Aces High

His ears really were bleeding now but he no longer cared enough to notice.

Like all the rooms in this place, this one reminded her of a chapel. She could see where an altar or a baptismal font might have stood; that place was now occupied by a machine.

"You've seen this in a dream," Kafka said to Jane, putting a hand on one of the machine's impossible angles. Jane had to look away-the craziness of the outline was threatening to tie her vision in knots. She stared at the more-prosaic form of a nearby computer housing with a large monitor sitting dark and silent on top of it.

"The Shakti device," she said.

"Yes. The Shakti device." He winced as another one of those awful howls tore through the building. "Tonight we may all die, but this must be protected."

Jane's mouth twisted with distaste. "That TIAMAT creature-"

"Our only chance…"

There was a rustle as the dinosaur-boy-Kid Dinosaur, he'd told her-wrapped a sheet from Kafka's cot more tightly around himself. She'd asked him to stay in human form so she could talk with him and reluctantly he'd agreed, provided the roach-man would give him something to cover himself with. "I don't know how much you think you can trust this guy," the boy said, "but I sure wouldn't."

Steps thudded in the hall outside and Roman raced in, wild-eyed. "The computer housing-is it all right?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved Kafka aside, scrambling madly for the computer. "Ellie! I'm here, Ellie, I'm here!" Kafka went to him. "Where's the Astronomer?"

"Fuck him," Roman said and pushed Kafka away. "Fuck him and fuck all of you!" Another howl shook the building and they both fell against the computer together. One of the panels came off in Roman's hands, exposing part of the computer's circuitry.

"Holy shit!" said the boy. "Gross me out!"

Even in the bad light, Jane could see the circuitry pulsing, could see the texture of the boards and the moistness there, the living flesh mixed with the hard, dead machinery.

Or had the flesh itself hardened?-Jane put a hand over her eyes, feeling sick.

"Water Lily!"

Kafka's warning came just as she felt the hands on her from behind. They spun her around and she was staring into the tombstone gaze of Demise. She put her hands on his shoulders, and for one absurd moment it was as though they were embracing.

"Are you afraid to die?" he asked her.

In such extremity, she did not find his question out of place. "Yes," she said simply.

Something in his face changed and his grip loosened slowly.

"Water Lily!" Kafka cried again, his voice filled with despair. But she remained standing, remained alive, putting one hand on Demise's gaunt face. He recoiled from her touch. "It hurts, doesn't it?"

"Everything hurts," he said roughly and shoved her away from him. She sprawled on the floor near Kafka's machine and started to get up again just as a thick, stained-glass window exploded inward, spraying the room with multicolored shards. She covered her head with both arms, diving for the floor; a long flame roared across the room, scorching wood and stone. She heard someone scream. There was a rustling sound as Kafka crawled across the floor to her and tried to urge her closer to the machine.

"The only thing," he panted. Another howl shook them like an earthquake. "… TIAMAT… protect… need your help for TIAMAT's-"

He was torn away from her; she heard him shriek at the contact. Then someone pulled her to her feet and she saw Kafka fall backward from a kick to the head.

"Nooooo!" she screamed. "Don't hurt him, don't!-" She had seen those russet eyes a thousand times, most recently tonight. Her mouth worked but she couldn't make a sound. The russet eyes crinkled with a quick smile before they thrust her to one side.

"Stand back, honey, I don't want to mix you up with the french fries." He turned and began to point at Kafka and the Shakti device and the boy, who had turned back into a dinosaur, a stegosaurus this time, and was all too obviously in the line of fire. Jane fought for her voice and the right words and came up with possibly the only thing that could have stopped him from making one big cinder of them all.

"J. J., don't!"

Jumpin' Jack Flash turned back to her, his mouth dropping open with surprise.

A moment later, he was even more surprised to see that she was covered with water.

Fortunato had been ru

"Fortunato-where-what are you-trying to do?" huffed Tachyon.

"I feel him," Fortunato said over his shoulder. "Feel who?"

"He did Eileen. And Balsam. And a lot of others-" he staggered as the Howler gave another one of those long, horrible screams. Tachyon stumbled into him and the two of them nearly fell. "Shit, I wish he'd shut the fuck up," Fortunato muttered. He stopped suddenly and grabbed Tachyon by his faggot coat-front. "Listen, you stand back. He's all mine, understand that?"

Tachyon looked up at Fortunato's swollen forehead, his dark, angry eyes. Then he pried Fortunato's hands off himself. "I've never seen you like this before."

"Yeah, well, you ain't seen shit yet," Fortunato growled, and kept going, with the space faggot tagging after him.

For several long moments, it seemed as though nobody knew what to do. Roman had gotten to his feet and was shielding the exposed computer with his body. Kafka had scuttled over to the Shakti machine; the little stegosaurus was looking from side to side. Even Jumpin' Jack Flash seemed to be frozen, looking from Jane to the strange machine and Kafka, to Roman and back to Jane.

Then he turned away from her and time started again and he was stretching an arm out toward Kafka's machine. "Not him," Jane said desperately, and reached for him just as Demise said, almost too soft to hear, "Hey. You." Before Jumpin' Jack Flash could react, the stegosaurus twinkled to the form of a naked boy and then to a tyra

Jumpin' Jack Flash took a step back, lifted both hands, and then looked puzzled. The Astronomer wagged a finger at him as though he were a naughty child, and turned his attention to Demise, who was still rolling around on the floor with the tyra

"Aw, shit!" the boy yelled, and squirmed out of Demise's grasp, fighting to get to the door. Just as he reached it, a tall black man with a bulging forehead appeared at the threshold. Jane gasped, not at his appearance but at the sense of power around him; she could feel the unreleased forces charging the air.