Peonies’ eyes blaze, and he turns to the cowering Bluedog and fires, stitching Bluedog to the wall. Instead of nails, the gun fires little blue snakes so that in an instant Bluedog is fastened to the steel with a thousand wriggling tearing fanged things.
Bluedog begins to scream, but the sounds that emerge from his straining mouth are oddly musical, great beautiful chords of horror and pain. The dead fingers rise and dance in response, then move to the mangled slithersynth and begin to draw a terrible counterpoint from the instrument. The corpse taps its toes.
Behind Bluedog, on the wall, a large pink stylized heart appears.
Kemrin felt the dream approaching a crescendo, and his heart hammered.
The music keens, blazing with hate and triumph. Bluedog bellows as sweetly as a great pipe organ, and a crack appears in the wall high over Bluedog’s head. Bluedog looks up, and his screams reach new pinnacles of harmonious terror. The crack wanders down the wall, coming inexorably for Bluedog. Bluedog’s good eye bulges, and the wall separates behind him.
The music falls silent. The only sound is the slow tearing of Bluedog’s flesh, the pop of snapping ligaments, the wet crack of bones, as the wall splits Bluedog into two pieces.
A bitter black dust pours from Bluedog’s riven shell A moment later, the dust stirs and a tiny Bluedog emerges, no larger than a mouse. The manikin squeaks in ludicrous rage, runs away.
Kemrin woke, saw Leila’s concerned face. She held a damp cloth to his face.
«Are you all right?» she asked, patting carefully at him. «I pulled the monitor off.»
He sat up, rubbed at his face with shaking hands. «Strong stuff,» he said.
She brightened. «You liked it?»
«No.» He shuddered. «But it was good. I t was great, but we can’t sell that.»
«Why not? Besides, I ’ve already sold it. It’s playing on the blackchannel right now»
He leaped up, horrified. «You’ve sent it out? Oh no, oh no. Bluedog will be frothing»
She smiled fiercely. «Yes! Yes! But he was already bent on destroying you, and I was dead before you found me. Check your account.»
His mouth fell open. But then he plugged in his cashplaque. As he watched, the numbers piled up. Already he was near the Pale’s solvency threshold. «Everyone must be dreaming of Bluedog,» he said, dazed.
«Oh yes. Bluedog has no friends in Howlytown, only slaves and enemies.» Her eyes were bright with pleasure. «Can’t you feel it? Howlytown is laughing!»
He was a little frightened of her, he discovered. «I never asked you how you came to belong to Bluedog.»
She turned away. «He wanted my skills. No one else wanted me more — anyway, no one who could take me away from Bluedog. He was careful never to let me near a weapon. Could any unarmed human ever injure Bluedog? What else is there to say?»
«How long?»
«A year.» The light died from her eyes, and he pulled her close, tried to comforther. She clungtightly, but she never cried.
By midnight, Kemrin was as good as out of Howlytown, his account well over the Pale threshold. According to Leila, he could get past Bluedog if he waited until Bluedog linked to his favorite dream channel, just before dawn.
«Come with me,» he urged her.
She tried to smile. «You know I can’t. I’m an unregistered person, like most of us down here. I can’t even have a cash account. They’d never let me in.»
What would happen to her after he left? «I’ll leave th e little tin soldier with you. You can stay here as long as you want to; I’ll keep paying the rent. You can become the best dreamer in Howlytown, earn enough to have Bluedog assassinated. Or maybe Bluedog will burst from his own meanness.»
She laughed. «Maybe. Oh, that’s very kind, Kemrin.»
But he knew it wouldn’t happen that way. Bluedog would be raging. Singh Louie would eventually give in. Kemrin remembered the fear in Singh Louie’s voice when the subject of Bluedog had a risen. «Isn’t there anyone in Howlytown who isn’t afraid of Bluedog?»
Her smile trembled, as if his thoughts were visible. «A few madmen perhaps; they don’t count, do they? One other, I suppose, a gunlegger named Jarvis Donabel. He’s crazy too, but so heavily cyborged that he fears no one. He’ll sell you anything, any sort of weapon, any kind of bodymod, if you have the cash. Bluedog hates him for his power, but there’s nothing Bluedog can do.»
An idea came to Kemrin, an ugly frightening idea.
At first he shied away from it, tried to forget it, but that didn’t work; it was a horribly practical idea. So then he tried to flatten Leila into a bright empty dream character, he tried to believe she was just another unreal Howlytown bit player. She’s a whore, he thought, just some of the human rubbish that blows around the alleys of Howlytown. Not worth it.
But then he looked at her again, and saw how fine and brave and kind she was. And she saved you from Bluedog, didn’t she? he thought.
«Tell me,» he asked, finally. «How can I find this Jarvis Donabel?»
In his own way, Jarvis Donabel was as much a monster as Bluedog, but he was a cold, impartial monster, much easier to deal with. Donabel held up the merchandise in one great steel claw. «This is what you need.»
«How much?»
Donabel named a huge price. He didn’t bother to reply when Kemrin made a counteroffer. Kemrin rubbed at his cheek. The price would clean out his account, the account that would have gotten him safely out of Howlytown.
They took him a block before he reached Singh Louie’s. A muzzle flash from the alley, a dull crump, and the netgun rolled him into a helpless ball of charged strands. He strained and struggled, but he was well and thoroughly caught.
Peonies was there. The tall man cracked open Kemrin’s helmet with a hydraulic device.
Bluedog rose like a great malevolent storm behind Peonies, rage clotting his pale features.
«YOU!» Bluedog roared. «This is your fault! You let her use your gear; you must make reparations — and you will, never fear. But there’s no time now. We must have her before she makes another dream. Oh, wicked, wicked girl. I’ll never be merciful again!» He jerked aside, gestured to Peonies.
Again the instrument came down, scooped out Kemrin’s remaining human eye. The pain was worse this time. But Kemrin remained conscious as Bluedog pushed the eye into his socket and marched away, trailed by an entourage consisting of Peonies, the blonde woman, and two squat muscular black women carrying heavy-caliber splinter guns.
Kemrin loosened the net enough to get to his hands and knees. His mecheye gave him a clear view o f Bluedog as he approached the scanner at Singh Louie’s. Just before Bluedog put his stolen eye to the sensor, Kemrin dropped flat and covered his head.
The sensor’s probing radiation detonated the filament bomb coiled inside the eye, and the resulting explosion demolished the scanner housing, though the reinforced facade of the building was only scorched. Bluedog and his group were gone.
When red rain stopped falling, Kemrin strugged out of the net and got to his feet, swaying. Blood from the ruined eye socket trickled down his face. But he smiled all the way home.