He looked at the idea that he might not live through the night and that didn't seem to matter much either. What was one pimp more or less?

He saw Jokertown spread out below him. The barricaded streets were crammed with people in costumes and people who were were costumes, all of them carrying candles and flashlights and torches. Every streetlight and every light in every window up and down the Bowery was at full power. costumes, all of them carrying candles and flashlights and torches. Every streetlight and every light in every window up and down the Bowery was at full power.

He left Caroline on the steps of the Jokertown clinic. The crowds opened up to let him through and then closed again after him. There wasn't a lot of time for sentimental gestures. Caroline was dead now and beyond caring.

He levitated straight up into the sky. He floated there and cleared his mind and pictured Tachyon, in his effeminate clown suits and Day-Glo hair. You You dead dead yet, yet, Tachyon? Tachyon? he thought. he thought. Yo, Yo, Tachyon, Tachyon, do do you you read read me? me?

Tachyon's thoughts filled his head. Finally! Finally! Where Where have have you you been? been? I've I've been been trying trying to to get get through through to to you! you! There There was was some some kind kind of of wall wall of of power power around around you! you!

I'm a a little little charged charged up up tonight, tonight, Fortunato told him. Fortunato told him.

I have have to to see see you you. The image of a warehouse on the East River formed in his mind. Can Can you you meet meet me me here? here? It's It's desperately desperately important. important. It's It's about about the the Astronomer Astronomer.

Fortunato turned the picture of the warehouse inside out. The ship was inside. Shaped like a jewel-studded conch sh.e.l.l and bigger than most houses.

I know know, Fortunato thought. I I already already know know.

Tachyon was still weeping. An An inexhaustible inexhaustible flow flow, Roulette thought wearily, followed by an irritated flash: What What does does he he want want from from me? me?

"Stop it," she said, and her voice seemed to be coming from a long way off.

The alien caught his breath on a sob, lifted his blotchy, tear-stained face from his hands.

"n.o.body cares. You can cry your soul out, but n.o.body will care."

"I loved you." His voice was a husky rasp in the shadows of the room.

"Always in the past tense." And the remark struck her as being unbearably humorous. She never noticed when the laughter became tears.

His hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her until the teeth chattered in her head and the crystal beads in her hair set a cold ringing. "Why? Why?" he shouted.

"He promised me revenge, and peace."

"The peace of the grave. The Astronomer destroys everything he touches. How many bodies must it take to convince you?" He was screaming into her face. "And now Baby, Baby, Baby Baby," he groaned, thrusting her aside.

"And what about you you, Doctor?" she cried. "What about a lifetime of bodies?" The demons began their play, and she clutched at her head whimpering. "My baby."

His mind met hers, but this time there was no blending of thoughts. The chaos of her mind rejected the meld.

"It's happening again," Tachyon cried in an anguished whisper. "I can't bear it. Not again. What should I do? Who can help me?"

He pulled her off the bed, and shoved her toward her clothes. "Get dressed. We must hurry, hurry. If I can reach Baby Baby before the Astronomer does. Then, later . . . later I'll do what I can for you, my poor, poor darling." before the Astronomer does. Then, later . . . later I'll do what I can for you, my poor, poor darling."

Roulette, mechanically pulling on her dress and shoes and gathering up her purse, tried to concentrate, but Tachyon's nervous babblings raked across her nerves, destroying thought. She tried to shut him out.

"Personality deterioration," he mumbled from within the large walk-in closet. "It will be necessary to find the core, rebuild memory compartments." The litany continued like a schoolboy trying to cram for an exam. A hanger screeched across the rod.

Roulette moved swiftly, slid open the dresser drawer, removed the Magnum, secreted it in her purse. An instant later Tachyon, dragging a coat over his unb.u.t.toned shirt, raced into the room, and caught her by the wrist.

She didn't resist. He was taking her to her master. And then she would deal with them both.

Before he could even see the place, Fortunato heard the screaming in his head. It was the noise of a squalling infant, but refined, purified, maddening. He put up a mental block against it just to keep his mind clear.

He flew in over a rundown block and saw the warehouse. It was surrounded by kids in black leather jackets, the last of the gangs that had run wild in the Cloisters. They had M16s and holstered .357 Magnums, like twenty-first-century cowboys. As Fortunato came down at them from the sky they all leaned their heads back to look.

"Run!" Fortunato ordered them. "Run away!" They dropped their rifles and ran.

Fortunato hit the street by the entrance to the warehouse. Something inside hummed like a monstrous carrier wave. There was a single floodlight over the door, but Fortunato himself glowed like a small sun. In that light he saw Tachyon and Roulette running toward him from the direction of Tachyon's apartment.

