Dead Heart Beating

by John J. Miller

"It'sss the General'ssss order, Fadeout," Wyrm hissed, his foot-long tongue lolling out disgustingly over his chin, his eyes as expressionless as a pair of cuff links stuck through the sleeves of a frayed, cheap shirt.

"Since when have I had to be frisked before seeing the old man?" Philip Cunningham asked Kien's loyal watch joker.

"Ssssince the General ordered it." Wyrm's stare was unrelenting.

Cunningham gave his best put-upon sigh. "All right," he said, good-naturedly raising his hands over his head as Wyrm patted him down.

But the easy smile and air of practiced indifference hid the sudden unease running through Cunningham's mind. He knows, Cunningham thought. Somehow the old bastard found out about New Day. That's why he called me in to see him.

Wyrm grunted, stood back. "Okay," he said almost grudgingly. "You can go in."

Cunningham hesitated. He was sure that an angry Kien was waiting for him beyond the closed door to his private office, an angry, vengeful Kien, ready to confront Cunningham with his knowledge of the scheme that would have put Cunningham in his place as head of the Shadow Fists. Cunningham wondered briefly who had betrayed him to Kien, but decided to worry about that later. Now he had something more basic on his mind. Survival.

He could try to make a break for it, or he could bull his way through by putting the blame for New Day on someone else. Loophole, maybe. Or Warlock. That might be his best bet.

He squared his shoulders and opened the door to Kien's inner office. Inside, it was quiet and dimly lit. The only illumination came from the shaded lamp on the edge of Kien's desk. The room's atmosphere was dark and sepulchral, with the glass cases housing the fabulously expensive antique Orientalia scattered around the room playing the part of the grave offerings.

"You wanted to see me?" Cunningham asked as he entered the room. He stopped, frowning. "Kien?"

The shadowy figure sitting behind the huge teakwood desk was only dimly lit by the small lamp. Cunningham stepped forward cautiously, then suddenly realized that the Shadow Fists would have a new master much earlier than even he'd anticipated.

Kien was dead.

If that indeed was Kien seated behind the desk. Cunningham approached slowly, disbelievingly, wondering if his boss was playing some kind of macabre gag. But it wasn't anywhere near April 1 and Kien wasn't the type to pull practical jokes. The body slumped behind the desk was headless, but Cunningham could tell it was Kien from the half hand flopped carelessly in the fine blue powder scattered on the desk surface. And Kien wasn't the only deader in the room. The watchdog joker that Kien normally kept in a jar on his desk was pinned to the desktop with Kien's platinum letter opener, horribly marring the wood's glossy finish.

Cunningham gingerly leaned over the desk, first shifting the lampshade to throw a little more light on the body. Carefully keeping clear of the blue powder sprinkled on the desktop that had mixed with a massive quantity of congealing blood, he reached out cautiously and laid two fingers on the back of Kien's whole hand. The flesh was still warm and pliable. Kien's fingertips were stained blue, and more of the powder clung to the front of his bloodsoaked shirt.

"Rapture," Cunningham said to himself, stepping back from the desk. The blue powder was manufactured in Kien's own Shadow Fist labs. It enhanced the pleasure of anything, turning food into ambrosia, a simple touch into an orgasm. It also had some unfortunate side effects. In a way, Cunningham thought, it was ironic justice rarely seen out of bad television shows that Kien had been using his own wares.

Cunningham didn't think of himself as a stuffed shirt, but he was old-fashioned in his choice of recreational vehicles. He stayed away from the pernicious new stuff, with the often correct notion that he wasn't going to fool around with any kind of chemical until it was proven relatively safe by countless others. He was too bright to be anyone's human guinea pig.

The thing of it was, though, Cunningham could have sworn that Kien had a more conservative attitude toward drugs. When Kien played Kubla Khan In His Pleasure Dome, he would occasionally indulge in a pipe of opium, which had a long history of acceptance in Chinese culture. But that was it. He used no other drugs and was only a light drinker. It was a surprise to discover that Kien was a rap head.

Or was he?

Cunningham carefully considered the death scene. Why would Kien kill his own watchdog joker? And if Kien hadn't killed the sorry little bastard, who had?

The person who had taken Kien's head as a souvenir. But why steal the head of a dead man?

To keep the memories locked in Kien's dead brain away from Deadhead.

Perhaps. If that were the case, then this was an inside job. Knowledge of Deadhead's unique ability to access the memories of dead brains wasn't exactly widespread outside the Shadow Fists.

Cunningham tugged the letter opener from the batrachian joker's chest, then set it aside. A small box stuffed with elegant wrapping paper sat on the edge of Kien's desk. The box was stamped with the name "Lin's Curio Emporium," an expensive antique store that was part of Kien's far-flung commercial empire. Besides importing costly Asian antiquities, Lin's was also a high-class drugstore where well-heeled clientele could pick up anything from marijuana to heroin. To rapture.

Cunningham put the jokers body in the box. The joker might be dead, but that didn't mean he couldn't be questioned. Not as long as Deadhead was available.

Cunningham took a long, careful look around the room. There were no windows and the room's only door led to the antechamber guarded by Wyrm. He sighed. It looked like a classic locked-room mystery. Too bad he never read Agatha Christie.

Only the door to the office wasn't locked. It suddenly opened and Wyrm stuck his head in, saying, "Excussss..." and stopped before he got the first word out.

Leslie Christian stood behind Wyrm. Cunningham didn't like the weathered-looking British ace who'd appeared from nowhere the previous year and had somehow stepped right into the Shadow Fist Society as Kien's personal confidant. He was a smug, supercilious bastard who stank of unsavory secrets.

The two in the doorway stared at the scene inside Kien's office, then Christian said laconically, "So, finally made your move, old boy?"

There was a moment of shocked silence, then Wyrm howled in anger as Christian's words finally penetrated his stunned brain. The joker rushed into the room, his foot long tongue whipping back and forth, his fangs bared and dripping poison.

