DAY 2

"Good dreams of bad things."

WEARING DANGEROUS SMILES

I was watching the world through tears.

Mandy and the Beetle had emerged, two o'clock in the afternoon, from a damp bed, and were now taking late breakfast at the table. Mandy's cheeks were glowing like an ad. You know the kind of thing -- SEX IS GOOD FOR YOU -- DO IT EVERY DAY. THIS HAS BEEN A GOVERNMENT INFORMATION MESSAGE. Beetle was his usual self; hair gelled slick-back with Vaz, his Peter England shirt hot-pressed to the limit. He was shaved to the edge, and the tangy aroma of Showbiz arose from his skin like the smell of celebrities at a first night party. Both of them looked fruity from the afterglow of sex, and I just couldn't take it, couldn't take the fresh love. The Beetle was cleaning his gun at the table, smearing Vaz into the chambers. I guess he was doing it to impress the new girl. It worked. "Is that real, Bee?" she asked. "Neat!"

Oh like, wow.

The Beetle's gun was a joke really. He'd bought it off some old acquaintance, a real bargain, he'd said, and that -- what with the city turning the way it was -- you could never be too careful. Of course he'd never fired it, never had need to, and after two weeks of carrying it everywhere, he'd slipped it into some hideaway, and that was that. Now it was out again, getting the full Vaz treatment, all for the sake of some tough new street girl.

I wouldn't mind, but Mandy was my discovery. I'd found her hanging around the Bloodvurt stalls in the underground market, her eyes full of buzz and spark as she stroked the feathers, trying some on, just to the lips, falling under spells of violence and pain. And me falling under the spell of her. So I'd asked her to join, become a Stash Rider. She made fun of the name, but still, I could see the need in her eyes. Maybe I was just trying to replace Des the easy way. Maybe. Maybe we all get a little desperate at times. Maybe there are no easy ways.

"You heard about Icarus, Bee?" I said, keeping it cool.

He didn't even bother replying, too busy drawing in lungfuls of first-thing Haze. Its pungent odour was giving me half-glimpses of the dream and the things that I saw there made me shiver. "Icarus Wing? Didn't Mandy tell you about him?" I glanced over at Mandy. She was shovelling spoonfuls of JFK flakes into the gap between her smeared lips, her eyes dead to my need. "She told me that Icarus Wing was bringing in some Voodoo today." Still no response from the Beetle. "You know this Icarus guy, Bee?"

"No." His voice coming slow and easy, from the Haze.

"No?"

"Never heard of him."

"You know everybody, Bee! Everybody!"

"What are you saying?" His voice growing sharper.

"You're holding out on me? I --"

"Fuck you, Scribble!"

"Bee --"

"You don't know who's helping you? Is that your problem? Is it?"

His eyes were cold and steely, through the smoke of his joint.

"You two have a good night?" Don't know why I said it. Just came out. They looked at each other. They smiled at each other. "You think Bridget's going to like that?" I asked, knowing full well that Brid would take a nail file to Mandy's eyes. God knows what she'd do to Beetle. Maybe she'd pour all her smoke into his head, working his brain up, into a frenzy. They called it a Shadow-fuck. It was like doing Skull Shit, with the lights on.

"Bridget will have to live with it," The Beetle said.

"Where is the shadowgirl, anyway?" Mandy asked. She made the word shadow sound like some kind of bad disease.

"She slept in my room."

"Whoo, whoo, whoo!" shouted Mandy, full of rude life.

"Nice one, Stephen!"

"It's not like that, Bee."

"Stephen? Is that Scribble's real name?" laughed Mandy. "Aw, how cute!"

"That's the way with Stevie baby, Mandy," the Beetle said, knowing full well he was getting to me. "It's never like that. Not with women."

"Piss off, Bee." My best reply. "And the name's Scribble."

"He's very sensitive this morning," Mandy said. "Maybe we should sell some bits off the Thing," the Beetle said. This was just to get me going even more. I wasn't having it.

"No way, Beetle. No fucking way!"

"Just bits off him. The Stash Rider wallet is empty. I can't wait till the next dripfeed. Come on, Scribble! Just an arm, or a leg. A chunk off that fat stomach."

"We need him! All of him!" I had hold of Beetle's arm. My voice was straining; "You know why, Bee! Desdemona... she..."

"Big Thing'll grow them back, anyway. What's the loss?"

"I'm getting desperate, Bee... I... I think Des is reaching out. She..."

"What is it, Scribble?" asked Mandy, around a last mouthful of flakes.

I looked from her, and then back to Beetle. How much could I tell them? Should I tell them about the telephone? Christ! Beetle thought I was crazy anyway; he was certain that Desdemona was dead by now. The phone call would just finish off the tale of Scribble's madness. Shit! Maybe I was mad! Maybe Desdemona was just living on, inside of me? No, no. Don't even think that!

"She's alive, Beetle." I did my best to keep the voice calm. "I know it."

A warm light came to the Beetle's eyes. "Sure thing, Scribb. She's alive. We'll find her. Right, Mandy?"

"You bet."

They were just being good to me. I could live with that.

"Shall we go see Tristan? Would that suit you, Scribble?" asked the Beetle. ,j

"Tristan?"

"An old friend of mine. He's a spot-on guy. Sold me this gun. Knows all the stuff I've forgotten. And then some."

"He'll have English Voodoo?"

"He doesn't do Vurt any more. He might know where to find some."

"He might know about Icarus Wing?" I was getting some kind of hope back. At least we were moving. I just wanted to keep moving, keep the faith going. "You reckon, Bee?"

"We could try," the Beetle smiled. That old Beetle smile. "And we can check out this Seb friend of Mandy's first. Does that plan grab you, Scribb?"

I was falling for him again; the Beetle was in command and the world was looking rosier.

Something always has to spoil the day.

That bad something was somebody knocking on the door. Not the bell, ringing from far away, from the ground floor. No... this was a close-up attack. And the noise was powder to the Beetle's trigger. There was something human out there. No one did that any more. The flat was rigged up to the in-house system, and only bona fide inhabitants could find a way past the doorcam. Bypassing that system was a beauty, and only a cop could have managed it. A way-up cop.

Beetle activated into jam mode, moving like a land speed record. First thing he did was slip the gun into his pocket, then turning to us, he whispered; "Get that fucker out of here!"

That fucker was the Thing-from-Outer-Space, who was still deep in feather-dreams next to the fire. Mandy and I took each end of him, like veterans, and bundled him into the store cupboard. I got back to hear the Beetle talking to some presence through a one-inch gap in the door. "Certainly, Officer," he was saying. "No problem. Please come in. Feel free."

The Beetle sounded super-confident, and no doubt had cleaned the floor of all incriminating evidence, but how did they find us? Maybe the Vurt-U-Want cop had flashed a better than usual message. Maybe the Platt Fields' cop had seen the alien in our arms.

A real life cop walked into the living room. Not the shadow kind. This cop was flesh and blood; collector's item. She had a curly perm. Yeah, that collectable.

"What's happening?'she asked.

There was a moment of silence. Over by the door stood the shecop's partner, some mealy mouthed fleshcop from hell.

"Nothing much," replied the Beetle.

The two cops were wearing dangerous smiles.