"Drop the sticker, Zack." I raced up to the railing and crouched to one knee, waggling my automatic as if I were a real threatening character.

Zack's soft eyes curled up from gazing at the kid. He snarled like a cornered animal. Knuckles tightened to glint like polished bone. Under his hood, his face ran through a spectrum of colors ending with purple.

"Get out of here!" he shrieked. "This doesn't concern you!"

I took one step up toward the altar. "Not that I like to kibitz or anything, but if you need virgin blood, you're in big trouble in L.A. That little tart you've got is about as pure as the whiskey in a skid-row bar."

The kid looked really scared. She stared up at Emil and the dagger. I figured I could shoot him on the downswing without her getting cut. The hilt looked heavy enough to upend if he dropped it.

The kid shouted, "It's not true, mister! He knows it's a trick. I never made it with anyone!" She looked straight at me.

The room faded away in a grey whirl. I felt abysmally cold and lost. Suddenly I saw the girl standing before me. She wore a leather outfit that on someone older would have been a federal offense. On her it looked silly.

"I tricked them all," she shouted at me so rapidly that she stumbled over the words. "We can talk here, a lot faster than in real time. I can do this with anyone. Or so I thought. I used it to get money. The old farts thought they'd got laid and I didn't even have to touch them. Honest. That's why you caught me off guard. I couldn't grab your mind like that."

My voice came from somewhere else, as if I weren't talking. "I got your distress call. You could have given us more explicit directions."

She looked terrified. "What distress ca-"

A scream shuddered around me. The grey fog vanished. I stood facing a screaming child. Zack still held his blade aloft, as if I'd only been gone an instant. I aimed with both hands and fired.

The pistol blasted, its report filling the chapel like a physical presence. Through the blinding flash and explosion, I saw Emil grab at his hand and howl.

"Abbadon!" he shrieked. "You'll pay for this, Ammo!"

"Deduct it from my tab," I said.

Ann glared at my client with a savage hatred. She made cutting motions in the air with her knife.

Emil stared at me, then at her. His lips curled back, and his voice reached straight up from the gutter.

"You! You fucking mother! I'll get you for this. Nobody betrays me!"

"I'm not betraying you," I said, stepping up to the altar to lift the kid's shuddering body off the black velvet. "I still intend to fulfill our contract. I'm getting new leads all the time. You've been an inspiration."

He never took his eyes off Ann.

"You'll regret this alliance," he said.

"I learned not to have any regrets," I said, stepping down from the altar with my small burden. "I've had a full life, and I don't give a damn what happens next. You're looking at the man who's going to pull the cosmic trigger and blow Number One into stardust."

"You talk a hard line, Ammo. Let's see some delivery."

He turned to storm out the side door of the chapel. I didn't want to imagine which direction he went from there. I'd glanced at the bullet wound through his hand.

It didn't bleed. Not a drop.

"A thousand men yet none," Ann said. She walked beside me, leading the way with the flashlight beam.

We departed the chapel, leaving the candles to flicker behind us. I wasn't worried about anything catching fire in this damp tomb. And if it did, the city fathers would probably applaud me for an act of urban renewal.

The flies were gone, the plaza silent.

I shifted the kid to piggyback when we reached the thigh-high water. "She put on a pretty swell act for a virgin."

"You have to nowadays," the kid said.

"What's your name?" Ann asked.

The kid squirmed a bit. "Isadora Volante. And it's no act. They got their money's worth. Weren't you convinced?"

I had to admit that she had a wild talent. Just how wild she didn't seem to know.

"Look, kid-"

"It's Isadora," she snapped, "when I've got my clothes off."

"Right. Listen, you acted as if you didn't know what led us to you."

"I don't. You weren't just passing by?"

"Ki-Isadora, you lit up L.A. with enough special effects to shame Cecil B. DeMille."

She snorted. "Well, I never noticed it. All I knew was, that freako tried to kill me and there wasn't any way I could even touch the son of a bitch. I've bounced some weird stuff back at guys, but whatever was inside his head…" She quivered and hugged my neck tighter.

"Go easy on him," I said. "He's suffers from a massive inferiority complex."

A fluttering noise half-echoed from another part of the lower plaza. "Listen," I said. "More flies?"

"Too loud for that," Ann said.

"Let's change directions," I suggested. "We can try the northside escalators."

"Why?" Ann asked.

"Call it a hunch, call it intuition, call it a healthy cowardice. I don't think we should go back the way we came."

Ann nodded. "Lead the way."

I turned. The fluttering was behind us now. I jostled Isadora. "Hey," I asked softly, "you're not transmitting anything, are you?"

"Too tired." She leaned her chin on my shoulder.

The sound grew louder, like slabs of wet leather slapped lightly against one another. Ann and I waded as swiftly as we could.

I started to say, "Ann-".

And then they were on us.

The first one flew out of the darkness to strike my shoulder with sharp black talons fully extended. They ripped through cloth down into flesh. Blood welled up in droplets like dew on a beer mug.

No illusion. This was real. It hurt. The screaming grew louder.

Except that I thought bats couldn't scream.

Ann didn't make a sound, even when the other dozen or so swooped down the corridor, howling madly. Score one for her.

I dropped the kid into the drink to give me a little elbow room. I reached for my Colt, only to hesitate. The bats outnumbered my supply of rounds, and I wasn't such a fabulous shot that I could bring down small animals in this light.

My concentration was broken by one of the things slapping against my back and sinking its fangs into the nape of my neck. I reached up and behind to squeeze its little neck until it choked and let go.

Two of them had ganged up on Ann, and they weren't the storybook types that get tangled in hair. They went for her eyes. The others circled about, screeching.

I had problems of my own.

I pulled the struggling thing over my head. Bad idea. It tried to give me a Mohawk by raking its claws over my scalp.

I got him in front of me, though. We stared face-to-face. And what a face!

Where a bat's head reasonably should have been glared a contorted mockery of a human face, twisted in agony. Its lips curled back around huge, bloody fangs. Watching it as though I had nothing better to do at the time, I finally heard what it was screaming.

It screamed for forgiveness.

So did the others slashing at Ann in an unbatlike manner.

I thought about it long and hard for a second or so. But a generous nature is one of the virtues I lack.

Continuing to choke the tiny monster's throat with one hand, I twisted its body with the other. Its neck snapped like a hollow, rotted twig, and the thing fell limp. I dropped it from my hands into the sludge.

"Dell!" Ann grasped the flashlight in one hand, her steel in the other. She was cutting at the air again with the knife while swinging the torch like a club. Her purse slapped against her wet hip like a wrecking ball. It was a wonder she managed to remain standing in the middle of the fracas.