"Lady," he said, "this is what I call medication!"

She twisted around and saw that the room behind her was filled with jokers of every variety, and among them, forcibly restrained, were two nurses and a doctor.

They broke loose from their captors and rushed the bed, pulling her off and examining the man.

"I saw it, but I don't believe it!"

"Right before my very eyes-"

"I thought this one was already dead--"

"Who are you? What room are you in?"

She backed away from their questions, into the waiting arms of the jokers. A misshapen man whose features had been scrambled thrust his distorted face into hers and demanded, "Can I be next?"

"No, me!" shouted someone else, and then hands were grabbing at her, pulling her every which way, trying to throw her down on the floor.

"SAL!" she screamed.

The room was suddenly filled with fog, and then a wall of water crashed through the door, slapping them all down. Jane let it carry her across the room, onto the ex joker's bed. She rolled into the headboard and slipped down to the floor.

More fog poured into the room as she crawled around the confused, shouting, drenched mob splashing about in the ankle-deep water, and she fled through the open doorway.

By the time the alarms went off, she had already left the building.

The luncheonette was a far cry from Aces High, and the clientele didn't tip nearly as well, but they didn't expect a whole lot. Most of them hardly looked at her-a waitress with a short, punkish haircut and an ill-fitting, baggy white uniform wasn't especially noteworthy in that part of town. The owner was a big motherly woman named Giselle who called her Lamb and asked nothing more of her help than their being on time and trying to remember any good jokes they overheard from the customers. Giselle collected jokes, and the regulars were always happy to supply them.

Like the two-headed man who came in every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning for a bacon-and-egg sandwich. He/they always had a new one to offer.

"Hey, have you heard the latest?" he/they said as she was setting the dish down in front of him/them. "There's good news and there's better news."

She smiled at each head politely. The two-headed man was one/two of the better tippers.

"The good news is, there's this woman that can turn you back into a nat by s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g you!"

Her smile froze, but he/they didn't seem to notice. "You know what the better news is?"

She shook her head, unable to speak.

"She's really good-looking!" Both heads roared with laughter, accidently bonking into each other. She tried to laugh with them, but she couldn't manage even a mild ha-ha-ha.

The heads sobered and looked up at her, slightly disappointed in her lack of reaction. "Hey, we guess you gotta be a joker-"

"-to really appreciate it," finished the other head, and giggled a little more.

"It's-it's very good, really," she said in a too-cheery voice. "I'll have to remember to tell it to Giselle when she comes in. I don't think she's heard it yet."

"Well, don't forget-"

"-to tell her where-"

"-you heard it first!"

"I won't," she said, still smiling her frozen smile at each head. "I won't forget. I promise."

Takedown

by Leanne C. Harper

Rosemary stared out into the spring rain. Gray and dirty, outside it looked more like winter. Chris Mazzucch.e.l.li droned on in the background. Christ, how had she ever gotten involved with a jerk like him? Living underground with him had shown her the difference between dealing with Chris on an occasional basis and being together nearly twenty-four hours a day. He was no longer a romantic rebel in her eyes; he was a vicious punk. The problem was he was her vicious punk.

She returned her attention to the crisis at hand, but her eyes were immediately caught by the sight of Chris's rattail bouncing up and down on his back as he paced the dingy little Alphabet City hotel room they were using as a safe house.

"We lost eight capos to this double cross. Fiore, Baldacci, Schiaparelli, Hanc.o.c.k, and my brother. Dead. Vince Schiaparelli looked like he had been turned inside out. Fiore's skin turned into stone and he choked to death. Hanc.o.c.k and Baldacci weren't there anymore-just puddles with bones sticking out. My brother-" Here even he gagged and hesitated. "Three more, worse than dead.

Matriona and Cheng walked away. They're fine, just fine. Since then we've been able to do nothing more than stay even, if that."

"And what did we get? Siu Ma. We already knew about her. We've tried to kidnap her twice, for Christ's sake. We know who's behind the Immaculate Egrets. But we still don't know who the ultimate leader is." Rosemary Gambione shook her head.

"Even if Croyd knew something truly useful, they didn't get it out of him.

Great. The Shadow Fists must have gotten to him. We hit a few more Shadow Fist operations, lose some more of our people, and we're just as far away as ever.

Even worse, they've started using some kind of biological warfare against us. I wonder whose side this Croyd is really on."

"Well, O fearless leader, any ideas? I've done everything I can think of," Chris spun on her, anger and fear mixed evenly on his face. "And do me a favor, don't bring up your f.u.c.king father again. I've had about all I can take of that, too."