Wyrm wasn't very bright, and he was intensely loyal to his master. When he got an idea through his skull, it tended to stay there. And now he had the notion, neatly planted by Christian, that Cunningham had killed Kien. Cunningham knew he wouldn't have the opportunity to talk things over with the insanely jealous joker.

He faded. Fading made Cunningham as blind as he was invisible, but his other senses had been sharply honed by continual practice. He called a picture of Kien's office onto the video screen of his mind, and moved around a freestanding glass case that contained a selection of delicately inlaid and enameled snuff bottles. He headed out of Wyrm's path and to the office door.

But Wyrm's angry screams got closer. Rapidly. Cunningham ducked and there was a loud crash as Wyrm hurled himself forward, barely missed, and smashed through the front of the display case. The angry joker floundered through shards of shattered glass and broken bits of priceless antiquities, hot on Cunningham's trail despite his total invisibility.

What the hell was going on? Cunningham thought, then felt on his face the wet caress of Wyrm's ultrasensitive tongue. The bastard can smell me, Cunningham realized. Then Wyrm was on him.

He twisted away as the, joker grabbed at him and one of his flailing hands caught in Cunningham's shirt. Wyrm pulled him close. Cunningham could picture the wide gaping mouth, sharp fangs running with saliva like the drool of a mad dog.

He was no match, Cunningham knew, for Wyrm's wild-card-enhanced strength.

He faded in his eyes to see Wyrm ferociously biting empty air and brought his right knee up hard between Wyrm 's legs.

Wyrm screamed and Cunningham pulled away, glancing quickly around the room. That bastard Christian had disappeared, pulling the office door shut behind him. Crossed on the wall near the door were a pair of antique ceremonial daggers, their hilts encrusted with pearls, rubies, and emeralds. Cunningham sprinted across the room, cursing Wyrm under his breath as the joker hobbled after him. He ripped the daggers from their wall mounts. Wyrm's hot breath was on the back of his neck as he faded again, taking the daggers with him to invisibility.

Wyrm slammed into him, smashing him hard into the wall. The breath exploded from Cunningham's lungs as he turned and slashed with both daggers. But the weapons, centuries-old antiques, were no longer useful for anything but show. One glanced harmlessly off Wyrm's forearm, the other snapped on his rib cage.

Cunningham wanted to swear, but he couldn't catch his breath. Wyrm caught his face with one of his inhumanly strong hands, his clawed fingers raking furrows on Cunningham's cheeks. One of the joker's fingers found its way into Cunningham's mouth, and ace bit down hard.

He tasted blood in his mouth as Wyrm screamed and instinctively pulled away. His lungs laboring for air, Cunningham staggered back across the room to where he remembered seeing a viable weapon: the letter opener he'd put down next to the lamp on Kien's desk. He faded in his eyes just as he ran into the desk. Pain flashed through his knees as he bashed them against the edge of the desk, then he skidded across the stinking, sticky mixture of congealed blood and blue powder. He slid over and off the polished surface and landed on the desk chair and Kien's cooling corpse. Somehow he managed to grab the letter opener as he went sailing by.

Wyrm followed him, leaping over the desk with outstretched talons and dripping fangs. Cunningham thrust out his right hand, holding the letter opener, as Wyrm slammed into him, flipping the chair, Cunningham, and Kien's corpse all to the floor.

Cunningham was stunned by the double impact of colliding with Wyrm and smashing into the floor. It took him a moment to realize that he was still holding the letter opener and that something wet and sticky was running down his hand. The letter opener, he finally realized, had penetrated Wyrm's throat, angled upward through the joker's mouth and into his brain. The joker's blood was pulsing thick and warm on his hand.

Cunningham lay there for a moment breathing in the cloud of swirling blue powder.

It tasted so good to be alive.

Kien's chair felt comfortable against Cunningham's body. It was soft and plush and swiveled silently on well-oiled casters. Cunningham spun around in it idly, knowing that he should get going, that Christian could return at any moment with a goon squad, but somehow he just couldn't help savoring the feeling of complete triumph over his onetime boss. He stopped twirling around in the chair and rested one foot on Kien's headless corpse, another on Wyrm's rapidly cooling body.

So this is what it felt like to be head of the Shadow Fists. It was a heady mixture of power and mastery flavored with the anticipation of sweet riches to come. Of course, Cunningham realized, some of this flight of fancy had been caused by the rapture he'd breathed. He had to get it in gear. He couldn't afford to get _caught napping now.

He reached out gingerly, careful not to disturb any more of the fine blue powder that had settled back down upon the desktop, and picked up the telephone hanging precariously on the desk's edge. He dialed.

"Fadeout," he said into the phone. "Put me through to Warlock."

He hummed as he waited for his co-conspirator, the head of the Werewolf street gang, to get on the line. Warlock was tall and strongly built; no one, not even Cunningham, knew what form his jokerhood took. He always wore a mask. The Werewolf custom of wearing a common mask originated with him, as his followers aped whatever celebrity mask he wore for however long he chose to wear it.

"This is Warlock." The head Werewolf s voice was deep and emotionless, though there was something of cold, dispassionate danger in it. The Werewolves were, in Cunningham's opinion, mainly just a bunch of jokers with delusions of toughness. Warlock, though, was authentically dangerous. Even his ace power, which Warlock called his death wish, was eerily perilous.

Warlock would simply wish a target dead, and within twenty-four hours he'd get his wish. Sometimes the victim's heart would give out, or a blood vessel would burst in his brain. Sometimes they'd be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a runaway taxi would do the job. Once one of Warlock's victims had had the cosmically bad luck to be drilled between the eyes by a micrometeorite. No one knew how he did it, but Warlock's death wish never failed. He was a man to be cautious around.

