rafe out of the house, and the crowd
outside began to disperse. I dropped back down in front
of Willem. "Willem, the question is this: Heinrich is
getting a lot of backing to buy weapons to start a war here
in the southside of Phoenix. Someone is financing him.
They are good. They have supplied H&K weapons,
which makes the culprit look like Honeywell & Koch, but
their citadel is in a prime war zone. So, tell me, who's
playing Fatherland to Heinrich's Fuhrer?"
The boy hung his head. "Build-more."
"Do you have a name there?"
"No, but he's in security and he has lots of dolmarks."
"Good boy. Alejandro here will take you to a place
where you can sleep until morning. You should be okay
by then. We'll keep the blindfold on because the trans-
formation makes eyes rather sensitive."
Alejandro helped the kid up, and I slit the ropes on his
ankles with a knife from the trauma box. Standing, I
looked over at Bat. "Did you hear all that?"
He nodded.
"Good, relay it to Jytte and see if she can get us some
likely candidates for our mystery man. Have her run a
check that shows areas of conflict between Build-more,
Lorica, H&K, Sumitomo-Dial and Genentech Carbide. I
want to know what the target is. Oh, and have her
compile a dossier for me on Nerys Loring."
Bat nodded slowly. "You did good work here. I would
have started breaking bones."
"I was tempted, but I promised."
"I don't make promises I don't want to keep."
"Well, I only make promises I think I can keep." I
looked out the window at the gangs melting away in the
darkness. "I only hope circumstances don't force me to
break this one."

I returned to Marit's home by 1 a.m. I looked in on her
and found she was sleeping peacefully, so I undressed in
the guest room and crashed on the bed there instead of
disturbing her. While I knew I would find it both comfort-
ing and soothing to have her lying next to me, I was not
certain I wanted to be soothed or comforted at that
moment.
There was no question in my mind that Coyote's
traitor had leaked word of the meeting to Heinrich and his
Aryans. Knowing that the Aryans were working for Build-
more meant I had a possible employer for the traitor, but
that was a grand leap in logic that I wanted to avoid. The
last thing I needed to be doing was looking for evidence
that confirmed my theory, instead of finding the theory
that fit the facts.
So, what were my facts? From Nerys' reactions to me,
I was outside talent brought in, apparently, to take her
father out of the picture. Her mood shifted abruptly and
radically when I hinted her father still was alive. Clearly
he still knew something that could cause her problems,
but what it was I could not tell.
I also had the fact of Nerys' animosity toward Marit to
deal with. That appeared to explain Leich's attack on us
at Danny's place. His tie to Nerys had been firmly
established by his being my escort to her home. I still
wondered if he was in some way related to the Reaper I
had shot. I knew it was impossible for anyone to have
survived the damage I did to him in my escape, but after
visiting an alternate reality and seeing how hard Draolings
were to kill, my resolve on that point was beginning to
erode.
The fact of a traitor in our midst was one of the
toughest to deal with. Because everyone in the cell knew
about the meet Hal had arranged, anyone could have
played Judas. Handing out restricted information was
the only way to determine who the spy was, and, despite
the odd stuff that had happened in Sedona, Rock Pell
looked like a good candidate on that count. We had not
been ambushed by any predetermined setup, and he
had not known we were going.
Still, that was negative evidence and provided a
direction for further inquiry, not proof of guilt.
Somewhere in the middle of trying to organize differ-
ent tasks for different people I drifted off to sleep. My
subconscious mind kept gnawing on that difficulty,
which manifested itself as a strange dream. It was set at
a posh cocktail party, and in it everyone I had met
appeared to be animated, but, as I moved around, they
turned out to be paper-thin cutouts. On one side I saw
them as they appeared to be on the surface, but from the
other I saw them at their worst. Rock, for example,
counted 30 silver coins over and over again while
wearing a Nazi uniform.
Weirdest of all, Coyote appeared as a white silhouette
that always kept his back to a wall. I could not get
anything from him except an occasional nod of ap-
proval. While I found that chilling, the one time I stepped
in front of a mirror I saw a blank image staring back at me.
In my mind, then, Coyote and I were one and I found that
idea unsettling for reasons I could not figure out.
A black shadow entered my dream. I looked for and
found the familiar gold ring. "El Espectro. Are you really
here, or are you part of my dream?"
The shadow turned a circle, showing itself to be more
substantial than the other denizens of my dream. "Here,
in the, ah, flesh."
"You've spoken with Loring?"
The shadow man nodded. "I have communicated with
him, and I found it disturbingly easy. I am afraid he has
ventured into realms where he is not equipped to go."
"Meaning?"
El Espectro motioned with his right hand as if he were
wiping the fog from a mirror. As he did so the background
of my dream went away. I saw through the opening he
had wiped and found myself staring out at a reddish plain
with a dark bowl of sky and twinkling stars. He stepped
through the streak he had created, and I followed him. As
I looked back I saw my dreamworld contract down to a
pinprick of light, then soar up to become the third star in
the belt of Orion the Hunter.
"What you and I have just done is shift from one frame
of reality to another. One mark of this ability, for ex-
ample, is being able to dream in color instead of black
and white. That is your conscious mind being able to
accept and deal with a vast array of input. Some people
are blind to that input, others cannot process it—without
help, that is."
"I'm not certain I understand what you're telling me."
I shrugged my shoulders. "For as long as I can remem-
ber, which is not long at all, I have been able to dream in
color."
"You and I are among the gifted few of humanity. We
are what charlatans and psychics have called sensitive.
We have a natural ability to pull in and deal with more
sensory input than others. It is a form of empathy, really,
and is roughly akin to being able to see in the ultraviolet
or infrared ranges of electromagnetic radiation. We
know insects can do the former and some snakes the
latter. For us, until we are educated and equipped with
skills, our empathy may be little more than feeling
uneasy in a bad situation, or getting uncomfortable
feelings from another."
I smiled. "Whereas you, who have studied and refined
your skill, can read minds and perform other miracles."
El Espectro inclined his head in a concession to my
point. "True, though my miracles are really little more
than parlor tricks. Telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy,
psychometry, clairvoyance—all of these are branches of
this thing that makes us different. We are still human, but
we are adept where others are blind."
"And Nero Loring is one of the blind."
"Exactly. And unfortunately. He is, as a creative
person, one of the most brilliant I have ever had the
pleasure of meeting. His mind works so quickly and in
such a complex manner that I can do no more than pick
off stray surface thoughts. I could more easily read War
and Peace in Inuit than I could fathom his mind. Yet, for
all that, had he been with us in the proto-dimension
yesterday, he would have found himself in a world of
gray-flannel Jell-O. He would have seen nothing but us,
and would have been helpless if we chose to abandon
him."
A comet of ill-omens streaked across the heavens. "I
sense danger in your use of the word 'unfortunately.'"
"Quite a bit of it, in fact. About four years ago, as I piece
it together now, he started to see clues of some very
disturbing things. At the very least he began to suspect
the existence of dimensions other than the one in which
Earth exists. He began to toy with a device that would
allow him to detect signs of that universe. He thought,of
it as a radio-telescope for looking through dimensions. It
was something that was akin to the dimensional gateway
I used to send you and Ms. Fisk back to Eclipse.
"This he did on his own time. Apparently, about four
months ago, he discovered something that deeply
shocked him. His daughter ousted him from the com-
pany two months later and tried to have him put away.
Company loyalists managed to hide him."
"And I was brought in to kill him."
El Espectro's head came up. "Conjecture, or you
know this for a fact?"
"Solid conjecture. The signs are there." I folded my
arms. "I have since suffered from amnesia, so I am not
certain about anything. Nerys acts as if that was my
mission, and she was quite disturbed when I told her I had
gone to Sedona on the track of a rumor about her father."
"This could complicate things." The shadow man
thought for a moment, the shook his head. "You will have
to proceed very carefully."
"I intend to. Now, bring me up to speed on Nero."
"Ah, yes. When Loring was ousted, he lost access to
his machine. He spent much of his time on the run
studying certain mystical texts which describe other
dimensions, other creatures and the like. I do not think he
ascribed to any one in particular, but was looking for
something that matched what he had discovered by
using his dimension scope. He found it in a work of
fiction—a collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
"Nero chose to believe the pernicious slander about
Poe promulgated by Rufus W. Griswold."
"Namely that Poe was an opium addict?" inquired
Tycho.
"Correct, or, rather, incorrect. Poe may have been, as
are you and I, a very creative empath who was able to
peer into other dimensions. Nero, starting from that
point, has secluded himself in a place where he can
obtain and use psychotropic drugs to free his mind to
roam where he was able to go using his dimensionscope."
"And it won't work?"
"This is the rough equivalent of a man who has studied
an atlas jumping on a raft and waiting for Brownian
motion to carry him from New York to Europe. He may
get there, but he has no control over his travel. He is
destroying his mind with these things—and for nothing."
Anxiety filled El Espectro's words. "Whatever he thinks
is so urgent he is unable to handle in any event."
"What do you need from me?"
"The wound I suffered was a bit more debilitating than
I had imagined. I cannot fetch him and dry him out. I need
you to do that for me. Once you get him, I want you to
leave him with friends of mine in Eclipse."
"A cutout?"
"More for your protection than mine, Mr. Caine." El
Espectro reached out and pressed his left hand to my
forehead. I felt a tingle run over my scalp and instantly I
knew the route I was to drive both to find Loring and to
bring him to El Espectro's people. "There, that should
help you. I wish you Godspeed and suggest, unless you
know who your traitor is, you travel alone."
El Espectro's image faded with his voice. Through
where he had been, the sun began to rise over the edge
of the planet, and I shielded my eyes against the light. As
I turned away from it, I felt sheets twist around my legs,
and I opened my eyes. Letting my arm fall, I saw the sun
dawning from the reflective face of the Sumitomo-Dial
citadel.
I smelled coffee and looked over at the doorway. Marit
stood there in a loosely belted silk robe, the color of blue
in a housefly's body. As she leaned against the door-
jamb, the gap in the robe ran from her throat, down
between her breasts, across her flat belly and down to
trace the line of her hip and right leg. She clutched the
steaming mug right below her face and seemed more
intent on inhaling it than actually drinking it.
I smiled. "If coffee tasted half as good as it smells, it
would be a winner."
She took in a deep sniff, then smiled. "I needed it to
wake up. I had a nightmare."
"Oh?"
"Yes, I dreamed I woke up and you weren't in bed
beside me."
"Sorry, I didn't want to disturb your sleep last night."
"I know, but with the news about Hal, I was worried."
I sat up in bed and held my arms out to her. She set her
cup on the nightstand, then crawled into bed beside me
and I held her. "I didn't know you knew about Hal."
"Jytte called last night with the news. She said Candy
didn't make it."
I felt a shiver run through her. "No, she didn't. We do,
however, have a lead that Jytte and Bat should be
following up."
"Really? Can I help?"
I shook my head. "Not with that, but you can help by
spending one more day in bed."
She snuggled in more tightly to my chest. "With you
here too?"
"Don't I wish." I tipped her chin up with my left hand
and kissed her on the lips. "I have to head out and do
something on the reservation. If you can call down and
have your Ariel ready for me to use, I would be very
appreciative."
"I can call for you. How soon do you want it?"
"An hour?"
"An hour?" With the pout on her face and the tortured
tone in her voice, she made it sound like a nanosecond.
She rolled over onto my chest, pinning me to the bed.
"Make it two hours, Mr. Caine, and give me a down
payment on the appreciation, and you have a deal."
"My pleasure, Ms. Fisk."
"I'm counting on that, Mr. Caine."

Having left bed well after I was awake, I showered
quickly and dressed in very casual clothes. Marit offered
to wash my back for me, but I reminded her she had to
call about the car. She went to do that, but she noted that
she expected the other 90% of my appreciation to be paid
when I returned. I offered to sign a note, but she agreed
to take me at my word.
Feeling a bit paranoid, I not only packed my Colt Krait,
but I also brought the one I had taken from the Reapers
and my sniper rifle—though I did leave it in the case.
Given that I was headed out into the trackless wastes of
the Salt River Indian Reservation, I assumed having a
long-distance weapon would be a good idea.
Marit concurred in this thinking. "If you are right in
thinking that the Witch hired you to kill her father, taking
along as much artillery as you can carry to retrieve him
is not a bad idea at all. I can still ride backup."
I shook my head. "No. I want you to take one more day
to recover. I want you ready in case anything we learn
from Loring demands action."
She reluctantly agreed to stay home and had Juanita
pack me a lunch. I accepted the brown bag from the
Hispanic woman, then Marit gave me a kiss as if she were
a housewife sending her husband off to the office. "Be
careful."
"As always." I winked at her. "Oh, look, don't tell
anyone else about this, okay? Hal doesn't need the
burden, and it might not pan out."
"Right."
I took the elevator down to Level Five and picked the
Ariel up near the McDowell car transport area. The
attendant directed me toward the "hellavator," which is
resident slang for the car elevator that takes vehicles
straight down to ground level if that is quicker than
picking up one of the freeways out of City Center.
Because I wanted to head directly out McDowell toward
the reservation, I decided that was the best way to work
things.
I guess, in the back of my mind, I had expected to pick
up a tail, but I never expected it to be so blatantly obvious.
I spotted it first at 16th and McDowell and confirmed it by
the time I shot under the Squaw Peak Parkway. Streetlights
strobed across the hood of the car as I hit the accelerator
and started to run. My tail, knowing they had been made,
picked up speed as well.
I eased the Krait from my shoulder holster and laid it
on the seat beside me. Hitting the switch to roll down my
driver's-side window, I kept an eye on my rearview mirror
and the pickup truck with two Aryans in the cockpit and
one in the back. The man in the back raised a rifle, and
I saw a muzzle flash a second before the back window
shattered and blew back out in a jagged ice storm.
So intent was I on making my car a tough target to hit
that I almost didn't notice the new danger. All traps
require bait and a sting. I had mistaken the pickup for the
sting, but it fulfilled all the requirements of bait: It caught
my attention. It didn't allow me to notice the hammer
until almost too late.
The Harley came out of a side street, crossed traffic
and pulled up along side me with a blond-haired, bare-
chested Aryan riding it. He wore mirrored sunglasses,
but beneath the left lens I saw the hint of a star scar. On
his chest, as he twisted to smile at me, I saw two other
roundish scars that looked so old they couldn't have
been from the shooting a week ago. In his gloved left
hand he held the pistol grip of a double-barreled, sawed-
off shotgun.
I tapped the brakes and he shot ahead of me. As he
shifted the gun from his left hand to right to shoot out my
front tire, I jerked the wheel to the left and bumped his
bike. As he fought to control it, the shotgun clattering to
the ground, I pulled parallel, filled my hand with the Krait
and pumped two rounds into him. One hit his hip, the
other hit his chest, and his bike swerved into the left-turn
lane.
In one respect he was lucky. The Ford-Revlon Elan
was not moving very fast when he hit it square on the
nose. Leich vaulted from the bike, slammed into the
windscreen, then flew over the top of the car. He landed
on his feet, but continued in a somersault that ended with
him skidding on his back through the glass, dirt and bits
of chrome detailing left behind in the turn lane by other
cars.
His bike, which had completed a cartwheel over the
Elan, wobbled along and flopped over on top of him.
The pickup stopped near the wreckage, and I contin-
ued on. My ears rang from the sound of the gun going off
in such a confined space, and the cordite left a bitter, dry
taste in my mouth. Maybe Marit was right. Perhaps I
should have just stayed in bed with her.
I stopped behind a GDM Trotter for a red light at 36th
Street. This was a mistake. Off on my left I saw the lower
reaches of the Lorica Citadel, which prompted me to try
to match up Mr. Leich with both the rider I'd just killed and
the Reaper I shot in the first night of my new life. I
desperately wanted the job to be difficult, but the three
images slid together more easily than bullets slide into a
clip. He didn't look like a Draoling...
I realized the light had lasted longer than it should have
just about the same time I saw the pickup truck in the
rearview mirror. I cranked the steering wheel to the right
and gunned the engined, vaulting me up onto the
sidewalk. Sparks shot as the passenger side of the car
scraped along the Lorica Citadel wall. Pedestrians leaped
out into the street, and I bull's-eyed a metal cart full of
groceries. Cans of soup and veggies bumped up and
over the Ariel, then I cut back into the street and hit the
gas.
Behind me, having swung wide to get through the
intersection, came the pickup. The driver hunched over
the wheel and his passenger stuck a pistol out the
passenger window. I swerved right in front of the truck,
which threw off the passenger's aim, then I cut back as
the driver tried to ram me from behind.
The truck tried to pull parallel as we shot through the
intersection at 40th and on to 44th, but I hogged the
whole road and kept them back. Then, just on the other
side of 44th, the sniper stood up in the back of the truck
and shouldered his rifle again. With deliberate care he
wrapped his left forearm in the sling to sharpen his aim.
I jerked the wheel to the left and a string of shells ripped
through the passenger half of the car.
I looked in the rearview and shifted into overdrive. The
first sniper had not been wearing gloves, I suddenly
realized. The wind blew parallel triangles of blood back
across the sniper's face from the corners of his mouth.
Torn flesh flapped in the wind and one patch on his
shoulder showed his deltoid muscle. Worse yet, at hip
and flank, I saw bullet wounds.
That's Leich. That's impossible!
Two more bullets punched through the passenger
seat headrest, then I saw Leich furiously working the
rifle's bolt. As we streaked across 52nd Street and started
up between the Papago Buttes, I pulled my foot off the
accelerator and pulled into the right lane. The pickup
driver shot ahead, then made to drop in right in front of
me so Leich could blaze away to his heart's content.
As the driver tried to pull the truck in front of me, I
punched the accelerator again, catching the pickup
exactly behind the right rear passenger wheel. With all of
the truck's weight up front, I started it into a skid. I hit it
again, then pulled back as it shot off at a 45-degree angle
to our previous direction of travel.
Flying along at roughly 60 miles per hour, the pickup
hit the curb and jumped up all of three feet before it hit the
low restraining wall on the other side of the bike path.
That started it rolling which, in turn, catapulted Mr. Leich
and the body of the original sniper from the bed of the
truck. The sniper flopped around like a dead thing, but
Leich made an attempt to control his flight. He landed on
his right leg, with his momentum continuing his back-
ward somersault, and tried to steady himself with the
Armalite assault rifle. He went down, of course, leaving
patches of flesh on the tarmac, but managed to roll to his
feet 10 yards from the crash site.
I tagged his left leg with the Ariel. He spun around and
slammed into the side of my car, then flew off and into the
median. I heard him scream as he landed in the arms of
a big saguaro and hung there like a grim, southwestern
Easter spectacle. On the other side of the road the pickup
rolled down an embankment and came to a rest with all
four spinning wheels in the air.
As I sped away from that tableau, two questions came
to mind: What the hell is Leich? I'd shot him six times, all
total. I'd forced his bike into a car at 60+ miles per hour
and watched him give himself an asphalt massage. After
that he quenched his thirst with the blood of an ally and
was still steady enough to shoot very well from the back
of a moving truck. Finally, after he's knocked out of
pickup truck, he rolls and stands. I hit him with the Ariel,
and he still manages to be alive enough to scream when
he gets impaled on a cactus.
