The Gypsy

SIXTEEN
How the Gypsy Fought the Devil

He said, "My business is dead on the floor.

Though my business ain't often in bars.

I kill beasts when I just can't take 'em anymore;

Between times, I look for the stars."

"THE GYPSY"

The Fair Lady has been plucking a sparrow and throwing its feathers into the flames. The stench of their burning and the crying of the bird have made a pleasant harmony, but now She casts it aside and rises angrily, scowling at the smoldering yarn. Unnoticed, the sparrow hops away into the darkness. The Fair Lady turns Her head, but the music gets louder and louder, the ringing and thumping of the tambourine in the unrelenting rhythm of the csardas with the fiddle playing like wildfire around its edges. The Fair Lady summons the midwife and the nora and the liderc.The nora scampers wildly about on its hands and feet, its teeth chattering wildly, frantic to please Her, grimace after grimace washing over its young old face. The liderc sways from side to side, one arm held high like a club, threatening nothing and everything. The midwife has brought her knitting, and the needles rattle against each other, clattering like steel instruments in a cold tray.

But the music gets louder, sweeping past them like an angry broom. A piece of thread dangles down into the fireplace from above. Another follows it, and another, and see how they knit themselves together, even there in the fire?The cloth that forms is impervious to the licking flames, it only grows fuller, until it seems to be a scarf with a peculiar pattern.

"Soon," warns the Fair Lady. She nods, and Her chair turns to face the door. The nora chitters and approaches the doorway, jumping and skittering about in front of it like a gargoyle coffee table come to life. The others face the doorway as well, even the midwife standing, her knitting needles poised. The cloth drapes the fire, which smolders. One pleading tendril of smoke escapes but withers as it flees. The darkness is almost total. Two doors fly open at once.

One instant, Daniel was leaping into a tapes tried and carpeted room, flinging himself to his brother's aid. Then, in midbreath, he was falling. "Coachman! Lead us back!" he cried out, pleading. But no one answered.

He fell into darkness, and following the gun's roar;he thought he had been hit, struck blind, and was falling to the floor. But there was no pain, and there was no floor, there was nothing, only the darkness and the falling. I should be frightened, he thought,but he wasn't. He'd been through too much in the last twenty-four hours, perhaps all his fear was used up. He sensed the finality of the confrontation to come. He had waited for it, lived for it for so long that the anticipation had eroded his feelings. Nothing was there but numbness and a small sense of relief in knowing it had begun; no matter how it ended, it would now, at least for a time, end.

Besides, there was the music.

For a while, the music had been part of the darkness, but now it ventured out in separate strands, fine as horsehair, glowing like frost in the moonlight. All the music he had ever drawn from his fiddle floated about him in shining strands and snatches, clinging as cobwebs, catching at him as he fell, slowing his descent, cradling him in a silver hammock of sound.

When he fell no longer, when his music had caught and stilled him, Daniel found he could stand. He walked through the emptiness on the web of his notes, clever as a spider, and each strand sounded to the slide of his feet; each strand sweet and shining in the darkness. Somewhere, the others followed him.

The music led him as it had all the years of his life.He had always felt it was not a thing he created or possessed, but an elusive phouka of sound that he chased, always a few notes behind the perfect song in his mind. Now it lured and guided him through the darkness, beckoning, taking him around unseen corners, up flights of tune and through corridors like familiar refrains. Twice he sensed something chill and hungry lurking in the darkness, but both times his music swirled up and concealed him.

And then he came to a place where the music faltered, where the shining web of sound became no more than a tightrope, and even that was first thick and awkward and then thin and frail beneath him.He hesitated. This was not his music, and yet it was.It puzzled him. He stooped to touch it, then followed it, smoothing it as he went, weaving it up on his way,plaiting the notes together into harmonies, and the harmonies into an old familiar ballad about three wandering brothers.

