Sound like a fist took Roulette across the right cheek raising a mottled bruise on the cafe au lait skin, coaxing a trickle of blood from her ear. Indrawn breath caught in her throat like a jagged block, and sickness filled her belly. Howler's agonized face hung above her, and she knew she was looking at death. His chest was heaving, lips skinned back from teeth, and a tide of blue-black was rising from his now completely black and swollen penis into his groin and belly.

The rumpled satin comforter gave no purchase to her flailing legs. She felt as if she were swimming on glass. With a final, desperate flounder, she got to her knees, and threw an arm around the ace's chest. Her other hand tangled in his sweat-matted hair, and she yanked his head around so he faced the wall separating bedroom from living room. A life-ending, time-stopping scream echoed to the fringes of the universe and back again, and the wall exploded. Plaster dust spun in lazy spirals, catching at the throat, and filling the nostrils. Rubble fanned across the living room floor, and the far wall was bulging. For an instant Roulette contemplated that sagging wall; pictured it falling, pictured the fat, lower-middle-class couple in the next apartment staring at the tableau she would present. Naked woman holding naked man-cock swollen to stallion proportions, whole body swelling as the poison exploded blood cells, the trail of the poison marked by blue-black discolorations.

Another convulsion shook Howler, but his throat had swollen, closing off the vocal chords. The sweat-drenched skin of his back was cold and clammy against her flattened breasts, and the stink of released bladder and bowel filled the room. Gagging, she pushed him away, crawled off the bed, and huddled in on herself on the floor by the bed.

Destruction at the Cloisters. He had implied it was Turtle who had crumbled the stone walls… But he lied! He promised there would be no risk even though this was the first ace she had ever killed. And he lied. She touched a hand to her ear, and gazed in fascination at the congealed blood that stained her fingers. A sense of betrayal ate its way through to conscious thought, and resolved itself into anger. He knew, and didn't warn me. Had he wanted her to die here? But who then would kill Tachyon for him?

Sirens reminded her of her danger. She had been so immersed in contemplation of death and betrayal that she had forgotten reality. No one in lower Manhattan could have missed that death cry. She was running out of time. And if she wanted to survive, to attain her final goal, she too had to run. She pushed back her tangled hair, the tiny pearls and crystals braided into the long strands catching on her fingers, tugging at her scalp. She jammed stockings and garter belt into her purse, flung on her dress, and pushed her feet into highheeled sandals.

A last glance around the shattered room to see if she had left any trace of her presence-aside from the obvious one, of course, the bloated body on the bed.

I always wanted to be special.

An inarticulate cry burst from her, and she ran for the fire escape. One spiked heel slipped through the iron grating underfoot, and with a curse she pulled off the shoes. Holding one in each hand she ran down the five flights to the first floor, and lowered the ladder to the filthy, garbage-strewn pavement of the alley. Glass from a hundred broken windows lay like a sparkling snowfall among rotting lettuce leaves, plastic six-pack dividers, stinking cans. It crunched underfoot as she reached the ground, and one splinter drove deep into her heel.

She whimpered, pulled it out, and worked on her shoes. Tetanus shot, I'll need a tetanus shot. I haven't had one since that month Josiah and I spent in Peru.

The thought of her ex-husband set memory in motion. Jerking forward like a train gaining momentum. Images jostling and shattering like the frames of a nightmare film running at double speed… until no coherent pictures remained, just an undifferentiated blur of pain and grief and gut-burning fury culminating in a spewing sense of relief when she had released the tide, and Howler had died.

Out of the alley and onto the street. Trying to set the right tone. It would be suspicious to simply ignore the insurance company's nightmare and glazier's delight that surrounded her. Yet she could not bring herself to join the gaping jostling throng, many still in pajamas and bathrobes, who gathered in' clumps and gawked at the glass-littered street and the parked can, with frosted or demolished windows. Better perhaps to ape a young working woman; interested but concerned with getting to work on time.

A police car shot down the street, braked suddenly as it passed her, jerking the two occupants like test-car dummies. Fiat, bloodshot eyes raked over her, and she forced herself t face the cop's suspicious glance though fear was fluttering in her belly. It was a predominantly white neighborhood, an though she was dressed with understated elegance her dres was clearly for evening.

Hooker.

The thought read clearly on the bloated, pink face, and she felt a stir of' resentment. Class of '70, Vassar, master's in economics. Not a prostitute, you asshole. But she was carefu to keep her expression neutral.

A man ran out of Howler's apartment building, arms windmilling about his head, mouth opening and closing though no words could be heard over the cry of the sirens. The cop, distracted, lost interest in Roulette. He growled something to his partner, and jerked his thumb toward the building. The car rolled on, and Roulette forced herself back into motion.

The fear was back. Fueled not by the presence of the tangible pursuers who gathered behind her, but by the baying of her soul hounds who loped easily at her flanks. They were waiting for the time when the doubt and horror and guilt that had been growing with every kill would overwhelm' her, bear her down, and then they would move in and destroy her. They were there now-waiting. She could hear them. She hadn't been able to hear them before. She was going insane. And if she killed again, what would happen? But she had to. And to have Tachyon dead would make even madness bearable.

8.00 a.m.

The stone lions guarding the staircase before the main entrance of the New York City Public Library might as well have taken the day off. The library was closed and the staircase was deserted.

Jennifer, having gone back to her apartment to have a light breakfast and to change into a conservative suit with a black skirt, black jacket, and white blouse, reached out and patted one on the side as she went by anyway, in seeming encouragement of a job well done. She let herself into the building with her key, and then locked the door again behind her. The soles of her shoes clicked loudly, echoing eerily in the library's vast antechamber.

"Morning, Miss Maloy," an old man wearing a rumpled uniform greeted her as she made her way through the cavernous central room back toward her desk near the first-floor stacks.

"Good morning, Hector."

"Not going to the parade?" The old man was one of the security guards. He liked to tell stories of when he'd seen Jetboy battling the zeppelins over Manhattan back when he was a cop and what it was like in the first few horrible moments of the new age, when the wild card virus had been released and the world had changed, suddenly and forever.

"Maybe later," she said. She liked the old man, but now was not the time to get caught up in his interminable reminiscences. "I have some work to do. A project I want to finish."

Old Hector clicked his tongue against his dentures and shook his head.

"You work too hard, Miss Maloy, a pretty young thing like you. You should get out more."

"I will. I just thought that today would be a good day t finish this project of mine. What with the library being close and all."