I knew things were strange, and I didn't mind that while
sharing a hallucination with El Espectro, but unkillable
creatures on the streets of Eclipse were not something I'd
bargained for. "The logical explanation is that Leich
really is, ah, one of a set of identical quadruplets that all
share the infirmities of the others through this empathy
thing El Espectro talks about."
It sounded no better spoken aloud than it did echoing
around in my head. The alternate explanation was that
Leich, like the Draolings, was a native of another dimen-
sion. How he got here, how he got hooked up with Lorica
and Nerys, and how he knew to go after me this morning
were all open to conjecture. Of all of them, the last
bothered me the most, but I tabled consideration of it until
I successfully completed Nero Loring's recovery.
The other question, of course, was how I would explain
to Marit what had happened to her car. "I'll just have to
be very appreciative, I guess."
Frozen Shade covers the eastern half of what used to
be known as the Valley of the Sun right up to the Salt River
Indian reservation. I'd seen the break on the map I'd
reviewed, but I hardly expected it to be so abrupt. Frozen
Shade panels actually covered the eastern edge of
Scottsdale to catch the morning sun, with only 20 feet of
clearance along the major roads.
Fortunately McDowell Road was a major road, so I
shot out into the reservation, passing beneath the 101L,
without a hitch. Out there, in the gloriously warm sun-
light, I took the car up to 70 mph and let the through-
current of air sweep glass and seat stuffing out through
the back window. I reveled in the heat and, somehow, the
bright light nibbled away at the dread Leich had inspired
in me.
I picked up Route 87 heading northeast and took it
through some of the driest, most inhospitable land I'd
ever seen. In the distance I could see small, ramshackle
houses the ruddy color of the dirt. It took me a moment
to realize they were actually made of adobe bricks, and
that astounded me. In this day and age, in the shadow of
one of the largest cities in North America, there were
people living in homes made of mud.
Somewhere beyond where the Beeline Highway cut
across the Arizona Canal, I turned north onto a dirt track.
I followed it as faithfully as possible, leaving a huge cloud
of dust in my wake. Twice I flushed jackrabbits and three
times drove past the rusting skeletons of cars. Always,
though, I kept the Ariel's nose pointed at Sawik Moun-
tain.
A rounded red hunk of rock, Sawik Mountain sat on
the surrounding flat plain as if it had been formed from
clay and squashed into a lump there by the potter. I
followed the track as it cut east and stopped on the far
side of the formation. Re-holstering the blue Krait, I
pulled the gun case and sandwich bag from the car. The
case showed a dent where it had deflected one bullet and
one of the two sandwiches had a rather big hole in it.
Trekking around through the small gullies was not
particularly difficult. As I had seen when El Espectro
mindfed me the location, I found the footpath leading in
toward a small split between the mountain itself and a
large hunk of rock as soon as I entered the mountain's
shadow. At the base of it I saw two men, both Indians, one
young and one ancient.
"Howdy, gentlemen." I did my best to approach easily
and openly because the younger man had a lever-action
Winchester .30-06 rifle hanging from the end of his right
arm. "Nice day for a hike."
The old man started laughing in a wheezy voice. The
younger man brought the rifle up and laid it in the crook
of his left elbow. "Mister, if you came all this way for a
hike, you're bound for disappointment. This is reserva-
tion land, and it's not open to the public. You might as
well turn around and head back out of here."
A phrase El Espectro had implanted in my brain
floated up to my conscious mind. "I'm just seeking
visions, friends. The Witch's father needs my help."
The young man made ready to wave me off, but the
old man said something to him. The rifle slipped down so
the forward handgrip rested in his left hand, and he
motioned down with it. "Get rid of the bag and case. Take
off your windbreaker."
I did as commanded, leaving me with a sleeveless T--
shirt and shoulder holster covering my chest. "Now
what?"
The old man tossed a waterskin out into the crescent
of sunlight to my right. "Get the bag my grandfather has
thrown there," the young man commanded. "Pour water
out onto your arms and wash them off. Wash them
good."
Given the way my morning had gone so far, this
request even sounded reasonable. I picked up the skin
and poured some water into my hand. I sniffed it and
smelled nothing. I washed my arms off, then capped the
skin and tossed it back into the shade. "If you ask me to
put on surgical greens and perform an operation, I'll just
leave now."
The younger man winced at my joke, but his grand-
father wheezed out another laugh. We waited for five
minutes, with the old man constantly checking the sun
and then me. Finally he spoke to the younger man, and
the rifle swung up and away from me. "Come on in".
You're clean."
I frowned as I recovered my gear. "I'm clean?"
The old man spoke in a voice that was at once quiet
and impish, yet commanding. "In the old days, evil
creatures could not stand the touch of sunlight. Now they
have sunblock." He rested a palsied hand on his
grandson's strong shoulder. "You will wait here, Will. You
must stand guard while we go to the Cave of Dreams."
"Yes, Grandfather."
The old man, whose long gray hair was restrained by
a leather thong encircling his head, led me up the narrow
path. "You have been sent by Ghost Who Lives. Did he
tell you what you would find?"
"No."
The old man looked back at me over his shoulder with
sharp gray eyes. "Here we are far from the world you
know in Phoenix. Nero Loring is as far from us as you are
from Phoenix. Loring entrusted himself to me, and I
agreed to help him on his quest, but I can help him no
more. This will be up to you."
"I'm Tycho Caine, by the way."
The ancient one just laughed lightly. "My given name
is, in your tongue, He Whose Antics Are the Light in the
Eye of the Raven. It is not a compliment. You may call
me George."
"George?"
He shrugged. "In my youth I learned to write English
by copying the words on money. In signing up for service
during the Korean War, my name choices were either
George or Novus and the first seemed easier for my
sergeant to learn."
While we talked, we worked our way up a steep, twisty
trail that hugged the mountain. The years had weathered
the volcanic rock, but they had not made it smooth. One
misstep and I'd end up looking like the road pizza Leich
should have been.
George stopped me at a wide ledge. To the left a series
of hand- and footholds had been carved into the rock
generations ago. Up at the top I could see, over the lip of
another ledge, the top of what I took to be a hole in the
mountain. He pointed toward the opening.
"This is a sacred mountain, and the Cave of Dreams
is a magical place. Nero Loring has been in there for three
weeks. Will and I have brought him food and water each
day. We also stand guard to prevent those who would
come to hurt him from disturbing him. When you go up
there, do not say anything to him until he speaks to you.
You do not want to break him from communion with the
gods until they are done with him."
The old man sat down in the mountain's shadow. "I do
not know what you will find up there. I have not been in
the cave since I first took him up there. Whatever you
find, do not disturb it, for it will be a symbol of power for
him. It may be all that is keeping him alive. Listen to him,
and when he speaks to you as you, then it is that you may
take him from this place."
"In the meantime," he pointed at my luggage, "I will
watch your things."
I sat the case down and tossed him the sandwich bag.
"Help yourself, but watch out for lead poisoning."
He nodded solemnly. "It is a crime to waste food."
I started to climb up, straining to hear any sounds from
above. The climb proved easy and every time I looked
back down at George, he saluted me with smaller and
smaller pieces of sandwich. At the top of the climb I saw
a jug of water and an empty plastic plate resting on a
ledge that seemed just smaller than a twin bed.
The hole in the mountain had obviously been carved
by human hands. Three feet in diameter, it led into a
tunnel of similar dimensions that slanted up at a 70-
degree angle for 10 feet. I kept my head down as I crawled
through it, devoutly wishing to avoid having my scalp
scraped off by the rocks, then stood slowly as I entered
the Cave of Dreams.
The only light in the whole place came through a hole
in the domed roof, and it came down in a brilliant shaft
that washed over Nero Loring's seated body. Lacking an
accurate frame of reference, it took me a moment or two
to realize that Loring was physically a rather small man.
Seated there in a lotus position, and with the sunlight
making his bald head, bare shoulders, arms and legs
bright patches of white, and with his eyes rolled up into
his head, he looked like a creature wrapped in a light-
cocoon in preparation for a spiritual chrysalis.
Keeping one hand on the cavern wall, I carefully
picked my way around the outer edge of the spherical
room to a small alcove. I did not have much room in
which to work because Loring had filled the cavern floor
with an intricate sandpainting. It looked familiar because
of the medium. I had seen many sandpaintings on sale
in Phoenix—Eclipse and City Center both. What struck
me as odd was that while the technique used was
traditional, the images were not.
Loring seated himself at the hub of the circular paint-
ing. Seven lines came out from the middle, splitting the
drawing into seven even parts. Each slice contained a
bizarre creature of some symbolic import, I had no doubt,
but I could not puzzle them out. One, for example, had
a cracked egg from which was emerging an insectoid
monster. Another appeared to be a big-mouthed, rapa-
cious creature shoveling earth into its mouth with arms
that ended in steam-shovel buckets. They made no overt
sense to me, but I felt I had the key to their meaning inside
me somewhere. I just needed one more piece of the
puzzle.
That piece was the outer circle itself. It had been done
almost entirely in black sand except where golden sand
had been layered in. The gold bits were all angular,
beginning and ending in dots. I knew I had seen that
design before, but it took me a second or two to
remember where.
The dimensional gate! Loring has built himself one out
of sand. I swallowed hard. Whew, must be some serious
Pharmaceuticals at work here.
At seven spots around the room, in small pots placed
at points beyond where the spokes ended at the outer
circle, incense burned. Thick ropes of it filled the air and
drifted like clouds of cosmic dust through the universe.
I caught some of the spicy scent but couldn't place it. It
burned my nose and eyes enough to start the one
running and the others watering. As tears filled my eyes
and blurred the scene, things shifted.
Suddenly I found myself out where I had been with El
Espectro. I floated above the red planet. Surrounding me
I saw all sorts of humanized creatures in traditional
Amerindian garb. They regarded me closely, then shifted
in shape to become stained-glass saints, and then again
into the myriad gods of the world's pantheons. None of
them said anything to me, yet I sensed from them an
insistence that I act. And about the same time as I began
to wonder if they truly existed, they began to vanish, and
I wondered if what I had seen was nothing more than an
externalization of things lurking within my own mind.
Below me, seated in the dust of the red world, I saw
Nero Loring. Pointing my toes, I forced myself to drift
down to him. As I did, behind him, on a sheer mountain
face, I saw images begin to take form as if a movie were
being projected on the mountainside. On the mountain
I saw Nero Loring's head and shoulders as they were
now, but the crosshairs of a rifle scope slid down over
them. I saw the purple dot the Allard Technologies
Espion CIV laser sight used to mark its victims. It clung
to Loring's forehead like the biblical mark of Cain, then
I felt my right index finger spasm.
In agonizingly precise slow motion I saw a hollow-
nosed, 180-grain bullet that had been drilled and patched
core through the sighting dot. Upon impact, the droplet
of mercury inside the bullet shot forward, bursting free of
the front of the bullet. Its microfine beads ripped through
the tissue like shotgun pellets. The rest of the bullet
fragmented, expanding to create an exit hole five times
the size of the entry wound as it went out just above his
neck.
As the head snapped forward, it dropped from the
camera frame, and the movie ended. I knew without
question that what I had just seen was a memory
conjured up from before I woke up in the body bag.
Whatever it was that was in the incense had freed that
vision when I saw Loring. I had shot and killed him, I knew
it. I felt it right down to my soul. I had killed Nero Loring,
yet here he sat before me.
The man's eyes rolled down and skewered me with a
feverish stare. In a voice I heard as being as mechanical
as Coyote's phone voice, he spoke to me. "He told me
you would come. Once the destroyer, once my salva-
tion." He lifted his hands to me as if transferring an
invisible burden. "You must find her and bring her to me.
He cannot have her."
I concentrated, frowning, to pierce the mystery of his
words. "Who is he and who is she?"
"He is Fiddleback." Loring's eyes blazed with mad-
ness. "She is Nerys. Into your hands I commend the spirit
of my daughter. If you cannot save her, we all will die!"

The real world came crashing back as Loring col-
lapsed in the middle of his sandpainting. I shivered all the
way down my spine, then called out to George. He
arrived a minute later and gingerly stepped over the lines
Loring had drawn. Following his lead, I made my way to
the center of the picture and lifted Loring's emaciated
body. A man his size should have weighed at least 130
pounds, but he was easily below 100.
George and I wormed the comatose man through the
tunnel and with Will's help managed to get him into the
car. I belted him into the shot-up passenger seat and put
my rifle case in the seat behind him. Straightening up, I
slammed the door shut. Turning to George I started to
thank him, but he stalked his away around the car with
his arms held wide like a bird facing off against a snake.
Will and I backed away, watching him carefully. He
made a circuit from the radiator all the way back to the
rear bumper, then dropped to the ground. As we came
around that end of the car, we saw him wiggling his way
back from under the vehicle. In his left hand he held a
sticky cocoon covered with grayish silk. Without hesita-
tion he set the cocoon down on a flat rock and smashed
it with another stone.
"When you came out here, you were followed."
I glanced between the black liquid dripping down the
stone and the nearly destroyed car. "Yes."
George nodded proudly. "That was why. It was evil. I
suggest you do not return the way you came because
they will have forces arrayed to stop you."
I decided not to point out that his thesis was, in fact,
unprovable unless I did return by the route that had
brought me to the mountain. As that had never been my
intention in the first place, I had no trouble agreeing to his
plan. "Thank you, for everything."
Will frowned. "I deeply love and respect my grandfa-
ther, but you, a white man, you cannot believe all this
mumbo-jumbo that he has been teaching me. The old
ways and the old monsters have no power in the real
world."
In Will's words I sensed he had reached a decision
point in his life. One half of him, the modern half,
dreamed of living in City Center just like everyone else.
That world had no room for superstitions and bogeymen.
That was a world of superficiality where being seen in the
right place far outweighed actually doing anything real.
In many ways, though difficult to attain and maintain, it
was an easy way of life because it required only a willful
dedication to work mixed with an equal dedication to
hedonism and social climbing.
The other part of him, the part that had listened to
stories of the old ways from the day of his birth, had seen
just enough to question things. He'd doubtlessly been
involved with his grandfather in ancient rituals. If Will had
what El Espectro described as latent empathic abilities,
his grandfather could be using ancient rituals to teach
him to harness those abilities. Will knew enough to make
him wonder if his grandfather might not be right and, if
he was, Will knew his whole world view became one leaf
on a tree instead of the whole tree itself.
"I don't know how to answer that, Will. I've seen things
that make me question what is real and what isn't." I
nodded at George as I opened the driver's door. "If I had
the opportunity to learn what he could teach, I would. If
he is wrong, at the very least you are rescuing from
extinction traditions that predate recorded history. If he
is right, you will be infinitely more able to deal with the
world than you would be if you remained willfully igno-
rant."
I climbed into the car and started it. As I drove away
I saw the two Indians walking back toward the Cave of
Dreams. George offered Will half of one of my sand-
wiches, and the younger man draped his arm over his
grandfather's shoulder.
On another two-tire track I drove from the mountain
into Fountain Hills and picked up Shea Boulevard. I took
that back into Scottsdale, passing into the darkness of
Frozen Shade at 120th Street. I picked up the 101L and
headed south to Thomas. There I exited, having skirted
the heart of Drac City, and dropped Loring with El
Espectro's friends at a little house set back from the road
between Hayden and Pima. At no time during the journey
did he wake up, and when I left him his eyes were still
fairly dilated from whatever drugs he had used.
I drove a bit away from there, checking for unwanted
tails, then stopped at a convenience store with a pay
phone. I shoved a copper Columbus into the slot and
called Marit. Juanita answered and got her for me
quickly.
"Hi, Tycho. What's up?"
"Did anyone else know I was going out to the reserva-
tion?"
"No, didn't tell anyone, just as you asked." Her voice
lost its cheery tone. "What happened?"
"Aryans picked me up soon after I left City Center. I
managed to elude them, but your car got chewed up." I
frowned. "Maybe they just had a lookout for your car. No
one else knew?"
"No...wait. When we went to Sedona yesterday, Rock
took the Ariel off to have it serviced. He does that for all
of us. Before I called down to get the car ready for you,
I called him to find out if it was in the garage or still being
fixed. I didn't tell him where you were going, but I did say
you were using the car." As she spoke she realized what
she was saying. "Rock may be tight with the Aryans, but
he'd never set them on you."
No, my dear, but he'd sell me out to Lorica as per
Nerys' orders. "You're right. Heinrich probably has con-
nections all over the place and was angry for what I did
to that kid of his yesterday. I'll have to let everyone else
know to be careful."
"True." She hesitated for a second, then a little more
life returned to her voice. "Listen, Jytte called and said
she'd done the computer work you asked for. She's at the
meeting place, if you want to go down there and start
sorting through it."
"Will do. I'll see you later?"
"I'll be here, keeping the sheets warm for you." I heard
the sound of a pillow being plumped in the background.
"So, how badly is my car damaged?"
"Oh, gotta go, someone here wants to use the phone.
Later."
I hung up and returned to the Ariel. I kept looking for
Aryans or others as I drove down to the headquarters and
ended up doing a full circuit around the area before I felt
confident that I'd not been followed. I parked in the back
and checked my weapons, as per usual.
In the conference room I found Bat sitting in front of a
daunting pile of reports.
"Anything good, Bat?"
He grunted and flipped one report toward me. I
snapped it out of the air and decided, based on the title,
that it was surprisingly thin. "Nerys Loring. Fascinating
reading?"
"Gossip, some transcripts, medical records. Like other
corporators—all skin, no bone." Bat glanced back over
his shoulder toward the parking lot. "Nice body work on
the Ariel."
I smiled. "Hope to start a fad. It'll give the gangs
something to do other than shoot each other. I had a lead
to follow up on Nero Loring and someone thought that
was a bad idea. Loring's safe and, if we're lucky, some
people will be able to get something useful out of him."
Bat nodded and went back to the report he had been
reading. I sat down and started in on the report about
Nerys. It took me about 10 of the 70 pages in the report
to decide Bat had been correct.
Nerys' life, as chronicled in this report, was almost
straight normal for a woman in her early 40s. Born in
1968, she was the daughter of a successful engineer and
inventor. She did all the normal things kids did in those
days, including Brownies and Girl Scouts. Her school
transcripts showed her to be a bright student with her
language skills slightly outstripping her mathematical
skills in testing and grades. At the age of 12 she even won
an Arizona state poetry contest.
Things changed at 14. She had been given a puppy for
her birthday and named it "Buttons." As nearly as
anyone could make out, she opened the gate around the
pool and the puppy shot through less than a week after
her birthday. Buttons jumped onto the floating pool liner
which began to wrap around it as the dog sank. Nerys
dove in to save the dog, became entangled in the pool
liner herself and was under for at least six minutes. Her
father found her and pulled her out, but she was clinically
dead.
The Rural-Metro Rescue Team managed to get her
heartbeat back and start her breathing again. She was
air-evacced to Phoenix Children's Hospital and ended up
in a coma for three months. She had no brainwaves to
speak of and she required a respirator to keep her lungs
working. Her parents reluctantly agreed to turn the
respirator off.
They did, but she kept breathing. The EEG monitor
showed renewing brain activity. She awakened within a
day and left the hospital after a week. She continued
intensive physical therapy for another six months to get
her body back into shape—the doctors agreed that the
brain damage she had suffered made learning how to use
her body again normal. After that, she was given a clean
bill of health and even worked hard to make up the half
year she'd missed at Gerard High School.