The Astronomer was already inside. His energy spoor covered the walls and leaked out into the street. Fortunato was reaching for the door when a thin cylinder of pink light punched through the wall next to him, then winked out. There was a sharp cracking noise as air imploded into the vacuum the laser left behind. Somebody inside the warehouse screamed. A second later the laser cut another hole a few yards away, and another. The noise was like cannon fire. Then the humming and the laser stopped together. At the same time the squalling in his head got even louder.

"I'm going in," Tachyon said. "He's hurting Baby Baby."

"Baby," Fortunato said. "Christ."

"It's the name of his ship," Roulette said.

"I know," Fortunato said. "What's your part in this?"

"She's working for the Astronomer," Tachyon said. "She tried to kill me tonight."

Fortunato nearly laughed. So she wasn't freelance after all. Too bad she hadn't pulled it off. Fortunato jerked open the door and saw the Astronomer crawling into the side of the ship.

There was a body on the floor, a kid with a smoking black hole instead of a chest. In the corner were four others: a woman with a nurse's uniform and an M16, another woman in white, a man with a cat's face and long claws, and a plain Oriental woman who looked somehow familiar. The Cloisters, Fortunato thought. He'd seen her there and in the old Masonic temple in Jokertown, just minutes before he'd blown it up. As he watched she became beautiful. Fascinating. He couldn't look away. He could feel the neurons in his brain misfiring.

"Stop it," he ordered. His brain cleared and she became plain and frightened again. The nurse raised the M16 and Fortunato melted it, the plastic stock turning to hot liquid in her hands.

"It's over," the Oriental said, "isn't it? We're not getting out of here."

"Not in that ship," Fortunato said.

"All the way from San Francisco for nothing," she said.

"The door is still an option."

She looked hard to make sure he meant it, then ran for it. The others followed more slowly, not willing to turn their backs on Fortunato.

"Gresham?" Tachyon said. His voice warbled with anger and hurt. "Nurse Gresham?"

"What?" the nurse said.

"How could you? How could you betray my trust?"

"Oh, f.u.c.k off," Gresham said. "What do I care about your f.u.c.king trust?"

Tachyon put both hands to his head. His fingers pulled the flesh into a monster face. Fortunato wondered if he was going to combust. Instead Gresham's eyes rolled up in her head. She spun around once and slammed into the decaying wall next to the door.

"Jesus," Fortunato said. "Did you kill her?"

Tachyon shook his head. "No. She's not dead. Though she deserved it."

"Then you need to get her out of here," Fortunato said. "Both of you. While you still can. I'm going to split that ship like an oyster."

"No!" It was practically a scream. "You can't! I forbid it!"

"Don't get in my way, little man. The Astronomer is one of yours. It's your virus did this to him. I'm going to finish this. If you get in my way I'll kill you."

"Not the ship," Tachyon said. The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d really didn't know when to be scared. Fortunato had to give him that much. "She's alive. It's not her fault this is happening to her. You can't punish her for it."

"There's more at stake here than a G.o.dd.a.m.n piece of machinery."

Tachyon shook his head. "Not for me there isn't. And she's not a machine. If you try to harm her, you'll have to stop to fight me first. You can't afford that. The Astronomer will kill us all."

The little f.u.c.k was not going to back down. "All right. Okay. We play it your way. But you get the Astronomer out of that ship. Or I'll get him out any way I have to."

Tachyon paused for a second and then said, "Agreed."

"What about me?" Roulette said.

"You're coming with me," Tachyon said. He took her hand and pulled her into the ship after him.

[image]

The Astronomer leaned nonchalantly against a post of the bed. The sleeves of his robe were encrusted with blood, and there was the sour odor of death about his bony form. But for the first time since meeting him Roulette sensed confusion and hesitation.

He turned his maddened, red-rimmed eyes upon them.

"You didn't kill him."

The Takisian stepped forward, boot heels ticking on the polished floor. "I proved tougher than you antic.i.p.ated." The awful gaze switched to Tachyon. "And only a coward sends a woman to do his killing."

"Is that the best you can do? Toss a few insults in my direction? You're pitiful, little man."

Suddenly the master Mason staggered, groaned, and clutched at his head. Tachyon, hair like a fiery cloud on his shoulders, eyes bright in a pale face, began to tremble with strain, and beads of sweat lined his forehead. Then, with menacing slowness, the Astronomer straightened, shook off the alien's mind control. Tachyon's eyes widened in fear.

"Die, you irritating gnat." The talonlike fingers curled, and Tachyon flung himself to one side as a ball of flame exploded on the spot he had been standing.

The floor tilted wildly as Baby Baby flinched. flinched.

"It's no good. This ship can't be your escape." Tachyon scrabbled across the polished floor as another ball of flame exploded a delicate chair behind which he'd been hiding. "She doesn't navigate herself. How's your astrogation?"

Roulette squeezed herself into an alcove praying to be overlooked, praying to avoid being incinerated by one of her master's errant energy bolts.

