"Why ask me? I'm no expert." We'd made it halfway down the escalator. The air grew even thicker-a humid presence that clung like stale fog.

"Aren't you part of the whole terrorist scene?"

My foot jerked, sending a blue square of tile skittering down the steps. It ended its clattering descent with a weak splash.

Great-the Plaza's flooded. I wasn't considering that problem at the moment. I didn't want to be down there, with or without Ann, and she'd just hit a sore spot.

"What I do is the exact opposite of terrorism." If a whisperer can snarl, I almost snarled. "Terrorists kill innocents and noncombatants to create fear. They hope to use that fear to gain or keep power. They're always wrong. That's where I come in. Sure, I take pay from ruling class statists and secret conspiracies-yet I've managed to interrupt the careers of far more ambitious generals and would-be tyrants than anyone else in the business. I've never killed anyone who didn't clearly demonstrate that he'd had it coming. I've kept the world safe for… well, for whatever. I've stopped a dozen wars before they reached the shooting stage. And yes," I hissed, "I've assassinated terrorists of every political stripe. I've even taken the trouble to determine the consequences of my actions."

I paused to fume silently. At the bottom of the stairs, something splashed and slithered. Ann said nothing.

"I can say that I've consistently been on the right side, because killing tyrants for any reason is always a net good."

She smiled without mirth. "Is that why you took the contract on god?"

A shadow drifted at the base of the escalator. I wasn't sure whether it was the result of my wavering light beam or not. I stopped. My hand reached out to squeeze Ann's wrist for silence.

The shadow moved again, even though I held the beam as steady as a corpse's smile. Slowly I lifted it, playing the ellipse of white across the first level of the Plaza. A thin layer of water covered the floor. The blast years ago had imparted a distinct tilt to the mall, dropping it away from us in a gradual slope. I wondered how deep it might be a few hundred yards ahead.

I'd worry about that later. It was the thing a few feet in front of us that occupied my immediate concern.

The shadow stopped moving, even though my Magna-Lite hadn't. It took a deep, rattling breath as the pool of light approached. I flicked my wrist up-it didn't look as if it would scare easily. The thing stood in the clear white light.

A thing that had once been human.

It grasped a piece of metal as twisted and scarred as it was. I suppose it was a man.

He stared into the beam with squinting, dull eyes, his right hand clutching the contorted piece of steel as if it were a club.

I eased the Colt out of my waistband. I had the advantage, hiding behind the flashlight's glare.

We stood there, frozen, like a couple of mismatched gunslingers in some cheap gothic western. I waved the beam back and forth. The wet eyes in his deathly white face followed the movement. Perhaps face wasn't quite the right word. His head consisted of a lumpy mass of swollen pustules and ulcerated wounds. No hair grew anywhere on his naked body. One shoulder sloped lower than the other. Loose bits of flesh clung tenuously to his sunken chest.

A rat half-swam, half-scampered through the floating garbage. It bumped into the derelict's leg and angrily bit it. If he noticed at all, he owned a great face for poker. His pale eyes continued to watch the beam.

"Hypnotized by it," Ann whispered, pulling up so close behind me that I could almost smell her exhausted, womanly scent through the stench around us.

"Or crazy," I said, "from being down here since the blast."

"Been up!" The croak issued from beneath the fleshy lumps. He didn't seem to be addressing us in particular. "Been up when I get hungry. Lots of food if you know where to look. And I can catch it."

He lowered his club to lean on it, using it like a cane. A rheumy glaze coated his eyes, what I could see of them.

"Did we beat the Reds?"

I didn't know whether he referred to baseball or battlefields, so I kept quiet. I felt as embarrassed as anyone would feel, dropping in on Hell uninvited.

His free hand twisted around behind him as if to scratch at his back but fell feebly to his side. He took a tremulous step forward, sloshing water aside with his bare feet. The sorts of welts that covered his face were all over his body in small lumps and festering nodules. Here and there grey-white strips of dead skin hung like rags from a beggar.

I wasn't sure what to do next. Was he the one we were after? If not, did we have to get past him first?

He solved the problem conveniently.

"Fire down below," he murmured in a matter-of-fact way. His eyes glazed over sightlessly. They'd be sightless forever.

He fell forward, the steel strut slipping out under his weight. Slowly, as though savoring the moment, he slid along it. He didn't notice the jagged edges tearing chunks of bloodless tissue from under his arm.

The thin sheet of water parted to make way for him, flowing back an instant after impact to surround his body. At the base of his spine protruded the wavy blade of a flame dagger, placed there, no doubt, by someone who wanted privacy. Light bounced from it to a mirror on the wall, which reflected it to an unbroken piece of mirror on the opposite wall, and so on forever.

Nothing moved. Ann made the sound they usually make in the movies-that sort of half-gasp that catches and holds in the throat like a butterfly waiting for a chance to escape.

I turned to face her. Sure enough, she had the back of her hand against her open mouth, her eyes wide with shock. The only difference between her and a thousand Hollywood cornballs was the carving knife she grasped with a physician's steadiness. She lowered it slowly, her mouth still agape, nostrils flared as if to catch the scent of his departing soul.

I stepped over his inert form into ankle-deep water. "The answer to your next question is, `He's dead, all right. As dead as a campaign promise.'" I extended my hand to her. "Let's go."

She took care to step over the corpse and avoid the area where some clumps of loose skin had splashed down. Once over, she did something that I'd only ever seen myself do. She crouched over the body to yank the flame dagger out of the dead man's back. She examined it for a moment, then let it dangle loosely in her grasp.

"Did the radiation turn him into that?" she asked, slipping the strap of her purse over her opposite shoulder to enable her to carry a knife in either hand.

She'd bounced back fast.

I shrugged noncommittally. "Whatever was killing him sure didn't work as fast as that blade."

I shined the Magna-Lite over the walls. Most of the colored tile had cracked and fallen away under the force of the blast years ago. A sign hung slantways on a single peg.

"Welcome to Bond Street," I said to the darkness. "Enjoy your walk. Watch for rats and mutants."

We sloshed past shops that had been hastily evacuated years ago. Their silent doors hung open, merchandise scattered. Not even looters wanted anything that hot.

We passed a travel agency. Mildewed, rotting posters exhorted us to visit faraway countries, some of which no longer existed.

My feet squished inside my shoes. The water level hadn't increased much. Most of it was probably waiting for us below.

"Down the stairs," I said when we reached the next escalator. On either side of us, cracked mirrors reflected us to infinity.

My shoes crunched over broken glass and tile. The humidity increased with each descending step. I talked in an attempt to ignore the chill that crept up inside me.