After graduation from high school, she went to Ari-
zona State University, taking a double major of business
and engineering. She joined Lorica at the bottom and
started working her way up until, at the time the maglev
project started, she was assisting her father in design
work. After the initial design phase was completed, she
shifted her attention to the business side of Lorica and
started its expansion into a host of projects that diversi-
fied the company and actually helped it survive the
recession in '05.
Her time spent strengthening the business also con-
solidated her power within the company so, two months
ago, she was able to oust her father easily. Once he was
out she purged his loyalists and the data flow used to
compile the report all but dried up. End of story.
I double-checked something in the school transcripts
section. Before the accident Nerys had been very literate
and had above average language skills. After the acci-
dent these skills did not diminish much, but her math-
ematical skills shot past them by all the measures listed
in the charts. SAT scores showed a hundred point gap
between the two, with her math score being as close to
perfect as most folks ever get.
Jytte came into the room as I finished reading the
Nerys report. "Satisfactory?"
I nodded. "Excellent work, especially on such short
notice. You saw the score shifts after the accident?"
The woman nodded woodenly. "I did some checking
of contemporary medical literature regarding personal-
ity and intelligence shifts after brain trauma caused by
oxygen deprivation. What happened in her case is
atypical and manages to push well beyond the mean
improvements in those few cases where the accident
appears to have proved beneficial as opposed to neutral
or detrimental, which it is in the vast majority of cases. I
would also note that her case is the only case in which
such a beneficial result was noted in a case where brain
trauma was not secondary to cold water-induced hypo-
thermia."
"Wow, I'm impressed."
Jytte handed me another piece of paper. "This is a
ballistics report from Scorpion about the gun that killed
Buc in the graveyard. They think it was a Steyr SSG-PIV
Marksman .308. Bolt action, five- or 10-round cartridge
clips, it comes fitted with mounts for NATO-type scopes.
It is a very good gun, but inferior to the PVI model."
"I know. Thanks." She started to turn away but I
stopped her. "Back to Nerys for a second. Have we got
any writing samples from before the accident to com-
pare with what she's written since then?"
She shook her head. "I made the attempt to obtain
samples, but I have found nothing. I am in the process of
trying to get current addresses for all her schoolmates,
but Gerard closed in 1988, so obtaining that data is
difficult. Once I have it, I will communicate with them to
find out if they have anything."
"Good luck."
Jytte regarded me curiously for a second, then turned
away. Coldly efficient, it would have been easy to think
of her as no more than a mobile extension of the
computers with which she worked. I knew that was not
true. She was a person who had been grossly trauma-
tized physically, emotionally and mentally by a monster.
Her amnesia about the whole incident was a blessing for
her, but cutting herself off from her past meant she
defined herself through her computer work and her
altered body.
Reflecting on her situation, I wondered if I truly wanted
to find out who I had been. Apparently I had gladly
murdered people for money. Having met Hal, and having
seen his concern for a stranger like me, let me know that
people were much more than just walking targets. I
fervently believed some of them, like Heinrich and Leich,
deserved killing, but not for money and not because they
managed to offend some bureaucrat's sense of deco-
rum.
I realized I could not be content with not knowing who
I had been. Certainly the skills I had learned in my
previous life had served me well here. They made it
possible for me to recover my identity. To find out who
and what I truly was I just had to continue the tricky job
of navigating between megacorporations in this world
and whatever other things might be arrayed against me
outside it.
The best way to do that, I figured, was to start in on the
reports Bat had been reading. I took half the pile from him
and started going through them. Most were short pieces
that detailed areas of competition between the corpora-
tions in the southside of Phoenix and Build-more. It
appeared, from what I read, Build-more was trying to
expand and diversify, much as Lorica had done under
Nerys in the last four years. The expansion had Build-
more in competition with all the companies in the
southside, so we ended up cataloging points of conflict
to see who won the race.
Alejandro arrived late in the afternoon and avoided
death by not laughing when he saw us up to our ears in
paper. "Tycho, I wanted to show you the color sketch of
the painting Estefan delivered to me today."
He handed me a small piece of bristolboard roughly
6x8 inches. Estefan had produced in miniature a three-
quarters view of Phoenix, as if the viewer were in a
helicopter heading in toward City Center. In the picture
a giant brown recluse sat perched amid a huge web that
covered the maglev line and connected all the towers.
The spider itself had a dark tunnel near the Lorica Citadel
and Estefan had even included the web-bound body of
an insect dangling from one of the towers.
"I love it."
Alejandro nodded proudly. "He says it will be three feet
by four feet, and he expects to have it finished in a couple
of days. I'll call when it comes in, and you can come down
and see it." He chuckled lightly and tapped the color
sketch. "I've shown this to a couple of people already and
one made a photocopy of it to fax around. It should be all
over by this point."
"Great! When you call, I'll get the money and come
right down there."
"Good." Alejandro took back the sketch and headed
for the door. "Oh, by the way, if Marit wants to get rid of
her car, I'll buy it. I've got a client into retro-Guevarista-
realist pieces."
Alejandro's offer mollified Marit a bit when I told her
about the car. She seemed less upset about its destruc-
tion than she was about my almost having gotten killed.
This I appreciated very much, and was very appreciative
in return. We spent the next two nights out seeing shows
and dining at Avanti City Center and Vincent's in the
Macayo Tower.
The days I spent in the conference room going through
lots of reports. Marit helped out when she could and
between the three of us, we actually caught up with the
flood of material Jytte managed to coax from the
computer network tying the city together. At the end of
it all, we came to two conclusions.
The first thing we agreed upon was that the Build-
more sponsorship of the Aryans was not directed at any
one of the other corporations—it was aimed at all of
them. The Build-more strategy appeared to be designed
to cause trouble to see what the other corporations would
sacrifice to beef up security. If any of their subsidiaries
became neglected, Build-more would stage an execu-
tive raid, or would offer to buy that corporation and fit it
into their empire.
Jytte pointed out that this strategy was a modification
of 20th-century Yakuza tactics employed against
megacorporations in Japan. There it only had to go so far
as disrupting stockholder meetings. Because the Japa-
nese could not stand open conflict, they would pay the
Yakuza off to keep them out. In the United States,
causing a disruption of business was necessary to shake
anything loose, and the tactic had been applied by other
companies in Chicago, New York and Miami with appar-
ent effectiveness.
It did not take her long to cross-correlate employment
records of Build-more's staff with places where this tactic
had been used to come up with a candidate for employ-
ing it here. Barney Kourvik had worked with all the
companies who had employed the tactic and had, most
recently, been employed as a consultant by Build-more
to school them in how to defeat that sort of thing. Build-
more officials apparently feared that Lorica would start
using strong-arm tactics to increase their power in
Phoenix.
His star pupil and liaison with the company was
Sinclair MacNeal, one of four sons of Build-more's
tyrannical founder Darius MacNeal. Sinclair had man-
aged to be disowned once already and had spent time in
Japan working for a corporation whose interests clearly
conflicted with those of his father's company. He re-
joined the company three years ago as a security
specialist and had finally risen to the number two spot in
that department. It seemed very apparent that Sinclair
was our man.
"We'll have to have a talk with Mr. MacNeal, I think,"
I commented as the phone rang.
Jytte answered, listened for a moment, said, "I will
inform him," and hung up again. She turned to me and
said, "Alejandro says Estefan Ramierez has delivered the
painting. He has a few people coming over for a private
viewing tonight, but thought you might like to see it this
afternoon before anyone else gets a chance to look at it."
"I would. Marit? Bat? Jytte?"
Marit shook her head. "I'm going shopping with Dottie
in a half hour, so I'll pass. I'll see what she can tell me
about Sinclair MacNeal since her husband works at
Build-more."
Bat nodded.
Jytte looked from Marit to Bat and then to me. "I
cannot leave here." She headed back into her dark
sanctuary, then stopped halfway through the door and
turned back. "Thank you for asking."
The three of us piled into the new Ariel Marit had rented
and drove to City Center. The valet who accepted
custody of the car looked a bit askance at Bat, but held
his tongue and drove away without squealing the tires.
Marit and I waved to Dottie up on the Level Nine, then I
kissed Marit and left her at the elevator while Bat and I
trekked across the mezzanine. On the other side we
found the escalator that went up one level and deposited
us near the Mercado.
I noticed Bat looked around a great deal and seemed
to study everything with intensity. "Have you not been
here before?"
He shook his head. "Not in public."
"But you have been in City Center before?"
"Once, the Bookbinder Building. Rich fan of pit fights
offered me $10,000 dolmarks to fight a Thai fighter he'd
flown in. Had a ring in his penthouse suite."

"What happened?" I smiled. "I know you won."
"Fight left the ring. I tossed the Thai through a window.
Broke some other stuff, too."
"What?"
"Ming vase. Revere silver service. Rodin bronze." Bat
furrowed his brow. "Oh, and an all-pro linebacker for the
Cardinals."
Bat cracked a bit of a smile, and I laughed openly. "So
they never asked you back?"
"You got the picture." He pointed to a cantina that was
part of the Mercado. "Fought in that place down in
Acapulco."
As we followed the nearly deserted, winding street
around the restaurant, Alejandro's Gallery came into
view. "There it is." I gave Bat a wry grin. "You'd best try
not to break anything."
Suddenly fire blossomed in the windows and doorway
of the gallery. Flames and black shot through the bars on
the windows, spitting shards of glass and chunks of
wooden window framing into the air. The ground shook
with the thunderous detonation and one of the two doors
danced madly across the cobblestone street. It smashed
against the restaurant's wall as the force of the blast
knocked the both of us down and shattered windows
throughout the Mercado.
Because Bat and I had been in the street and a bit back
from the explosion, the only damage done to us came
when we fell down. Behind us people ran from the bar in
a blind panic. Clothing hung tattered on those who had
been closest to the windows, with blood quickly soaking
it.
Bat got up first and pulled me to my feet. We both ran
toward the gallery, but the fire raging inside burned so hot
we could not approach closer than five feet from the
door. Roaring flames licked up and out of the windows
and doors, blackening pastel colors and making the
window bars glow red hot. I tried to look inside, but I could
see nothing in the smoke and flames.
Bat pulled me back as firefighters arrived and started
spraying chemical foam in through the door. I sat down
on a bench, and he stood beside me. "God in heaven,
Bat, I never thought..."
"They'll rule it accidental, electrical, and blame it on
paint stored in the back." I saw muscles twitch at his jaw.
"It was the Witch."
"How do you know?"
"It was you who said she had no taste in art. This gets
the spider painting and gets Alejandro for bringing the
other one to auction. It was her."
I pursed my lips and nodded slowly. "Okay, you know
it, and I know it. We can't prove it."
"Don't need proof, I know it. Proof is for your friend
and Nero Loring."
"Okay, what now?"
"I want you to meet a friend of mine." Bat grinned.
"You'll like him. He sells guns."

Bat took me to what looked like a small pawnshop
nestled in the shadow of City Center. The thick coat of
dust over the whole place made me feel I was walking
into a museum more than any sort of viable commercial
establishment. Old and tarnished musical instruments
lined the left wall and a plethora of rifles the right, like
soldiers preparing to battle over the battered televisions,
radios and toaster ovens huddled in the middle. The
glass cases ringing the walls had some pistols and a
number of interesting jewelry items, but nothing like
what we would require to bust Lorica open and take the
Witch.
Bat walked through the dimly lit shop like it did not
exist. The teenager sitting in the cashier's cage glanced
at him and buzzed him through the gateway into the
back, then returned to reading an old science-fiction
paperback. He paid me no attention at all.
A left turn, then a right put us in front of a thick steel
door. A periscope built above the door surveyed us, then
a buzz sounded. The door unlocked with a click and Bat
ushered me into a narrow spiral stairwell that led down.
He had to duck his head to avoid scraping it against the
low ceiling, and his broad shoulders brushed against the
hole's edge as he went down.
"Bat, I thought the ground in Phoenix was too hard to
make underground construction common."
"It is. These are old tunnels. This was once in Phoenix's
Chinatown district. Opium dens."
Bat remained half-hunched as we came out into a
place that appeared, to me, to be a bunker more than any
sort of shop. The walls had been covered with pegboard
so they could hold up the inventory of weapons but, other
than that, they were as unfinished as the ceiling. Old
boards covered the floor and plywood sheets had been
laid down where the original flooring had rotted away.
The flooring had completely collapsed beneath a Chrysler
Combat Exoskeleton in the corner. I had no idea how
they'd gotten it into this hole. The former opium den had
electricity and phones, but all the wiring remained
exposed on thick wooden beams.
A dwarf came waddling out from behind a counter.
"Dzien dobry, Chwalibog."
"Dzien dobry, Bronislaw." Bat's huge hand swallowed
the smaller man's normally sized one, then Bat looked
over at me. "Tycho Caine, this is Bronislaw Joniak."
I offered the dwarf my hand, and he shook it. I found
his grip strong and his hand rough with calluses. "Pleased
to meet you, Mr. Joniak. Bat thinks you can meet our
needs for some weaponry."
The little man smoothed back brown hair and folded
his arms. "I deal in quality weapons, Mr. Caine. If you're
looking to take down a Circle K or a 7-Eleven I have what
you need upstairs."
I shook my head. "I am a bit more ambitious than that.
I need to outfit an expeditionary force of eight individuals.
We will be looking at a substantial purchase—fully
automatic weapons, personal side arms, ammunition,
communications devices and sundry explosives. I can
pay cash or gold, your choice."
A smile slowly crept across the man's face and had
taken up residence there before I mentioned money. "I
like seeing someone who knows what he wants." He
walked back around the counter and clambered up onto
a high stool. Pulling a steno pad into his lap, he flipped
to a new page and picked up a pencil. "Shall we start at
the beginning?"
I nodded. "I will need eight portable radio units with
earpiece microphones, complete with batteries."
Bronislaw scribbled. "Possible, though I may have to
buy Japanese."
"Whatever. I will need two kilos of Semitek or C-4 with
12 radio detonators, 24 unburned PROMs and the equip-
ment needed to burn them with a voice command for
detonation. I'll return any chips I don't use, as well as the
burner."
The little man looked up at me with dark eyes. "Next?"
"Assault rifles, eight." I looked at the section of
pegboard to which he pointed. On it he had mounted two
dozens different models. "Bat, does Natch shoot?"
The big man nodded. "We all do."
"Good, let's make it easy, then. Give me eight Colt AR-
15 A2 carbines. I want six full 20-shot clips loaded with
duplex shells. I'll want another 2000 rounds of loose
ammo for the guns, duplex as well. Possible?"
The dwarf shrugged. "Duplex rounds are a bit difficult,
but I can do it. You'll want them full-auto, correct?"
"I'd prefer a selector that allows for single, trey-burst
and full auto."
"Done. Next?"
"Personal side arms." I pointed to Bat. "You probably
know our compatriots' tastes."
Bat turned to study a pegboard section of the wall
when the phone started to ring. Bronislaw and Bat both
ignored it, which struck me as odd. What struck me as
odder still was that I had an overwhelming desire to
answer it. Without thinking, I snatched up the heavy
receiver and held it to my ear. "Caine here."
"It's me, El Espectro. I need to see you immediately."
I recognized his voice, then a mental picture of where he
was blasted into my brain, just as I had seen Loring's
location in my dream. "Hurry."
"Give me a half hour."
"This is important."
"So is this."
"Very well. Hurry."
"Later." I returned the receiver to the blocky black
base. I looked up and saw both men staring at me
strangely. "Well, neither of you made a move toward it."
Bronislaw slowly shook his head. "It didn't ring."
"Sure it did." I looked over at Bat. "It was for me."
Bat narrowed his eyes. "Never should have gone to
Sedona."
I frowned at the phone. "Maybe I got it before it rang."
Bat grunted. Bronislaw consulted his list. "That's two
Colt .45s, four Beretta 9s and a Desert Eagle .44
Magnum for you, Bat." The dwarf turned to me. "What
would you like?"
I started to tell him that I thought my Kraits would be
enough, but the image of Leich having survived as much
as he had stopped me. "I want a gun that shoots a heavy
cartridge that will bore a big hole. What I really want is an
automatic pistol that can handle a rifle cartridge. The .44
Mag is probably the best I can do, right?"
Bronislaw slid off the stool wearing a grin that meant
the phone incident had all but been forgotten. He wan-
dered deeper into the armory, dug around behind the
Chrysler Exoskeleton, then returned bearing a rosewood
box like it was a gift of the Magi. He set it up on the
counter, resumed his seat, then opened it reverently.
"This, my friend, is the answer to your desire. It is a
Wildey Wolf with a 10-inch barrel. It shoots a .475 Wildey
Magnum shell which is a wildcat round mating a 250-
grain bullet to a rebated-rim .284 Winchester cartridge.
You get seven in a magazine. The pistol, because it's gas
operated and weighs just over four pounds, has less
recoil than Bat's Desert Eagle. Muzzle velocity is 1750
feet per second with foot-pounds of energy coming in at
1725. If it can die, this will kill it."
 "And if it can't?"                                      
"One of these rounds through it, and it'll hurt enough
that it will wish it could."
I picked up the Wolf and smiled. The grip and weight
felt good in my hand. Double action, ribbed barrel in a
brushed steel finish, it felt and looked like a rifle in pistol-
clothing. "Sold." I returned it to the box and closed the lid.
"Anything else?"
"Only if you can supply close air support."
The dwarf smiled. "Not in Eclipse." He ran down the
list, checking items off as he went. "I have everything you
need in stock or available for immediate delivery. You
can have the complete kit tomorrow."
"Good, I'll arrange payment..."
The little man held his hand up, cutting me off. "You
pay Bat. He brought you, he trusts you and, more
importantly, I owe him."
"I will do that, Mr. Joniak." I shook his hand again. "A
pleasure doing business with you." I slapped Bat on the
shoulder. "See you back in the conference room this
evening—two hours. See if Jytte can get everyone there.
We have some planning to do."
The building on the northeast corner of 12th Street and
Roosevelt looked very out of place for a number of
reasons. It sat nestled in a little box canyon carved out of
City Center. Unlike the area near it, this building had
somehow avoided decoration by graffiti artists. Likewise
the urban decay in evidence all around it had somehow
passed it by. Dirt and grime and litter stained the
neighborhood and even the walls of City Center, but left
this place inviolate.
The two-story building had been constructed of brick,
with a plantation-style front including a double-deck
porch with thick pillars. The pitched roof looked unusual
amid a bed of squat, mushroom colored houses with flat
roofs, and the building very much gave the impression of
having been transplanted here from another place and
another time.
I opened the gate in the wrought-iron fence and
traversed the circular walkway to the front steps. I
mounted them and crossed the porch, but before I could
knock on the glass-paneled door, it opened for me. I
stepped into a small foyer, and the door closed behind
me, leaving me alone with two animals that looked like
Doberman pinschers but possessed the bulk and height
of Irish wolfhounds. Their sheer size combined with their
low growls and an ugly red glow in their eyes to make me
wish I'd not left the Wildey Wolf behind.
"Kara, Amhas," I heard El Espectro's voice call from
elsewhere, "Bring Mr. Caine to me."
One of the dogs approached and took my left hand
gently in its mouth while the other circled around behind
me and leaned against the back of my legs. Given a
choice between moving forward or becoming kibble and
bits, I went with the animals. The lead dog, Kara, let go
of my hand and mounted the stairs on the right side of a
narrow hallway leading back into the house. I followed up
the steep stairs and found the dog waiting in the doorway
of a darkened room.
