"David?" Chains asked.

Oddity gave a laugh that was mostly grunt. "Dave's not here," the harsh voice said. The bitter laugh sounded again. "So fuck off before you get hurt."

Chains looked at Red, who shrugged. "David's been in there three, four hours," Chains said.

"Hell, that's a long time, ain't it?" Red grinned. He was missing teeth. "Almost as bad as jumping a bar of soap, huh?" He laughed.

Down in Passive, David struggled. [I wonder if Molly sent them or if they came on their own she might like me gone forever I'll fucking kill her if she did…]

"Hey, man, can David hear me?" Red asked Oddity. He slapped the end of the bat against his open palm. "y?

"'Cause I thought I should tell him a few things. Things he'd like to know"

"So talk."

Red grinned. "Tell David there ain't no reason to go to the Rox, man. We're gonna take care of his body." The words sent a shock through Oddity, stunning them all. For a moment they felt nothing. "Now we came to take care of the rest, huh? Just to make sure."

With that, Red took a leaping step forward, swinging the bat like an outfielder swinging for the fences.

He hit the Oddity square in the side of the head. Oddity staggered and nearly fell. The pain was a burning lance. Oddity screamed, their throat tearing with the sound. John's control tottered, but neither Evan nor David could take advantage. Then John's fury took hold fully. As Red brought the bat back for the next blow and the other three closed in, Oddity forced himself up. A hand caught the bat as it began the downswing; a savage, powerful twist wrenched it from Red's hands-Red's wrist snapped and the kid howled.

Oddity swung now, the bat making an audible and sinister whuff through air. Only the fact that Red had crumpled to the ground saved the kid. Chains whipped his steel links in a dangerous arc; Oddity caught them and pulled, catapulting Chains into the pile of crates. The jumper didn't move again.

The remaining two had already fled. Red, cradling his hand to his waist, was limping after them. Oddity screamed again and flung the bat after Red. It clattered into darkness.

[They've killed her! They've killed Pattty!] John shouted inside, raving.

[No!] Evan shouted back. [No! I don't believe that. It had to be a bluff, a deception. John, please!]

A soft splash cut off any further discussion. A glowing apparition came up from the filthy water around the dock, garlanded with a bald tire, two green Hefty bags, and a used Pamper. Except for the garbage snagged around the body, it was almost pretty. The thing was a gelatinous hollow sphere eight feet in diameter, nearly transparent except for translucent bands of muscle. Ribbons of light rippled along jellyfish flesh, sparking soft green, yellow, and blue. Near the top of it were two very human eyes and a mouth. It bobbed in the slight swell.

Charon.

"Fee?" it croaked.

[Evan?] John's rage had not abated. It had merely gone cold and dangerous.

[Must find out…] David seemed stunned, bewildered. Frightened.

[All right, John,] Evan told him. [We won't know anything unless we go.]

Oddity picked up two shopping bags next to the lantern. Approaching Charon, they showed the joker that they were full of groceries and canned goods. "Fine," Charon said. "Put them inside."

Oddity shoved the bags into the slimy flesh between the muscle. The flesh was cold and wet; it yielded under their pressure, stretching until suddenly the skin parted and they could place the bags on the gellid "floor" of Charon. Underneath the flattened bottom of the joker, they could see hundreds of wriggling cilia.

"You want to go to the Rox? You're certain?" Charon asked.

"Yes."

"Then get in. " Charon paused. It snorted air from a blowhole atop the sphere and it bobbed lower in the water. "You've got David with you."

"How did you know that?" Oddity grunted.

"I can feel the child's black, wretched soul. Get in." Charon would say nothing else.

Oddity stepped forward, pushing their way into Charon's body and hating the feel of the clinging, damp flesh. They sat down inside the joker as it began to sink into the waters of the East River. On the muddy, garbage-strewn bottom, in the dim light of the creature, they could see the cilia stirring dark clouds as Charon began the long crawl.

Hidden and silent, they moved south and west into the bay toward Ellis Island and the Rox.

Movement was exhilaration. The running… Ah, the running…

The wind, the pounding in the lungs and chest, the racing heartbeat the joy was almost enough to make her forget a groggy Blackhead shouting alarm behind her and to erase the sight of the hovels of the Rox.

Almost.

In the days before Oddity, Patty had devoured Victorian novels with their London slums, the poor waifs, and the quirky, grimy sense of realism. The Rox had the same Dickensian sense of gloom, the same chiaroscuro shades, but here the reality was harsher-edged. Makeshift dwellings clung like fungus to and between the decaying buildings of Ellis island; the lanes between them were muddy, rutted, and filthy under Patty's feet.

Dickens in hell.

In the early morning the lanes were mostly empty. The few inhabitants she glimpsed told her that the Rox was Jokertown distilled, Jokertown boiled down to the raw, bitter dregs. The jokers Patty saw here were the most deformed, the ones just hanging on the edge of what might be called human.

"Where you gonna go, Pat? There ain't no place to hide." Blackhead and Kelly shouted behind her, their voices echoing between the shacks. They hadn't stayed down very long at all. [Your own fault. They're just kids; you didn't want to hurt them too badly…] Patty could hear the jumpers' pursuit. She turned left blindly, seeing the lights of Manhattan and the gleam of water through two drunken-angled buildings. A few lights were coming on around Patty as Blackhead and Kelly continued to fling taunts and warnings at her.

Turning the corner, she blundered into someone whose skin felt like soaked velvet. She caught a glimpse of yellow, faceted eyes. "Sorry" she said, and thrust herself away, her hands dripping with whatever oozed from that skin. Two heads leaned curiously from a nearby window, joined at the throat into one bull neck. Something without legs slithered across the lane in front of her, leaving behind a scent of lavender that suddenly turned sour and bitter. A voice roared from the darkness between two buildings, but the words were incomprehensible, hopelessly slurred.

A hand caught at her from behind and Patty screamed. The arm to which the hand was attached stretched like taffy, the hand-clawed like a dog's, but undeniably human still clutching her biceps. The arm stretched taut and as thin as a pencil, turning her; then the hand let go and she spun and almost fell from the shock of release.

Patty didn't look back to see what or who had tried to stop her. She kept running.

She'd been to Ellis, years ago. She remembered a U-shaped, tiny island, with docks along the central waterway. The administration building dominated one side of the island; the buildings used for holding detained aliens filled the other. Patty could see the administration building on the far side. She could smell the bay. David's body was beginning to pant from the exertion now, but she seemed to have outdistanced the others.

She broke into the open, looking for a rowboat, a dinghy, anything. If she had to, she'd try swimming-she could swim, and this body was stronger than her own had been. Manhattan and New Jersey loomed achingly close.

"Bloat says to ask what good it will do you to be captured by the police patrols, Patty"

Patty stopped. A figure had stepped out between her and the bay. She squinted at it. It looked like a walking, man-sized roach. There were two others with him; jokers, armed with what looked like a shotgun and a small-caliber hunting rifle. The roach-man held up a cheap plastic walkie-talkie. "Bloat sent me to get you."