"Find your informer, this Croyd. Maybe he does have something more. Let's try to find out how the Shadow Fists got hold of this wild card virus they used. If they have it, we need it." Rosemary thought but did not voice' her apprehension that if the Families were this far behind, they had already lost the war. She was the sole surviving don. The Shadow Fists had gotten all the others. This war had begun to feel like Vietnam, and they weren't on the right side.

"I'll do what I can. By this time he's probably in Outer f.u.c.king Mongolia."

Chris looked unimpressed by her request. "Chris. Get him." Rosemary used the drill sergeant tone deliberately. She suspected that he did not always follow her orders. She wondered at the speed with which the papers had gotten hold of her true background and whether the source could have been within the Family.

Mazzucch.e.l.li looked back at her with swiftly concealed loathing.

"Anything you say. Dear." Chris stalked across the room before turning back at the door. "By the way, you might find it amusing that our boy Bludgeon apparently beat the s.h.i.t out of Sewer Jack Robicheaux a few nights ago. He found out that Jack turned us down, I guess, and took it upon himself to teach the dirty little Cajun a lesson in manners. I gave him a little bonus for the job, in your name, of course."

Rosemary sat on the bed. It wasn't supposed to be this way. She was completely isolated from her people. Chris told her it was the only way to guarantee her security, but the situation was getting to her. She looked across the room to the door. She didn't feel like an all-powerful Mafia don. She felt like a prisoner.

Bagabond let herself into C.C. Ryder's loft expecting that C.C. would be in the studio. Instead, Cordelia was bothering C.C. again. She wondered what Cordelia wanted this time. Bagabond had had to dodge around even more people wearing the useless surgical masks. She had no sympathy for those panicked by this new outbreak of the wild card virus. Maybe it would do them some good. Paced by the ginger cat, Bagabond walked over to the couch and sat down on the floor beside C. C. The ginger put her head in Bagabond's lap. Both women nodded to her before continuing their discussion.

"There's something weird about that Shrike. I can feel it." Cordelia leaned forward to make her point. "And what they're doin' to Buddy just isn't right. He wrote those songs!"

"Cordelia, Shrike Music is a perfectly legitimate business. I know people who record for them. They're good business people. If Holley gave up the rights to his songs, that was his decision to make." C.C. shook her head wearily. "This business is full of trade-offs. That's the way it works. You know that by now.

Buddy's got his new songs. They're good. Let it be."

"But I can tell by talking to Buddy that it wasn't his decision. He jus' won't tell me what happened." Cordelia got that look on her face that told Bagabond that she was not about to give up. Bagabond got up and went into the kitchen.

Cordelia's obsession with saving the world reminded her uncomfortably of some of the younger nuns she'd met as a child. They had all wanted to be saints, real ones.

"The old-timers got ripped off. Look at Little Richard. It wasn't right; it wasn't fair. But it was legal. You can't do anything about that. Buddy has other preoccupations now. The concert went fine. Leave it."

"But you saw him a few weeks ago. Playing in a Holiday Inn in New Jersey!

Somebody has to help him, and I'm going to do it." Cordelia's eyes shone with the fervor of the converted.

"Let Buddy get on with his life."

"Hey, it's not even my idea dis time. They want to see me." Cordelia waved her hands innocently in the air.

C.C. shook her head in resignation. "So what's this great plan of yours?"

Bagabond hacked off a chunk of cheddar cheese for herself and another for the cat. Nibbling at hers, she walked back into the living room.

"I have an appointment to meet a Shrike exec tomorrow. I put him off until well after the concert." Cordelia scooted down on the couch and put her arms around her knees. "And I need to know what to ask him."

"Me." C.C. sighed and reached down for a bite of Bagabond's cheese.

"Right. You. My expert on recording contracts." Cordelia bounced once in triumph and grinned over at C.C. "I want to see the original contracts, right?"

"I guarantee you that they are not going to let you see Holley's contract."

"I'll find a way." Cordelia grinned unself-consciously. "Woo, hey, I gotta go."

Cordelia was up and headed for the door. "I see you two later. Bye, y'all."

Chris Mazzucch.e.l.li burst into the room to face Rosemary's drawn Walther. He waved both hands in the air languidly, then dropped them and threw himself down on the bed.

"Put that silly thing away before you shoot yourself. Jesus Christ, woman."

"I haven't seen you for days. Where the h.e.l.l have you been?" Rosemary lowered the pistol but did not holster it.

"I've been a good little boy. I've been out finding Croyd just like you wanted."

Chris rolled over onto his elbows. "I've got an address all ready for you."