There was light growing around him, and he looked down from a great height, to where a young girl clasped a fiddle and doggedly drew a bow across its strings, torturing sound out of it. It was his own fiddle, crying out to him. Forgetting the others, he clambered down its plaintive wail, feeling himself grow more substantial with every step. His instrument seemed to sense his coming, for suddenly the notes came sweet and true, and he was there, stepping down into a room of grey stone, where Lore lei drew a single pure note from the fiddle and an old woman sat watching and nodding.

"Daniel!" she cried out at the sight him, and nearly dropped the bow, but, "Play, play," said the old woman. "Play as if your lives depend upon it. All depends on the music. Play!" The old woman drew a tortoiseshell comb through her long hair as she spoke. She shook the strands free of it, glared at them, and again ran the comb through her hair.

He stepped up behind Lore lei, positioned his arms around her. The crown of her head came just to the hollow of his throat. "Almost," he thought, "I could tuck her under my chin and play her as she plays my fiddle." Her hair smelled sweet. He set one hand on the neck of the fiddle, his fingers falling unerringly upon the strings. The other covered her hand on the bow. Her fingers relaxed. He led her into the music gently, and as he guided her, he shared with her the very days of his life and the beats of his heart. He knew he should be thinking of the Fair Lady and his brothers; his weapons would be needed. But for now he wove the music around them, cloaking them from all but this moment, sheltering them from harm.

The blackout hit sudden as a knife blade, and just as threatening. "Ed!" Stepovich yelled in useless warning as he threw himself down. He expected to hear the gun go off over his head, and as he fell he was watching for the muzzle flash that would let him target Timmy. It seemed to take forever for his outstretched palms to meet the floor. The instant they did, a sick dread washed through him.

Stone. Cold dank stone, almost slimy there in the crack. No thick cushioning of carpet, no hardwood floor. Stone. But the air he breathed was warm, almost stifling. Wherever he was, it wasn't where he'd been an instant ago. "Ed!" he shouted again, and thought he heard a muffled answer. Around him in the darkness, there was scrabbling and scuffling of feet against stone, the rustle of clothing, grunts as people struggled to their feet. He wasn't alone.

A flashlight beam lit up in the darkness. Durand's. The kid was thinking fast, but not fast enough. Instead of holding the flashlight out at arm's length, he was holding it right in front of him, chest-high, as he scanned the room, like a beacon to lead a bullet to his chest. He was cradling his injured arm against his belly. Another light appeared, off to the side, uneven and flickering. That would be Ed's pipe-lighter, the butane turned up high. Its ghost light was not enough to illuminate, only enough to hint at shapes in the room.

Stepovich was still on his knees, struggling up,when the flashlight hit Timmy like a spotlight. Timmy spun toward it, in evident panic, his pistol moving with him. Lights, action, camera, and Stepovich watched as Timmy's trigger finger moved.

Stepovich was still on one knee, the other foot flat on the floor, ready to rise and, in the flicker of Ed's lighter, or in the reflected beams of the flashlight, or in Stepovich's imagination, he could see Durand, and it was the look on Durand's face that did him. The kid looked down the muzzle of the pistol and grimaced. A showing of teeth, somewhere between daring death to come and get him, and a sheepish grin at how dumb he'd been. A kid's face. The injured arm was still seeping blood.

Stepovich drove down hard, pushing himself up and off, shooting toward Timmy like a sprinter off the blocks. His body was moving fast, but his mind was light years ahead of him. He could see it all as it would happen, predict it all. He already knew it was too late; the idea was to get control of the man before he fired. And this wasn't that. No.

His right hand fell heavy on Timmy's shoulder, his left gripped Timmy's wrist and gun hand and forced it up. It was supposed to go all the way up, so the gun would go off over Stepovich's shoulder; he was already braced for the blast of sound by his ear.