"New Day is on," Cunningham told him with raptureinduced exuberance in his voice. "Now"

"Already?" Warlock asked thoughtfully. "It wasn't scheduled until next week. No one's in place-"

"We have to move now," Cunningham interrupted, and told Warlock about Kien's death. "I don't know who did it or why, but Christian's got to be involved somehow," he finished. "He showed up here too damn conveniently, and left after sitting Wyrm on me."

"What's his motive for wanting Kien dead?" Warlock asked.

"I don't know," Cunningham admitted. "But we'll find out when we get ahold of him. Right now we've got to move. Fast. He's already tried to pin the killing on me once. I figure he might bring Sui Ma in next."

Warlock made a sound deep in his throat and Cunningham knew that he'd pushed the right button. Even though both gangs belonged to the Shadow Fist Society, there was no love lost between the Werewolves and the Immaculate Egrets. The Wolves were jokers. They had the smell of the street on them. The Egrets were nats, for the most part smug, snotty nats. Though they worked the streets like the Werewolves, somehow they thought themselves superior to their brothers in the Fists, an attitude actively encouraged by their leader Sui Ma, Kien's sister.

"Put the Wolves on alert," Cunningham said. "Find Chickenhawk. Contact the Whisperer. I have a feeling idea we may need him before this shakes out."

"Lazy Dragon?" Warlock asked.

"Still missing," Cunningham said. "Last time I checked his place his sister was living there, and she hadn't heard from him in months. I'm afraid that Christian--or whoever's behind Kien's killing-might have already taken him out."

"What about Loophole?"

Cunningham made a dismissive gesture. "Leave him for now. He probably knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, so he may be useful later. But I can't see how he can hurt us now. He's just a lawyer."

"All right," Warlock said. "You want me to send a few of the brothers along to keep an eye on you?"

"That's a good idea," Cunningham said. He looked at the box with the tiny joker body in it. "I'm going to head for the Lair, but first I have to find Deadhead. I've got a little something for him here."

Fortunately Cunningham knew just where to look.

Cunningham knew the rapture was still playing tricks with him when he had to fight down the urge to buy half a dozen sandwiches at the Horn and Hardart at Third Avenue and Forty-second Street. He walked firmly through the food line, reminding himself that he was there looking for someone and not to stuff himself with mystery-meat sandwiches.

Although the eatery was crowded, Cunningham spotted Deadhead sitting by himself in an otherwise deserted corner. It was as if the automat's patrons-not usually considered a finicky crowd-were instinctively avoiding the half-mad ace. Cunningham couldn't blame them. At the best of times Deadhead was a repellent figure. His clothing was one step up from a bum's, his hair hadn't been washed since the Reagan presidency, and his corpsewhite face was continually dancing with nervous twitches and tics that made him look like he was suffering through electroshock therapy.

"Hello, Glen," Cunningham said carefully as he approached Deadhead's table. He looked at the empty plate before Deadhead and sighed. The deranged ace was often difficult to handle after a meal. "What'd you have to eat, Glen?"

"Not much," Deadhead said defensively. He refused to look Cunningham in the eye. "I can feel the sun and see the rolling plains. The grass tastes good."

"Christ," Cunningham muttered. "You didn't have a hamburger, did you?"

"Mooo," Deadhead said, loud enough to make people stare.

Cunningham pasted a smile on his face and put a hand on Deadhead's arm, lifting him from his seat. "We have to go now," he said. "I have something for you to do," he added quietly.

Deadhead nodded and got down on all fours.

"Up we go," Cunningham said in a voice that tried to be casual. "Time to go home."

"Mooo," Deadhead replied.

Cunningham kept a smile on his face, but leaned down and whispered fiercely, "Get ahold of yourself. I'm not going to drag you to the damn car."

Deadhead nodded and stood, straightening his clothes as best he could. His eyes darted around the automat. "I'm fine. Really. Just wait a moment."

He went to the cash register and bought a pack of gum. He unwrapped all the sticks with shaking hands and popped them into his mouth one by one. He let out an ecstatic sigh and chewed contentedly. Cunningham flashed a knowing smile at the cashier and led him out of the automat.

"Come on," he said, pulling him down the street to the parking garage where he'd left his Maserati. Deadhead followed him meekly, his eyes fastened on the faraway scenes playing in his brain as he relived the life of the cow who'd been part of his lunch. At least, Cunningham told himself, counting his blessings, Deadhead hadn't collapsed into an insensate stupor like he often did after ingesting meat.

He deposited Deadhead in the passenger's side of his Maserati, locked the door, and stood. A man was standing in front of his car. He hadn't been there a moment ago. He was Asian and wore mirror shades that gave his youthful face a blank, hard-edged look. His hands were in the pockets of his satin jacket that Cunningham just knew had a large white bird embroidered on the back. He could afford to act casual. The two similarly attired thugs standing behind him were carrying Uzis.

It took Cunningham a moment to put a name to the face: Jack Chang, a lieutenant in the Immaculate Egrets. He smiled at Cunningham. "Sui Ma," he said, "wants to see you. It's about her brother's missing head."

"Careful," Cunningham said as Chang parked the Maserati by carelessly wedging it between a pair of overflowing garbage cans in a narrow Chinatown alley. "You'll ruin the paint job."

The Egret grinned. "What's the matter? Don't you have insurance?"

Cunningham didn't like Chang's attitude, but he kept quiet about it as they got out of the car and waited for the other Egrets to show. Macho posturing was a waste of breath. He preferred to remember insults, mark them down, and act on them later under the proper circumstances. And Chang had just made his list.

The Egrets following in the van screeched to a halt right behind Cunningham's Maserati. The driver laughed as he tapped Cunningham's car with the van's bumper, pushing it forward gently against the brick wall in front of it. Cunningham kept his expression impassive, but added another to his list as the Egrets piled out of the van, laughing. Two dragged a stupefied Deadhead by his arms. His payback list, Cunningham thought, was going to be very long before this day ended.

