"Such praise," he admitted, spreading his arms, bowing grandly, "deserves riches beyond compare. Would that I had riches beyond compare to share with you, my dear Miss Levin, but such riches as I have are reserved for greater, more noble things, no offense, like getting that bread for your mother."

"And the casinos."

No one spoke.

The wind gusted again, too hot for April.

Trey was used to being the neighborhood anomaly. Most loyal citizens of the city in the middle of the desert didn't bother much with the casinos. Once in a while, maybe, but they had more important things to do. Like making a living. Many did, at the hotels; many more did, at the stores and schools and scores of other ordinary businesses the outside world didn't believe existed because all they saw were the lights and the magicians and the showgirls and the wheels.

In the neighborhood, they spoke only of his dragon.

Casino was a word few ever used.

Starshine had broken a golden rule. She cleared her throat and swiped at an invisible insect. Swiped again, and looked for another pebble to kick, almost sighing aloud in relief when a car pulled up beside them, an old Oldsmobile long enough to be a cruise liner.

"Hey," she said to the woman in the passenger seat.

"Hey yourself."

"Going to work?"

"No," Trey said. "Mrs. Olin has hijacked her husband, and they're heading for Texas to raise miniature cattle somewhere south of Austin."

"He's weird," Starshine said, leaning down to wave at the man behind the steering wheel. "Hey, Cable."

"Yeah." More a grunt than a word.

As far as Trey knew, the man seldom said more than three or four words at a time in public, and only when he was feeling expansive. God only knew what it was like at home. Stephanie, on the other hand, would talk a politician to death if given half a chance. Her ambition was to be a singer; her current job was a showgirl at the Tropicana. He had made it a point, once having met her, never to see her on stage. She was lovely enough as it was; he didn't need to know how she looked without half her clothes on.

Besides, Cable would tear his head off.

"You going in, Trey?" she asked. A small high voice, long dark hair twisted over one shoulder, her figure hidden in a bulky sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. Legs long enough that Cable had to push the seat back, forcing him to drive virtually straight-arm. "Give you a lift."

He shook his head. "No, thanks. But thanks."

"I'll go," Starshine said eagerly.

Stephanie smiled. "I don't think so, hon. Your mother would scalp me."

"Dope," Moonbow muttered.

Cable gunned the engine, glaring at the windshield. His complexion was Mediterranean dark, a thick mustache to match wavy dark hair that spread from beneath a baseball cap. He worked at Treasure Island, sweeping up after the gamblers. He took the late shift so he wouldn't be tempted to watch Stephanie, and the men who tried nightly to pick her up. He trusted her; he didn't trust his temper.

That was the line.

Trey knew better.

It was his face that kept him under the cap and in the dark. One of the early Sickness victims, lucky to survive but leaving his skin severely pocked and scarred. There were lots of Cables in Las Vegas. Hiding. Judith Levin said it was akin to survivor's syndrome-guilt they hadn't died with all the others, and because of the tracks the virus left behind, unable to blend in with those who still lived.

"Come on," Cable growled. "We're gonna be late." He pulled away quickly, Stephanie waggling her fingers in a hasty farewell wave, forcing the others to turn away from the dust the wind scattered a moment later.

"I," Starshine announced, patting the dust from her T-shirt, "am going to be like her some day."

Moonbow scoffed silently.

"Well, I am! I'm going to make a lot of money, wear nice clothes, and ..." She turned away. "And get out of here as quick as I can."

"What about Professor Freneau?" her sister asked, so sweetly it was almost unbearably nasty.

"He's a drunk. Screw him."

Moonbow wouldn't let it go. "But 'Shine, I thought you liked him."

"Screw him."

"But-"

Trey rapped her spine with a knuckle, making her yelp and turn. "Enough," he told her.

"But-"

"Enough." A chill walked his arms, and he rubbed them vigorously. The sky was clear, but he felt a storm just the same. "Your sister wants to walk around half-naked all the time, that's her business."

Starshine's eyes widened. "What do you mean, half-naked?"

He gave her a half-smile. "Come on, kid, you ever see Steph's costume? What there is of it?"

"Well..."

Too dark now, but he could have sworn she blushed.

The music grew. Singing, clapping, old-time gospel with a rambunctious choir that dared the world to end.

Moonbow grimaced. "I hate that stuff."

Starshine agreed. "She deaf or something?"

"Makes you feel good," he said, mildly scolding, a playful cuff aimed at their heads. "Besides, the woman's a star, remember? That's probably her singing. I wish there was more of it."

Starshine made a face. "Gross." She rubbed her stomach. "I'm hungry. Come on, brat, let's eat. Momma's gonna be mad if we're late. I'll take your plate if you don't hurry."

"In a while, okay? Besides, you'll get fat and won't be able to go around half-naked."

Starshine took a half-hearted swipe at her sister's head and ran off, no good-bye, no wave, slipping in and out of the dark places the porch lights couldn't reach.

Trey watched until she was gone, listened to the music, didn't move when Moonbow sidled over and took his head again.

"She's not your princess, right?" she asked hopefully.

"No," he answered. "She's the jester."

