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There’s nobody in there, he thought.
There’s nobody coming up behind me—
At the end of the block something—moved? No, it was a shadow between two parked trucks.
“Hey,” somebody said directly across the alley in a voice just under normal. “What the fuck you think you doin’, huh?”
He bruised his arm on the wall, and came away, rubbing it.
A thick shoulder pushed from behind a metal door across the alley. “Don’t get excited.” Half of Nightmare’s face emerged. Kid could see half the mouth speaking: “But when I count three, you get your ass over here so fast I wa
Nightmare caught Kid’s arm, and the memory of traversed pavement was battered out by bruises on his back, knee, and jaw—“Hey, man, you don’t have to—” as Nightmare snatched him through the quarter-open doorway.
He was in four-fifths darkness with a lot of people breathing.
“God damn,” Nightmare said. “I mean Jesus Christ.”
He said, “You don’t have to break my head,” softer than he’d started to.
Somebody very black in a vinyl vest laughed loudly. For a moment he thought it was Dragon Lady, but it was a man.
Nightmare made some disgusted sound. The laugh cut off.
Nightmare’s scarred shoulder (it was the first thing Kid saw as his eyes cleared of the dark) hid half of De
“Now look up there.”
Kid focused outside the dirty window on the second story of the department store.
“You lookin’ good?”
—was a window where gold letters arched: New Fashions. And behind them, a man, with a rifle in one hand, scratched his thin neck under the too large collar of his blue sports shirt, then ambled on.
“Now what”—with sweetness—“the hell are you doing here?” Nightmare yanked Kid’s head back from the window before he let go. “Come on.” He sucked his teeth. “Tell me now.”
“I just—” Pain subsided.
“I should break your head open, you know?”
“Hey, man, you—”
“Shut up, Copperhead,” Nightmare said.
The big, bearded, redheaded spade leaned in the corner. “—you don’t have to do that,” he finished. “I’ll do it for you, if you want.” He nodded at Kid in damped recognition. “Give ’im to me.”
“Fuck off.” Nightmare waved a peremptory fist. “You just come by, huh? We been pla
“Well, Pepper told me you guys were maybe down here—”
Nightmare sucked some more. “We been pla
“I got him,” De
Nightmare glanced questioningly over his shoulder.
“Sure,” De
In his corner, Copperhead turned his stick up behind his arm.
“He can go with my group,” De
Kid thought, unsure: Three against two.
Once more Nightmare flung round his fist; and growled.
“Come on,” De
“You don’t let him mess up anything!” Nightmare admonished with his chin.
“Yeah. The Kid’ll be okay.”
“He’d better be.”
“He’s a good guy, Nightmare. Come on, you said he was a good guy yourself.”
Nightmare growled once more.
Kid stepped by him, tried and failed not to look at Copperhead. Copperhead blinked and started to smile. Kid decided it was worth his life to fail at anything among them again.
De
Some dozen (safer…) clustered; and they were walking through another door, following De
“Here,” De
They stopped before another door. A window on one side showed the Emboriky’s sandy wall.
De
Kid thought: They top Pepper, I guess.
De
Like Copperhead’s little blond brother.
They have a plan, Kid thought, caught in it.
I am not thinking of Lanya.
One on wet leather, one on grit, his feet tingled. How did I get here? Did I choose to come? I want to control these people. (The tingling reached his head, subsided.) I chose. Observe and go, easy with them. He would ask De
“That thing work?” De
“No battery.”
De
Either the people or the situation is boring. But either the situation or the people are intriguing. I ca
A long time later, a long way away, someone whistled.
While De
The doors flapped.
They ran across the street; scorpions were ru