But the muzzle was still pointing at him when it went off. Flash and stench of powder. Blow like a rabbit punch, one that didn't stop but went right through meat and bone and whatever else was in there. Just that suddenly, there was no strength in his arms or legs. He dropped. He waited for the pain,waited, it's coming, gonna getcha, Stepovich, you dumb old cop, trying to pull a fast kid's trick like that. Ed's gonna yell at you, listen, he's starting already,screaming, and is this really how you planned to end your days, in some nightmare dungeon?

He'd thought the lights were supposed to fade when you passed out, but it was getting brighter,sourceless light coming up like stage lights, getting brighter and brighter. A cold sort of light, though, a toadstool light that made everyone look dead,

Slipped his trolley, he had, yeah, old Stepovich was sliding down the night side now. Stuff was coming out of the corners of his mind, nightmare things, and they swarmed up Durand and dragged him down. One was like a bald puppet, while the other was a hodgepodge out of some zoologist's nightmare. Durand lost his flashlight and it rolled clunkily across the uneven floor, washing them all in a cone of light. The creatures clutched Durand and held him down, and it was obscene, as if the mere touch of those hands were a rape. The bald things sniggered and poked its long pale fingers at Durand's wound. Must hurt like hell, Stepovich thought, and wondered why Durand wasn't yelling. Maybe he's like me; too much pain and not enough air to yell.

And where the hell was Ed? Trying to get up,looked like he'd done his knee again. He'd always called it his old football injury, but Stepovich knew he'd done it trying to ride a skateboard they'd confiscated from a kid on the freeway, with all the oncoming traffic, and the goddamn drivers wouldn't turn their high beams down, pull the sonofabitch over, hit the siren, get out of the car. Out of the car, Stepovich. Time to get moving, go talk to the Gypsy. Where was he, anyway?

He caught one glimpse of a gypsy, back in the shadows, and it wasn't the Gypsy anyway. Never a Gypsy around when you need one. Ed still had his lighter going, and he was waving it around like it would work better than garlic and crosses.

And then the time for worrying about stuff like that was gone. All the time in the world was gone. Down to a single now, the now where Timmy was standing over him, straddling him like the outlaw in a B Western, holding the pistol in both hands as he pointed it at Stepovich's face. Not in the face, he wanted to tell him, my kids don't deserve that, not a closed coffin service where you always imagine it as much worse than it could ever be. But he couldn't speak at all,could only lie there and look up at death like a car-hit dog on the freeway.

Damn all gypsies anyway, he thought, as he arrived in a place he hadn't brought them to, but would have to return them from if there were any of them left to return. He felt for the calk in his pocket, got it out,threw it into the air, and when it came down he caught the butt of the whip it was fastened to. That to you, Luci, he thought. All I have to do is step outside this door, onto the road, and I'll be like a T altos myself.

He heard the sound of a gunshot, and sighed. No doubt the damned gypsies and their silly friends were getting themselves killed. Well, that was not his concern, had never been his concern. He drove the coach when he had one to drive, and now that he didn't-

Well, there was one thing he could do. It wouldn't save any of these fools from the consequences of their own actions, but if it had worked there, it would certainly work here; if any of them lived, at least they might not fall into the Nothingness.

Still weak and in pain, he slipped past impossible shapes doing improbable things to each other. He sidled along a wall until he came to the fireplace, and there, just as he'd thought, was the scarf that had brought them here. He pulled it out, not surprised that the fare hadn't damaged it. He made his way back to the door from which he'd entered. It stood wide open as if it expected guests. He leaned against what felt like cold stone. His breath came in gasps, and when a cramp hit, he thought it was all up for him,but then it passed.

He straightened, turned, and looked out the door,away from the flickering of lights and the antics of demons, to where there was nothing at all, at all, at all. And, as he did, there were two shapes there. Human shapes, of all things. Young girls, looking wild and frightened. They approached the door, and when they saw him, the fair one drew back, while the dark one raised her fingernails like talons.

"She's calling us," said the dark one. "You'd better not-"

"Oh, hush," said the Coachman. "There's nothing for you in there but death, and you know it."

