"Buddenbaum!"
The bearded man glanced round at his companion, and Tesia had a clear look at his face. The expression he wore was grotesque; every muscle in his face churning and his eyes blazed.
"Mine!" he yelled, his voice shrill, and swung back towards the woman, who was in some delirious state of her own, her eyes rolling in her sockets. She started to pull herself free of Buddenbaum, and in doing so her blouse tore open from neck to belt, exposing bra and belly. She scarcely noticed, it seemed. But the crowd did. A roar rose from all sides-gasps, wolf-whistles, and applause all mingled. Flailing, the woman stumbled away from Buddenbaum Larry couldn't believe it. Just as he thought things were in hand Dorothy pulled away from the doctor-practically showing her all to the world in the process-and reeled round, straight in front of the band.
Larry yelled "Halt!" but it was too late to prevent catastrophe. The Bullard woman collided with him, and he staggered backwards into the trumpet section. Two of the band members went over like bowling pins, and Larry fell on top of them. There was another roar from the spectators.
Larry's spectacles had come off in the melee. Without them the world was a blur. Detaching himself from the knot of trumpeters he started to search the ground, patting the warm asphalt.
"Nobody move!" he yelled. "Please! Nobody move!"
His plea went unheard. People were moving all around him. He could see their blurry forms; he could hear their shouts and curses.
"We're all going to die," he heard somebody sob nearby. He was sure it was Dorothy, and good man that he was, forsook his search a moment to comfort her. But when he looked up from the street to seek out the blur that most resembled her, something else came into view. It was a woman, but she was not blurred; far from it. He could not have wished for a vision more perfectly in focus. She was not standing in the street, but hovering a little distance above it. No; not even hovering, stan&ng; she was standing in the air, with a silk robe loosely knotted around her. Very loosely, in fact. He could see her breasts-they were glossy and full-and a hint of what lay between her legs. He called out to her,
"Who are you?" But she didn't hear him. She just moved off, climbing the air as though ascending a flight of invisible stairs. He started to get to his feet, wishing he could follow, and as he did so she looked back, coquettishly, not at him, he knew, but at somebody whom she was coaxing to follow her.
Oh how she smiled at him, the lucky bastard, and plucked at her robe to tease him with a glimpse of her beautiful legs. Then she continued to climb, and a few steps up the flight, seemed to encounter another woman-this one descendingthe contact briefly illuminating the second beauty.
Larry-?"
What was he seeing?
"I got your spectacles."
"Hub?"
"Your spectacles, Larry." they were thrust in front of him, and he fumbled for them, not wanting to take his eyes off the woman.
"What the hell are you looking at?"
"Don't you see them?"
"See what?"
"The women."
"Put your damn spectacles on, Larry."
He did so. The world came into focus around him, in all its confusion. But the woman had gone.
"God, no-"
He pulled his spectacles off again, but the vision had escaped him into the bright summer sky.
In the midst of this confusion-Dorothy Bullard escaping, Buddenbaum going after her, the band falling down like tin soldiers-Tesia had made her way to the center of the crossroads. It had taken her perhaps five seconds to do so, but in those seconds she had been assailed b a legion of sensa'Y tion,,, her spirits lifted one moment and dropped the next, her body wracked and caressed by turns, as though whatever lay at the heart of the crossroads was testing her wits to breaking point. Clearly the town woman had failed the test. She was bawling like an abandoned child. Buddenbaum, however, was made of sterner stuff. He was standing a couple of yards from Tesla, staring down at the ground.
"What the fuck's going on?" she yelled to him. He didn't look up. Didn't even speak. "Can you hear me?" "Not. Another. Step," he said. Despite the cacophony, and the fact that he spoke in a near-whisper, she heard him as clearly as if he'd murmured in her ear.
A terrible suspicion rose in Tesla, which she instantly voiced.
"Are you Kissoon?" she said.
This certainly got his attention.
"Kissoon?" he said, his lip curling. "He's a piece of shit. What do you know about him?"
That answered her question plainly enough. But it begged another. If he wasn't Kissoon, but he knew who Kissoon was, then who was he?
"He's just some name I heard."
His face was quite a sight: a mass of bulges, about to burst. "Some name?" he said, reaching for her. "Kissoon's not some name!" She dearly wanted to retreat from him, but a part of her was irrationally possessive of this contested ground. She stood it, though he took hold of her by the neck.
"Who are you?"
She was afraid for her life.
"Tesia Bombeck," she said.
"You're Tesla Bombeck?" he said, plainly amazed.
"Yes," she said, barely able to get the words out from under his thumbs.
"Do you mind... letting go-"
He drew her closer to him. "Oh God," he said, with a twisted little smile on his face. "You're an ambitious little bitch, aren't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh you don't, huh? You came to take away all I've worked for and "
"I haven't come to take anything," Tesla gasped.
"Liar!" Buddenbaum said, tightening his hold on her neck.
She reached up to his face and jabbed her finger in his eye, but he wasn't about to let go.
"Me Art's mine," he yelled. "You can't have it! You can't."
She had no breath left to contest her innocence, not much strength to fight him off. The world began to throb to the rhythm of her pulse, pulsing with every heartbeat. She kicked at his legs, hoping she might knock him off his feet, but he seemed to feel nothing, to judge by his unchanging face. He just kept saying: "Mine... Mine... " though his voice, like the whole world, was growing paler and thinner', preparing to disappear completely.
"Don't we know that woman?" somebody said nearby.
"I believe we do," came the reply.
She couldn't turn to see the speakers, but she didn't need to. She knew them by their voices. The leader of the phantoms she'd met in Toothaker's house was here, and not alone. Buddenbaum's face was barely visible now, but just before it flickered out completely she saw him raise his eyes, looking past her at something nearby. He spoke, but the words were white noise. Then there was burst of heat, and a red mark appeared above his fight eye. She squinted hard, trying to make sense of it, but before she could do so his fingers relaxed, and she slipped from his grasp. Her legs were too weak to bear her up. they folded beneath her, and down she went. She drew a breath as she collapsed, and her grateful brain rewarded her with a sliver of comprehension. Buddenbaum had been shot. The mark on his face was a bullet hole.
She didn't have a chance to take satisfaction in the fact. When she struck the ground her thoughts flickered out.
One shot, and the crowd was in turmoil. Cheers turned to screams, laughter to panic. Suddenly people were running in every direction, except towards the gunman and his victim.
D'Amour slipped his gun into his jacket and started towards the middle of the street. The man he'd shot was still standing, despite the blood flooding from his brow, which fact supported the suspicion that there was magic here. Despite the sun, despite the crowds, a suit had been worked and was still being worked, in fact. The closer he got to the place where Tesla was lying, the more his ink itched.