The power seemed easier to wield now than it ever had before. Because she was whole again, she thought, watching with Ti Malice's pleasure as the blood swelled from Emile's pores and he screamed against the gag. She had never realized how good it felt to do that, to call the moisture from a living being instead of the lifeless air. If she really let herself go with it, it was better than anything, even better than the sex Ti Malice enjoyed so much.
And at last the permission was given and she did let herself go with it, all the way to finality. Whatever. Always. It was an explosion that went beyond pleasure, into something that was completely alien, a ripping away of whatever humanity had been left to her and Ti Malice, leaving the hard, bright, burning thing that had thrust itself upon them in an act of irrevocable conquest. For one single eternal instant they were purely the living wild card virus, not just living but sentient.
Then she was herself again, watching through a haze of dying sensation as Ti Malice himself trembled under this new awareness. This had almost been too much even for him. She cold not even raise a protest as he left her for Ezili again.
A little later she realized she had been blinded by the last of the fluids she had called out of Emile's body, and there were only his clothes and some substance that looked like a spill of powder on the floor where he had been.
She took a long fall into blackness, screaming all the way down.
Faces came out of the darkness at her; she made them fade away. At some point she was looking at Hiram's face, and try as she would, she couldn't make him vanish. He seemed to be trying to explain something to her, but none of it made any sense. I quit, she told him at last, and that finally made him go.
Clean her up, get her some clothes, and get her out of here. For now, said Ezili in her own voice. She makes me… uncomfortable. Laughter.
Then the craving hit her and the lack of Ti Malice was too much to bear. Her mind folded itself up into a tiny little box and flushed itself away.
She was walking through a bizarre, wasted wonderland and Sal was at her side. She was only mildly surprised that he was there with her; she thought it might have been because Ti Malice had left her with so little that she wasn't completely in existence anymore. But it was nice that of all the ghosts she could have run into, she had somehow met up with Sal. Meeting Emile would have been terribly unpleasant; perhaps he hadn't been dead long enough to have become a ghost yet. She covered everything that had happened within the first few minutes they were together, all the degradation, the lies, the broken promises.
Sal asked her what broken promises those were.
Why, that I was done leaning on anyone, Sal. Remember? I promised that after the Cloisters. And now look at me. I'm leaning so hard I'm tipped over. Then she realized he'd known and he'd just wanted her to say it, to admit it.
All right. I admit it. I admit it all. I said I'd never kill anyone' again, no matter how bad they were, even if it meant they'd kill me first. And I killed Emile because he wanted to watch how he'd die. She didn't have to explain who he was; Sal knew that, too.
And I always promised I'd be… responsible with my body. Maybe it was easier to lock myself up than finally accept that we would never be together.
Sal thought that was kind of funny. After all, he wasn't just gay, he was gay and dead; been that way for quite some time, too.
Well, Sal, being dead, you wouldn't have any idea how easy it can be to remain faithful to someone's memory. It's real easy when you're too scared to face a living person. Live men are real intimidating, Sal.
Sal said he knew what she meant.
Yeah, I guess you would, wouldn't you. I guess it's kind of a funny coincidence, then, that the first time I'd be with a woman, and then the first man I ever really had would also be gay.
Sal said he didn't see what that had to do with anything. Well, it's like a recurring theme.
Sal said he still couldn't see it.
Never mind. I'm just glad now that you didn't live to see what I've come to. That's something you missed by drowning in the bathtub, Sal, that and the big AIDS epidemic. I mean, if you really had to go and die, drowning was the better way. You wouldn't want to die of AIDS. Or of me.
Sal said he'd never been that paranoid.
Well, there's plenty to be paranoid about these days. I found out there's a contagious form of the wild card virus. No one knows how it's being transmitted. And most people die from it.
Sal said that certainly was a revolting development. Yes, it certainly is. And you know what else, Sal?
Sal asked her what that was.
There's no way to tell if you've been exposed. Till it happens. Maybe I've been exposed. Maybe I'll get it and die. I just hope I can't give it to anyone else.
"Honey, you're not the only one."
Jane was about to answer when she realized she had heard Sal's voice for real. But it didn't sound very much like Sal. She turned to him in surprise and found it hadn't been Sal beside her after all but some stranger, a skinny man with a ratlike face, down to the mangy fur covering his cheeks, the pointed nose, and the whiskers.
"It's a mouse face, lady, not a rat face," the man said wearily. "You can tell by the teeth, if you know anything about rodents. I used to be an exterminator, okay? Gimme a hard time about it, why doncha. I tagged along with you to see what a little piece of chicken could want wandering around in Jokertown at this hour of the night. Frankly, lady, you got a lot more problems than I have, and I don't want none of them."
He was gone and she was standing in the middle of a sidewalk under a buzzing streetlamp.
"Sal?" she asked the air. There was no answer.
At first she'd been afraid she'd come back to the same bar, but then she saw it was different. No stage set up for a live sex show, for one thing, and the clientele was a lot livelier, more brightly dressed, some of them even in costumes and masks.
When she saw the eyeless man behind the bar, she panicked, and then she realized it couldn't be the same one she'd taken into the limousine. When had that been? At least a thousand years ago. Like a sleepwalker she moved to the bar and took one of the high stools. The eyeless bartender, working expertly, suddenly straightened up and turned his face in her direction.
"Trouble, Sascha?" A dwarf materialized at her side and clamped one thick hand on her arm.
The bartender backed away. " I don't want to be near her. Get her away from me."
"Come on, honey. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." The dwarf started to pull her off the stool. "No, please," she said, trying to twist her arm out of his grasp. " I have to see someone." She knew where she was now and it was the only place she could have come to find what she needed; Chrysalis or someone around Chrysalis would know where she could get a drug that would fill in the void Ti Malice had eaten away in her. She turned to look at the bartender. "Please, I'm not going to hurt anyone-"
"Get her out," the bartender said urgently. "I can't stand the way she feels."
Jane looked around wildly and then spotted Chrysalis at a corner table. She gave a mighty tug and slipped out of the dwarf's grip.
"Hey!" he yelled.
Ignoring the stares of the other patrons, she darted between the tables to the corner where Chrysalis was sitting, watching with those strange, floating blue eyes.
"Gotcha!" The dwarf seized her around the waist, and she fell to her knees, crawling the last few feet to Chrysalis's chair, dragging the man with her.