"And you better not sleep if you do get off the planet. She's a sentient being, but of course you've figured that out." Tachyon yelped, and the shoulder of his coat blackened. "You drop your coercion, and she'll blow the locks, or fly into a star. One of the drawbacks to a living ship, as other enemies before you have discovered."

The pyrotechnic display died. The Astronomer eyed Tachyon with something approaching pleasure. "You've made some interesting points, Doctor. So I'll take you with me."

"No . . . I think . . . not." Gasping breaths punctuated the words. "I've set a deathlock. All that I am, body, soul, and mind, oppose you now. To possess me you will have to destroy me."

"A pleasing image."

"Which still leaves you with your original problem." They were circling the room, Tachyon edging warily away from the Astronomer, the Astronomer pacing him with the patience of a predator. "And there's another small matter, but I thought I ought mention it. Fortunato's outside. Waiting. He'll crack this ship to get at you. I'd prefer that he not. Which is why I'm here-though I can think of nothing I'd rather do less than face you."

But the Astronomer had stopped listening. At the mention of Fortunato his face had suffused with blood, and an explosive expletive left his lips flecked with spittle.

"You've plagued me long enough, you useless piece of s.h.i.t. This This time I will finish it." time I will finish it."

He plunged out of the ship, and Tachyon, seizing Roulette by the wrist, raced after him. And into h.e.l.l. b.a.l.l.s of flame screamed through the air, searing the concrete floor and igniting the warehouse walls. There was a backblast of air that sent them tumbling, and Tachyon's hand slipped from her wrist. Masonry and girders rained down as Baby Baby, terrified beyond reasoning, burst through the roof and fled into the night. Choking from the plaster dust, Roulette crawled for the door, ignoring Tachyon's frantic calls, first for Baby Baby, then for her.

Cradling the Magnum she huddled in an alley, and watched the sky.

CHAPTER 23.

4:00 a.m. a.m.

Fortunato felt his legs come off the ground and fold into a lotus. His thumbs touched his forefingers and settled on his knees. He felt as if his final o.r.g.a.s.m with Peregrine was still going on. When she held him and drove the power back into him it was like being blown to atoms and coming back together with the entire universe inside him. He felt like the core of a sun, with flares of energy shooting off him uncontrollably. He felt like it would never end.

It was five minutes later when the Astronomer came out of the ship. Fortunato had lived through his entire life again in every detail, the feel of silk against his skin, the sound of every note of music he'd ever heard, the taste of the breath of every woman he'd ever kissed. It had taken forever and no time at all.

"Motherf.u.c.ker!" the Astronomer screamed. "You're a worm, a maggot, a f.u.c.king amoeba! Why do you keep buzzing around my head, you fly, you mosquito, you locust? Why do you not f.u.c.king die and depart?" He raised his thin hands and the sleeves of his blood-caked robe slid back past his elbows. The insides of his arms were dotted with bruises and sores. Fortunato remembered the heroin he'd seen at the Cloisters.

The Astronomer's hands swelled like canteloupes and then exploded with b.a.l.l.s of flame, hundreds of them, screaming through the air at Fortunato. Each one peeled off a layer of his power as he deflected it and he couldn't rebuild his shields fast enough. The last fireball singed the hair off his left arm.

The roof of the warehouse exploded. The Astronomer shot through it into the sky, still screaming. "A dog that chases me down the street, trying to chew my shoes. Magick? Your kissing and hugging and f.u.c.king and sucking? You're a child, a larva, a little, helpless, wriggling sperm. You've never seen power." He pulled Fortunato up in his wake, and the warehouses, and then the island, fell away under them.

Now the Astronomer was glowing. Hotter, brighter than Fortunato. "Death is the power. Pus and rot and corruption. Hatred and pain and war."

Fortunato saw that the Astronomer was more powerful than he'd ever imagined. It left him strangely calm. The city was far below and behind him, nothing more than a grid of lights. They were over the East River between Manhattan and Queens. The Williamsburg Bridge was just to Fortunato's right, the cables clanking hollowly in the wind.

They were high enough up that Fortunato's skin felt cold where his tux shirt hung open. The air was clean and a salt smell blew in from Long Island Sound. His legs had unfolded and he stood in midair, his arms curled at his sides. He knew he was going to die.

He saw himself as the hexagram Ken, the Mountain, keeping still. His opponent was Sung, Conflict, boiling with chaos and destruction. There was no point in rebuilding his shields. He drew all the power inside him into the middle of his body, formed it into a sphere and compressed it. Harder, tighter, until all his strength and knowledge and energy was compacted into a grain the size of a pinhead, just behind his navel.

There would be no second chance. He launched it at the Astronomer. It shot through the air, leaving Fortunato limp and frail and empty. It was so bright he had to put his hands in front of his eyes, and even so he could see the bones through his flesh.