"Let's go," Chang said. "Little Mother is waiting." Like her late brother, Sui Ma was something of a sinophile. In her case, she made the Egrets who guarded her headquarters wear costumes out of what looked to Cunningham like the road show of Anna and the King of Siam. Though, Cunningham noted, discreetly holstered opposite the guards' stubby-bladed Chinese swords were very modern-looking machine pistols.

Sui Ma's headquarters always made Cunningham feel uncomfortable, and it was not just because of the feeling that he was entering the den of the Dragon Lady. Behind the staid brick facade that was the outer wall was a fantasy land of silken tapestries and screens, electric torches glittering in wall sconces, and the heavy scent of incense billowing on the air.

Sui Ma herself was waiting for them in her reception room, sitting on her intricately carved wooden throne that was decorated with hundreds of peacock feathers. She wore robes of dark blue silk embroidered with the dazzlingly white birds that were the sigil of the Egrets. She was a short woman, rather plain and chubby, just coming into middle age. But her mild appearance masked a powerful mind as ruthless as her brother's. And right now she didn't look exactly pleased to see Cunningham.

"Your ambition," she said coldly to Cunningham, "has finally driven you too far. Not only have you slain my brother and his faithful bodyguard, but you then mutilated my brother's corpse. You'll pay for both acts."

Cunningham couldn't tell if she sincerely believed that he had killed Kien or if she was just using the circumstances as a convenient excuse for taking him out. He shook his head. "I'll take the blame for Wyrm, but it was self-defense. Christian sicced him on me. I'll give you even money that he was the one who told you that I'd killed Kien."

An expression flitted across Sui Ma's face that told Cunningham he'd given her something to think about. He spoke rapidly to press his advantage. "If I killed the General, what did I do with his head?"

She smiled. "You took it to feed to that disgusting creature of yours to learn all the secrets of the Shadow Fist Society."

"That's a fine theory," Cunningham admitted, "if I had the head in my possession. I don't."

"Then why," Sui Ma asked triumphantly, "did you go immediately from my brother's murder to pick up Deadhead at the automat?"

"Because I had something else for him," Cunningham explained. "The body of the watchdog joker that Kien had kept in a jar on his desk. The murderer killed the joker to keep it from blabbing about Kien's death. Someone seems to be running around behind the scenes trying to pin the blame on me."

"Christian," Sui Ma said thoughtfully. She gazed off into the distance for a long moment as Cunningham felt something like hope sweep over him for the first time since he'd been brought into her presence. "Where's the body of this joker?" she asked him.

"In a box in the glove compartment of my car," Cunningham said. Sui Ma glanced at Chang and nodded. He gestured at one of his goons, who immediately left to fetch it.

"And Deadhead?" Sui Ma asked.

"We have him in the antechamber," Chang said. "Bring him."

Chang nodded and also left, leaving Cunningham alone with Sui Ma and the half-dozen impassive guards who stood behind and around her peacock throne. She continued to stare silently at him, as -if weighing the value of his life. He decided that now wasn't the time to annoy her with idle chitchat.

The goon returned with the joker in the box. He presented it to Sui Ma. She looked in the box, nodded, and gave it back to the Egret who placed it at her feet on the upper tier of the throne's dais. A moment later there was another short, respectful knock on the door, and Chang led in two Egrets dragging Deadhead between them.

The disheveled ace stared around the room with his dark, confused eyes, mumbling something to himself that no one else could understand. He looked at Cunningham, nervously licking his lips. "You have a job for me?" he finally asked.

Sui Ma nodded and pointed at the box. "In there." Deadhead stepped forward and removed the box's lid with shaking hands. "It's so little," he said. Cunningham nodded. "Consider it an appetizer." Deadhead's smile turned broad and fixed. A line of spittle ran down his chin as he reached into his pocket and took out a small leather case. Inside were a number of small, shiny, sharp implements. He chose one and began to saw, humming to himself. Cunningham looked away as Deadhead cut through the tiny skull. Sui Ma watched fixedly.

It took Deadhead only a few moments to cut away the top of the joker's skull. He glanced furtively at Cunningham and Sui Ma as he finished, then hunkered over the body. Half hiding his actions, he scooped out the joker's brain and popped it in his mouth. He chewed hastily, noisily, then swallowed. He knelt on the middle step of the dais before Sui Ma with a dreamy smile on his face, the tics and spasms that usually contorted his features subsiding into satiated serenity. His eyes closed.

"How long will this take?" Sui Ma asked with more than detached interest.

"It depends," Cunningham said. "The corpse was rather ... fresh ... so that should cut down on the time it takes him to assimilate the memories."

It took a few moments, but then Deadhead finally began to groan and squirm. "Noooo!" he cried, twisting as if to avoid a fatal blow.

Cunningham leaned forward eagerly. "Who killed you?" he asked.

"Red hair," Deadhead panted in his trance. "Smiling face. The boy likes it, he does." He squirmed again and let out a long, keening cry.

"Is he alone? Is there another in the room?" Deadhead whipped his head back and forth. "Another. Too far back. Blurry. Can't see who-"

Cunningham cursed to himself. The joker who'd guarded Kien's desk had been terribly myopic. "What about Kien? Is he in the room?"

"At his desk."

"What's he doing?"

"He is afraid. He opens the box, though he doesn't want to. He is saying, `Why are you doing this to me? I don't want to. Don't make me do this.' He puts his face down in the box-"

Cunningham and Sui Ma looked at each other. "Mind control," Cunningham said, and Sui Ma nodded. "Someone-the redhead-made him inhale enough rapture to kill a whole platoon of r-heads."

"Redhead," Sui Ma said. "Mind control."

"Dr. Tachyon," they said together.

