"That's bullshit. You know I'm not the rallying kind, and I never save the day if I can in any way help it. I'm Yancey Slide goddamn it."

"You and I know may that know that it's bullshit, but the price on your head is downright flattering."

A voice suddenly came without warning from the gloom between the table and the door. "And that's a price I intend to be paid, Doc Zen, so I suggest that you and your people step away from Slide and let me take him and his valuable head."

If a voice could be simultaneously melodic and threatening, Nuygen von Bulow's had that capability, and she had also appeared completely out of nowhere. The doors had not swung, light had not entered the dark pool hall, footfalls or the rap of high heels had not ascended the stairs or crossed the floor, and neither Slide nor Doc Zen, both of whom were, to say the least, watchful and cautious by nature, had noticed her enter. Nuygen von Bulow was still in her slight and oriental body mode, very much the way Slide had last seen her, the moment before he had made good his escape from the High Soviet Kremlin, forced to her knees, in bra, panties, and black opened toes shoes, in front of KGB Knight, blowing him at gunpoint. This time, however, her thin, almost emaciated frame was clad in a tailored riding habit of scarlet raw silk, buttoned high to the neck, but with the long skirt slit almost to the hip, so the black patent leather of the thigh-length and intricately laced boots flashed as she moved. Slide recalled that Nuygen had always indulged herself with dramatic footwear. Her eyes were hidden behind enigmatic, wraparound sunglasses, but no one needed to read her eyes to know her intentions were grimly serious.

In her gloved right hand, she held a needle gun from entirely the wrong century, and it was pointed at location halfway between Slide and Doc Zen so she could burn either with only the slightest of turns.

Her sole companion was a young male with the face of a oceanic predator, armored in a predictable latex skinsuit. He aimed a Mossberg pump, and wore the Dragon's Cross with Maple Clusters, and, as Slide looked down the barrel of the shotgun, he noted that the kid had to be far too young to be entitled to the decoration.

It took the blonde who had been shooting pool with Doc Zen to break the silence that had greeted von Bulow and her boy, and say what everyone else was thinking. "You know, Doc, I would love for someone to prove me wrong, but this does not look good at all."

Story so far: On the lam from the Battle of the Fifteen Armies, Yancey Slide, Idimmu Demon of the Tenth Continuum, makes it to an Earth Urban C21, but with bounty hunters in hot pursuit. He appropriates the body of a speedfreak called Johnny Yuma, and seeks help from the legendary Doc Zen. Unfortunately, Slide has not moved fast enough among the all the random time variables, and his one time lover, but now implacable enemy, Nuygen von Bulow catches up with him at the pool hall where Doc Zen has made his home.

The weapon-weight of the Desert Eagle he had taken from the Blimp was hard and metallic against Slide's back, but no way could he put a hand to the gun. Inside Art's Snooker, on the second floor, Nuygen von Bulow and her Sharkboy

sidekick totally had the drop on him. The exact nature of Nuygen von Bulow had always been a mystery to Slide. She was perhaps a succubus with ambition, or a mutant demon of a kind he had never previously encountered. On their first meeting, long parsecs in the past, aboard the ancient Moche airship, he had known she wasn't human, that was for sure, and later, in the perfumed confines of her private state room, she hadn't smelled demon either, but then the bomb planted by Good-time Charlie Christmas and his Sky Pirates had detonated, the airship had been blown clean in half, and he had been deprived of any further chance to investigate. In the present, the needle gun in Nuygen von Bulow's right hand, the breathy Hanoi street-edge in her voice, and the Mossberg toted by her boy companion told him that, whatever she might really be, he should move with extreme circumspection.

"I suggest that you and your people step away from Slide, and make no let or hindrance while we take him, and claim the completely outrageous price on his suddenly very valuable head."

Slide moved just slightly. "Perhaps, before we go any further, someone would like to explain to me why my head has quite so high a fucking price on it."

Nuygen von Bulow looked Slide up and down. "I would have taken you without any financial incentive, Yancey Slide. You've fucked with me too many times for me to feel anything but an extreme and unpleasant delight in watching you suffer all the way to your limits, and well beyond. I haven't forgotten what you did to me at the Kremlin."

Slide shrugged and raised his hands. "I know you and I have a somewhat problematic history, Nuygen, but I really would like to know why I've suddenly become so damned valuable."

Sharkboy hefted the shotgun and looked eagerly at von Bulow. Slide knew the kid wanted to blow someone apart so bad he could taste it. "He's just stalling, ma'am. Doc Zen gotta have filled him in already."

Despite the predicament, Slide was not only able to look Sharkboy directly in the eye, but also raise an amused eyebrow. "That shows how little you know of Doc Zen, kid."

Von Bulow glanced at Slide. "I think we know enough about Doc Zen to assume he's not going to get in the way when we take you out of here. Isn't that right, Doc?."

Zen moved further away from Slide, closer to the pool table. "I'm sorry, Yance, but you're just too damned hot to have around."

Slide's lip curled. "Thanks Doc. With friends like you, what the fuck do I need with parasites?"

Von Bulow gestured with the needle gun. "Are you going to come quietly?"

Before Slide could answer, the door to the stairs swung violently open, and two cops, in blue uniforms, and with drawn guns, squinting in the comparative darkness of the pool hall, were suddenly a new factor in the equation of showdown. "Everyone stand right where they are and don't move as much as a muscle."

In the first fraction of a second, all the players in the room froze as instructed, and the officers moved forward. "Put your hands on the back of your head, Yuma. Fingers laced."

As far as Slide could tell, Sharkboy was the first to break the deadlock brought about by this new Johnny Yuma problem. He turned with the clear intent of blowing away the intruding policemen. Slide was the second to join the play. The Desert Eagle was in his hand, and, without conscious thought, he fired the big .50 caliber automatic with a deafening report in the enclosed space. It was alleged that a bullet from a Desert Eagle could crack the engine block of a Mac truck. Sharkboy staggered forward with a massive wound in his back where the hollow point had torn into it. The cops, being mere humans, were no problem in terms of response. Compared with an idimmu at full stretch, they were infinitely slow. Nuygen was another matter. She had the needle gun pointed straight at him. Although she couldn't kill him, she could have maimed him with a blast of razor-sharp steel micro-shards to the point that his immediate future would be exceedingly uncomfortable, complicated and immobile. Her hesitation stemmed from her not wanting him maimed. She wished him alive and walking, and ready to suffer at her hands, and in that small but crucial moment, as she was divided between desire for sweet revenge and practicality, Slide saw his chance.