Something passed behind Mark's eyes. His hand faltered, but none of the precious powder fell from the scoop. Even Bloat had only been able to obtain a fraction of the substances Mark needed. Enough to summon two of his friends for perhaps an hour apiece. Not necessarily the two he would have chosen.

He let his hand rest on the cold thin-gauge tabletop, suddenly uncertain. "I think there's something wrong with Tach," he said.

K. C. shifted her weight with a mouse rustle.

"This isn't like him. He'd never give up the clinic. He's stronger than he was back in the Forties. The clinic made him strong. It gave him something to live for."

"Fucking give it up!" Her voice rang like brass knucks on a steel surgical table. "He's ditched you. He's ditched the jokers and you and every fucking body. Sometimes people just turn their back and walk away from you, capisc'?"

He lowered his head and shut his eyes in pain. Instantly she was by his side, hand on arm. "I'm sorry, babe," she said. "I've gotten some pretty rough licks from life. Made me pretty cynical, okay? I don't have to lay it off on you."

"No," Mark said. "No, it's okay. I still cant believe he's abandoned me. I think something's happened to him."

Her nails dug into his arm. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing." The word fell to the tabletop with scarcely more sound than a drop of sweat. "Not now. I hope he's okay."

"I'll do anything I can to help him-later. But Sprout that's stronger than friendship. I'm sorry."

She ran her hand up to his shoulder. He started to shy away, then relaxed with an audible sigh.

"You got nothin' to apologize for, babe," she said, low in her throat.

He emptied the contents of the scoop into a tiny vial, then stoppered it quickly, as if expecting the orange powder to escape. "Let's go."

K.C. followed him out onto the reeking beach. Mark stood with his feet spread wide in the sand, twisted the plastic cap off and tossed the orange powder down his throat. He sighed explosively, lowered his arm.

Then he burst into flame.

K. C. screamed and threw herself forward. Furnace heat threw her back. She smelled her eyebrows scorching. Reeling back, she saw that Mark was not fighting the flame. He had staggered several steps away from her, but now he seemed to be letting the fire have its way with him. "God, oh God, Mark, what have you done?" He was charring down to a mummy right before her eyes. She had read that happened when you burned. She never thought it could happen so fast. God, he's already down to my size! The mummy spread its arms.

K.C. screamed. The flames began to die, seeming to be sucked into the burning man. Astonished, she saw a flash of unburned skin, and then a small man in an orange jogging suit was standing there, grinning, while a final few flames chased each other through his shock of red hair.

"So you're the kind of babe Mark's hanging with these days," he said. "Bit less Park Avenue than the last one, but I'm not sure that's not an improvement."

Her first attempt at speech failed. She swallowed and tried again. "Who are you?"

He laughed. "Jumpin' Jack Flash, at your service, dear." He spread his hands and a tiny fireball arced from palm to palm. "It's a gas-gas-gas."

"Then it's true. He really was Cap'n Trips."

The fragment of fire sizzled and died on the upturned palm. Its echo still glimmered in his eyes as he raised them to hers and said, "He still is Cap'n Trips, doll."

He twisted left and right, the locked his hands, held them up over his head and back, stretching.

"Let's do it," he said. An orange glow sprang up in the air around him, without apparent source.

K.C. looked around nervously. "Jesus, do you have to do that? We don't need to advertise the fact that Cap'n Trips is back to the immediate world."

"Yeah, you're right. When you're right, you're right. I don't need the FIX. It's just been so damn long, and I'm used to going in style

… oh, well."

He flexed his knees and leapt into the sky.

Half an hour later, Flash touched down again, flipping a finger at the white foam wake of a harbor patrol boat churning outside the wall a few hundred yards away.

"Officious fucks. Don't even let me have a final flourish. 'Scuse me just a moment, hon. My exits aren't quite as stagy as my entrances." He stepped around the end of the shack.

K.C. stood, brushed wet sand off the taut seat of her black leather pants. "I've seen some scaly shit," she said, "I've done some. But this could take some getting used to."

She heard a strange whump like gasoline lighting off, and then a moan. She ran to find Mark Meadows lying in the fetal position in a depression in the sand, buck naked and turning blue.

She helped him sit up. Inside the shack was an army blanket. She brought it, wrapped it around Mark's shoulders. "Come on," she said. "Let's get inside out of the cold."

K.C. threaded one of Mark's arms around her shoulders, urged him to his feet. He lurched into the shack like a radio mast that had come to life and decided to take a hike. Inside she sat him on a second blanket thrown over a pad of old newspapers.

Mark turned his face toward the wall. His shoulders shook. "You're crying!" She touched his shoulder. He shrugged her off. "Why? What's the matter?"

"I can't do it," he sobbed.

"What? What are you talking about? You're an ace again. You changed. You got to fly. How long has it been, babe?"

"Too-too long. I don't know" He sat up shaking his head. Tears streamed down his wasted cheeks, glinting like melted butter in the yellow lamplight. "I don't think I can handle it."

"What do you mean? You ought to be high as a kite right now. You've won."

"No. You don't understand. They won. I'm not innocent anymore, man. I've lost the purity. Lost the dream."

"It's the drugs. You're just crashing." She put her arm around him. "You'll be okay in a while."

"No!" He tore away, lunged to his feet. "You don't understand. I'm no good any more."

"You'd do anything, right? For her?" He nodded.

"Mark. Listen to me. That's love. That's loyalty. I've seen aces, dude. I know plenty of people who can do weird stuff. Shit, I can chase people out of their own heads and party hearty inside, bust up all the furniture if I want to. But to have that much loyalty to a person, to love her that much-" It was her turn to move away. "Nobody's ever felt that way about me. Nobody."

He slumped to the floor. "Yeah. I let you down too. I let everybody down. And now Sprout shit, man, I can't even help her."

"What?"

"I can't do it any more. It just isn't right. I wanted to be more than an ace. I wanted to be a hero. But that's all just illusion." He hung his head. "At least for me it is."

"What the fuck?" She grabbed him under the arms, hauled him to his feet with a strength she didn't know she had. "Listen to me, you son of a bitch. You don't think you got what it takes to be a hero? Then be a fucking villain."

"The world thinks you're fucked up. The world thinks you're evil. The world thinks it's a good idea to stick your little girl in kid jail where the other girls can use her for a punching bag. Where sooner or later some counselor is going to get the idea how very pretty her blonde little head would look bobbing up and down on his needle dick. Decide that's just the therapy she needs."

"Don't say that!"

"Don't tell me you don't know! It's the only thing that kept you going all these months. What brought you out of the gutter and onto the Rox. It's real, Jack. I can tell you it is. Okay? We are not talking hearsay. This doesn't just happen in Linda Blair movies. I know. I fucking know."

She had backed him into the wall. He slid slowly down. "But what am I gonna do?"

"Welcome to the jungle, babe. You're on the Rox now."