He walked down the deserted alleyway. It was cold enough to frost his breath. He was tired and numb. The alley dead-ended in a wall.
"Fuck." He turned to leave, then stopped. There were voices on the other side. Familiar voices. He walked to the base of the wall and jumped, his aching muscles slowly pulling him up.
The Astronomer paused, breath wheezing and rattling in his chest. A cracked litany of hate dribbled from his mouth, the words hanging like beads on the long threads of saliva that were expectorated with each gasping breath. Roulette too stopped, waiting for him to find the strength to continue. Wondering with irritation why Tachyon was so slow He should have been here by now. All of them joined in a final deadly union.
The Astronomer vanished into the dark mouth of an alley, and Roulette waited again for Tachyon. Who didn't appear. She fled after the Astronomer. And almost blundered into the Taki sian who stepped from a connecting alley. Shrank back among a jumble of packing crates. Watched as the alien covered his eyes, cast about like a fox on a trail, froze, followed unerringly the path taken only moments before by the Astronomer. Roulette fell in behind, Magnum clutched in both hands, barrel leading like a dousing wand.
A sharp right into another alleyway, which dead-ended a hundred feet further on in a brick wall. Tachyon, hands clenched at his sides, stared down at the Astronomer, fury etched in his delicate face.
"God damn you, Fortunato!" He threw back his head, and howled into the overcast sky. "You gutless wonder, you honorless piece of shit, you motherless procurer! I thought you were going to finish this. Instead you leave it to me! And I don't want it," he ended in a soft, sad voice.
The Astronomer continued his dogged crawl, not seeming to realize that he had entered a trap. Tachyon inspected his hands, drew a fighting knife from his boot, dithered. And Roulette cursed.
The scrape of a shoe on brick as a figure hauled itself onto the top of the wall. Squatted there like a man-sized gargoyle. Dropped into the alley, a curse exploding from him as his mangled, half-grown foot struck the pavement. Demise.
Roulette wept with vexation, licking away the salty tears as they streamed down the corners of her mouth. Lifted the gun. Demise would not be allowed to cheat her.
"James!"
He strolled forward, the half-formed foot throwing him into a lurching, rolling gait. "So you remember me, Doc."
"Yes," Tachyon replied, edging cautiously away from the menace in Demise's acne-scarred face. "We've been worried about you." They revolved about the prone body of the Astronomer, until Demise's skinny back came up square in front of Roulette, blocking her aim.
"I'll just bet, you fucker." He turned his awful gaze from the Takisian to the pitiful figure at his feet. "Well, well, look what you've found." He nudged the Astronomer with his partly regenerated foot. "Hey, Master, I'm still here. And you're dead."
Tachyon started forward, and Roulette danced from side to side, trying to get a clear shot past Demise. "What are you going to do?"
"Kill him. You gonna try to stop me, you little puke?"
"No."
Demise stared hard at the alien's knife, threw back his head, and laughed, the sound echoing wildly off the walls. "Gonna deal a little death yourself tonight, eh, Tachy? Gonna play God again? Give a little life today, take it away tomorrow"
"Stop, please." A broken whisper.
The words crashed through Roulette touching-something. Violent shudderings ripped through her body, the gun fell from nerveless fingers, hit, detonated, the chambered round ricocheting off the brick wall over Demise's head.
"Shit!"
Tachyon and Demise whirled to face her, and the Astronomer, with a burst of hoarded strength, came to his feet.
The Astronomer's voice was a dry rasp. "Help me, James. Kill them. I'll reward you. Help me. Anything you want. Just help me now. So weak. No power left."
Spector grabbed the Astronomer, blackened bits of flesh coming off in his hands. "I don't think so, old man."
The Astronomer lunged for the wall. Spector spun him around, but the Astronomer became insubstantial in his hands, stepped back, began to melt into the brick wall. Well, one power left.
Pale, almost-blind mole eyes locked with Spector's. The perfect sharing of the perfect moment. This time there was nothing to block him. The death flowed quick and hard into the Astronomer. The old man gasped and began to solidify.
The bricks around him split and glowed red with heat. Blood poured hissing into the cracks and down the wall. Bricks closed lovingly on flesh.
Spector let out a sigh of relief. He'd done it. Nobody in the world would have given him a chance in hell of killing the old bastard, but he was dead. The Astronomer, Lord Amun, the Master, Setekh the destroyer.
And he was still around to talk about it.
The sound of pursuing footsteps echoing loudly in the empty street. Closing in! Hands seizing her. Roulette, sobbing, choking with fear, whirled, attacking her captor with teeth and nails. A steel-like grasp closed about her wrists, pulling her into a tight embrace. The fresh and now familiar scent that was Tachyon washed across her. She slumped in his arms, and a slim, small hand stroked her cheeks, wiping away the tears.
Tachyon's mind flowed through hers like a clean, icy-cold stream, soothing the wounds left by the collapse of the shields. Washing away the memories, drowning deep the Astronomer's touch. What remained was a vast, aching emptiness.
She could feel the Magnum, forming a cold wedge between them. He stepped back, hands dropping limply to his sides, and the pistol dropped from her hand. They regarded each other across a space of air that seemed impossibly wide. The gun lay on the ground between them.
"You're not healed. It's not my gift. But I have done what I can."
"I wanted to kill you."
"You should avoid undue emotional and mental stress."
"I did kill Howler."
"You should perhaps enter therapy."
"And there've been others."
He stooped, swept up the gun, and extended it to her butt first. "Then finish it. If that is what you must have in order to find peace."
"Oh, God damn you!" A garbage can rang like a sour bell as the heavy pistol slammed into it. "I killed Howler!"
"I know. There is very little about you that I don't know" His thin lips twisted in a sad, sick, little smile. "I have an amazingly elastic and creative conscience. Part of my upbring ing. I can raise three excellent reasons to justify your vendetta. To be avenged is-"
Her hand lashed out and took him across the face. "That is crap! Stop worming out of it, and give me a decision. What are you going to do?"
The tip of his tongue touched the newly opened cut on his lip. "Are you planning to turn yourself in to the authorities?"
"No."
"Then I am going to do nothing. A telepathic reading is not admissible evidence in a court of law" Again that sad smile. "I also would not relish describing the situation in which I made that reading. It would do little for my dignity." A hand slid in an unconscious protective gesture to his crotch. Turned, walked away. Aware now of the filth beneath her bare feet, the mud caking the silk gown. A fitting envelope for her soul.
"Roulette." She paused, but did not look back. "Earlier I said I loved you. I think I still do."
"Don't burden me this way."
"Call it my punishment for you."
"I've lived on hate. Now there's nothing. Let me see if I'm capable of anything beyond those two states."
"I'll be waiting."
She smiled despite herself. "Damn you, I think you will."
Spector sat in the alley, his back to the cold brick wall. The others were gone; he was alone with the old man. "Didn't quite turn out the way you planned, eh, Astro?" He patted the Astronomer's cheek. "Or maybe it did. Might be just what you had in mind all along."