COUNT ZERO

“His head,” she said, her voice shaking, “his head -”

“That was the laser,” Turner said, steering back up the service road. The rain was thi

Angie doubled over and threw up. Turner steered with one hand, Oakey’s flask in the other. He pried the snap-fit lid open with his teeth and gulped back a mouthful of Oakey’s Wild Turkey.

As they reached the shoulder of the highway, the Honda’s fuel found the flames of the ruined station, and the twisted fireball showed Turner the mall again, the light of the parachute flares, the sky whiting out as the Jet streaked for the Sonora border.

Angie straightened up, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and began to shake.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, driving east again. She said nothing, and he glanced sideways to see her rigid and upright in her seat, her eyes showing white in the faint glow of the instruments, her face blank. He’d seen her that way in Rudy’s bedroom, when Sally had called them in, and now that same flood of language, a soft fast rattle of something that might have been patois French. He had no recorder, no time, he had to drive.

“Hang on,” he said, as they accelerated, “you’ll be okay.” Sure she couldn’t hear him at all. Her teeth were chattering; he could hear it above the turbine. Stop, he thought, long enough to get something between her teeth, his wallet or a fold of cloth. Her hands were plucking spastically at the straps of the harness.

“There is a sick child in my house.” The hover nearly left the pavement, when he heard the voice come from her mouth, deep and slow and weirdly glutinous. “I hear the dice being tossed, for her bloody dress. Many are the hands who dig her grave tonight, and yours as well. Enemies pray for your death, hired man They pray until they sweat. Their prayers are a river of fever.” And then a sort of croaking that might have been laughter.

Turner risked a glance, saw a silver thread of drool descend from her rigid lips. The deep muscles of her face had contorted into a mask he didn’t know. “Who are you?”

“I am the Lord of Roads.”

“What do you want?”

“This child for my horse, that she may move among the towns of men. It is well that you drive east. Carry her to your city I shall ride her again. And Samedi rides with you, gunman. He is the wind you hold in your hands, but he is fickle, the Lord of Graveyards, no matter that you have served him well... He turned in time to see her slump sideways in the harness, her head lolling, mouth slack.

25 GOTHIK/KASUAL

“THIS IS THE Fi

“That’s not natural,” said Jammer, sipping Scotch Bobby nodded.

“Fi

“The bitch,” Jackie said, from behind the bar, “knows already.”

“She knows,” Jammer said, putting the plastic glass down and fingering his bob tie, “she knows. Talked to a hoodoo in the matrix, so she knows.

“Well, Lucas isn’t answering, and Beauvoir isn’t answering, so maybe she’s right.” Bobby reached out and shut off the phone as the record tone began to squeal.

Jammer was gotten up in a pleated shirt, white di

“Who’s Bogue and Sharkey?” Bobby asked.

“The bartenders I don’t like this.” He got up from his chair, walked to the door, and gently edged one of the curtains aside. “What the fuck are those dipshits doing out there? Hey, Count, this looks like your speed. Get over here.”

Bobby got up, full of misgivings – he hadn’t felt like telling Jackie or Jammer about letting Leon see him, because he didn’t want to look like a wilson – and walked over to where the club owner stood.

“Go on. Take a peek. Don’t let ‘em see you. They’re pretending so hard not to watch us you can almost smell it.”

Bobby moved the curtain, careful to keep the crack no more than a centimeter wide, and looked out. The shopping crowd seemed to have been replaced almost entirely by black-crested Gothick boys in leather and studs, and – amazingly – by an equal proportion of blond Kasuals, the latter decked out in the week’s current Shinjuku cottons and gold-buckled white loafers. “I du

Jammer stuck his hands deep in his pleated trousers. “You know any of those guys personally?”

“Gothicks, I know some of ‘em to talk to. Except it’s hard to tell ‘em apart Kasuals, they’ll stomp anything that isn’t Kasual. That’s mainly what they’re about. But I just been cut up by Lobes anyway, and Lobes are supposed to be under treaty with the Gothicks, so who knows?”

Jammer sighed. “So, I guess you don’t feel like strolling out there and asking one what they think they’re up to?”

“No,” Bobby said earnestly, “I don’t.”

“Hmmm.” Jammer looked at Bobby in a calculating way, a way that Bobby definitely didn’t like.

Something small and hard dropped from the high black ceiling and clicked loudly on one of the round black tables. The thing bounced and hit the carpet, rolling, and landed between the toes of Bobby’s new boots. Automatically, he bent and picked it up. An old-fashioned, slot-headed machine screw, its threads brown with rust and its head clotted with dull black latex paint. He looked up as a second one struck the table, and caught a glimpse of an u

A third screw ticked explosively on the Formica of the tabletop.

Bobby hesitated, confused, but then followed Jackie’s example and got out of sight, moving as quietly as he could. He crouched behind one of the club’s wooden screens and watched as the fourth screw came down, followed by a slender cascade of fine dark dust. There was a scraping sound, and then a square steel ceiling grate vanished abruptly, withdrawn into some kind of duct. He glanced quickly to the bar, in time to see the fat recoil compensator on the barrel of Jammer’s gun as it swung up.

A pair of thin brown legs dangled from the opening now, and a gray sharkskin hem smudged with dust.

“Hold it,” Bobby said, “it’s Beauvoir!”

“You bet it’s Beauvoir,” came the voice from above, big and hollow with the echo of the duct. “Get that damn table out of the way.”