Sui Ma frowned, shaking her head. "I don't get it," she said. She looked critically at Deadhead, who was panting like a dog and tossing and jerking spasmodically on the floor, caught up in the aftereffects of brain-eating. "Why would Tachyon make Kien kill himself?"

"Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was some other redheaded mind-control artist." Cunningham shrugged. "Deadhead can draw a picture of our man when he comes out of it." He looked at Sui Ma. "You can see, anyway, that I was telling the truth. I didn't have anything to do with your brother's death."

Sui Ma again looked into the distance. "That may be true," she admitted, "but since when did truth have anything to do with deciding upon the proper course of action?" She looked at Cunningham. "My brother is dead and I shall be the new supreme power in the Shadow Fist Society. I do not think that you'd care to work for me, Fadeout, and frankly I don't think that I would trust you."

"So I'm still dead," he said with as much flippancy as he could muster.

"Let us say that the firm is eliminating your position," Sui Ma said with a smile.

"Okay," he said. "In that case, fuck it."

He faded to total invisibility. He didn't know the layout of Sui Ma's room as well as he did Kien's, but he'd done his best to memorize it in the last few minutes. He hit the ground, rolled, and came up dodging as he heard Sui Ma shout and her guards blunder around the room. There was a short burst of gunfire, an anguished scream, and then Sui Ma shouted, "Use your swords, idiots, and guard the door!"

He moved 'toward the sound of her voice, and stumbled over what sounded like a moaning Deadhead. He landed silently, rolled, stood, and bumped into someone else. His hand slashed out and sunk into firm, muscular flesh, and he felt sudden, searing pain as a sharp blade chopped down into his upper thigh. He stifled a scream, and struck up at where he judged the sword wielder's wrist would be.

He struck flesh again, and pulled away. The blade came with him, still lodged in his thigh. He set his teeth together and yanked the sword from his leg, fading it out. Clasping both hands around the hilt, he swung in a great figure eight, feeling it slice through meat like a hot knife through butter.

Sui Ma shouted again at her guards, and that was a mistake because now he knew where she was. He started to circle toward her, holding the invisible sword out before him like a blind man might hold out his cane, and to the confusion and panic running through the room something new was suddenly added.

There were deep, hoarse shouts in new voices, and the sound of gunfire blasted deafeningly through the chamber. Cunningham risked fading in his eyes for a moment and had to stifle a cry of relief as he saw that the cavalry had arrived in the form of a Werewolf squadron led by Warlock himself.

There were more than a dozen Wolves wearing leathers and delicately featured Michael Jackson masks, and armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and combat shotguns. One of them had a portable boom box, and the song "I'm Bad" was blasting through the chamber louder than the reports of their weapons.

Sui Ma was standing before her throne, more anger than fear on her face, braced by two of her guards, who were dropping their swords and fumbling for the guns holstered at their sides. Cunningham gauged the distance between them and slipped back into total invisibility. He lunged forward silently, swinging his razor-sharp blade.

He felt something warm and sticky splatter on his face and faded in his eyes, knowing that the mask of blood he was now carrying would give him away anyway.

One of the guards was down, but the other was turning toward him, gun up and ready. Cunningham tensed to dodge, but before the Asian could fire, a shotgun blast from the hands of a Werewolf cut him down. He fell forward, thudding down the steps of the dais, and Sui Ma was standing unprotected and alone before her throne.

She looked at Cunningham. "You seem to have won for now," she said, almost graciously.

He nedded. "You were right," he said. " I could never work for you. And I don't think that you could ever work for me."

He thrust the blade up and into her stomach, and she gasped, collapsing backward onto her chair. She looked at him for what seemed a long time before her eyes glazed over. Cunningham sighed and turned away. He'd killed before, but it made him feel funny to kill a woman like that. He couldn't totally console himself with the thought that she'd been prepared to do the -same for him.

In the rest of the chamber the Werewolves were wrapping up the last few of their surprised, outnumbered foes. Warlock stepped over Deadhead, cowering on the floor, and came up to join Cunningham at the top of the dais.

"Got here as soon as we could," he said, "after one of the brothers spotted you being hustled out of that laundromat. Finally figured, what the hell, bust in and-"

He stopped and stared at Cunningham. Cunningham supposed that he was quite a sight. His leg was throbbing like hell. The sword cut he'd taken on the thigh was bleeding like a goddamn river, and the blood of the guard he'd killed was splattered all over his face. Warlock was staring at his face. From the look in his eyes, peering through his Michael Jackson mask, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. The blood, Cunningham realized, must make him look like he'd taken a bad head wound.

"Don't worry"-he laughed-"I'm all right. This isn't mine." He wiped at the blood, smearing it but managing to remove some of it from his features.

Warlock seemed to catch himself. "Right," he said. "Glad you're okay. But we'd better move it before more of these damned gooks show up." He gestured at Sui Ma's corpse. "They're not going to like that."

"Okay," Cunningham said. He looked away from the corpse-littered room. Most of the bodies were Egrets, but a few Werewolves had gone down at the hands of Sui Ma's men. "It's back to the Lair. We've got to figure out where that damned head is."

But despite the death surrounding him, despite the pain he himself felt, Cunningham couldn't keep back a wide smile. It was over. The New Day had come. He was the new head of the Shadow Fists.

In the far-gone days when the Bowery had been noted for its fashionable nightspots, the decrepit building now known as the Werewolves' Lair had been a famous luxury hotel. When things started going bad for the neighborhood, the hotel had been turned into apartments. When the neighborhood really hit the skids, it had degenerated into a flophouse, then been abandoned for well over a decade, sinking even further into pathetic decrepitude before the Werewolves took it over as their headquarters.

They'd made some effort to clean it up, though Werewolf sanitary standards were not exactly those of the Ritz.

