The Devil's Triangle

by Melinda M. Snodgrass

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

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

And in his dreams they were dancing.

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

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

The violence of his reaction was wearily familiar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"They're boys."

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

"What did you think?" asked Blaise.

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

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

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

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

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

"We have toys for that."

"'What!"

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

"I think that's worse."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Demolishing my fragile Takisian ego."

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

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

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

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

"What is it? What's wrong?"

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

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

"As if it were yesterday."

"Oh, God, I'm sorry"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And why are you here, Madam Surgeon?"

"I had patients to check on."

"As do L"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why?"

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

"You make me sound very spoiled ... heedless."

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

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

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

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

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

"What are you asking for?"

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

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

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

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

"What was that for?" Tachyon asked.

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

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

"Good."

The door closed softly behind her.

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

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

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

Cody, Cody, Cody.

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

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

"Okay, Mom," said Chris.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's not so great."

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

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

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

"So... where is he?"

"In a French prison."

"How come?"

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

"That's good."

"Why?" asked Blaise.

"Because ... well ... because-"

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

"Yeah?"

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

"Who?"

"Uncle Claude."

"And was he a terrorist, too?"

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

"Huh?"

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

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

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

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

"It could happen."

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

He released Chris, and walked out of the apartment.

"Tachyon, we've got to talk."

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

"Cody."

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

"What happened to Chris?" Tachyon said.

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

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

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

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

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

The Takisian steeled himself.

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

"Did he mind-control him?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tach, he needs help."

"I can help him."

"No. You're the problem."

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

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

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

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

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

"I am willing to take that risk."

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

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

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

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

"For now."

"What does that mean, for now?"

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

"How hard are these shields to ... ?"

"To break?"

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

"Damn it!"

"What?"

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

"Why must you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You care for him," suggested Dutton.

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

"I'll leave you to a contemplation of a face for which you care ... er.. . with which you are fascinated."

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

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

"Hi, Cody."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Where did you get these?"

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

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

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

"Cody! They're for you!"

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

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

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

"Don't talk down to me!"

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

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

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

"I don't love you."

"I can make you!"

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

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

"What are you talking about?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I hate you!"

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

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

The Tachyon waxwork was directly opposite him.

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

"Hey!"

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

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

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

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

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

Tachyon returned to the bar and poured himself a drink.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He hates you."

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

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

"What am I going to do?"

"I don't know"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We've been watchin' you."

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

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

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

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

"Take care of myself."

"Think you can?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fine."

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

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

Jumpers.

Jumpers were after him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tach, are you still there?"

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

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

The thought chilled him.

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

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

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

Cody wasn't in her office.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The coat fell with a sigh to the linoleum floor.

"Because I can. . ."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's too late for that!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Put on some clothes," ordered Tachyon.

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

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

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

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

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

"How about just like the one I had."

"Don't waste a golden opportunity"

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

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

"It was a honker."

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

"Then allow me to be creative."

"All right."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It is my pleasure."

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

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

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

"Why the fuck are you following me?"

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

"I don't need dick from you."

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

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

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

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

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

"Read my mind," spat Molly.

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

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

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

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

"What were you going to show me?"

"Let us go."

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

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

"One what?" asked Blaise.

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

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

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

"Or kill," offered another of the gang.

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

"Hurry" prodded Molly Bolt.

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

An incline of the head. "Him."

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

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

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

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

She unbuttoned his shirt.

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

Tach considered. "Washington."

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

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

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

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

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Now what are you apologizing for?"

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

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

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

"I know"

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

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

"But I do not want you angry-"

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

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

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

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

"One if by land?" asked Blaise sarcastically.

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

"Shit!"

"No, Charon."

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

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

"Enough to do anything to get it."

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

"And if I don't?"

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

"Die."

"Huh?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just a little more. Almost there."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'll kill you."

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

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

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

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

Yes, Blaise decided. This was fun.

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

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

"I wanted to," said Cody.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You can be very cold."

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

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

"Then you're a delusional fool."

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm also highly encouraged."

"By what?"

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

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

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

"It was implicit."

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

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

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

"But, my dear, one must dress."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Please, I am frightened for you."

"I'll holler if I need you."

"It will be too far to come."

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

"Cody, he means to harm us."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He is brave. He is trustful."

"Will he serve?"

Molly nudged Blaise.

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

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

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

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

Patience. Patience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blaise threw back his head and screamed like a banshee.

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