"Don't be ridiculous, Chris. I'm not leaving this room." Rosemary sat down on a chair across the narrow room from Chris. "It's too dangerous."

"Maybe if you exposed yourself to a little 'danger,' you'd get some idea what we're up against. You sure as h.e.l.l don't know anything now." Chris sat all the way up on the bed. "Or is that more than your heart would take? Your father would never be caught dead hiding his face like this."

"All right." Rosemary knew she was being baited, but the question was whether Chris had the guts to kill her. "Where?"

"In jokertown, in a hotel near the docks." Chris smiled openly in triumph.

"Fitting, don't you think?"

Chris got up and walked over to her. He stroked her cheek. She tensed but did not pull away.

"C'mon, baby, we've got until tomorrow."

It took hours to get rid of him. When he finally left-to make final preparations for her security, or so he said-she went to the bathroom and pried open the window. With one foot on the sink and the other on the water tank, she levered herself outside onto the fire escape.

Rosemary climbed the fire escape to the roof, silently cursing at the least rusty squeak it gave. On the roof she walked as quietly as possible to a small flock of pigeons cooing on the edge of the building. When they did not fly off at her approach, she scattered some crumbs from the sandwiches she had been eating for weeks.

"Bagabond, help me." She tried to catch the eyes of each pigeon, wondering how long it could carry her image in its tiny brain. There was no other chance.

"Bagabond, I need you. Chris is going to kill me."

Bagabond was her last hope. Chris wouldn't dare just shoot her. It would be too obvious to the few mafiosi still loyal to her father and the Gambione name. He had had to find another way. This was it, she could feel it.

Bagabond pulled off her headphones. Something, like a fading echo within her mind, had broken her concentration on C.C.'s newest tapes. She tracked it back through the lines of consciousness that intersected in her mind, identified the medium as a bird's mind, then found the pigeon who carried the vision. Rosemary called to her again out of the pigeon's memory.

Rosemary had given her address. Bagabond knew the area. She sat stroking the ginger's back as she debated meeting Rosemary. She couldn't trust the woman anymore. In the message she had left among the pigeons, Rosemary promised to tell Bagabond who really killed Paul. The Mafia leader sounded sincere, but Bagabond had seen her in action before. She was a lawyer. She was trained to say whatever would best serve her purposes at that moment.

But even Rosemary's training could not hide the fear that was carried by every pigeon she had reached. Rosemary was terrified. Bagabond remembered the first time they had met.

The social worker, frightened then but frightened of not being able to help, had done everything she could for the street people. Bagabond remembered Rosemary's teasing questions about her dates with Paul and going shopping together for just the right outfit to impress him. Rosemary had given her back part of her life.

But she had paid that debt. She'd already saved Rosemary's life once when Water Lily had betrayed her. Betrayal. What about Paul? Wasn't helping Rosemary betraying Paul? Bagabond still suspected that Rosemary was more involved in his death than she would admit.

Bagabond stood up and dumped the cat onto the floor. She picked up her old coats and wrapped them around her. If she decided that Rosemary was lying about Paul's death, she had meant too much to her for too long to abandon her now. She turned off the tape deck and amplifier. The green telltales that had illuminated the room dimly faded to black. Bagabond's eyes adjusted almost instantly as she walked unhesitatingly across the loft toward the door and the New York City night.

Down on the street she began gathering her forces. Bagabond contacted the pigeons, the cats and the dogs, and the rarer ones: the pair of peregrine falcons, the wolf who had escaped from his would-be owners, and the ocelot who spent her time prowling the parks for stray dogs. The wild ones listened to her call and were ready to follow her.

Rosemary was north near Jokertown. It would be a long walk to this hotel where she would be meeting someone who planned to harm her. Bagabond slipped into a subway entrance and began working her way through the tunnels toward Jokertown.

She had gone almost a mile underground when Jack called.

Jack had been missing since the night of the concert. Cordelia had been concerned, but she had a.s.sumed that he was doing what he wanted and had not tried to find him. He and Bagabond continued to avoid each other, and she had not tracked him down either. The strength of his sending was incredible.

Bagabond fell to one knee, then collapsed under the weight of it.

She caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of images. It was enough to tell her she was in a hospital.

But that was not the message. Jack was cycling through the human-alligator as fast as he could, using the alligator-persona to contact her and the human to communicate. It was Cordelia. She was in trouble. Filtered through Jack's perceptions, Bagabond understood that Cordelia had called for Jack but he was physically unable to help her.

Not only was he switching between alligator and human, he was alternating between consciousness and coma. Jack was expending all the energy he could muster to ask her for help.