It was a smelly warren of dirty little rooms the heart of which was Warlock's Sanctorum. This was a large chamber behind double wooden doors that had a crude pentacle surrounded by the legend 666: LAIR OF THE BEAST Sloppily lettered on them in drippy red paint. It was dimly lit and cluttered with books overflowing their shelves and piled against the walls and sitting on the dusty furniture where they competed for space with occult gimcracks ranging from real human skulls to bundles of dyed chicken feathers that looked like they'd come from Auntie Leveaux's Hoodoo and Love Potion Shoppe.

Cunningham had co-opted Warlock's normal seat behind a desk piled high with more occult stuff, under a rather badly executed portrait of a bald and jowly Aleister Crowley, Warlock's patron saint. Warlock sat in a chair across the desk that was usually reserved for visitors. He was watching Cunningham closely. The ace sat with his bandaged leg held stiffly in front of him, his voice low and thoughtful as he mused on the day's wild events.

"It's Christian," he muttered, "it's got to be Christian. But how did that limey bastard think he was going to get away with taking over? He's too much of an outsider in the Shadow Fists to have a real power base."

"Unless he was conspiring with Sui Ma," Warlock suggested.

Cunningham shook his head. "She seemed genuinely surprised that her brother was dead. I think she really thought that I did it."

"There's Loophole," Warlock said. "He might figure in somewhere."

"He might," Cunningham agreed. "That's why I sent a few of the brothers to his office to pick him up. Maybe he can clear up some of the mystery." He fingered a sheet of paper lying on the desk in front of him. "Like who the hell this is."

It was a sketch done in colored pencil of the redhaired mind-control artist who'd killed Kien's watchdog. Deadhead was really a talented artist, and he'd caught an expression of cruel delight in the kid's smile that was doubly horrific on such a young, otherwise sweet face. There was a respectful knock on the Sanctorum's double doors, and Cunningham looked up from the sketch to see two Werewolves come in with Edward St. John Latham between them.

Latham was a lean, handsome man in a dark gray Brooks Brother suit with a light, almost imperceptible purple pinstripe. His face had no expression at all as he entered the room and nodded at Cunningham. He ignored Warlock as he sat down in the chair next to him, crossing his leg casually, ankle over knee. "I suppose congratulations of a sort are in order," he said.

"Thanks, Sinjin." Cunningham knew that Latham disliked being called Sinjin as much as he could be said to dislike anything. He was an emotionless, supposedly utterly loyal bastard. It was hard to see where he'd fit into a conspiracy against Kien. "But there's still some things I'd like to clear up."

"Such as?"

"Such as are you with me and Warlock, or the general and his sister?"

Latham smiled without humor. "I've already heard about the late general and his late sister. There's not much of a decision to make, is there?"

"I'm glad to see that you're being sensible. Tell me. What do you know about Leslie Christian?"

"Christian?" Loophole frowned. "Why?"

"He's the missing ace from the deck. I've got, the Werewolves scouring the city for him, but he seems to have disappeared. Not, however, before trying to pin Kien's murder on me."

Loophole looked faintly surprised. "Then you didn't kill Kien?"

Cunningham shook his head. "No. Would I do a thing like that? I figure Christian had to have been involved in the killing somehow. He showed up right after I'd found the body and tried to frame me, then he disappeared."

"Why would Christian kill Kien?" Latham asked.

"I don't know. But what do we really know about him?" Cunningham asked, ticking the points off one by one on his fingers. "He's an ace of some kind. He's foreign. He drinks. Somehow he wormed his way into Kien's confidence. He could have half a million reasons for wanting Kien dead, but we don't know enough about him to guess what they might be."

"Whereas," Latham said dryly, "you just had one reason for wanting the general dead."

"Okay," Cunningham conceded. "We're being honest with each other. I admit it. I wanted to be head of the Shadow Fists. I had ... plans. But I didn't kill Kien." He reached across the desk and handed Latham the drawing of the youthful mind-control artist that had skewered Kien's batrachian watchdog. "He did."

Latham took it, glanced at it. Something flickered across his face, and for a moment Cunningham could swear that the usually unflappable lawyer was unsure of himself.

"The joker saw this kid mind-control Kien and make him shove his face into a bag of rapture. Then the kid killed the joker."

"Interesting," Latham murmured.

"You have any idea who this could be?"

Latham looked at him a long while, then said, "Perhaps. "

"Do you want to let me in on it?"

Latham considered it for another long moment, then nodded. "In the interest of truth," he said without a trace of irony in his voice, "and justice."

Cunningham suppressed a smile, but Warlock let out an audible snort.

"He runs with a street gang that's done some work for the Shadow Fists," Latham said. "His name is Blaise. He is Dr. Tachyon's grandson."

A half-dozen derelict jokers were sitting around the entrance to the boarded-up old movie theater in the heart of the Bowery, sharing a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag and soaking up the last rays of the autumnal sun like a clutch of bloated lizards.

"How's it going, fellows?" Cunningham asked the bums. A few looked up as he spoke. "Maybe you guys could help me. I'm looking for someone. This kid." He waved Deadhead's drawing. "I heard he hangs out here with a gang." He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a twenty. That elicited a little more interest.

One of the joker's eyes rotated forward like a chameleon's and focused on Cunningham. "You a cop or something?"

"That's right," Cunningham told him.

"You look like a cop. Kind of clean-cut, anyway. A cop on television. That right, boys?" There was general murmured assent, and Cunningham decided that he'd better bring the conversation back on track.

"What about the kid?"

"That bratty asshole. Him and his gang of assholes. The theater used to be ours before they moved in. Now it's loud music every time of the day and night and you really gotta be careful. They know when the welfare money comes in and they'll take it right from you."

"Is he inside now?"

"Yeah," the joker said. "Him and his expensive clothes. You can tell he's rich. He don't need to hang out here. He should give it back to us and go home to Manhattan. Him and all those brats."