The fair one turned to her friend and said, "Sue,I'm scared. Laurie-"

"That wimp's no concern of ours. This is it, the big fight. We need to help Her. We-"

"Listen to your fear, my children," said the Coachman, his voice rolling like a cimbolom. "Your fear is wise; trust it. It falls upon you like a wave, and in the wave are specks of pain and droplets of oblivion. The call is the call of those who've been lost at sea, whose souls float, with no anchor. Your fair mistress betrays you, even as She promised. Do you recall Her words?Think on them now, before you act."

They stared at him, there at the brink of forever,and while they did he stepped forward and slammed the door shut behind him. They cried out, but before they could touch the door, crack! crack! and he had put his mark on it with the calk on the end of his whip.

"It is sealed now. You cannot enter," he said. "Go home, or become Nothing." They stared at him with confusion and fear still etched on their too-young features, but, then the dark one said, "Come on,Chrissy. We can get past him. She needs us."

The fair one gave a low moan, then her eyes widened and she said, "Yes! I can hear Her!"

They charged him, scrabbling for the door, but this was outside, this was between, this was neither here nor there. It was on the road, and on the road the Coachman has the power. It gave him no pleasure to use it.

Csucskari knew where he was, for he had brought them all there. But where were the others? Beams of light flashed around him, showing glimpses of faces from his nightmares, but no sign of his friends. The servants of Luci he knew; they snuffled about in the darkness. He drew his knife, lest any come near him,and waited.

Then there came a clap of sound from one side,oddly muffled. He turned to meet it. Folk moved and muttered around him. He ventured closer, drawn by a vague glow, seeing only an old man collapsed on the floor, cupping fire in his hands. The light flickered unevenly, but he caught a glimpse of Owl, struggling to stay on his feet, and the gunman, who was pointing his gun at the floor. No, he was pointing it at the policeman, the Wolf, lying helpless before him, his left shoulder and chest already dark with blood. The hammer was going back. The gunman was smiling whitely.

There was no conscious decision. The knife was already in his hand, and Little Timmy was in front of him, just like before, and he was there, once more,with a living man before him and a glittering knife in his hand. It was like a play, each performing a well-rehearsed part, even the lights coming up brighter.Timmy must have heard his step, for he looked up just as Csucskari reached forward and put the knife in him. Timmy's eyes met his, and Csucskari felt the contact of their gaze even as he felt the shock as his knife buried itself to the hilt past Timmy's collarbone.They both cried out at once, their screams filling the room. Csucskari's hand never left the hilt. He felt Timmy become a weight on his blade. As he fell, the knife pulled free of the body. He'd done it again.Blood followed the blade. He stared at the body that thrashed mindlessly on the floor below him. This was not what he'd come here to do. He dropped the knife,covered his face, and sobbed.

Bagoly knelt beside him. He could feel the trembling of his brothers weakness. So drained, both of them. "Hollo?" he whispered, but there was no reply, and the music that should have led them to the light was elsewhere. In the end, then, She'd won,separated them and distracted them, used her poor bent tools as foils to draw them out. Fool of a Gypsy,ever thinking he could win. He reached toward Owl,knowing they'd never touch.

"I'm not hurt that bad. I'm not hurt that bad." Durand could hear himself saying it. He didn't knowhow long he'd been repeating it, trying to convince himself it was so. He stared up at the high ceiling that was rimmed with silver. Looked like stone roots, and huge boulders, like a stylized cave roof. He tried to keep staring at it, but the nightmare on his chest dug its fingers into his upper arm, squeezing yet more blood from the wound. It was a hallucination, Durand was sure, and he wasn't going to dignify it by watching it or trying to push it away. But if he was seeing things, then maybe he was hurt worse than he thought. He rolled his head to one side, saw Stepovich on the floor and the gunman standing over him. There wasn't enough light for the blood to be red,but the blossoming stain on Mike's shirt was still spreading. "Officer down," Durand said inanely."Officer needs assistance." He wasn't handling this very well, he knew it. He should be doing better than this, but he wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

Follow the rules, even if it got him killed? Only he couldn't think what rules to follow. And these damn nightmares on his chest were so heavy, so disgustingly real. Clammy, hard-fingered hands, and really grotesque odor: Urine and sweat, and that wasn't even the bad part.