An antique four-poster bed dominated the slant-
ceilinged room. A man I took for El Espectro lay on the
bed in a dressing gown with his left arm in a sling. He had
been propped up on a whole stack of pillows, and the
light on the nightstand beside his bed sank half his face
into impenetrable shadow. A thick book with yellowed
pages lay open on his lap and reading glasses sat
perched on the end of his nose.
I noticed two peculiar things about him that surprised
me very much. The first was that he wore pearl-gray
gloves. That was odd, but I'd heard of people who had an
obsession with cleanliness—which, combined with the
dogs, went a long way toward explaining the immaculate
conditions outside his house. That was a personal quirk
and nothing I couldn't live with.
The second and far more startling thing, to me, was his
age. When I had seen El Espectro in my dreams and in
the Draoling dimension, he had only been a black
silhouette, but it was a silhouette of a much younger
man. The El Espectro lying on the bed had white hair on
his head and in his goatee and moustache. His green
eyes still had plenty of fire in them, but his body had
thickened, and dark bags underscored his eyes.
He gestured toward a chair at a small writing desk in
the corner, and it slid across the hardwood floor toward
the foot of the bed. "Please, be seated."
I accepted his offer, and the two dogs flanked me.
They laid down, but I had no doubt that at a single
command they would rise up and tear me to pieces. "I'm
here."
"So you are." He smiled at me in a most curious
manner, then removed his glasses and set them on the
night table. "Permit me to introduce myself."
From the nightstand a small white rectangle floated
toward me. I accepted the card and read the name aloud.
"Damon Crowley."
The man smiled weakly. "Actually, the last name
rhymes with 'unholy,' but that is a tired and old joke
begun by my grandfather. Forgive my rudeness in not
having mentioned my name earlier to you, but we
seldom had the time for polite chatter."
I shrugged and slipped the card into my jacket pocket.
"How are you doing?"
"The Draoling's blade was clean, which was a miracle
in and of itself. More annoying than the cut is the rib
another of them cracked. I'm getting too old for this."
I leaned back in the wooden chair, and it creaked.
"What, exactly, is 'this'?"
"I do what your Coyote does, but, as I said before, I do
it in realms he cannot access. In this particular case, I
have managed to unravel what Nero Loring has been
seeking. To solve his problem, however, I will need your
aid, and the aid of others as well."
"What's going on?"
He eased himself up a little taller in bed and winced
with some pain. "We need to backtrack a bit. When
Nerys Loring was born her father was deathly concerned
that she might suffer from Sudden Infant Death Syn-
drome. Like any concerned parent, he took precautions.
In his case, being an engineer and inventor, he hitched
up an EEG machine to his daughter and recorded her
brainwave patterns. He did this again at age four when it
was believed she might have a rare form of epilepsy. She
did, and it made her EEG rather distinctive, but she
controlled the condition with medicine. Nero's actions
might seem a bit obsessive perhaps, but he was merely
doing what he could with the means he had at hand."
My mind raced ahead of Crowley. "So he had a
baseline EEG reading for when his daughter came out of
the coma. He mentions it to the doctors and even notes
the discrepancies. The doctors tell him not to worry
about it, that it's a miracle and he should be happy,
right?"
"Exactly. And he was, especially when Nerys began
to follow in his footsteps. He found her help on Frozen
Shade and the maglev system most useful, but her quick
distancing of herself from him during the implementa-
tion phase of the maglev project allowed old anxieties to
resurface." Crowley's head came up. "Do you know
what a changeling is?"
I shook my head.
"In the old faery tales there are stories of elves and
other fey folk stealing human newborns and substituting
their own offspring for them. It is akin to the cowbird or
European mockingbird laying its eggs in another bird's
nest. The old stories concentrate on what happened to
the purloined child and often chronicle attempts to return
those children to their human parents. The old storytell-
ers did not dwell upon what benefit the faery folk would
get from placing one of their own as a human.
"Nero came to believe that his daughter went under
the water of the family pool, but she was not the one who
resurfaced. He decided that in an alternate dimension
where time flows far more swiftly than it does here,
creatures monitoring our world could have the time to
create and substitute a changeling for his daughter within
the time it took for her to go down."
I chewed on my lower lip. "Had I not seen the Draoling
dimension I would think of this as paranoid ravings, you
know."
"Quite so. Nero thought the same thing, so he began
to work on his dimensionscope. He linked it in with the
equipment on which he had recorded his daughter's
EEG. He used her brainwave patterns to search the
dimensions for a match. Just before he was ousted from
Lorica, he found it."
"What?"
Crowley slowly nodded. "He found a match for his
daughter's brainwave pattern. Chances of a match like
that are millions to one."
"Where is she?"
El Espectro smiled slightly and closed his book. "In
1924 Valdimir Obrutcev published a book titled Plutonia
that detailed the journey of a Russian expedition to what
they believed was the center of the earth. They found a
land they named Plutonia. At its center they found a giant
volcano surrounded by black rocks and sand. They
called it the Black Desert and in it, in a vast forest, they
reported finding giant ants building vast, skyscraperlike
nests. From what I have been told, Nerys is there."
"You aren't saying this expedition actually took place
over a century ago, are you?"
Crowley shrugged. "Whether it did or did not is
immaterial, really. Obrutcev's description jibes with
what Nero has described to me. I believe, as I do with Poe
or King or Donaldson, that there are individuals em-
pathic enough to pick up impressions of other dimen-
sions that they fully describe or embellish as best they
can. Obrutcev's only failing was in not ascribing more
than rudimentary intelligence to the creatures he called
'ants.'"
"What is important is that we get into Plutonia, get
Nerys and get her back out again."
I frowned. "Why?"
"Because, if you don't save my daughter, this world
will be opened to the greatest invasion it has ever seen."
I turned in my chair and saw Nero Loring leaning
heavily on the door jamb, only barely able to keep
himself upright. I quickly vacated my chair and offered
it to him. He staggered over to it and sat down. He looked
feverish and defeated, yet the energy in his eyes told me
sheer willpower was driving him. He covered his hands
with his face, then wiped them off on the striped pajamas
he was wearing.
"I realized, belatedly, that I had unconsciously incor-
porated pieces of the maglev system design into my
dimensionscope. That is what allowed it to see outside
this dimension and into other places. When I began my
reevaluation of the maglev project, I realized that those
bits of design had been things Nerys had insisted upon
including. She always had good reasons for her changes,
with many of them being that such things would facilitate
expansion in the future. I took this as a sign she would
continue our work and that Lorica would live on forever.
I did what she told me to do, gladly, because I saw her as
my gateway to immortality."
The little man trembled as he spoke. If not for the even
tone of his voice I would have thought him a madman.
Everything he said was insane, but I weighed the words
carefully and, allowing for the existence of other dimen-
sions, everything he said remained consistent.
"I decided my daughter had been taken, and I wanted
her back. I put in a software patch that uses her brainwaves
to key the energizing of the dimensional gateway. I knew
they would have to bring her here to operate the device,
and I had thought, while still controlling Lorica, I could
wrest her away from them. Now I know I can't, not
without help."
I shook my head. "I'm missing something here. They
need your daughter's brainwave pattern to allow them to
stabilize a dimensional gate's energy pattern?"
"Yes. Maintaining a viable gate is simple, but opening
it very difficult. The power has to cycle properly or the
thing can be thrown off. This gate needs an incredible
amount of power and only by drawing off the energy of
Phoenix and combining it with the power of a lightning
storm can they hope to do what they need to do."
"Okay." Something still wasn't adding up in my head.
"Where's this gate, why can't we destroy it now and who
is 'they'?"
Loring turned and clutched at my arm. "The gate is not
a 'where.' It's too big to blow."
"Nothing is too big to blow, Mr. Loring."
"Haven't you heard anything I've said?" Loring tore at
his hair. "The dimensional gate is surrounding us. It is
part and parcel of the maglev line!"
My jaw dropped open, and I looked at Crowley.
"They?"
Crowley nodded. "Fiddleback."

The image of Estefan's giant spider perching over
Phoenix in the middle of a lightning storm exploded in my
brain like a bomb. I could see gigantic arachnoid crea-
tures invading Phoenix through the hole created by the
dimensional gateway. They would descend on Frozen
Shade from above, using silken parachutes they them-
selves extruded. They would punch through the solar
panels like fishermen chopping ice in the dead of winter.
They would descend and attack or perhaps just sit up top
and dangle sticky lines of silk to catch passersby.
"Why, Crowley, why?"
The old man simply shook his head. "I don't know.
Perhaps they want us for food or they feed on our mental
energy. Maybe it has nothing to do with us, but that our
planet appears to be a dimensional nexus. Fiddleback
may just be using us as a stepping-off point for a war with
the Draolings or he may be fleeing an invasion of his own
homeland. The reasons are endless."
Had I never been in the Draoling dimension, I would
have assumed these two old men were drunk or senile or
both. Having been there, having seen Leich survive
clearly fatal wounds, I could believe what they had told
me. "So you want a team of people to go in and pull Nerys
out of this Plutonia?"
Crowley nodded solemnly. "I can get you in very close
to where she is being held. Nero had some things his
daughter had treasured before the accident, so I have a
feel for her nature. I can bring you within 100 meters."
"A hundred meters inside an arachnoid nest, right?" I
thought for a moment. "Are you two going?"
They both nodded yes emphatically. "I know I told you
Nero Loring would be unable to see outside our dimen-
sion, but, as I did with you, I can share my sight with
others. This should help the rest of your team as well."
"After we get her, we'll have to go to Lorica and kill the
Witch. We'll also need to destroy the controlling mecha-
nism for the dimensional gate. How close inside Lorica
can you get us?"
"Close. If you have a map you can pick your spot."
I smiled, remembering the work Costapain had done
with Marit to create a map of the facility. "Done. I'll have
to round up Coyote's people, but we can do it. I trust you
want it done soon?"
"Tomorrow afternoon is the latest we dare wait."
Crowley tapped a newspaper lying on the bed beside
him. "The monsoons start tomorrow and the biggest
lightning storm in the last hundred years is expected."
I left Crowley's home and returned to Marit's apart-
ment to pick up some things before heading out again.
Roughly two hours later I arrived at Coyote's headquar-
ters. I placed my aluminum case on the table, pulled out
$20,000 in cash, then relocked the case. To that I added
another $5000 in winnings from the dog track. I left my
Krait beside it and noted with a smile that our purchases
had been stacked on shelves in the antechamber.
I walked into the conference room and slid the money
across the table to Bat. I expected a reaction out of him,
but I got none. Natch stood behind him massaging his
shoulders while Marit and Costapain half-heartedly went
over details on one of the maps. She looked up at me with
red-rimmed eyes. "Thank God you're alive. Where have
you been?"
I frowned and pointed at the money. "I went to
Greyhound Park and did some betting. I needed time to
relax and think. What's happened?"
"I was afraid they got you." Marit brushed a tear away
from her cheek. "Rock's been hit."
"What? When, where, how?"
As if summoned by my questions, Jytte appeared in
the doorway leading to her haven. "I have just recovered
the phone company's records for Rock's mobile phone
and the pay phone bank where he died. At 7 p.m. Rock
got a call on his car phone. It lasted 30 seconds. From
there he proceeded to the Circle K on the corner of 16th
and Thomas. A phone call from another pay phone—
one located in Wong Plaza across the street—came to
that bank of phones. This new phone stands next to the
one used to call Rock's car phone. It lasted for two
minutes. Apparently, Rock immediately placed a call
from there to a number I have listed as a front number for
the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance. That call lasted
five minutes and was terminated when a single bullet
punched through the handset and exploded in Rock's
head."
"Dammit! We needed him." I frowned and sat down.
"Wait a minute, what was Rock doing calling Heinrich?"
"It doesn't matter. He's dead." Marit looked at the
empty chairs in the room. "Hal's in the hospital, his wife's
dead, Alejandro is dead and now Rock. They've tried to
kill you and me. Recovering your memory is suddenly a
lot more dangerous than solving little problems for
Coyote."
"It's a lot more dangerous than that, but it's something
I have to do. I have no choice and I need your help." I
placed my hands flat against the tabletop. "More specifi-
cally, Marit, I need you to call Dottie. I need to find out
where Sinclair MacNeal is right now. Bat, you and I will
have to visit him to get him to pull back the reins on the
Warriors. Jytte, I need you, Marit and Natch to find all of
us some body armor—including helmets, if you an get
them." I pointed at the money in front of Bat. "There
should be enough left over from that to cover it. We need
seven sets—one for each of us, a second roughly Marit's
size and a second my size."
Jytte's face froze as she shook her head. "I cannot
leave."
"I'm afraid you're going to have to. Without Rock, I
need another gun, and I know from Bat that you can
shoot. Moreover, what we have going down is going to
need someone with the touch to handle a computer.
You're elected." I stood and gently squeezed her shoul-
ders. "I know you don't want to go, but you must. I have
no other choice but to draft you. You can call Coyote, if
you wish, but I don't think he will gainsay me."
Jytte remained standing stock-still for 10 seconds and
the tension in the room grew with each one of them. Here
I was, the newcomer, the one they were helping, and I
dared give orders to the group's coordinator. I'd even
gone so far to tell her to call her boss and that he would
support me in this decision. If she chose to oppose me,
I'd have to operate alone in the future. If she went along
with me, on the other hand, I'd be given free reign to
structure what we were to do in the manner I felt would
best allow us to accomplish it.
Jytte nodded. "I will need an hour to set everything to
handle itself in my absence. Is this satisfactory?"
"More than. Thanks." I clapped my hands together.
"Once Bat and I return from dealing with Mr. MacNeal, I'll
burn the chips for the detonators, so I'll need to take a
voice sample from everyone on the trigger words. If we
have the body armor by midnight, we can get everyone
outfitted, and I will brief you on what is happening."
Phil Costapain looked over at me. "What do you want
me to do, son?"
"Just what you have been doing, sir. That map you've
made of the Lorica tower is very valuable to us." I tapped
it in the center of the elevators running up to Nerys'
penthouse. "This is the key to our getting in and stopping
the Witch."
Marit came in from Jytte's sanctum with a phone in
her hand and put it down on the conference table. "Dottie
says Sinclair is hosting a very formal stag dinner party for
some Japanese businessmen at his home. I called
Roger—everyone on the guest list is Phoenix Forty
material. You might rethink trying to see him tonight."
I shot Bat a grin. "Wanna bet your old City Center
friend is there?"
He smiled and cracked his knuckles.
"Don't worry, Marit, we'll be very careful." I sat back
on the edge of the table. "If Bat stabs anyone I'll make
sure he uses the correct fork."
The phone on the table rang. Jytte picked up the
handset, listened, nodded and handed it to me. "Caine,
it's Coyote, for you."
"I understand, Mr. Caine, the traitor problem no longer
exists."
I nodded. "I believe that is correct, sir."
"Good. This gives you one less thing to worry about.
I have been briefed on what you and Crowley discussed.
It seems like the thing to do." Coyote's voice sounded
distant, as if he were speaking from another dimension
himself. "You can trust him."
"I do, as much as anyone. This is likely to get bloody."
"Take precautions, but do what you must. It is in your
hands."
I hesitated for a moment. "Do you mean you won't be
with us?"
"As difficult as it may seem to you, I am involved in
something that precludes my participation in your op-
eration. I am confident with it being in your hands,
however. And don't worry. You and I have actually met
before, and we will meet again after all this is over."
The phone went dead before I could demand he
explain his remark. It suddenly occurred to me that if we
had met before, Coyote could have told me much more
about myself than I had already pieced together. Was he
lying, or has he been manipulating me all along? He
needed me to separate the wheat from the chaff in his
cell, and my skills were going to be useful here. Did he
plan to tell me who I was after I took out Rock, but then
decided to delay rewarding me because this thing with
Nero Loring cropped up?
Crowley had noted that he did what Coyote did, but in
places Coyote could not go. The Loring problem was one
that Coyote might not be able to handle. In return for the
secret of my identity, he would have me act in his stead
in a place he could not go. As with Alejandro, I was being
coerced into acting for Coyote. Coyote would use what-
ever tools he had at his disposal to actually get done what
he wanted accomplished.
The bargain Coyote offered me was one I would have
willingly accepted. The fact that he did not offer it to me
up front however, reminded me that I was, in his eyes, a
tool. I could be used and disposed of, much as I had set
up and killed Rock with my phone calls to him. My
announcing that Bat and I had procured the arms needed
for a quick strike at Heinrich prompted Rock to warn the
Aryans.
A bullet in the head was kind.
Coyote is good, I told myself, and has to be to play this
way and survive. I smiled and motioned for Bat to follow
me out. I wonder if I am that good?
I had a sinking feeling I'd find out far sooner than I
wished.
Marit had said the dinner was formal, so I dressed for
the occasion: I wore the silvery Krait. Aside from that, Bat
and I dressed alike in boots, blue-jeans, T-shirts and
black leather jackets. I bought the coat at the place
across the City Center walkway from where Bat pur-
chased his black "Hell's Belles" shirt.
When we met outside I looked at the image of the
blond female thrash guitarist in black leather with spiked
boots stomping on someone who looked a lot like
Watson Dodd and shook my head. "I'm not sure, Bat.
Marit did say 'formal.'"
"I know, that's why I bought this one." He started
walking toward the Randolf Street maglev station."
I caught up with him. "Ah, Bat, 'formal' means a bit
more than 'clean.'"
"I know. That's why Heidi Stiletto isn't naked." He
bared his teeth in a fierce grin.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"People stomp on ants all day, every day. Is it any
wonder ants love picnics?"
"Good point."
We boarded the more crowded common-carrier sec-
tion of the maglev train. We found enough room to get
seats, but Bat seemed to enjoy roaming up and down the
car we were in. He didn't say anything, but he glared at
corporators who wore clothes similar to ours. Those poor
individuals may once have thought themselves chic in
dressing like folks from Eclipse, or brave for actually
having ventured down below Frozen Shade, but their
encounter with Bat doubtlessly gave them reason to
question either idea.
The Build-more citadel could have been dubbed "the
Lobby Archipelago" because of the vast amounts of area
given over to the intersection of corridors. Each lobby
had at least one scale model of some building the
company had produced somewhere in the world. I
gathered, from a quick sampling, that the whole citadel
had been laid out over a virtual map of the world and, as
projects were completed, a scale model went up in the
lobby that most closely corresponded to the construc-
tion site on the map.
A model of the Sears Megalith in Rio dominated the
lobby we wanted. The elevator went up to the floor just
beneath the one on which MacNeal lived. Bat boosted
me up through the ceiling hatchway, then pulled himself
up onto the top of the cage. We climbed up the interior
girder lattice, and Bat pried the elevator doors open.
We found ourselves in another lobby, of course, but
this level of the tower only had four apartments on it. We
found MacNeal's, and Bat threw his shoulder against the
double doors. They snapped open, and we sauntered in
like guests who were mildly miffed at having been shut
out. A butler tried his best to stop us in the hallway, but
Bat just picked him up and carried him back into the
room he had just left.
Marit had not been wrong when she said everyone on
the guest list was Phoenix Forty material. That informal
group of business heavyweights had run the city since
the 1960s, passing their positions in it from father to son
or CEO to CEO. It had long since expanded beyond the
original 40 members, but alliteration kept the name
alive. Of the dozen men in the walnut-paneled room, I
recognized seven from ads I'd seen on Marit's television.
