Down And Dirty

"Go fuck yourself!" someone yelled hoarsely. "That's the late show, sweetheart!"

"Okay, cunt, let's go," said the male voice in Jane's ear. "You ruined the show," The arms lifted her and dragged her across the back of the room to a different exit than the one Ezili had taken. The red-haired kid ran to open the door, and Jane was shoved out into a narrow, dirty alley. She hit the ground on hands and knees, crying out in rage and pain.

"Blow, cunt. And don't bring it around here again."

She scrambled up, ready to protest, and then jumped back, falling against some garbage cans. The man standing in the doorway was no taller than she was, but his torso was wide and misshapen, to accommodate the three pairs of arms.

Behind him the red-haired boy glowered at her and wiped his mouth showily. "She didn't pay, Handyman," he said.

The man glanced at the kid and then came at Jane, moving more quickly than she had thought he would have been able to. "Nobody stiffs one of my boys," he said, "especially not some ski

"Shut up. You keep it down there, in the safety deposit box? I'll give you one chance to get it yourself and then I go in after it."

Jane stared at him pleadingly; he pulled the hand at her mouth away.

"Well?"

"I don't have anything," she whispered. "They left me here with nothing."

The man picked her up and tossed her away. She landed heavily on her side in a spill of garbage.

"Tough stuff, cunt. But I'll let you off with a warning. This time. Don't bring it back here, I mean it."

Jane raised herself slowly to a sitting position, drawing her legs up protectively. The man started to turn away and then feigned a lunge at her. She gave a small yelp and he laughed at her, the red-haired boy joining in from where he stood at the doorway, hanging on the jamb by one arm as though this were some idle, late-summer afternoon and he was being entertained by the antics of his friends. In the light it was obvious that he was younger than she'd thought. Revulsion and pity for him began to well up in her and suddenly cut off as it met the great hollowness of Ti Malice's absence from her body and mind. She burst into tears and something in her gave. Suddenly she was covered with water.

"What the fuck is that?" the man shouted at her. "What the fuck are you?" He backed away from her. The sight of the six-armed joker flinching from her water-calling power gave her small, bitter amusement; she concentrated and this time found the power, pulling a couple of gallons of water out of the air to fling in his face. Then, while he was still sputtering and roaring with anger, she got up and ran.

She called the water out of her clothing as best she could, but the power was weak and she stayed moderately damp as she wandered aimlessly through Jokertown in the deepening twilight. Aimless? Not quite lifeless, perhaps, lifeless and empty, but on the lookout for Hiram's car. Perhaps Ezili had gone back to Hiram, or Hiram had gone back to Aces High. If she called Hiram, he might send someone out for her-

The memory of what had happened with Hiram was like a fist in her stomach. She could see his face, the sorrow, the anger, the despair, that alien curiosity, and then Ezili, Ezili and herself…

She bent over, choking and gagging, unmindful of the stares from people passing by. Oh, God, how could she have, what had made her-with Ezili, Ezili-she must have been mad, crazed, possessed

Someone bumped into her and she staggered against the side of a building, sobbing into her hands. Possessed, yes, but now it was gone, leaving her worse than alone. The hollowness inside of her seemed to swell, and she had an image of herself being sucked down a huge drain. To live without the fullness the creature brought her, to exist with no pleasure at all, was unbearable.

Trembling doubled her over again and she sobbed harder. More. She needed more, she needed to feel herself whole again, nestled in the glow of pleasure that only the creature could give her, and if she had to go to Ezili again, to Ezili and Hiram together, if she had to go to that bar and walk up onstage to the hermaphrodite and the man and the six-armed joker and the red-haired boy all at the same time, it would not have been too much to ask of herself, if the thing asked her to cut her own throat at the end of it-

"Hey. Hey. Easy, now."

Gentle hands were on her shoulders. She twisted around, desperate hope rising and then plummeting to despair as she looked into the grotesque clown face. "Go away," she said, pushing at the strange man feebly.

"There, now, I'm just trying to help you. Don't let the face put you off. I know it's silly. Just my bad luck to be in makeup when the virus showed, now I can't get it off. Not the worst thing that could happen, I guess, just looking at you." The man hauled her to her feet and stood her against the wall, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. The sadness in his eyes made the clown white and the big red nose even more absurd, but she didn't feel much like laughing.

"Go away," she moaned, "you can't help me, no one can help me, only him. I have to find him." Weeping, she looked down at her arms. Dry. She touched her face; it, too, was dry. She couldn't even call her own tears anymore. Had that been the last of it, back there in the alley?

"Water!" she cried. "I want the water!"

"Shh, shh, we'll get you some water," said the clown man, trying to hold her still.

"Please! He's taken the water!" She collapsed against the man, crying weakly, but still without tears.

Curled up on the bed in the fetal position, she heard the clown man talking to one of the clinic nurses without really listening to what he was saying. Every so often her body gave an uncontrollable shudder, but she remained dry. Dried up, she thought; all dried up without him, without the kiss and the pleasure and the fullness.

".. something about water," the clown man was saying. "Hysterical," said the nurse. "Hysteria seems to be the condition of the moment around here."

"Nah, it's more than that. I've got a bad feeling. She oughta be watched."

The nurse sighed. "Maybe, but we just don't have the people. The new cases are coming in almost faster than we can log them, all jokers and worse. If we don't find the cause, the whole city could get infected. You're ru

The clown man grunted. "What's a joker got to lose?"

"You'd know the answer to that if you saw the locked ward."

"That's just a small locked ward you got here. Out there, it's a big locked ward, and we're all locked into it. And when I walk around it, I just see my brother again, turned inside out. Screaming every time his heart beat. Hell, you don't have the people to stay with her, I'll stay with her, watch her for signs that she's been infected."

A fresh bout of shuddering racked Jane's body; she tried to quell it and listen to what they were saying.

"That's big of you, Boze, but just from the quick exam we gave her in the emergency room, I'd say she's suffering from drug withdrawal, not a new wild card infection."

The idea seemed to flood Jane's mind with a bright light. She sat up and turned to the nurse. "Drugs. I need a drug." The nurse glanced at the clown man. "What'd I tell you, Boze? Just another junkie courting AIDS."

"I am NOT a junkie, you bitch, I am an ACE and I demand to see Dr. Tachyon AT ONCE!"The scream tore out of Jane's throat, leaving it raw; she imagined she could hear her words echoing all through the clinic, reaching all the way to Tachyon himself, wherever he was.