Light grew in the room, a nacreous rotten light. Ed had kindled something, part of his shirt, and was flapping it around like a flimsy weapon. The old man was grey.

Then there was the Gypsy, doing something to the gunman, but it was all happening in silence. Durand saw the knife, even saw it go in, but then one of the things began clawing at Durand's face, and chittering. He pulled away from it. None of this was real.

So he wasn't surprised when she burst from a dark corner like a dancer leaping onto a stage. Old Madam Moria, her canes gone, flourishing her iron kettle,spun in a swirl of splashing tea. She yelled something in a language Durand didn't recognize. Probably "Begone Demons!" or something like that. Whatever the threat, she backed it with iron and water and flapping skirts, and the things on his chest cowered, and the one drew its arms in close to its bony ribs.

They flinched. That made them real.

"Real," said Durand, and the revulsion that swept him gave him strength to roll from beneath them. He rolled over cold iron of his own, his gun, dropped when they'd fallen into this place. His good hand groped for it, closed on the grips, and brought it up as he came to his knees. Two hands, he reminded himself, and hissed at the pain it cost him to steady the pistol.

Ed was advancing on the things that Madam Moria had spooked off him. As he did so, there came a shrill laugh, young and old, delightful as a girl's, evil as the devil's, and suddenly the things weren't retreating anymore. Madam Moria was gasping for breath and staggering, her curses and strength running down together like the clockwork in an old toy, until she sighed and fell over between the Gypsy and the fireplace. Ed flapped his smoldering shirt at them, but none of them seemed impressed. The two creatures that had clutched and grappled at him now clustered around Stepovich's body. There was also a woman with them, a thin old thing with stringy hair and deep lines in her face. She hissed at Ed, and slapped his smoking shirt aside with the flat of her hand. She stepped toward Ed, and in her grey hands with its filthy broken nails was what seemed to be a thin knife. She raised it.

Durand stopped them. Stopped them with his mind. Didn't think about being a hero. Just made them into silhouettes, paper things, just like on the range. Lift the gun. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Bang,bang, bang. And they all fell down. Not hard, not easy. Not a particularly glorious or brave thing to do.One finger work, just like subtracting numbers on his checkbook calculator. And they all fell down.

Raymond felt himself falling; his wings unable to grasp the air. His strength, returning so slowly, was now draining away in Luci's presence. She loomed over him; he looked up.

Like looking up at Heaven and Hell. Face too perfect to describe. Eyes too hellish to bear meeting, but he had no choice. Voice smoother than honey. "Bagoly," she said pleasantly, plucking at him with his own name,

Her eyes gleamed down on him. "No," he said,gasping. "You cannot have the Dove." Where was his brother, Daniel, the Raven? He could help. He had the strength. "Leave us. Leave this world. You cannot have my brothers."

Empty words. He knew it. She knew it. Worst of all, Csucskari knew it; Raymond could feel that. Raymond's strength was gone; he couldn't even threaten her. Her cold fingers fastened to his shoulder, flung him contemptuously aside. He hurtled through the air, struck a wall and slid down it. In the flickering light, he saw the big man who held the fire rush toward Luci, but She knocked him effortlessly aside.Somewhere, sometime, he heard explosions. Now he smelt the powder, saw where Her servants sprawled and bled. But it wasn't enough. "Hollo!" he cried,and the name was black and bitter as the odor of burnt feathers. Why didn't he answer? Raymond knew that he would never find out.