Four of the remaining men were Japanese and only the
last person, an Anglo, was young enough to be the
evening's host.
Marit had mentioned the meeting was stag. The
charming dozen young ladies seated beside some of the
city's most powerful men probably had something to do
with that decision. Their presence at the long mahogany
table made me smile, and not just because they were
very pretty to look at. Because they were there, no one
would want to arouse official or media scrutiny of this
gathering unless absolutely necessary.
It was my job to make them think it wasn't. "Excuse
the intrusion, ladies and gentlemen, but I need to speak
with Mr. MacNeal." I motioned toward the door to
Sinclair. "If you please, sir, I think privacy would be
preferred."
Sinclair started to get up, moving slowly and deliber-
ately to show me he wasn't afraid, but his father clapped
an iron fist over his wrist and pulled him back down in his
chair. The white-haired MacNeal patriarch looked at me
with fire in his blue eyes. "I remember you from the party
the other night. If you have business with my corporation,
you come see me during business hours. I can fit you in,
say, in a month?"
His little joke brought polite laughter from the other
diners. Sinclair, on the other hand, was doing a slow burn.
He played with a silver fork in his free hand, his blue eyes
burning with the same fire as in his father's, but not
directed at me. His left hand knotted into a fist and twisted
slightly, but he could not pull it away from the old man
without making a scene. Knowing the Japanese set
great store by a son's respect for his father, I could see
Sinclair restrain himself, and I admired the dark-haired
man for that.
I glanced at my associate. "Bat, clear the room."
I had half expected him to throw the struggling butler
at the table, scattering candelabra and shattering china
soup bowls and plates. I didn't really want to see anyone
get hurt, but I had no time to fool around, and there did
have to be some sort of payback for Hal's injuries. Bat,
I knew, liked to hurt people and was quite good at it, but
never did I dream he had style as well.
He dropped the waiter. "There's a bar down in Eclipse
called the Lost Dutchman. In the corner it's got a spitoon
that's been there since the days when the sun used to
shine through the window and heat it up every day.
Everything went into it—chaw, dribble, beer—every-
thing, and no one ever cleaned it out."
He slowly started to walk around the table and stopped
at a big silver tureen of New England clam chowder.
"Yeah, it was about this size. Anyway, last week, a guy
came in. He said he was a prospector and he'd lived in
the desert for the past 20 years and wanted a drink. He
also said he didn't have a red Columbus on him. The
bartender told him to get out, but the prospector said he'd
do anything for a drink."
Bat smiled in a way that I finally figured out his true
nature: He didn't just like hurting folks, he liked being
cruel. "The bartender pointed at the spitoon. He said, 'I'll
give you all the beer you can drink if you take one swig
from that spitoon.'"
Bat was good at cruel.
The women already started shifting uneasily in their
seats. The men began to wince. The Japanese huddled
together as one of their number translated the mono-
logue. My palms began to sweat, and my mouth got dry.
Bat slowly lifted the tureen in his hands and stared
down into the creamy soup as if it were a long-fermented
vat of saliva and used chewing tobacco. "The prospector
picked the spitoon up. He looked at it, then looked at the
bartender. Then he did it!"
Bat lifted the big silver bowl to his lips and drank. He
tipped it back, swallowing again and again, very loudly.
Soup spilled out from around his mouth and splashed off
his shoulders. Chunks of potatoes and cream-covered
pieces of corn flew like shrapnel, flecking the diners, yet
they watched him as if hypnotized. Finally he tipped the
tureen all the way up and captured the last drop on the
tip of his tongue. His dark eyes filled with joy, Bat curled
his tongue back into his mouth.
His chin white from the liquid, his shirt dripping soup,
he let the tureen crash to the floor. The bartender looked
at the prospector unbelievingly. "You only had to take
one swallow, old man!" He let the words bubble up
through more soup as it spilled from his mouth.
"'I know, I tried," Bat said in the prospector's voice,
"but it was all...one piece.'"
My stomach convulsed at the punchline, but unlike
the other folks in the room, I was working on an empty
stomach. MacNeal's American guests retched first, fol-
lowed quickly by the Japanese when the translation was
finished. Darius MacNeal pushed his chair back and
hunched over, which allowed Sinclair to recover his arm
and stand. He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a
napkin, then said nothing as his guests bolted from the
room.
Sinclair looked slender and quite dignified in his
tuxedo. A good five inches shorter than me, he had an
athletic build and enough control over himself to have
sublimated any visceral reaction to the joke Bat had told.
In fact, as everyone but his father filed out, he arched an
eyebrow and looked at Bat. "I trust you found the soup
to your liking?"
Bat belched loudly.
"I'll pass your compliments to the chef." He glanced
at his father's pale face, then looked at me. "You have my
undivided attention."
"You're paying the Warriors of the Aryan World
Alliance to start a gang war that will put pressure on your
competitors in this city. I want you to stop."
"No."
I frowned at him. "You won't stop?"
Sinclair picked up a glass of white wine and sipped it.
"No, you're wrong in your assumption that I'm paying
Heinrich and his boys to start a war. I know the technique,
and I know how to stop it. I put them on retainer so they
won't let themselves be used against us. That's all,
nothing more."
I listened carefully to him and while I half expected him
to lie to me, I knew he was telling the truth. Even so, I
couldn't believe it because Willem had been positive,
and Sinclair was the only man who fit the profile. "You
admit giving them money?"
"'Admit'? You make it sound like a crime." He set his
glass down. "I initiated the contact, I arranged for a
monthly stipend to be paid, and I've even paid them
bonuses when they've driven off thieves trying to rip us
off. However, I'm not financing a war. Not only does that
cause more trouble than it's worth, it's expensive. I'm
giving them enough to keep them drunk and happy,
nothing more. Only a fool would arm them and point
them at a target."
"If you're not doing it, who is?"
Darius MacNeal sat back in his chair and laughed
quietly. "I am."
"What?!" Sinclair turned on his father. "We discussed
this. You said you wouldn't do it!"
The older man slammed a fist onto the table, splash-
ing chowder all over and making wineglasses jump.
"Build-more is my corporation! I make the decisions,
and I don't have to answer to you. Why pay for an asset
if you aren't going to use it? So what if those little fascist
bastards go and shoot Lorica up? Who cares?"
"I care, Mr. MacNeal." I leaned forward on one of the
abandoned chairs. "I care because one of my friends got
caught in the crossfire. His wife was killed, and he's in the
hospital."
Sinclair shook his head. "Hal Garrett..."
"Right," I nodded.
"Who?"
Sinclair stared at his father disbelieving. "Hal Garrett,
the basketball player. You met him last year when you
threw a benefit banquet for his Sunburst Foundation. You
gave a speech in his honor, then gave him $10,000 in
corporate funds."
The old man shook his head. "Huh. Really? I can't
remember."
"Let me tell you something you can remember, Mr.
MacNeal." I met his defiant stare with one that was pure
holocaust. "If Heinrich and his people do anything,
absolutely anything, I will personally make sure you
have a closed casket funeral before the week is out."
"You can't threaten me."
"I don't threaten, Mr. MacNeal, I merely supply people
with life choices."
Sinclair shook his head. "Don't worry, this Aryan thing
will stop now."
"In a pig's eye it will." Darius MacNeal stood up and
tugged at the hem of his jacket. "I own Build-more, I
make policies."
"If you continue paying Heinrich, I'll quit."
MacNeal looked at Sinclair the way an exterminator
looks at a cockroach. "You can't quit, you're fired."
Sinclair's face brightened. "Good, then I don't feel bad
about kicking your ass out of my home."
"And as your landlord I won't mind evicting you. You
have a week."
"One more thing, Mr. MacNeal," I growled, "you were
paying to have Lorica given some trouble. How much
would you pay for the Witch's head on a platter?"
MacNeal's eyes narrowed. "Name your price."
"$1,000,000, payable to the Sunburst Foundation."
"$1,000,000! That's seven years of bedevilment by
the Aryans."
I smiled. "You get what you pay for."
He nodded. "How will I know when you've done it?"
"Oh, don't worry," I laughed, "it'll be in all the papers."

As we left Sinclair MacNeal's suite, Bat saw one of the
diners and got the man to retch by making a simple
"gulp" sound. We laughed about that as we took the
elevator down and used the maglev train to take us back
to City Center. I accompanied Bat down into Eclipse, but
he went off to earn some pocket change in a pit fight, and
I headed back to Coyote's stronghold.
I spent the next two hours getting voice samples and
burning vox response chips for the explosive detonators.
I double-checked all the equipment that Bronislaw had
sent over, made modifications to some of it, and ar-
ranged it in discrete piles and color-coded it for every-
one. All they had to do was come in, suit up and we'd be
good to go.
I returned to Marit's home a little after midnight. When
the door to the transversor opened I thought, for a
moment, that something was wrong. Every light in the
place was out and had been replaced by a multitude of
candles glowing in the darkness. My recollection of the
house outside Sedona flashed before my eyes, but
evaporated as I saw Marit walking toward me from the
back.
The diaphonous gown clung to her like a white fog and
stretched to taut invisibility against her flat stomach. She
moved forward and, in the flickering half-light, looked
more a ghost than a real person. I caught a hint of flowers
as she stopped and candlelight reflected gold in her blue
eyes. She folded her bare arms across her midriff, and
her right hand bunched the fabric on her left hip.
"Tycho, if we attack Lorica, we'll die."
Her words came quietly in a tone befitting such a dire
and final prediction. I saw gooseflesh pucker the flesh of
her arms, and her nipples became erect. Her eyes never
left mine, but the shifting of the candle flames made it
look as if a thousand little demons danced within her
skull. Her face remained blank, as if it had been com-
posed for viewing by a mortician.
"If you are that certain of death, Marit, take a pass.
Don't go."
She shook her head in a motion so slight that had her
hair not moved, I might have thought it a trick of the light.
"No, I will go. I must. I owe it to the others." She blinked
her eyes and some life returned to her face. "It's just that
I wanted to let you know what I am feeling. I want you to
understand why it is so very important for you to be with
me tonight. There is only one way to defeat death, really
drive it away."
She turned back in the direction from which she had
come, but held her left hand back out to me. "Come with
me, my love. Let us laugh at death together."
The next morning Marit and I walked into Coyote's
stronghold hand in hand. Jytte was there before us. Bat
and Natch arrived soon after we did, and I set about
briefing them as I put the equipment for Crowley and
Loring into a pair of large, canvas dufflebags.
"Your equipment is color-coded with a small piece of
tape on it. Bat, you've got red; Marit, blue; Natch, green;
and Jytte, gold. I'm black. Get your body armor on first,
then suit up in the rest of this stuff. If you need any help,
sing out."
Natch frowned. "I know this is Eclipse, but won't we
look a bit conspicuous going into Lorica with all this on?
I mean, shouldn't we get it in to Lorica first, then put it on
once we get inside?"
I nodded. "Good thinking, but things have changed a
bit. After I left Bat I spoke with Nero Loring and El
Espectro."
Bat shivered. "Crowley? I shouldn't have let you within
50 miles of Sedona."
"Right. Loring told me that the woman running Lorica
is not, in fact, his daughter. He says the real Nerys was
kidnapped and this new Nerys was substituted for her. He
came to that realization recently, yet was ousted from
Lorica before he could act upon that knowledge. He
would have done something, in fact, but his daughter's
captivity made that impossible. We're going to rescue
her and then put and end to the Witch."
Everyone accepted my explanation with a little more
ease than I would have expected, but life in Eclipse was
weirder than I found myself comfortable with anyway.
Clearly the folks near Boxton had known the tenement
through which Marit and I had returned to Eclipse was the
seat of some weird stuff. They'd set up barricades against
whatever came out of it. Likewise the Indians had come
up with a very effective way to deal with creatures like
Leich. Instead of worrying about the grander implica-
tions of these inhuman things and other places, they just
handled them.
I suited up. I put on my radio headset and settled the
earpiece over my right ear. The main body of the box I
clipped to my belt. I turned it on, heard static, and shut
it off again. The earpiece, which also served as a
microphone by picking up sound through the eustachian
tube in that ear, fit snugly over my ear but did not wholly
prevent me from hearing sounds other than the radio.
That in place and working, I pulled on my combat
harness, buckled the web-belt around my waist and
tightened up on the shoulder straps. Across my stomach
I had three ammo pouches, each with two clips for the
AR-15-A2. At the small of my back I kept another pouch
that contained six blocks of Semitek with radio/vox
detonators attached. A holster on my right hip contained
the Wildey Wolf and on the left hip, to balance it, I had
three clips of ammo for the gun. Under my left arm I wore
my Bianchi shoulder holster with one of the Colt Kraits
and on the right three clips for it helped balance me out.
Including the carbine and spare ammo pouch on my
left hip, I had better than 30 pounds of equipment on me.
Because the harness helped distribute it properly, it felt
like much less and would not hamper me if I had to run
fast or get out of the way of something. Live weight is
much better and easier to handle than dead weight, yet
too much live weight could catch up with me and make
me all dead weight.
Bat and I helped the others get into their stuff. Every-
one had the same amount of equipment and our provi-
sions differed only in that Bat and I carried the plastic
explosives while Natch, Marit and Jytte had been given
some basic first aid trauma kits. Jytte, despite the
unnatural lightness to her body, seemed to stand the
weight of the material better than Natch or Marit. Marit
checked her own weapons to make sure they were
functional, then quickly acquainted Jytte with the deadly
tools we'd given her.
All of us piled into the Vanagon Marit and I had rented
that morning. I drove us over to Crowley's and around to
the side. The gate there opened automatically and we
pulled into a small parking area off the street. A wooden
fence shielded the house's backyard from the street, but
the gate there opened as we approached it.
Crowley and Loring greeted us in the backyard. Loring
looked dressed for a weekend of fishing, but his tan
fatigue pants had enough pockets to let him redistribute
some of the supplies on his combat harness. Marit
helped him get into his gear, and they started a pleasant
conversation about Lorica before Nerys had assumed
control of it. Loring seemed thankful for her attentions
and pleased to have a new ally.
Crowley looked at the equipment I'd brought him and
smiled. "Carbines are a good choice because, if what I
have read is at all accurate, fighting will be in close. You
might as well pass out my ammo and that gun because
I prefer these." He dropped to one knee and zipped open
a blue nylon bag. From it he pulled two small, boxy guns
with short barrels that had a bore only slightly smaller
than my Wildey Wolf. He handed me one, and I smiled.
"Ingram Mac 10, .45 caliber, fires from the open bolt.
Nasty little gun." I turned the gun over in my hands. "Old,
but still deadly. They look like they've seen a few wars."
"Relics of a misspent youth, my friend." Crowley
pulled on his radio, then donned the combat harness I
had brought. He stripped out the CAR-15-A2 clips and
replaced them with clips for his Mac 10s. He put one of
the small guns in the pouch at his back unloaded, then
let the other dangle by its shoulder strap from his right
shoulder. Both he and Loring already wore body armor,
so his CAR and their vests remained in the duffle bag.
"If you'll follow me," Crowley announced, "We can get
started."
His house's rear yard was remarkable in that it had
fully leaved trees and bushes. White stones covered the
earth everywhere except for the patio on which we stood
and had been raked into a zen ocean pattern. As he
spoke he waved us toward a koi pond toward the rear of
the property, then he squatted down near a big, me-
chanical statue that looked like the offspring of a steam-
roller and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He flipped a
switch and the fluttering thump of a pump came from
inside the machine.
Crowley stood and wiped his hands off on his thighs.
"One of the owners of this house put in a bomb shelter
shortly after World War II. Before the turn of the century,
when I bought this place, it had served as an avant garde
art gallery, which is when the koi pond went in, covering
the shelter's opening. I reclaimed the shelter, though I
have put it to a different use. Before it was meant to keep
things out. Now, in many ways, it keeps things in."
As he spoke the water level in the koi pond dropped,
revealing a small island created by a submarine bulk-
head hatch. Bat twirled the wheel on top and the hatch
hissed open, spraying water out of the water-tight seal.
Bat descended the ladder built into the wall first, then the
rest of us followed, with Crowley coming down last. The
hatch clanged shut above, and I heard the clicks of
another couple switches being flipped.
One, I have no doubt, reversed the pump to cover the
hatch. The other apparently turned on the lights, be-
cause fluorescents flickered to life and filled the moder-
ately sized room with light. Aside from some battered
swords, shields and similar archaic weapons of war
mounted on the white walls, the room appeared empty
to me. Then, as I shifted to the left, I saw a black box in
the far corner. It remained visible for a moment, then
vanished until I changed my position.
"What the hell is that?"
Crowley made a beeline for the corner in which it
appeared to exist. As he walked to the space where I had
seen it, he reached out and jerked back slightly as if he
had gotten a static shock. His touch seemed to "ground"
the device for a moment, and I got a chance to get a good
look at it.
To me it looked to be of very fine hardwood construc-
tion. Half again as tall and wide as a phone booth, it had
a depth of approximately four feet. It stood flush against
the far wall of the room, and I could not see a seam at that
end. It almost seemed like the box had grown out of the
wall, and I would have remarked about that aloud, but I
was very much afraid Crowley would confirm my specu-
lation.
Over on the far side he seemed to be playing with
controls, but as I moved over to see what he was doing
the center of the box started to sizzle with the gray static
of a television getting no signal. Blue and red sparks
played through the gray and white, but I heard nothing
coming from the display. As nearly as I could tell the box
had just become a giant TV screen with no sound.
The old man stepped away from the control surface.
"Let me explain this quickly. We are going to be traveling
to another place, another dimension which actually lies
fairly close to our own. It is called Plutonia—thought I
doubt the natives think of it as such. It is a place where
all the natural laws seem to apply, save some area-
specific time flow fluctuations."
Jytte cocked her head to the side. "Explain please."
Crowley sighed. "I don't know if I can. Dimensions
often have their own special properties. Ah, the Under-
world of Greek mythology, for example, has an area
called Tartarus. It is, in reality, a small collection of
pocket dimensions in which the physical laws have been
grossly warped. Sisyphus is always rolling a stone uphill
because any direction of travel, in that specific dimen-
sion, is uphill. The giant Tityus has vultures eating him
alive during the day, but during the night he regener-
ates—as do the birds, so his torment can go on forever.
The regeneration is not a property of him, but of the place
he has been trapped in.
"In Plutonia, as nearly as I can determine, there are
'holding cells' where time does not pass in a normal way.
I think these are really food storage areas, and they
inherently retard aging, spoilage and decay for obviously
beneficial reasons."
He jerked a thumb at the control panel which, to my
eyes, looked like an opal screen with lights pulsing all
over it. "I have set this thing to take us as close as is safe
to the place where Nerys Loring is being held. It is another
dimensional gateway, so we may encounter hostilities
almost immediately."
I shook my head. "Wait a minute. Why can't you put
us down in another area?"
Crowley sighed heavily. "Dimensions have bound-
aries. A gateway is a simple place to go through. If I were
going alone, I would not be using this device. I would go
through by myself and pick out the most beneficial route.
I cannot bring all of you with me, so this is it. While the
creatures in Plutonia are sentient, they do not really have
anything to counter the weapons we're bringing in." He
fed a clip in through the Ingram's handgrip. "Besides,
hive mind entities are only dangerous if you really make
them angry."
