“Hey!”
Slash turned. “You called?” Charon said. “Get in — it’s almost light.”
“You came for me?”
“Among other things. I heard you calling. Took me a little longer than usual to get here. Let’s move.”
“Move where? The Rox is gone. The Turtle smashed it to pieces last night. I saw it from Battery Park. Bloat’s dead.”
“Just get in if you’re going,” Charon insisted.
“But going where?” Slash asked again.
“Trust me,” Charon said. “Or go back to Jokertown. It’s your choice.”
Slash glanced back at the city. Manhattan was bright against an ultramarine sky. The skyscrapers themselves were dark, invisible towers. Only the lights gave them substance, like a stage backdrop built of paint and boards and strands of glaring bulbs.
The last week had been hell in Jokertown. Slash had tried to get to the Rox twice; each time she’d been turned back by the police and National Guard units. She didn’t know why she’d wanted to be there or why it might be different from Jokertown or why she thought she might be less lonely there — from what she’d heard, she had a better than even chance of dying on the Rox. Somehow, that didn’t seem to matter. It hurt to stay in J-town; it hurt to listen to the explosions rumbling between the skyscrapers as they strafed and shelled the Rox; it hurt to listen to the anger and hatred that boiled from every radio and television report about the assault.
It hurt just to be.
Slash was certain that bad, bad times were coming for all jokers. There’d been too much death and too much pain, and the blame had to be placed somewhere. She suspected she knew where that blame was going to rest.
“Just push through my side,” Charon said behind the joker. He seemed to laugh. “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble. Once you’re in, we’ll go.”
Slash turned from the city. She went to Charon, arms outstretched. She plunged her hands — followed almost immediately by the points of several blades — into the yielding cold flesh between the vaulted ribs, felt the sides cling and then part under the pressure. She stepped into Charon’s slime-walled belly and sat there. Through the womb of Charon, New York still gleamed, blurred and haloed now. Very distant.
“We’re off, then,” Charon said.
Cilia thrashed. Gas vented from orifices around the body, bubbling in the dark water. Charon slowly sank below the surface of the East River, the city lights swirling in the current as it disappeared.
On the muddy, trash-filled riverbed, Charon began its long walk home.
Croyd awakened.
Stretched, snorted, and rolled over. And found himself face-to-face with a fish. Now that he thought about it the air had smelled a little funny. The Sleeper experimentally drew another breath. Watched the exhalations, carrying water and carbon dioxide, erupt from the tiny puckered mouths on the ends of his blue spikes.
“Christ, a joker again.” That was the intent. What emerged was a series of bubbling sounds.
Visibility was lousy. The Sleeper picked a direction and struck out. Fetched up face-first in goo. It smelled even worse than the water. Reversing direction he stroked doggedly upward until his head broke the water. The skyline of Manhattan greeted him.
He dogpaddled in a slow circle to get his bearings. Unfortunately there weren’t many bearings to be got. Ellis Island was gone. Liberty Island was gone. Liberty herself was gone.
“…Jesus, must have been some party … Wonder if I slept through Wild Card Day again?” Croyd mused aloud.
Stunned, angry, grieving, all those things at once, weary and heartsick, Cordelia let the government man usher her into the small room. She blinked in the dim light, tried to focus through the sudden sheen of tears.
A woman sat behind a simple wooden table. She was young, seemingly fragile, face finely sculpted. Her long, wavy, blond hair cascaded around her shoulders. Slightly shadowed, her dark eyes glanced up at Cordelia.
“Yes?” the woman behind the table said. To Cordelia, the voice sounded a little spacey. “You’ve need of my services?”
“You already know that,” said the government man tightly. “We’ve made arrangements. This is Cordelia Chaisson.”
“You were mentioned,” said the woman to Cordelia. She fingered the cameo at her throat, let her delicate thumb and index finger brush across the black ribbon choker. “Please sit down.”
Cordelia sat in the austere dark-wood chair in front of the desk. The government man stood at her shoulder.
He placed his hand on Cordelia’s shoulder. “This is Miss Allworth.”
“Cameo,” said Miss Allworth. “We’ll leave it at that.”
Cordelia nodded slightly. “What… can you do? I mean, for me?”
“Maybe nothing,” said Cameo. She looked drawn, suddenly years older than her first impression. She turned to the government man. “Give me the opal. His opal.”
“Wyungare,” said Cordelia. “His name was Wyungare.” She wanted, how she wanted, to break down and sob. She drew together her strength and did not. For now.
The government man shook something out of a small cloth sack and showed it to Cordelia. It was a rough-cut opal suspended from a leather thong. The leather was seared. Cordelia could smell it.
“I gave him that,” she said. She took the piece from the government man’s hand and clutched it momentarily in her fingers.
Cameo extended her own hand, palm up, and let Cordelia drop the opal pendant into it.
“What do I do?” said Cordelia in almost a whisper.
Cameo apparently misunderstood. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll do everything that needs to be done.” Her fingers closed on the opal and thong. Her fist tightened in what seemed almost a small convulsion.
Her eyes, huge already, seemed to dilate even farther. But there was no focus there. It was, Cordelia thought, like looking into a birthing hurricane — immense power, but no clear form.
Cameo’s head jerked back once as if from a blow. Her chair rocked and creaked. Then she looked directly at Cordelia and her features seemed subtly to shift, her face taking on a squarer shape.
“G’day, young missy.” Cameo’s voice had deepened, broadened, was accented now with the outback inflections Cordelia knew so well.
“Wyungare?” Cordelia almost breathed the word. She unconsciously started to get up. The government man’s fingers tightened on her shoulders.
“Take it easy,” he said. “Make the time give you what you want. There’s no telling how long this will last.”
Cameo’s lips turned in a smile. “None other,” she said in Wyungare’s voice.
“You’re, you’re--” Cordelia started to say, couldn’t.
“Dead?” said Wyungare’s voice. The smile took on a gentleness. “We never say dead in my business, but” — a shrug — “I’m afraid I’m close enough for your purposes. My stay on this plane for this time is done.”
“Please,” said Cordelia. “I need you here.”
Cameo cocked her head the way Wyungare would have cocked his. “You want me here. You’ll discover you don’t need me.”
"That’s cruel!” She tried to bite back the words but couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, Cordie,” said Wyungare’s voice. “I truly am, my sweet, my love. I should not be so glib, and I certainly shouldn’t be what you keep defining as a wiseass. It’s just that I’ve been through a lot lately.”
“I know,” said Cordelia, staring at the man looking back at her from Cameo’s body. “They’ve told me some of it. Enough of it.”
“Did they tell you about Jack?”
Cordelia shook her head.
“Your uncle helped me enormously with aiding the young master in turn.”