He watched Luci set Her hands to Csucskari's throat. She had long, slender hands; white fingers. They would be cool as a maiden's touch. He saw them close, saw the flesh of his brother's throat bulge up between them. White against red. "Hollo!" he cried,and his hand found the strength to lift, to fall against his heart and the tambourine that rested against it. He took it into his hand, and it dropped onto his lap,jarring in a tiny death rattle.

Madam Moria lay on the floor, unable to rise without her canes, watching as Luci bent over the Dove,strangling the life out of him. The hem of Her gown,white as snow, brushed against Madam Moria. Luci was as graceful as She was evil, and Her eyes, fastened on her prey, had no thought for the old woman,or for the Wolf who lay dying on her other side. A beautiful gown, all of white, the only dark thing, the thin black belt at her waist. And from the belt, a lock of grey hair.Madam Moria smiled. This was not the first time she had picked a pocket, but it might well be the easiest. When she had it in her hand, she rolled over twice, and threw it into the coals of the smoldering fare.

Somewhere, in another room, a comb snagged suddenly, and a long lock of greying hair came free in an old woman's hand. Like a veil lifted from her eyes,Cynthia saw how it had blinded her, had made her a part of Luci's trap. "So!" she shrieked, and "No!"Leaping up, she lashed at the young couple who nestled like birds in the bower of sweet music they plaited together. The lock of hair struck the young man across the face. "You play for yourselves!" she shrieked at them. "That is not what the music is for. Play for the world, for life. Not safety and blindness and complacency. Play danger and vision and striving. Play evil vanquished, and survival. Play life!"

And for Laurie-

Laurie cried out as Daniel's hand tightened suddenly on hers. The sweet music stopped, and for an instant they stood frozen together, like plastic dolls atop a wedding cake. Laurie twisted her head to stare up into Daniel's face. A sudden anger was there; not at her, but at what he must do. She could almost feel him being torn apart. "There is no way!" he cried aloud. "No way to keep faith with my brothers and also with you." For a moment longer, he stood transfixed with agony. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it. "Forgive me," he said, and she wondered why. But then suddenly he wrenched fiddle and bow from her hands, and turned aside from her. He turned away from her, put his back to her, and bowed his head over his music.

His bow swept down sudden as a knife slash. Music ripped from the fiddle; it ripped the darkness and quiet of the room like a curtain being shredded. Uneasy light spilled in as the music gushed out, and suddenly Laurie could see. The chamber walls blew away like tatters in a wind of song. There was her father lying on the floor, a spreading red stain on his chest. There were other people, a motley mix of those she knew slightly and those she knew not at all nor would ever wish to. But her father was suddenly the only one she could see. She leaped to go to him, but the old gypsy woman caught her and pulled her back."No! Stay back! It is not over, but only begun. And all, all of us lose something here." The woman's hard fingers closed tight on Laurie's shoulder and held her fast.

Stepovich wished the dying would happen faster. There was so much going on around him, so much that agonized him but he could do nothing about. He wished it were over. If he must be helpless, let him be dead as well.

The most beautiful woman he had ever seen was strangling the Gypsy. Her eyes were bright and clear,and She was laughing with a lover's joy as She choked the life out of him. The Gypsy, limp as a rag doll, was shaken in Her grip. The man was dying,and Stepovich sensed some greater Death waiting in the wings, waiting to make its entrance when the Gypsy was gone. For a moment, too, he thought he saw Laurie beyond the locked figures, thought he saw her young face horrified, stripped of all innocence.But a grey ness fluttered across his vision, and he knew it for the illusion it was. He was getting so cold,but the blood wetting his chest felt so warm.

More shots. The beautiful strangler was startled; She turned to find their source. With a major effort, Stepovich scraped his head on the cold paving stones. There, at the corner of his vision, was Durand. He was walking toward them, his pistol held out in both his hands, wavering like a dowser's stick. He was firing at Her from point-blank range. The woman laughed Her wonderful laugh, and the ringing shout of it smashed against Durand and flung him like a toy.