"Great." I stepped up to the box. "Just walk through?"
"Just walk through."
"Okay, folks, radios on. Sound check, black." I heard
everyone else identify themselves by color, then I smiled.
"See you on the other side."
At first touch the static wall felt cold. Numbness
nibbled up through me as I moved forward. I felt goose
bumps rise on my skin, and my scrotum tightened. I
crouched a bit as I moved ahead, then I felt a flash of heat
as I came out on the other side. My head swam for a
second, then I jumped up and rotated forward to land
outside the dimensional gate.
The gateway on the Plutonia side was shaped like a
hexagon. It had taken on the identical look to that of the
box in Crowley's shelter in terms of the color playing
through it. The major difference was that while the static
on Crowley's machine appeared to be heading into to a
central nexus point, here it sprayed out to the edges.
The other difficulty with the gate on the Plutonia side
is that it was set in the floor of a large chamber. Bracing
myself on the edge of the gateway, I held my hand out to
Bat when his head poked through the surface of the static
pool. It took him a moment to orient himself, then he
leaped up like I had, and I pulled him home.
The two of us crouched side by side, and I heard him
whisper some Polish oath through the radio. We both
pulled back the charging slides on our assault rifles, then
covered the only exit we could see in the weak, mossborn
luminescence in the cavernous room.
Bat looked around the room, then shook his head.
"What?"
He shrugged. "I used to have an ant farm when I was
a kid."
"And?"
"I used to dream about being shrunk down and visiting
the nest." He frowned. "I was a dumb kid."
"Why?"
"I called 'em dreams." The big man circled the room
with his rifle. "They were nightmares."

The others came through, and only Nero Loring
seemed to be unable to see anything. Jytte held his hand
and got him to crouch down as we waited for Crowley to
come through. When he did, he took on the black-shroud
form I had come to recognize before I met him in Eclipse.
Bat took one look at him and scowled. "That's it. When
I get back, I torch Sedona."
Crowley laughed heartily. "I'll give you the matches."
He pressed his left hand over Nero Loring's eyes, and the
man started looking around the room. Nero's face
slackened a bit, then he blinked away tears as he
imagined his daughter having spent so many years in
this place.
Loring charged his carbine. "What are we waiting for?
Let's go."
Crowley held up a hand. "A moment." His other hand
came up, and his fingers splayed out. I saw them tremble
as he moved them around. The gold ring glinted on his
right hand as Crowley worked through a series of eerie
and complicated gestures. Finally he lowered his hands
and pointed toward the doorway. "We're two levels
below where she is. Up a slant corridor, first hard right,
then second left. She's in the third room on the left."
Marit frowned at him. "How do you know?"
"Nero gave me a locket his daughter used to wear. I
matched the emanations from it to those I feel above. We
have to hurry. Something is wrong."
Bat and I took up the lead and moved out into the
corridor. Starting at the doorway's round frame, glisten-
ing lines of mucus ran along the walls and ceiling of the
circular tunnel. In the darkness I could not make out any
difference between them, but as I got close I noticed a
heavy mixture of scents, almost as bad as being caught
in a bar during perfume wars between the women
nearby. For a half second I wondered if they were some
sort of biomechanical circuitry, then dismissed them as
bizarre decoration.
Jytte touched one of the lines. "Scent marking. These
are the same as painted lines along the walls of a hospital.
I would guess this thick central one leads to something
important, like food or the queen."
I crouched a bit further up the corridor and took a
plastic-bomblet from my pack. "Bat, set a red one
opposite me here on the wall." I pressed mine against the
rough stone and flipped the small switch, arming it. A
small, red LED came on to let me know it was ready to
go.
The hard right turn Crowley had mentioned took us
from one upward-slanting corridor to another, then
leveled off into a large gallery. Going forward slowly I
could see little more than patches of green luminescence
floating in an ocean of darkness. In the distance I could
hear some chittering and clicking that sounded like
drumsticks being hammered against each other by a
very agitated musician.
"Caine, stop!" the radio hissed in my ear
At Crowley's warning I came to a full stop. I felt the
breeze from something moving past from right to left.
Clicks and pops sounded closer, then stopped. I heard a
creaking sound, like old leather being stretched. Two
sharp clicks, like rocks being struck together to make a
spark, exploded above my head. I started, then refroze.
Crowley's voice sounded in my earpiece. "Easy,
Caine, easy. The one near you is only a worker. You
won't smell like food to him, so don't worry. Stay calm.
Don't shoot."
Like a ventriloquist, I subvocalized, which the earmike
picked up with ease. "You can see these things? You can
see in the dark?"
"It is a skill you can develop if you survive this. Stay
still."
I drew a quiet breath in through clenched teeth. A
thick, bitterly sweet odor like that of dead flowers washed
over me and grew as the clicking became closer. I heard
the sound again and again from up above me and to the
right, but as I tried to see what it was, all I could make out
was a shadow eclipsing distant patches of green moss.
A bead of sweat started at my right temple and slowly
started to crawl down the side of my face. My right bicep
started to quiver as the weight of the carbine began to
vampirize its strength. The bulletproof vest I had on
became clammy, and I found myself starting to overheat.
More sweat appeared on my brow and one droplet
coursed down between my eyebrows, along the edge of
my nose, to sting my right eye.
The way my heart pounded, I felt certain the thing
must have heard it. Because of Bat's remark, I imagined
it as some huge ant, just waiting to catch me in its
mandibles. Two huge scythe-blades mounted on its jaws
would snap me in half. Not the way I expected to go at all.
I knew if I could just shift the carbine's muzzle around I
could pop the thing.
Then, suddenly, in a series of clicks and crunches, the
thing went away. I let my breath out slowly. "Crowley,
what the hell was that?"
"A Plutonian, I would imagine." His voice stopped for
a moment and, in that pause, lost all the whimsy it had
contained. "I don't like this. Forward 12 steps, turn left."
I followed his instructions to the letter and found
myself close enough to another corridor that the mosslight
let me see my team as they came in. "Crowley, what
don't you like?"
The green light did not reflect from his black form.
"That worker was in a classic search pattern with its
antennae, but it backed off before it touched you."
"Our luck."
"Or something called it away." He pointed further
down the tunnel.
Marit took over the point position and led us to the third
opening on the left. She produced a knife from a boot-
sheath and started digging away at the wax-covered
web-fiber panel blocking the hole. "It's six inches thick.
It's like carving clay. There's some light, real light, on the
other side."
Bat pulled a knife of his own and stabbed the eight-
inch blade in at shoulder-height. Wrapping both hands
around the hilt, he started tugging backwards and walk-
ing from one side of the hole to the other. The wax-web
peeled down like whale blubber being flayed from a
humpback. Natch pulled the thick membrane back and
Nero Loring ducked into the room first.
He wailed so loudly that I tore my earpiece out of my
ear. I stooped below the cut Bat had made and found
myself in a tiny chamber. Candles stood in a number of
alcoves around the room, filling it with a normal golden
light. If not for the room's irregular shape, the furnishings,
which included two bookcases full of novels, would have
caused me to believe it was a rather spartan dorm room
at some paramilitary private school. It hardly seemed a
horrible prison and, dozing on the bed with a novel on her
stomach, Nerys Loring hardly seemed in distress.
But then, from where I was standing, I could not see
what had driven her father to his knees. He reached out
for her and pulled her to him. Because she did not react
when her father screamed, I knew something was wrong.
I thought maybe she had been drugged, but when Nero
reached out and hugged her 14-year-old body to him
tightly, I saw and understood his anguish.
Like a bad toupee, her black scalp flopped back to
hang at her neck like a hood on a jacket. The whole back
of her skull had been ripped away and her brain had been
stolen.
"No, no! She's not dead. Her body is still warm," her
father moaned.
I turned toward Crowley and pointed at the bed. "This
isn't possible. She had her brain removed and there's no
blood? Can't be done."
"Of course it can." He snatched the knife from Bat's
hand and grabbed my right wrist. In a slashing motion he
drew the blade across the back of my hand, and I felt the
sting of the blade. Looking down I saw the cut. It wasn't
deep and wasn't particularly long, but it wasn't bleeding
either.
"How?"
"I told you, this room, this area is special. Look at the
candles." He pointed at one, then went close and tried to
blow it out. The flame wouldn't even flicker. "They burn
without being consumed. It is an aspect of this place."
Crowley bent down and hauled Nero Loring to his feet.
When Loring resisted, Crowley slapped him once, hard,
then clawed his hands away from the girl's body. "Let her
go!"
"No, she is my daughter!"
"She was your daughter. You said you encoded a
pattern in the software driving the maglev circuit's
functions, right?"
"Nerys!"
Crowley slapped him again and lifted him by his shirt-
front until Loring's feet left the floor. "Listen to me, Nero
Loring. They have your daughter's brain. They will use it
to trigger the circuit. Can you stop them?"
"I don't know." The man shook his head while tears
streamed down his face. "I think so, but I don't know."
Holding him there with one hand, Crowley turned and
pointed at Jytte. "You, you're Coyote's computer empath.
Can you stop the machine?"
"If I am able to obtain access, possibly."
"You'll have access. Caine, come here."
Before I could take a single step forward, a thunderous
click and the sound of tearing fabric echoed from the
doorway. I spun, bringing my carbine up instantly.
Discarding the rest of the room's seal with a shake of its
head was the biggest antlike creature I'd ever seen.
Chocolate brown in color, I made it just slightly smaller
than a bull of the nearly extinct elephant species of
Africa.
Instinctively my finger tightened on the carbine's
trigger. Flame shot a full foot from the muzzle while the
stream of duplex bullets slashed a dozen holes across the
thing's face. They snapped off one of the huge man-
dibles, and it clattered to the ground like a black ivory
tusk. The creature reeled back and slammed into the
opposite side of the corridor, then scrabbled back up to
its six legs before Bat's broadside burst blew a hole the
size of a pumpkin through its thorax.
I had expected some sort of death scream, but the
creature had remained silent. Instead a brutally pungent
scent flooded the room. The first wave of it made my
head spin. Marit dropped to her knees and retched. I
started to collapse but caught myself on a table. Crowley
let Loring fall to the floor, then staggered over to me as
the air began to clear.
"Listen to me. You've got to get Nero and Jytte into
Lorica. You have to stop Nerys and Fiddleback." He
raised his right hand to my forehead and touched me. As
he did so I saw a vision of the opalescent control panel
for the dimensional gateway flash into my head. "Control
sequence is Roy G. Biv—each time you touch a light it
will shift to the next color in the mix. The pattern I
projected to you will get you to the base of the Lorica
Tower. I know it works. I've been there before."
"When you helped Coyote get Nero out of there,
right?"
Crowley's head came up, and he looked at me. I could
almost see his eyes through the shadow. "You are very
perceptive, Caine, but we do not have time for this. Go.
Go back the way you came. Use the dimension device
to get to the tower. I hope you're in time."
"You must come with us."
He shook his head. "Can't. Fiddleback's out-thought
us here."
Bat shouldered his rifle and fired two bursts down the
corridor. "They're massing, Caine."
"Go, take Loring. There is a chance he can still get
through to her." He glanced over at the body. "I've got to
see if there is another way out of this."
"You'll be okay?"
I heard Crowley laugh lightly. "I'm an old man, but
Fiddleback and I haven't filled up our dance cards yet."
"Okay, let's go." I reached back and pulled one of the
plastique explosive packets from my pouch and armed
it. I hunkered down next to the opening on the side
opposite Bat. "How far?"
"Thirty feet. It's a low ceiling, be careful."
"I have a better idea." I reseated my earpiece, then
pressed the plastique into a little ball with the detonator
in the middle. "I don't know if I used to bowl or not, but..."
I stepped out through the doorway and rolled the ball
down the middle of the corridor. The circular tunnel's
concave floor kept the bomblet sailing right down the
center. The little, blue LED blinked on and off as the ball
rolled deeper and deeper down the corridor. When it got
as far as I thought safe, I pressed my earpiece to my ear
and said "Bluegill."
The bomblet detonated right beneath one of the
Plutonians, vaporizing its thorax. The creature's abdo-
men cartwheeled back over a line of the creatures,
spraying them with its vital fluids. The head crashed to
the ground, with the antennae still twitching in a search
pattern and the mandibles clicking together.
Bat stepped into the corridor and triggered off two
more bursts. "Clear, move it."
I let Natch and Loring head out and sent Marit and
Jytte after them. I waved Bat forward and heard more
shooting. I turned around to wish Crowley luck, but I
found myself alone in the room. "Good luck to you
anyway, old man. I hope like hell Fiddleback doesn't get
either one of us."

The brilliant backlight of the muzzle flash from Bat's
carbine made him a marble statue at the juncture of the
short corridor and the large gallery. He stood in the center
of the passage and sprayed the gallery with gunfire while
the others ducked behind him and secured the slant tube
down. "Move it, Caine."
I reached back and pulled out another bomblet. "Go,
Bat. I'm following close. Guard your eyes when I give the
word." I sprinted forward, guided by the light from his gun
as he fired in bursts and retreated. As I reached the mouth
of the corridor, I hunkered down beside one of the dying
creatures and saw two of our people at the slant corridor's
mouth open up.
Giving myself a second to size up the situation in the
light of their gunfire, I noticed that the Plutonian protect-
ing me was not really a giant insect. A thick, leathery
flesh covered over bony armor plates making it much
more like an armadillo than anything else. It felt warm to
the touch and a thick tuft of hairs ran along its spine. If a
rhinoceros had been formed in the image of an ant, it
would be a Plutonian.
The Plutonians had arrayed themselves in a staggered
line and were advancing steadily toward my compan-
ions. A blast in their midst could disorganize them.
Crowley had called them a hive mind, so I looked for one
with longer antennae in a vain attempt to locate the
mobile equivalent of a comcenter.
"No such luck." I rolled the Semitek into a ball and
armed the chip. The LED glowed with a yellow light.
Steadying myself with my left hand pressed against the
Plutonian carcass, I arced the bomb at the highest point
of light I could see in the main gallery. "Cover!" I waited
a second, then added the mnemonic trigger for the blast.
"Yellowtail."
The bomblet exploded fairly close to the ceiling with
considerable force. A number of the large, lumbering
Plutonians crashed to the gallery floor, their six legs
splayed out as if they were roadkill. Others blundered
into their compatriots and began fighting them, locking
these elephantine ant-things in mortal combat. A few
whose antennae had been broken in the blast just spun
and spun where they stood.
The explosion ignited the cocoonish web covering the
upper part of the ceiling. Starting at the point of the blast,
the flaming fabric peeled down from the roof and blan-
keted the Plutonians with fire. The sticky material clung
to them like a second flesh and roasted them alive. The
choking deathscent combined with smoke and burning
flesh to fill the gallery with a venomous fog.
The roaring inferno made vision much easier than
before. Pushing off the corpse, I ran to the slant-tube and
shot past Jytte and Marit. They triggered off two more
bursts, then ran after me as we sprinted down. We caught
Natch and Loring at the turn, then saw Bat waving us
through the doorway into the gateway room.
When we were all in, I nodded to Bat and he said, "Red
snapper." The floor jolted as the first explosives we'd set
detonated and blocked the passage we'd run down. I
pointed to the dimensional gate and told everyone to sit
on the edge. "I'll get this set. Reload now because we'll
probably be going in hot."
I ran over to the control console set near the hexagonal
gate. The controls had no buttons or knobs, but seemed
to be divided into a 10-by-10 grid that, at the moment,
had a few reds, blues and greens amid a sea of white. All
of the colors were pastels, yet they flashed with light
much as colors shift within an opal.
I touched the very first panel in the grid. It went from
white to red and, at the same time, I caught a light, airy
scent. This made sense, as the Plutonians seemed to
work more from olfactory stimulus than visual clues. I hit
the panel again and the light became orange along with
another sweet scent being offered as a clue.
I quickly discovered that after violet came white
again—with no scent—so I set about changing the colors
to match those of the image Crowley had implanted in
my mind. As I hit the finished pattern, the gateway began
to display the static pattern, with it flowing inward instead
of out.
"Go!" I pulled a Semitek packet from my pouch,
armed it, and pressed it to the console. Standing on the
edge of the gateway I said, "Count five, green sword." I
stepped off into the static and felt the numbness swallow
me alive.
Coming out on the other side, I fell face first into a
viscous, sticky fluid. It felt cold and gelatinous on my
hands and face, but as I pushed myself upright, it popped
free of my cheek without leaving a residue. Getting my
feet under me I stood slowly and found the mucuslike
substance clung to the walls and, while somewhat
elastic, snapped back in place when stretched beyond a
foot or so.
"Where are we?" I saw, obviously, that my compan-
ions and I had come through into a huge cylinder. The
flooring beneath the slime vibrated slightly, and I heard
muted rasping sounds that seemed to rush toward us,
then recede away again. I matched my mental image of
the control panel with the one Crowley had given me, and
they were identical. "Either we're in Lorica, or Crowley
made a big mistake."
I turned around and started betting on the latter
possibility because Bat stood on the ceiling of the tunnel
and shrugged. Halfway between the two of us, Nero
Loring knelt on one knee and pressed a hand down
through the slime to the concrete below it. The rest of us,
like spokes on a wheel, stood on the interior of the
cylinder with no proper regard to the orientation of
gravity.
"I think, Caine, we're in the central cylinder around
which the main elevators in the Lorica Citadel are built."
Loring pulled his hand free of the muck and stood. "I had
envisioned a private elevator in here just for me. With this
space 20 feet in diameter I could have driven in and been
brought all the way up to the penthouse."
He pointed back over his shoulder. "In a conventional
sense, that's down and we're facing up. I don't know how
gravity is being manipulated here, but it seems to be
concentrated by the slime, perhaps as a mechanism to
make food fall toward it. As long as we're careful and this
stuff goes all the way up, we've got roughly a third of a
kilometer between us and the imposter."
A distant and loud boom caused all of us to drop down
on our bellies. "An attack?"
Natch shook her head. "Thunder. It always sounds like
that in Eclipse."
"Thunder? I thought the storms don't start until evening,
when the city cools enough to let the clouds drift in."
"They don't." Marit looked at her watch. "Hold on, this
is weird."
As she spoke, I glanced at my own watch. The analog
dial read 9:15 a.m., which felt right for the amount of time
I've been awake so far. The digital said 8:30 p.m., which
was about the time the storms would be starting. "Time
moves very slowly in Plutonia, it seems."
Loring pointed up. "It doesn't matter what time it is,
there is a storm brewing. We must stop the Witch."
Working our way up along the cylinder felt very
strange, especially with Bat persisting in what looked
like, from my vantage point, his hanging by his feet from
the ceiling. We advanced slowly and cautiously, but saw
no opposition. Nowhere did the slime break or fail to
secure us.
At the far end of the cylinder a smaller passage opened
up. It was about half the diameter of the main tube and
that the slime grew only on the sides and floor of the
tunnel. It spiraled out and down from the main tube, but
because of the twist in it, I could only guess at its length.
It seemed, as nearly as I could determine, to be a
transition point through which the tube's gravity could be
aligned with that of the external world.
Loring said he knew nothing about it, but confirmed
my suspicions on its purpose. "This is new construction
as far as I know, but it should come out in the penthouse."