She laughed. "And Momma? What's she?"

"My executioner, if you don't get home for supper, kid."

The wrong answer; he could feel it through her hand.

She wanted him to say his queen.

But queens didn't marry, or even live with, men like him.

one who walks into a school in more cities than he can count, putting on the drab coloration of a janitor's uniform, sweeping floors, washing windows, washing blackboards, washing walls, talking with students until someone gets nervous and he's shown the door, politely, because liability was something administrations couldn't really afford; never more than three or four months at a time, living in pay-by-night hotels and cardboard boxes and under bridges and in alleys until he can't stand it anymore and makes his way back to the dragon; builds a stake; runs back to the world; and finds himself increasingly the target of those who think he's an easy mark, a bum with a few bucks who didn't deserve them; beaten, once stabbed, once just for the hell of it thrown from a bridge into the Allegheny River; learning to fight, learning to survive, trying to keep in mind that the plagues that have battered them give them no outlets for their frustration; and thinking at last while he lay in the intensive care ward of a hospital in the so-called City of Brotherly Love that it's all a crock, that he's just making excuses for people who are just plain rotten.

This time the beating hasn't been just for kicks; this time whoever it was had been trying to kill him.

After Philadelphia, he makes his way south, into the mountains of West Virginia, eventually into Martinsburg on the interstate, where he meets a young couple, Cora and Reed, nudging at twenty and looking a decade older. He spends three days there, bulky cast on his left arm, hunting a ride west, and in that three days he listens to them talking fretfully, hopefully, about finding a preacher who was supposed to be dead but didn't die because he was different.

"How?" Trey asked over the mouth of his longneck, through a mouthful of beer. Their treat, just like the dinner he'd just finished.

Cora shrugged. "Different, that's all."

"Like you," Reed told him with a grin.

Trey snorted. "Yeah, sure. What, he's a drunk?"

"No," Cora said. "He was the first."

"The first what?"

She didn't answer, and neither did the boy. They told him, that last night, of a place not even big enough to be a village, one of those communities that had exploded in the violence that had blown up two years back. Cora and Reed had escaped, hadn't looked back, and finally decided they had to find the preacher, Casey Chisholm.

"Crazy," he had told them. "All the crap that's gone on since, and you're looking for a guy who's probably dead? You're nuts."

When he wakes up the next morning, they're gone, not even a note to say good-bye. But there's money in his jacket pocket, enough to get home with if that's what he wanted.

By then he's so tired all he wants to do is sleep. Find a cave, an empty house, an empty shop, an empty town, and sleep until it was over.

Whatever it was.

Nevertheless he decides to keep moving. It's better than sitting, better than trying to find another job. In Martinsburg there's nothing. The first wave of famine had reached the Appalachians, hit them hard, and the town had decided to shut down. No visitors. No strangers. They had barely enough to feed their own. A cop, for some reason believing Trey wasn't as bad as he looked and ignoring the dirty cast, the healing bruises and slashes across his face, drives him to the interstate, flags down a westbound semi, and helps him into the cab.

"Thanks," Trey had said.

"No problem." Then he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of notepaper. "You know a kid named Cora?"

Damn, he thought, but he'd nodded cautiously just the same.

The cop handed the paper over, waved the truck on, and it was nightfall before he decided to see what was there.

We forgot to tell you, Cora said, that Reed thinks you're special. That's what he meant when he said you're like Reverend Chisholm. I think he's nuts, but he made me tell you anyway. Get a life, mister. Stay alive.

He laughed so hard the driver nearly threw him out.

He returned to the dragon, and the house in the desert, deciding there was no sense leaving again. It had taken nearly twenty years, but he finally took the hint.

And queens never looked twice at men like him.

4.

The time, when it came, came without words.

Moonbow released his hand and watched as he stretched in several directions, yawned wide enough to make his jaw pop, and scrubbed his palms over his hair, then used them to flatten it into a semblance of neatness.

He grinned at her.

She grinned back.

He waved up the street, knowing that her mother was watching through her living room window, knowing she disapproved of his somewhat curious profession, knowing she didn't mind that her daughters enjoyed his company. For the past seven months they had been the only children on the block, and while the others fussed kindly over Moonbow in particular, he seemed to be the only one who treated either one of them like a person, not some kind of fragile, pathetic doll.

He sucked in his stomach, tucked his shirt in and hitched up his belt.

Moonbow examined him, one eye closed, and pronounced her approval with a sharp nod.

Starshine, a month shy of being a freshly minted teen with all the posture that went with it, would have suggested he at least shave if he insisted on looking like that. Whatever, in her eyes, that was.

He touched his cheeks and was tempted. But not tempted enough. There were no other plans tonight. He figured he looked decent enough.

He reached into his jeans and pulled out a thin packet of money, folded over, small bills on top, and counted it carefully. With any luck, along with any of whatever it was that made him what he was, the amount would nearly double before the morning got too old.

Pay the bills, feed the fridge, put a little aside in the metal strongbox under the bed for the time when he was forced to find other accommodations.

"You're stalling," the girl accused.

"Yep."

"Don't."

"Okay."