A distraction. There was a cop inside Stepovich's head, yelling at him. She's distracted. Use the time,Protect your partner. You're going to die anyway, draw her attention to yourself, give Durand a chance. Die like a cop, you damn well lived like one, and it ruined everything you ever thought you wanted.

Stepovich wanted to lay still and die quietly. There was nothing more he could do here. But someone,somewhere, was playing music, fiddle music. The notes plucked at him like fingers at his sleeve, scraped his nerves raw. He couldn't die. Not while that music was playing. But another man was dying nearby. One of the gypsies. The body next to him was Timmy's. Damn, who got him? Stepovich wondered for an instant. And then remembered. The knife still lay where it had fallen. It pointed at Stepovich like an accusing finger.

The knife. The goddamned knife. All this time, the same fucking knife. Cut my life to ribbons.

She was choking the Gypsy still, but he could almost feel the hands squeezing his own windpipe. He couldn't pay attention to it. All he could think of was how much he hated that knife.

It was with a curious sense of inevitability that he felt it under his hand. The touch of it was like a shot of whiskey, only in his blood instead of his stomach.Galvanizing. He closed his hand on it, then pushed down on the hand that clenched the weapon, forcing himself up from the floor and to his knees. His other arm and hand were a dangling weight that bumped against him as he moved. There was pain, too, incredible pain somewhere, but he wasn't sure it was his. He didn't have the strength to stand, but he didn't need to. His vision was going fuzzy and useless. He blinked, trying to clear it, imagined he saw Ed's grinning face behind the Lady, egging him on. Stepovich scraped forward, a crawling step, and the rasp of his shoes on the stone floor turned Her eyes to him, even as he raised the knife. Beautiful eyes. They burned into his, and froze him to stillness.

He would have fought Her if he could, but he had no strength of will-not when She looked at him. His peripheral vision tried to tell him that Ed's hands were lifting, falling on the Lady's shoulders. Ed clutched her, whispered, "Gotcha!"

In one startled instant, Her power wavered. She struck Ed aside as if he were made of straw and newspaper. Stepovich thought he heard the crack of ribs.It didn't matter. Ed had known what it would cost him, to buy Stepovich that instant. It would not be wasted.

He sheathed the knife in the beautiful woman's breast.

A scream; a woman's or a fiddle's, he could not tell. But he could pull cold air into his hot lungs, and he could lift his head. The scream again, so sweet it could only be Luci dying-sent back to where She belonged, there to wait for him, ah, not now. There was Raven, waltzing into the room as he played Her death on his fiddle strings, while Owl on the floor feebly tapped out the staggering beats of Her failing heart.Csucskari rolled his head and saw Her on the floor,thrashing with a knife, his knife, transfixing Her white gown to a red growing stain. The Wolf lay discarded,his eyes open in slits, but he seemed to feel Csucskari staring at him, because, for an instant, his eyes widened. Their gazes met, and the nods they exchanged cost them the world in pain. Then the Wolf's eyes closed tightly and he turned his head away.

It made no sense. The task had been his, and his alone. It made no sense at all. Csucskari felt something sting his eyes.

There was an old woman, and he found he knew her name- Cynthia. Cynthia Kacmarcik. She had been gripping the Wolf's cub by the shoulder, but now that it was all over, she released her. Cynthia turned her eyes to another old woman. Madam Moria. They opened their arms to one another, crossed the room like dancers treading a measure. "I found it, sister,"said Madam Moria. "The lock of hair. I destroyed it."

"I know, sister," said the other. "It set me free."

They met without touching. They held each other in a gaze that would probably last forever. What passed between them not even the Gypsy could know, but at last Cynthia Kacmarcik gave a barely audible sigh and fell apart. She became bits of white bone china and a bundle of straw, a scrap of burlap and a tangle of string. For one instant the simulacrum stood, a mocking scarecrow of the soul it had held trapped. Then it tumbled to the floor, a scatter of junk.Moria spurned it with her foot as she turned aside."It is over," she said to no one and everyone. "We must go quickly now."