"I'll go first and signal when it's clear." I put a new clip
into the carbine, then started down the tributary tunnel.
I started on a side wall but found myself channeled onto
a narrow pathway. By the time the slime ran out, the
passage had been squared off and opened into the white
silk world of Nerys Loring.
I paused in the doorway and looked both ways, but
with the shifting walls billowing and snapping, seeing
anything was impossible. "Looks clear, I think," I whis-
pered into my radio. "Come up slowly in case I'm wrong."
One step through the doorway, and I found out how
very wrong I was. Two feet hit me in the right shoulder as
someone jumped me from above the doorway. I rolled
beneath the impact, but before I could come up and turn
around, a solid kick in the ribs sent me flying even further.
My carbine went skittering across the floor and sunk in
one of the streamlets off to my left while I came up short
against a low wall and smashed into it with my shoulders.
Mr. Leich, dressed head to toe in black, stood in the
middle of floor and laughed mildly. He rubbed his hands
on his thighs, then balled them into fists. Behind him, like
squashed bugs on the pristine white of the walls, I saw
twin slime handprints above the door, which explained
how he had hung there until I arrived.
"Hope I didn't leave you hanging too long, Mr. Leich."
His dark RayBan sunglasses hid his eyes, but I imag-
ined no mirth in them, nor did I hear any in his voice.
"You've been a very bad boy, Mr. Caine. I owe you, and
she said I could have you." He licked his lips lasciviously,
then smiled and showed me his fangs.
I gathered my feet beneath me and stood. "If you want
me, come get me."I dropped a hand to the Wildey Wolf's
butt.
He shook his head. "You still don't understand, do you,
human? You've shot me four times. You've caused my
flesh to be scraped off in a skid. When you hit me with
your car you fractured my leg in eight places. The
paramedic said I'd never walk again, then I drank his
blood and danced away from the accident site. You can
no more fight me than cattle can fight against the
slaughterhouse."
Leich pointed at my pistol. "Go ahead. Take your best
shot. You've learned nothing."
I pulled the Wildey and snapped it off safety. "On the
contrary, Mr. Leich, I have learned a great deal."
The first shot I triggered hit him in the right shoulder
with enough of a punch that his sunglasses bounced off
his face. Leich twisted his torso back toward me to show
he could take everything I could dish out. Then his head
turned to the right as he suddenly realized that the thing
lying on the floor back beyond him was, in fact, his right
arm.
"Don't go to pieces over this, Mr. Leich," I chided him,
"or should I call you 'Lefty'?"
Pure suprahuman loathing blazed in his eyes as he
turned back to me. He started to snarl something, but my
second shot pinned the words in his throat and blew his
larynx back out through his spine. Blood splashed over
the silk sheets snapping like sails in a gale. His body
flopped back into the watery grave that took my carbine
while his head did a triple somersault in the air, then hit
the ground. It bounced once and rolled back off his nose.
Lying on his ear, Leich gnawed at the air for the next five
seconds, then he lay still in a pool of blood.
Bat and Jytte appeared at the doorway with their
carbines at the ready. "Trouble?"
"No, Bat, it's under control." I holstered the pistol.
Behind him Natch and Loring caught up and Marit
played rear guard. "He's the only one she had waiting.
Either she's very stupid or..."
"...or there is nothing you can do to stop me!"
I heard her voice echo throughout the penthouse and
a thunder strike punctuated her statement. I spun around
to face deeper into her domain, dreading the effort
necessary to hunt her down in her silken labyrinth. She
is a spider in her web.
The bloody splotches on the sheets to my left slowly
began to expand and grow. They spread out until they
consumed the whole white cloth, then they infected the
next sheet and the next. Those silken curtains filled with
blood, and it dripped over marble, staining it, then down
into the streams. The streams themselves began to
overflow, washing across the floor and whirling Leich's
carcass away.
The liquid soaked through my boots and felt warm and
sticky just the way blood should.
Then, suddenly, every sheet ignited in a stark burst of
magnesium light like they were made of a magician's
flash paper. I shielded my eyes as best I could and
coughed as the acrid smoke choked me. Heat spiked in
the room, and I waited for the nauseating scent of singed
hair and boiling flesh, but the sensation passed in an
instant.
I opened my eyes to a new world. What had been white
before was now black, as if it had absorbed the soot or the
heat had seared it. Now that the sheets were gone, I could
see countless little alcoves. All their furnishings looked
intact except for the change in color from the other
evening when I saw them. The lights had dropped from
bright to dim, taking the penthouse down into darkness
and, by contrast, allowing one thing to attract our
attention.
Off to the west, looking over the city, stood a series of
three arched windows. The central one rose half again as
tall as the two flanking it and together they provided a
breathtaking view of the city. Through it I saw City Center
and three brilliant lighting strikes off to the northwest.
Angry clouds filled the sky and eerie white flashes edged
them with silver.
The others followed wordlessly as I moved toward that
site. Standing in front of the windows on an altarlike dais,
I saw Nerys. She wore a white gown styled on classical
Greek lines, yet cut short to reveal her long legs. Golden
cords wrapped round the bodice and snaked between
her breasts. In her hand she held the cords' tasseled ends,
pulling the cords taut around her body as if they alone
could contain her exuberance.
I reached an aisle that led directly to her. As I moved
down it I had the disturbing sensation of a supplicant
approaching a deity to ask for a boon, but I banished it
with a snarl. "It's over, Nerys. We know everything."
"You're wrong, Caine, it's just beginning," she laughed
throatily. "There is nothing you can do to stop it, and you
owe that fact to Nero Loring himself."
She gestured languidly at a display console that
slowly rotated into view. At first glance, as it slithered
through shadows and was backlit by lighting, I thought
it a polished and chromed prototype from the finest
neotech laboratories in Japan. When it locked into place
and I got a better look at it, I knew no human could have
ever have created it.
The black cables running from one edge to another
could have been optical fibers sheathed in shiny plastic,
but they flared out at either end in pseudopod receptors
that clung to the box like leeches. The cables pulsed as
power ran through them and light shifted within panels to
which the cables had fused. The panels themselves
looked, in the beginning, like complex LCD compilations
but I quickly saw, in fact, they were scaly flesh that
changed colors with a chameleon's ability to camou-
flage itself.
A lucite post rose from the center of the device while
I stared at it, then fanned itself out like a peacock's tail.
Narrow at the base and almost a foot wide at the peak,
I saw strange shapes imbedded in the lucite. Then, a
second before I realized what medium the artist had used
to create the organic designs, I saw they were really thin
brain slices trapped between two layers of the clear
synthetic.
The Witch looked at the machine with rapture on her
face. "Say hello, dear."
A black membrane on the front of the machine
quivered like a drumhead to produce a little girl's voice.
"I'm sorry, Daddy. I don't want to do it but I can't stop."
"Nerys!" Loring shouted. He pointed at the Witch.
"What have you done to her?"
The Witch's eyes narrowed. "Only that which you
forced me to do, foolish man. You sought to thwart me
and my master. You used her brainwaves, I have used
her brain. What has been done is your doing." She turned
and glanced at the maglev line and the St. Elmo's fire
begining to play along its length. "It cannot be stopped."
"We can blow the line." I pointed back the way we
came. "Let's go, Bat."
The Witch laughed at me. "You're going nowhere."
"You're going to stop me?"
"No." She shook her head. "Now, my pet, you may
reveal yourself. You have done very well."
Marit stepped back away from the rest of the group,
but kept her carbine level. "You all know, at this range,
I won't miss and your vests won't help. I don't want to
have to kill you. Just put your guns down."
Our collection of long guns and pistols clattered to the
floor.
The Witch folded her arms across her chest. "You see,
Mr. Caine, Fiddleback is not alone in keeping pets. I
would kill you for what you have done, but it is not my
place to discipline another's toy. I will leave that for when
Fiddleback arrives." A close lightning strike turned her
face into a mask of silver. "That, by the look of things,
should not be long at all."

I looked at Marit and shook my head. "Marit, how
could you?"
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Tycho. I didn't."
I heard her words, but the plea for understanding in her
voice died in the black hole at the center of her eyes.
"Stop now, Marit. Shoot her. Redeem yourself."
"I can't, Tycho, I can't." Marit winced. "I have come too
far to be cheated now."
The Witch chuckled lightly. "Your mistake, Mr. Caine.
You can offer her nothing more than a warm body in the
night. I, on the other hand, can offer her immortality. I can
offer her eternal beauty and wealth. I can give her all the
things she hungered for as a child in Eclipse. In return, I
asked for her to deliver Coyote to me. She has failed in
that task, but you are a prize that is, at the moment, far
more valuable to me."
She opened her arms wide like a mother welcoming
children. "All of you have been resourceful. I appreciate
and respect that more than you know. Come to me.
Embrace me. Become my servants and, through the
grace of Fiddleback, I will see to it that your every dream
is fulfilled beyond imagining.
Bat folded his arms. "You mean I get to kill you more
than once?"
The Witch shook her head. "How droll, Mr. Kabat." As
Marit circled around to stand beside her patron, the Witch
pointed at Bat. "When I give the word, my precious, cap
him, so he dies in pain, and slowly."
"As you wish, mistress."
"What of the rest of you? Nero, you have been a thorn,
but I will let you live. You, Feral, you can have anything
you want. And you, Jytte Ravel, I can make you at home
in that body. I can make you whole again. It is your
choice."
Outside the sky exploded with jagged slivers of pure
energy and static crackled through my radio. The storm
rolled in over Squaw Peak, thunder rumbling like a growl
in a wolf's throat. Multiple lighting strikes walked their
way down the side of the mountain. They struck the
numerous lightning rods protecting Frozen Shade from
storms and for a brief moment, a sizzling energy rope
tethered the clouds to the ground. As each line parted,
darkness again flashed over the landscape, but the
glowing purple ring of the maglev circuit brightened.
Natch chewed her lower lip, then shook her head. "I
wouldn't join you even if you were as smart and powerful
as you think you are. No sale, Bitch-witch."
The Witch's eyes sparked. "Ravel?"
"You and your kind steal humanity. The only way you
could make me whole is to steal from another." She
shook her head once. "Void transaction."
"Idiots! Can you not see what she sees?"
"Nope, we can't." Bat shook his head. "But then, we
have our eyes open."
"Marit," I whispered sadly over the radio.
She looked at me. "Tycho?"
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry? For what?"
I tried to remember the person she had been the night
before.
I failed. "For this. Salome."
A second after I said the word, the Semitek embedded
in the main body of her radio exploded. The lead shot
nestled at the point of the shaped charge burst free of the
small plastic radio case, shattering the clip she had used
to fasten it to her harness up by her right shoulder. Plastic
fragments and metal shot shredded the harness and
blew through the body armor. Recoil started her spinning
back and to the left as the shot tore through her chest,
punctured her lung and opened her pulmonary artery.
Spinning uncontrollably, she brought the muzzle of the
carbine up and whipped it across the Witch's face.
The Witch reeled off the back of the dais and fell from
sight. I dove for the floor and came up with the Wildey
Wolf. Bat dropped to one knee and recovered his car-
bine. Natch grabbed Nero Loring and started pulling him
away from the dais while Jytte headed straight for the
computer. Suddenly something moved over near her,
and Jytte came flying back to bowl Natch and Loring
over.
The Witch came back up in her true form. She still
wore Nerys' face over her own, though the pale flesh had
been stretched to the point where green showed through
from beneath it like an infection. Likewise the flesh of her
hands had become corpse-white cellophane gloves that
ended in tattered strips at her wrists. Sharp black claws
pierced the skin at the end of the fingers and glistened
with venom.
As she slithered forward she slid free of the rest of the
flesh she had worn in her time as a changeling. A black
tongue, forked like that of a serpent, flickered through
Nerys' ruby lips. From her throat, all the way down
between very mammalian breasts and along the full 20
feet of her snakelike body, yellow ivory scales covered
her. Green scales armored the rest of her and gathered
into barbs on the backs of her elbows and the points of
her shoulders. She blinked away the membranes cover-
ing her eyes, showing the elliptical pupils of her amber
eyes.
"I need this deception no more! The coming of my lord
is nigh!"
Bat and I opened up at the same time. He burned
through his clip before I finished mine. His duplex bullets
ripped a line across her torso starting at where her left hip
might once have been and ending at her right shoulder.
My five shots centered on her head and throat. One
nailed her dead center in the forehead, shredding her
human mask and helping knock her back off the dais.
She ducked from sight for a second, then rose up
again. I could see broken scales where Bat had hit her,
but as I watched they repaired themselves. "You cannot
kill me! Your weapons are too puny! I am invincible!"
Somewhere behind me Nero Loring started laughing.
Bat, Natch and Jytte all concentrated their fire on her.
Bullets ricocheted from her head and chest, shattering
the windows behind her. Immediately the storm's howl-
ing winds whipped through the room, lashing her face
with the hair she had worn as a human. Huge chunks of
rain-slicked glass whirled out into the night as I jumped
up onto the dais and pried Marit's carbine from her dead
fingers. Water washed over the back of the Witch and ran
off her scales like the bullets we shot at her.
Loring's laughter cut through the thunder and his
ridicule seemed to hurt her more than our bullets. She
coiled up at the base of the shattered window and hissed
at him. She set herself to strike at him, then twisted her
head around and glanced at me with the corner of her
eye. Her hands twitched, and she came for me.
As she lunged in my direction, the broken shards of
wet glass beneath her coils provided her less than
optimal traction. Half her serpentine body shot back out
through the window as her torso launched toward me.
Even in mid-strike she realized what had happened, so
her raking claws shifted from me to the dais and sunk in
through the formica top and the particle board beneath
it.
She looked up me and her snake-tongue flayed the
last of the human flesh from her face. Clinging there, with
her arms outstretched, she hissed menacingly. "This is
not over!" A green coil appeared at the edge of the
building, but a burst from Jytte's carbine knocked it back
out into the night.
"It is over."
I jumped back off the dais and without my added
weight, it slowly slid back toward the broken windows. I
leveled Marit's carbine at it and burned the clip. The
duplex bullets blasted it into so much kindling and
Formica dust. The wind sucked the debris out, taking
both the Witch and Mark in the bargain.
I ran to the window and steadied myself against one of
the window frames. Falling further and further through
sheets of rain, I saw a black whiplike shape undulating
through the air. Then, amid a bright flash of light, it hit
Frozen Shade. A lightning strike tore into the damaged
panel, more sparks shot up and an S-shaped fire begin
to burn at the base of the Lorica Citadel.
I turned away from the window and shouted over the
howling wind. "Nero, Jytte, what about that computer?"
The light around the maglev line continued to build and
seven spiral rainbows rose from the local maglev lines to
link each citadel with City Center. "Whatever she started,
it's continuing."
Jytte looked at the machine and shook her head, "I am
unable to assess what I can do. Given time, I could piece
together the neural links that make this thing work." She
pointed at the two thick cables that touched the base of
the brain-fan. "All input and output is going through here,
being filtered through Nerys' brain. Deciphering the
mind of a 14-year-old girl is not possible."
I turned to Nero. "How did you code the brainwave
data?"
"Her patterns in doing one thing would trigger an effect
and in doing another would stop it." The storm wind
pulled at Loring's vest and whipped the long strands of
his hair through the air. "She hated math, so that's what
I used as a trigger. It was the pattern from a series of math
problems!"
"And the stopper?"
"Singing a song. Her favorite Christmas hymn, 'Silent
Night'!"
A particularly strong and close bolt of lightning silhou-
etted Bat at the window. "Get her singing, Loring, or we'll
all be doing a Requiem! Jesus, Caine, look at this!"
The rainbows broke loose of their citadel moorings
and began rotating above City Center like a helicopter
blade. As they spun faster and faster they blurred
together into a flat disc that slowly began to arc down into
a bowl that covered the city. The light show continued to
whirl at a frenetic pace and lighting strikes increased,
skewering the luminescent dome for a second or two,
then being sucked up into its maelstrom.
Then the bowl's edge touched the maglev line. It
continued to spin for a moment, then instantly stopped.
Pressure built within the dome, and my ears popped.
Below us, in the citadel, windows imploded. I heard my
heart begin to pound inside me and I found breathing
difficult. I tried to step back away from the window but the
very air felt thick as wet cement.
Suddenly the center of the bowl blew upward, and the
whole funnel-shape began to spin again. I fell backward
and lost sight of the sky for a second. When I came back
up it had all changed, and I felt liked I'd dined on razor
blades and ground glass for the last three days.
The whole brilliant funnel had vanished, leaving in its
wake a green and red neon latticework that might as well
have been the funnel's bones. Around it and through it I
could see the storm clouds, and though the center
seemed to go up through the clouds, I saw nothing but a
void in the heart of the funnel. Lightning strikes from
outside it only hit the lattice, making it glow golden-
yellow at that point for a second, then it returned to the
red or green color it had been.
I shouted over at Jytte and Loring. "You better do
something. This is really weird."
Jytte's fists knotted in frustration. "The Witch knew
what she was doing. Most of these brain slices are from
the left side of the brain. All math and logic, very little
language."
Loring knelt next to the machine. "Come on, Nerys,
you have to do it. 'Silent night, holy night...'"
The machine's membrane answered him with, "I
can't, Daddy. I can't."
"Think of something!" I stood and watched the first
blue tendril hook itself over the edge of the funnel. "Bat,
get the hell out of here, take Natch with you. I don't know
how far you'll get but...."
Bat shook his head as a second tendril appeared over
the event horizon. "I don't run." He slapped a new clip into
the carbine and worked the charging lever.
The tendrils solidified as the creature hauled itself up
through the hole dug in the sky. The creature's outline
hardened into a carapace studded with hooks and
bumps and claws. Whereas before it had been smoky
gray and insubstantial, it was now a light brown that was
his true color. Like the Plutonians he had doubtlessly
fashioned in his own image, a leathery flesh covered his
body. His head and face were pure arachnid, with
compound eyes and sharp mandibles which could have
taken the top off one of the Goddard Towers were he
inclined to crane his neck toward it.
The creature hung on the lattice with one hand while
reaching out with the other. The arm telescoped out to
extend from its shoulders, near the center of the city, to
the base of the Lorica Citadel. With one of its triform
fingers it nudged the burning body that had been the
Witch, then brought the finger to its mouth and it tasted
of the ashes.
A buzzing, popping voice sounded in my head. "Thiz
one never underztood. Inferior, with pretenzionz."
"Jytte! Do something!"
"There is nothing to do, Caine. The parts of the brain
we have can't sing!"
The creature's head rotated around to focus on me.
"My pet, you oppoze me?"
"I am not your pet!"
"Defianze iz powerful. How to break your rezolve and
leave your mind intact?"
"Please baby, just sing it for me," Loring begged the
black box.
"I can't, Daddy."
The creature reached out for me, but as it did, lightning
struck the lattice in two places. The talons grasping at me
flashed into their blue outline form and sparked from the
metal window frames. They passed through them and
left the stink of ozone in their wake as I jumped back, and
Bat ducked beneath them.
"He's still vulnerable! Sing the song!" I shouted.
"I can't," the machine wailed.
Not knowing if the machine had visual sensors or not,
I pointed at the creature. "You have to. If you don't,
Fiddleback will kill your father."
"No, not my daddy!"
I was staring at the machine, but the voice that
answered me came from my left. As I glanced over in that
direction a little girl in a Plutonian silktunic ran across the
room and hugged Nero Loring. "Daddy, I won't let him
hurt you. I won't."