Cunningham smiled, and dropped the twenty-dollar bill. It fluttered onto the bum's lap and he grabbed at it as the other derelicts surged to their feet. Cunningham watched them scramble for the loot, and then weave and stagger to the liquor store across the street in the wake of the lucky stiff who'd grabbed it.

He crossed the street himself and looked into the window of the car idling at the curb. Warlock was driving. Deadhead was in the seat next to him, looking jittery and unsure as always. Latham was in the backseat, flanked by a pair of fierce-looking Werewolves. There were three cars parked at discreet distances behind this one. All were loaded with heavily armed Werewolves.

"Okay," Cunningham said. He took a deep breath. "This looks like a job for Fadeout." He smiled. "I'm going to try the back door. I want you guys to wait here for now" Warlock nodded. "Be careful," he said.

"I will. Trust me on that." He-nodded to the Werewolf and recrossed the street.

The theater's back door was locked, but the lock was old and cheap and yielded easily to Cunningham's probe. The door opened into musty darkness, a dank, garbage-choked passageway that apparently led behind the movie screen, then forked into the auditorium. Cunningham froze in his tracks as the sound of gunfire suddenly blasted through the theater. He crouched in the darkness, listening. The sound had an unreal quality to it. The voice shouting over it was familiar and almost inhumanly loud. There was a thundering crash, the sound of roaring engines, and the plaintive cry, "I can't die. I haven't seen The Al Jolson Story yet!" and Cunningham suddenly realized what was happening.

Someone was screening a movie, apparently the hideous remake of Howard Hawkes's classic Thirty Minutes Over Broadway. Cunningham waited in the darkness as the sound of a plane going down filled the theater. There was a loud explosion as it crashed on the Manhattan shoreline, then cheers and whistles from the audience. There were apparently few Jetboy fans in attendance.

Cunningham went on down the passageway. He brushed past a thick, dusty cloth hanging and found himself in the auditorium. It wasn't crowded. There were twenty, maybe twenty-five kids sitting close to the screen in the center section. Few seemed very interested in the images flickering before them. Some were gorging themselves on candy and ice cream, others were making out though making out was a rather tame term for some of the acts Cunningham witnessed in the light reflected from the huge white screen.

One boy, though, was riveted to the action on the screen, despite the underaged siren rubbing up against him like an affection-starved cat. Even in the darkness, Cunningham could make out his gorgeous red hair and delicately handsome features. It had to be Blaise, the kid Latham had identified as Tachyon's grand-brat.

His eyes were glued to the screen, where people were now turning into rubber and plastic monsters courtesy of cheap special effects as the wild-card virus rained down from the sky. There was a scene cut, and Dudley Moore was suddenly strutting across the stage in a grotesque parody of Tachyon, wearing a ghastly red wig and an outfit that would have done justice to a drag queen.

Moore clutched at his hair as if he were searching for cooties. "Burning sky!" he swore. " I warned them! I warned them all!" Then he broke into an hysterical fit of weeping.

Blaise stood, throwing aside the girl who had been squirming against him and licking his ear, and drew a handgun he'd had holstered at his side. Cunningham shrank back against the wall as Blaise squeezed off a round. The report was startlingly loud within the confines of the auditorium, making the soundtrack explosions sound like harmless popguns in comparison.

But Blaise wasn't shooting at Cunningham. He hadn't even seen him. He'd put a bullet through the screen right between Dudley Moore's eyes. The ragtag audience of juvenile delinquents cheered, and Blaise sat down, a malevolent smile on his lips. In that moment Blaise looked as hardened and evil as the most twisted characters Cunningham ever had to deal with in the Fists. It was frightening to see such an expression on such a young face.

Cunningham shuddered, and moved on.

The lobby was dirty, dark, and deserted. The afternoon's last light filtered in through the cracks between the plywood boards haphazardly placed over the theater's glass doors. The concession stand was empty and dusty, though fresh popcorn was in the popper and cardboard boxes half-full of candy treats were stacked atop the counter. The confections all looked recent, probably brought in by the gang to devour while watching the main feature. They had, Cunningham remembered, also been eating ice-cream bars.

He went to the portable ice-cream cart parked next to the candy counter and opened the door in the top. He looked in it for a long moment. There, nestled among a couple dozen ice-cream sandwiches, was Kien's head, raggedly cut off at the neck.

Cunningham found himself oddly reluctant to touch the cold, dead flesh. He wasn't squeamish, and he'd had no great love for Kien when the general had been alive, but there was something ghastly about his manner of death that disturbed him. He looked down at the glassily staring eyes and sighed.

There was no way he was going to get any answers unless he got the head to Deadhead. He picked it up. It was cold as a block of ice. Somehow he felt better after he'd dumped a box of candy bars behind the counter, put the head in the box, and faded it all to invisibility.

He peeked into the auditorium. The movie had progressed through the scene where Tachyon had saved Blythe van Rennsaeler from a gang of crazed joker lootersto accompanying hisses and boos from the watching gang. They were just raggedy-ass kids. Sure, some were armed and Tachyon's grand-brat was a mind-control artist, but Cunningham had a couple of carloads of Werewolves outside waiting for his call. He crept back into the lobby and set the box with Kien's head in it on the candy counter. He went up to the lobby doors. They were pulled shut with a chain looped around their bars. with an open padlock dangling from the chain. He creaked the doors open cautiously and peered out the front of the theater.

The bums were back, but they were too engrossed in squabbling over the newly purchased bottle of booze to even notice Cunningham. He gestured at the cars parked at the curb across the street, waving vigorously, and doors opened and Werewolves got out. They crossed the street. The derelicts noticed them and realized at last that something was about to happen. They moved off silently down the street, clutching their paper-bag-wrapped bottles as if afraid the Werewolves were going to try to take them away.