The fiddle spoke a single phrase, sliding down the scale and into stillness.

As if in reply, cracks of yellow light appeared soundlessly in the walls like curtains parting. A pale blue wind whispered through them, and the freshness of it made him realize how bad the stench of the chambers had been. There was a groan, as of two worlds parting, deeper than sound.

Daniel lowered his bow. Csucskari lifted his head,fixed him with a look. Almost, almost he had been too late. But in the final count, blood had told, and the Raven had flown with his brothers. Daniel lowered the fiddle from his throat, let it ease down to his side. "Lore lei," he said, but the young woman he addressed did not turn. Step by slow step, she was advancing on the Wolf's body. Daniel lifted a hand,reached after her, but he could not touch her, not in a room lit by flickering fire and wan daylight, not where the dead lay grouped with the wounded, the demons with the men.

Luci still twitched and thrashed on Her back in an obscene dance, a parody of a woman in passion, the knife still in Her chest as She gnashed Her teeth.Blood spurted from the knife wound, then slowed as Her movements slowed, as the Owl's hesitant fingers tapped out the last beats of Her heart: Teckadum, teckadum, teckadum.

Hollo turned away from the young woman, back to his brother. Csucskari bled for what was dying in his eyes, but Hollo knelt down, and lifted his brother by the shoulders. Csucskari felt his strength returning."It's over, brother," Hollo told him.

Csucskari nodded and shuddered. Gently he freed himself from his brother's grasp, managed to stand on his own. Managed to walk to Luci's body, to crouch down beside it. He put his hand to the knife."I'll need this," he said.

"Probably," Hollo sighed.

Csucskari drew the knife from the body. He felt the last of Her life go with it. "Help our brother," he said.

"Owl can help himself," Raymond said gruffly. He heaved himself to his feet. For a long moment he and Daniel looked at one another as if they were strangers.Then he lifted his shoulders in a long, slow shrug."In the end, you came," he said.

"Yes," said Daniel. "I did." But his eyes followed Laurie as she sank to her knees by her father, and there was a hollowness in his voice. "How many times, though, my brothers? If there is another time,another chance to escape all of this, do you think I will not take it? I don't know."

The ground gave a bare tremble beneath them.

The two policeman, young and old, were supporting one another. The young one bled from his arm,and from the bites of the Fair Lady's minions. The old one just looked very old as they gathered around the fallen Wolf.

"Laurie," said the old one gently. But she knelt by her father, gripping his good hand in both of hers.

"Laurie," he said weakly, almost inaudibly. "You can't be here. You can't be here."

The young policeman looked a fearful question at the old one, who shrugged.

The old Badger gently moved the girl, pushing her into Durand's arms. "All right," he said grimly,"Let's see what you've done to yourself." He gingerly knelt next to the Wolf and touched two fingers to the man's neck. "You'll be pleased to know that you have a pulse," he said. He moved his hand and deliberately pressed his thumb over the wound. The Wolf twitched once and his eyes closed. The girl cried out and struggled, but the young policeman held her,and spoke to her quietly.

The Gypsy put his arm around Daniel. Then he staggered and caught his balance as the whole world trembled. Cracks widened in the floor, in the walls,and the winds between the world blew through with the force of a gale, showing half a moon and half a sun.

"Gather close together," Csucskari shouted over the noise. "The Fair Lady is gone, and Her domain cannot stand without Her."

"What happens now?" asked Daniel. "Where do we go? How do we return?"

The Gypsy shrugged. "I don't know. Our task is done for this place. Of what comes after, I know nothing."

There was a sudden crack of sound that licked through the air like lightning. All, even the girl, lifted their eyes.

He was in black, but his eyes gleamed blacker. The cloak at his shoulders fluttered in the wind. His clever fingers played with the whip as a sardonic smile curved his lips.

"This way, if you please," he said, as if they had all the time in the world. "The coach awaits outside."