Wildcards

Another was Mai. She looked up at him dully as he entered the room and quick stifled the look of recognition that came to her face when she saw him. It had been three years since he had seen her. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, small, delicate, fine-featured, with thick, glossy hair and dark, dark eyes. She looked unharmed, if terribly tired.

There were circles under her eyes and Bre

"What's your name, man?" he asked in the thick argot of the i

"Archer," Bre

Scar flashed his smile again. It twisted his face into odd contortions that showed nothing of humor.

"You just in time, man. The sister here is going to demonstrate her power, aren't you?"

Everyone looked at Mai, who bowed her head in silent, wearied resignation.

"She can do it?" the masked woman asked, her voice oddly eager and sibilant.

Scar only nodded and gestured at Mai. The two thugs watched with disinterest. Scar kept shifting his gaze back and forth to Bre

"Tell the man," he said, watching Bre

Bre

"You have to take the mask off," Mai told the woman quietly. She drew back a little and glanced at the men watching her, but obeyed. Bre

"I used to be beautiful," she said, looking down.

Scar's men snickered aloud, but Mai took her roughski

The woman looked up at her, a world of pain in her eyes. Mai gazed calmly at her, her face blank with the serenity of a mado

Two lizard-women faced each other, one blond, one darkhaired. The woman looked at Mai wide-eyed, Mai looked back reassuringly. She sighed, longly, like a lover after release, and she began to change. Her skin lost its roughness, its bright color. The bone beneath it shifted back to normal configurations. Her lips twitched slightly, perhaps at the pain of the metamorphosis, but she said nothing. It took a moment longer, but the blond woman, too, began to change. Skin softened, bleached itself. Bone flowed like soft wax. Tears ran down her high, fine cheeks, whether from pain or joy, Bre

The woman reached down to a purse on a small table near where she stood and took out a thick envelope. Scar gestured. One of his smirking thugs took it, put it in his back pants pocket, and escorted the woman from the room.

"Well, man, what you think?"

"Fantastic," Bre

"I don't know about that shit," Scar said. "I just heard that she was healing jokers in the neighborhood, and I figured why should she fix up those poor jokers when she can fix up jokers who'll pay plenty. So I snatched her."

Bre

Scar puckered his tattooed lips in mock consternation. "You will? You seem to know a lot, man. How come you don't know that I told the man about her when that gook saw us together in the back of the man's limo?" He turned, looked at Mai, and added maliciously, "And then the man had the old gook hit so he wouldn't tell no one about it."

"My father?" Mai asked.

Scar nodded, gri

He launched himself across the room, ripped the gun from the man's shoulder rig, jammed the barrel against his chest, and pulled the trigger. There was an immense roar as the blast lifted the man ofu his feet and threw him against the wall. He left a red smear as he slumped to the floor, his eyes open and unbelieving.

Bre

He reappeared between Bre

"You need a gun to go up against Scar? You some kind of crazy nat," he said. "What name you want on your tombstone?" He reached into the pocket of his chinos and with a practiced flick of his wrist opened a six-inch-long straight razor. He vanished again and Bre

"I cut you slowly, man," he said, appearing with killing lust in his eyes, "I cut you till you beg me to finish you." He twitched his wrist, flicking Bre