"Nerys!" Loring held her out at arm's length, then
hugged her to him. "'Silent Night,' you have to sing
'Silent Night.'"
"Silent night, Holy night," the girl began obediently.
I looked out at the funnel. It looked as bright as ever.
As I watched a helicopter lifted off from one of the landing
pads on City Center and climbed toward Fiddleback.
"That's Scorpion," Bat assured me.
"Jytte, this isn't working."
Fiddleback reached down and contemptuously swat-
ted the chopper from the sky. It exploded when his talons
moved through it. Flaming debris fluttered down through
the air and another Frozen Shade panel died with a flash.
Bat looked over at the computer. "Jytte, this really
isn't working!"
Natch pointed at the black box. "Nerys isn't hitched
into the machine."
Jytte reached out and took hold of the two cables
attached to the bottom of the brain-fan. She tugged once,
and they didn't come lose. Her perfect lips peeled back
away from even white teeth, transforming her babydoll
face into a mask of fury. She pulled again and one came
free, then a third yank ripped the other one loose.
A little line of yellow lightning arced between the two
receptor pads. "This will sting, Nerys, but it won't hurt
you. Sing, child sing!"
Two little puffs of smoke went up as Jytte pressed the
electrodes to the girl's temples. Nerys stiffened, her head
jerking backward, then she craned her head down and
stared straight out at Fiddleback. "Silent night, Holy
night," she sang in a trembling voice.
Every note she sang started the funnel's lines quiver-
ing as if they were guitar strings or piano wires. The light
dimmed behind the ripples running along lines and
burned white-gold at the peaks. Sparks ignited at the
juncture points and teased lightning strikes from the
thunderheads.
"All is calm, all is bright."
Fiddleback's outline flickered and wavered. Blue light
pulsed along his outline. The lines on the funnel to which
he clung began to melt like ice beneath a blowtorch.
"Round yon virgin, mother and child. Holy infant so
tender and mild."
Fiddleback's image began to stretch and fade. The
funnel lost its rigid shape, and the rainbow lights began
to make their return. They started swirling through the
sky and twisted Fiddleback around and around until it he
looked more like a piece of rotelli than he did a Plutonian.
His arms, which had become little more than blue lines,
twisted about him like razorwire coils.
"Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace."
Fiddleback's grip on the vortex failed, and the rainbow
whirlpool sucked him up and out of the world like a
cockroach being flushed down a toilet.

Awakening at the heart of a lightning storm, with
thunder shaking the very earth with its violence, is not a
pleasant experience. Glass crunched beneath my feet as
I stared out through the penthouse's broken wall. I let my
left hand rest on one of the metal supports, and I dared
the storm to strike it and consume me, gambling that it
would not.
The thunderstorm we had witnessed so far was but an
overture to the elemental fury that lashed the city. Mother
Nature reshaped and released all the energies that had
been stored up in the funnel. Repeated and nearly
constant lighting strikes lit the building in stark, skeletal
colors. It almost seemed to me that the Earth, having
been left so open to assault from another dimension,
wished to scour the wound clean and ensure that no
vestige of the infection remained.
Captain Brad Williams had been on duty that night
and arrived with a contingent of security people shortly
after the funnel dissipated. Williams recognized Nero
Loring and accepted Nero's story of an electrical short
that caused all the damage. I could see in his eyes and
sense in his being that he didn't truly believe what he was
told, but he desperately wanted a rational explanation to
let him deal with what he had seen. He took Nero and
Nerys off and Coyote's three aides with them, leaving me
alone with the storm and my thoughts.
So much had happened in such a short time that I
really did not know how to assess all of it. Ten days ago
I was a null. I did not know who or what I was. Over the
next week and a half I discovered, apparently, that I was
an assassin who had been hired to kill Nero Loring. In a
180-degree turnabout, I worked with him to destroy the
creature that had supplanted his daughter and ordered
me to kill him. Along the way I had killed a pair of traitors
in Coyote's organization and helped defeat an
extradimensional creature bent on the domination of
humanity.
Pet had turned against master and, just this once, the
pet got away with it. I labored under no illusion that
Fiddleback had been destroyed. A creature capable of
crafting the sort of intricate and long-term plot that would
culminate in creating a city-sized dimensional gateway
would not venture everything on attempting to break
through. I had been instrumental in his failure, and I knew
his retribution would be both direct and cruel.
Lost in thought, I wandered through the Witch's
shattered domain. As things in the Lorica Tower began
to return to normal, power flooded back into the pent-
house and I found a wall-projection television playing in
the back. On it I caught a news special concerning the
happenings in the Lorica Citadel and above the city. The
newscaster reported things straight—though Fiddleback
did not image well on video—then showed a clip with the
head of the Phoenix Skeptics commenting on what had
taken place. Their executive director dismissed it all as
a combination of St. Elmo's fire, an unusually bright and
southern display of the aurora borealis and mass hyste-
ria.
He was very convincing—wrong, but convincing. I
could imagine a whole host of people—people like Brad
Williams—denying the evidence of their own eyes in
favor of his description. In an odd way I knew I had
functioned like that throughout my life. I had seen all the
signs of what was going on with Leich, but I denied the
evidence of my own eyes because the explanation—that
he was regenerating after crippling and fatal wounds—
stood incredibly far outside the possibilities I'd been
taught to accept.
I had seen Leich. I had seen the Witch in her true form.
I'd been to dimensions outside the one in which our world
existed. I had experienced things that forced a redefini-
tion of the term "normal." And yet, were I to tell the
Skeptics what I had seen and done, I would have no
corroborative evidence of my claims, and they would
dismiss me as being deluded or delusional.
Suddenly I understood part of what had to drive
Crowley and Coyote. They were men who realized that
things existed outside the normal realm of human expe-
rience. Crowley had said Coyote would be blind to the
dimensions, so he limited his work to Earth, while
Crowley himself worked elsewhere. Instead of trying to
explain the nature of the universe to a populace unable
to accept or understand it, they took on the responsibility
of responding to and resolving problems that most
people refused to acknowledge as existing.
"I think you understand things very well, Tycho."
I turned around as a young man about my height, with
dark hair, moustache and goatee casually strolled through
the devastated penthouse. He smiled as I held my hand
out to him. "Tycho Caine. You must be Coyote."
The man laughed, and I caught familiar notes in his
voice, but I could not place where I'd heard it before. "This
is the second time you have made that assumption." He
pulled off a gray glove and offered me his right hand. A
gold ring flashed on it.
"Crowley? But you're so young. You can't be..."
"Perhaps not in the logic of this world, but it is
possible." His grip was firm and he pumped my arm with
strength. "It was a decidedly distasteful experience."
I narrowed my eyes. "You took Nerys's body to the
dimension of Tartarus where Tityus regenerates every-
thing the vultures have eaten in a day."
He nodded. "Because of the way the storage areas
worked, Nerys was not really dead. I took her there
directly, which was not an easy journey. Because enough
of her brainstem had been left behind, she regenerated
her brain. It took six months, but I am pleased to see the
effort was worth it."
I stared at him. "Time, I take it, moves a lot faster there
than here?"
"In reality it does, but when there it hardly seems so.
She regenerated her brain, and I regenerated the damage
of my infirmity—old age. If it were not for what it did for
Nerys, I would think it a hideous place. Nothing to do but
shoot vultures and listen to a barely literate Titan bellow
curses against Apollo all day and night."
"You brought Nerys here? I didn't see you."
"You were a bit occupied. I left quickly because I
needed to cover my tracks. I also made contact with
Coyote." The man's green eyes narrowed. "If you are
willing, I will take you to him."
"Please."
Crowley grabbed a hold of my combat harness.
"Blank your mind. Concentrate on perceiving nothing
and yet everything. Control your breathing. You want to
open a portal between you and the dimensions outside
this one."
"I understand." I took in a deep breath and let it play
out slowly. I forced my mind to forget the aches and pains
I felt, and I took myself deep inside. I imagined the wall
of reality to be like a theater curtain, and I gently probed
it for the slit that would let me pass through it.
"Good."
I felt a tug on my belt as Crowley and I moved forward.
Tantalizing flashes of color strobed past, each a window
into a different dimension. Some, perhaps those closest
to and most like what Earth had once been, felt warm and
buoyed my spirits. Others we brushed by kindled bloodlust
or visions of depravity I never would have imagined
unaided. As we moved on things became darker and yet
more warped, but the only way I can describe them is to
note I felt colder and colder as we progressed.
Finally we came to a bare, arid landscape that looked
at once to me to be the red planet where I had seen Nero
Loring. As my eyes adjusted to it, however, I realized that
it was red only in a circle that centered itself on Crowley's
shadowform. Outside that sharp line the world was
rendered in white, black and a varied array of gray
shades. Though a sun burned in the black sky, I still felt
cold.
Outside the circle I saw a man. He seemed small, but
I knew that was more than a function of his appearing as
if projected on a screen, instead of actually standing
there. He looked fortyish, with a full head of hair and
strongly chiseled features. His dark eyes had a depth to
them that I could see in spite of the flat image. A nervous
tic tugged at the corner of his right eye, but I would have
expected a man who had done what all he had to show
some effect of the stress.
He smiled openly, erasing some of the worry from his
face. "You've had a busy evening, Mr. Caine. You have
my sympathies concerning Ms. Fisk, and my awe that
you had prepared yourself in case Pell was not the only
traitor. I had not considered that possibility. So the code
word for Marit was Salome. I assume the others had
similar biblical mnemonics."
"Yes." Even though it had had gone dead, I checked
to make sure I had switched my radio off. "Bat was
Sampson, Natch was Delilah and Jytte was Lilith. Loring
was Adam."
A meteorite died in the sky behind him. "And Crowley?
Was he rigged to explode, or did you trust him?"
I glanced over at the shadow man and shrugged.
"Lucifer."
Coyote paused for a moment, then nodded. "You are
very much the man I thought you were. You deserve
answers, and you shall have them, finally."
"I would like that very much. Who am I?"
The small man folded his arms across his chest. "I
must apologize to you for having manipulated you as
grossly as I did. As Crowley has told you, I am unable to
go freely through the dimensions to deal with problems.
I knew I would need someone like you who could do that,
but to get you to work for me I needed to have something
you wanted. In your case, it was your identity. I apologize
because I have known who you are since before you
awakened, and I have known this because I stole your
memory in the first place."
My jaw dropped open. "You what? All of this has been
a sham?"
"Yes, but a necessary one, I think." Coyote's face
hardened. "I'll give you the thumbnail sketch, then Jytte
can provide you with a file that will confirm all I am telling
you. You are, as you have surmised, an assassin. You are
one of the best in the world, probably in the top seven,
definitely the top ten. This I know because, well, I know
it. You have an impressive record, especially against
targets that must be hunted down. You are one of
Fiddleback's favorites, and this is the reason you were
brought to Phoenix to kill Nero Loring. You have never
missed a target, to my knowledge, and your record still
holds. You are an impressive and terrifying man.
"In researching you, however, I did discover two flaws
in you. You have very expensive taste in rental cars,
which allowed us to get a line on the identity you used
here. You chose the name Tycho Caine, which I find
interestingly symbolic: Tycho—derived from the Greek
tychon, 'hitting the mark.' And Caine, of course, was his
brother's slayer. Everything else you know about Tycho
Caine is a fabrication that I have created because, as you
have been known to do, after your hit you engaged in a
bout of gambling. I suspect this is because, after you
murder someone, you want to give the universe a chance
to get even with you. My agents found you, drugged you
and after we built up the Tycho Caine we wanted you to
search out, they released you."
"Wait, wait, wait." I turned to Crowley. "How much of
this did you know?"
He gave me an enigmatic shrug. "Enough. Coyote
confided in me he would be turning one of Fiddleback's
tools against him, and he asked for my help. I gave it to
him and to you."
I looked back at Coyote. "But this doesn't make any
sense! If you knew who and what I was, why didn't you
kill me and be done with it? Given what you do, given
what Crowley does, I can't imagine either one of you
wanting me alive."
Coyote looked down. "I had my reasons."
"Then they were flawed reasons. Flawed, just like your
statement that I've never missed a target. I've met Nero
Loring. I missed."
Coyote started a slow circuit around the circle of color.
"I wanted you to deal with my traitor problem and with
Nerys Loring. The first was a task I could have handled,
but I thought it better left in your hands. In that group the
only person I knew I could trust was Jytte. Beyond her,
anyone was suspect, and I was not certain I could deal
with the problem in the only way feasible. You could do
that.
"The problem Nerys Loring presented was one that
required someone with unique skills and abilities to
handle. Your success in stopping her proves to me you
are the individual of whom I can make the following
request:
"I want you to replace me."
"Replace you? I don't understand."
Coyote stopped moving. "I have a rare disease of the
brain, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome. It
causes nerve degeneration, dementia and death. I was
diagnosed with it only a month before you arrived in
Phoenix, and this caused me to shift my plans. My
doctors did not give me very long, so I had to make
arrangements. They included you."
I glanced at the shadow man. "Why don't you take him
to Tityus' dimension? He could be cured."
"No." Crowley ruefully shook his head. "GSS is ge-
netic. Once it starts it is natural. Regeneration would
have exacerbated the disease, not made it better. He
might have regressed physically, but his brain would
have deteriorated even faster."
The shock of Coyote's request and the story of his
condition stunned me. "This is, ah, a lot to handle." I held
my hand out toward him. "Come with us, we can discuss
it further. I need some time."
The little man shook his head. "I'm afraid I have no
time to give you."
"What do you mean? You're still sharp. We can work
this out."
"It's too late for that." Coyote squatted down on his
haunches. "I knew that you would only leave yourself
open to my people after the completion of your hit on
Nero Loring. That is when you would fall into my grasp,
but I could not sabotage the effort against Nerys by
allowing you to kill him—and I knew I could not fool you
into believing you had succeeded were I to employ some
sleight of hand to whisk him away and out of danger. For
that reason I took Nero Loring's place, and I filled your
sights the day you saw Nero Loring die."
I stared unflinchingly into the dead man's black eyes
and recalled the vision on the bluff when I met Nero
Loring for the first time. I had succeeded in killing him.
I had shot Nero Loring through the head, but I had no way
of knowing it was someone else in disguise. The idea that
a human being would allow himself to be knowingly shot
to death did not exist in my world.
"You're dead?"
A thin smile graced Coyote's lips. "I could never fool
you in life, so I had to do that in death. Jytte managed to
create a Coyote synthesizer program that, with the
proper input, was able to provide you with vague but
apparently meaningful messages. I was able to guess
ahead of time how much of this work would go, so we
scripted up conversations, and I prerecorded them. The
computer cut and spliced as necessary. As long as you
believed I was alive and working to solve the mystery of
your identity, you worked with me. You have seen how
I work, and my files can offer you more cases to study
than you could ever desire."
He shook his head and looked, for the first time,
hopeless. "I apologize that this elaborate charade was
necessary, but only by forcing you to see the world
through the eyes of a normal person could I communi-
cate to you how desperately I need someone with your
skills to replace me. If you take up my mantle, you will
have the resources to build where you previously tore
down. You may create where before you have destroyed.
You may not be able to leave the world a better place than
it was when you found it, but you can slow its descent into
the depths of hell."
I spoke around the lump in my throat. "I can pay
forward."
"Precisely." Coyote pressed his hands together. "I
took your life, and you took mine. Jytte has an injection
for you that, if you so desire, will unblock your drug-
induced amnesia. You may return to your old ways and,
with this explanation, Fiddleback may even accept you
back again. If not, I am certain there are other Dark Lords
who would be happy to take you into their stables."
I shook my head. "I don't know, I just don't know."
"Jytte can tell you more, much more, but it's your
choice, Tycho Caine." Coyote shrugged and the world
began to darken around him. "My time as Coyote is up."
"Wait, answer me one question: Why Coyote?"
The fading phantom laughed. "The Dark Lords—
things like Fiddleback and worse—consider us varmints
and seek to exterminate most forms of life on Earth.
When varmint extinction programs were tried before, in
the 19th and 20th centuries, the coyote not only refused
to die, it flourished. Coyotes moved into cities and
bedeviled those who sought to destroy them. What other
totem animal could I chose?"
The world outside the red circle collapsed into black-
ness. I turned to Crowley and saw lights begin to play
through the dark. As the color slowly drained from our
circle, the light built behind him, and I found myself back
in Phoenix, on Camelback Mountain, looking southwest
over Frozen Shade and the rest of the city. Looking
behind me I saw we had returned to earth near one of the
vast mansions built on the side of the mountain.
The occultist silently pointed toward the stairway
carved into the rock. He followed me as I climbed up to
the front door and opened it. Crowley closed it behind
me, then led me in and down to the basement level
through a steel door hidden behind an oaken wall panel
in the study.
The hidden rectangular room had been simply fur-
nished. I entered at the narrow end and saw, all the way
across from me, a large screen projection television. Off
to the right stood a bank of Hitachi computers and
opposite it a row of 10 file cabinets lined the wall. In the
center stood a long conference table with an even dozen
chairs distributed about it. Nearest me, filling the walls,
were workbenches with equipment that ran the gamut
from chemical analysis units and scanning electron
microscopes to electronics construction stations and
gunsmithing tools.
A single tear rolled down Jytte's perfect face as she
stood beside the table. She set a silver tray with a full
syringe on the table next to a cellular phone. A single
droplet of liquid glistened at its tip. I looked up at her and
wondered what was going on behind that plastic mask of
a face.
"Coyote said you had information for me, to help me
make my decision."
Jytte nodded. "According to an agreement Coyote
made with Nero Loring, you will be acknowledged as his
nephew, Michael Loring. You will become the CEO of
Lorica Industries, with all the rights and privileges that
entails. Nero has handpicked a board to run the com-
pany for you, so the burdens of day-to-day activities are
limited to those you personally choose to assume."
"Or," I noted, "the ones allowed by the rigors of
becoming Coyote."
"As you wish. Lorica has facilities throughout the
world. Your legitimate resources will be vast, and those
assets that Coyote has prepared for his work will allow
you to work in secret with unparalleled ease."
I felt a shiver run down my spine. "Who was he, Jytte?
Who was Coyote? What was his real name?"
She blinked her eyes once. "That information is
unknown to me. He was Coyote. I do not know if he was
the first, was the only or will be the last Coyote. What you
have seen is who he was."
Coyote. He was a man who set a trained killer on his
own people to find out who among them was betraying
him. He was a man who coerced others into working for
him. He stole my identity and led me on a wild chase that
not only put my life in danger, but caused me to kill a
number of people—including aides he had trusted in the
past. He also caused the deaths of innocent people, like
Hal's wife.
I looked at the syringe. Were Coyote and I that
different, really, at the core of it? I killed for rewards that
brought me satisfaction, and he did the same. That he let
himself believe he was making the world a better place
meant nothing.
Or did it?
He caught a bullet in the head to take a chance that his
crusade would not die.
I reached my hand out and picked up the phone. I
punched up a number quickly and waited for someone
to pick it up on the other end. I smiled as a sleepy voice
answered.
"Hello, Mr. Sinclair MacNeal?" I smiled as he cursed at
the time. "I understand you are at loose ends at the
moment. I think we could work well together. Listen, it
doesn't really matter who I am, but just for the sake of
simplicity, you may call me Coyote."