"What is it?" Warlock asked as they approached. "It's Blaise and his fellow delinquents, all right. Round 'em up, but don't start anything rough. Watch out for Blaise. He's got a gun and some kind of mind-control powers, but he should be smart enough not to start anything when he sees there's a bunch of us. And Deadhead." The insane ace looked almost guiltily at Cunningham. "I've got something for you."

"The head?" Warlock and Latham asked at the same time.

Cunningham nodded.

The Werewolves filed silently through the lobby. There were a dozen of them, big, tough mothers dressed in leather and armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and shotguns. Cunningham was at their head, after showing a happily drooling Deadhead the cardboard box on the candy counter and leaving him to it.

"Remember," he warned the Werewolves, "keep it quiet, but if that Blaise brat tries to start anything, blow him loose." He turned to the Werewolf leader. "Warlock, stick close to Latham. Make sure he behaves."

"You heard him," Warlock said. "Let's do it."

Inside the auditorium the movie had progressed to the famous scene between Dudley Moore as Tachyon and Pia Zadora as Blythe van Rennsaeler, with Moore, rose in mouth, playing an elephantine melody on the piano while Zadora sang of "alien love" and the audience roared with laughter.

Time to end this, right now, Cunningham thought. He stepped into the auditorium, drew his pistol, and fired off a round into the ceiling.

That got everyone's attention. Candy and popcorn went flying as the teenage delinquents leaped to their feet and made abortive attempts to flee.

"Hold it, everyone!" Cunningham shouted in his best authoritative voice. Either his tone of command worked or the sight of a dozen heavily armed Werewolves did. Everyone froze. Everyone but Blaise.

He stood slowly, and faced Cunningham from across the auditorium. "What do you want?" he shouted over Zadora's sudden squeals of ecstasy as Dudley Moore had his way with her on the piano bench.

"Just to talk," Cunningham said. "There's nothing to fear."

"Sure," Blaise said. He sauntered up slowly to the head of the auditorium, fully aware that everyone's eyes were on him and playing his role as gang chieftain to the hilt. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked Cunningham casually.

Cunningham jerked his head back to the lobby. "In there." He looked at the Werewolves. "You five keep an eye on the kids. The rest of you come with us."

The Werewolves followed Cunningham, Blaise, Warlock, and Latham back into the lobby. Deadhead looked around guiltily. "Chinese food," he said through a full mouth, and turned back to his task.

Blaise frowned. "Oh," he said. "I see you found it. Too bad. He said I could have it."

"He?" Cunningham asked, leaning forward eagerly in anticipation.

"Me," a new voice drawled.

Everyone turned to look at the stairs leading up to the projection booth to see a middle-aged, blond, weatherbeaten man standing there, smiling. Something in his smile made Cunningham feel cold.

"Christian," he said, swiveling his gun toward the British ace. "I knew itl Why did you do it? Why did you kill Kien?"

Christian's sardonic smile widened as he ambled casually down the remaining stairs and joined the others on the floor of the lobby. "But I didn't," he protested.

"You can't deny that you were this brat's accomplice."

"I'm not denying that at all," Christian said blandly. "I'm simply denying that we killed Kien."

"What?" Cunningham asked.

As if on cue, Deadhead suddenly moaned and turned and faced them. "Why are you doing this to me?" he whined. "Why are you stealing my body? Why, Kien?"

A cold wind blew through Cunningham. "Kien?" he repeated softly.

Christian leaned against the candy counter. "Of course," he said with a sardonic smile on his tanned features. "You've been plotting and planning to take my place for a long time. I got sick of it. I decided to flush all the conspirators into the open, using," and he nodded at Blaise, "my jumper friend here to provide me with a perfect cover."

"No," Deadhead whined. "Please, no. I've been loyal..."

"Jumpers?" Cunningham said. The realization that Blaise and the others were jumpers made him turn cold. "You changed bodies with Christian and faked your own murder?"

"Exactly. Latham had brought the jumpers into our sphere of influence some time ago. I decided, however, to bypass him this time and approach Blaise directly. I used him to switch bodies. Since then I've been using Christian's astral projection to keep track of you and the others."

That explained a lot, Cunningham thought, grateful that he was surrounded by a band of friendly Werewolves. "Too bad, in the end, you miscalculated." He turned to Warlock. "Waste him," he said.

Warlock's face was unreadable behind the Michael Jackson mask. He lifted his pump shotgun, then turned and placed its barrels directly under Cunningham's chin. "Sorry," he said.

Christian--Kien--laughed. "Splendid!"

"What are you doing?" Cunningham demanded. "Kill him! Kill him and it's all over."

"It is over," Warlock said gently. "You see, my power allows me to see death on people's faces. I saw it this morning on yours at Sui Ma's. I knew then that you would die before the day ended."

Cunningham felt sudden sweat spring up on his forehead. "But kill him! All you have to do is kill him!" Warlock shook his head and Kien laughed and laughed. Cunningham turned to face him. "You were dead. I thought you were dead-" he started, but Kien held up his hand, stopping him.

"No excuses. No lies. I have flushed out a traitor, but find myself trapped in an old, badly abused body. I think," he said, looking hard at Cunningham, "that I would like to trade it in on a younger model."

"No!" Cunningham screamed. He tried to fade and run, but he heard high, tittering laughter from Blaise and a hand of cold metal clamped down on his naked brain. The room spun and he was somewhere else. His legs were young and strong, but everything was whirling about, making him dizzy and nauseated, and he couldn't get them to work. His perspective shifted again almost immediately and he'fell against the candy counter. He bounced, hit the floor, and started to crawl away, but his body was old and tired and his head was swimming and confused.

He heard faraway laughter, and an eager young voice said, "Let me!"

Someone turned him over and he saw blazing red hair and a young, horrible grin, but most of all he saw a huge gun barrel pointing right at his face.

He closed his eyes and tried to speak, but no words would come. He may have heard the horribly loud, terribly frightening explosion. But that was all.