The Chrome Borne Read online

  He sometimes wondered if she thought of him as The Old Man. Maybe for her, he was.

  Moving around in the spirit world was pretty easy; you just had to think of who you wanted to be with, and unless they had you blocked out (which you did by thinking you wanted to be alone and felt like putting up walls), you were there. He found her wistfully hanging around a radio-station control-room, watching the DJ and listening to the music. He wrinkled his nose a little; not his kind of music at all, but it was making her happy, so what the hell.

  "Hey, Vanessa," he said, quietly, so as not to startle her. She startled easily.

  She looked up, big brown eyes wide, from under an unkempt mane of raven-black curls, her aura draining to muddy yellow-green. There was fear in her eyes which quickly faded, and she smiled shyly, the colors of her aura coming back. "Hi, Mr. Canfield," she said diffidently. "Mr. Xray, he was here an' showed me how t' find the radio station when I said I missed rock'n'roll."

  "Honey, you c'n go backstage of every concert there is now, y'know," he reminded her gently. "No reason t' miss out on stuff now. Ain't nowhere y' can't go if y' want."

  She shook her head. "I can't. Not yet. It just—reminds me too much—makes me mad 'cause all those kids are alive an' I'm not—

  He nodded, understanding perfectly. "When you're ready, honey. Listen, I got a question for you. Friend of mine needs t'find a girl, 'fore she gets herself inta trouble. You got any idea where the areas are that the hookers hang out?"

  Vanessa's eyes widened. "Bull, President, an' the alleys between President an' River Street," she said promptly. "Mr. Canfield, she's not—anyone I know, is she?"

  He shook his head. "Don't think so, honey. She's workin' alone, but she's just a little bitty baby, like you was, an' we need t'get her somewhere's safe." He didn't add, before she winds up like you; he didn't have to.

  Vanessa's hands balled into fists, and tears welled up in her eyes. "I wanta help," she whispered hoarsely, "an' I can't. I wanta do somethin' an' whenever I try'n get near Bull, the world just sorta goes away—"

  Fox said that Vanessa had died on Bull street, victim of a heart attack brought on by one too many hits of crack. She still hadn't come to terms with her life, much less her death, and Ross sighed with helpless frustration.

  "Look, honey, you just now helped, okay? An' someday you'll do better. Right now, you gotta learn to stand up f'r y'self, fight back, don't let nobody push you around. Then maybe you c'n do more."

  Vanessa scrubbed at her eyes, and sniffed. And just when Ross began to feel really badly, wanting to comfort her, but needing to go find Tannim's girl in the real world, help showed up in the guise of Foxtrot. Today Fox looked like a cartoon hero, pipestem legs and wild hair. He just appeared out of nowhere, like always, and Vanessa looked up at him and smiled through her tears. Somehow they both always recognized Fox, no matter what he looked like.

  "Heya, lady!" Fox crowed, as if there was nothing wrong. "Got something I want to show you." Then he looked over his shoulder at Ross, and grinned. "Sorry old man, no fossils allowed. It's just for people who believe in the magic of rock'n'roll."

  "Ah, go on," Ross said, relieved. "You wouldn't know good music if'n it sat up an' bit your ass."

  "That wouldn't be where I'd want something to bite me," Fox replied insolently, and reached for Vanessa's hand. She took it hesitantly, and they vanished in a glittering shower of sparks.

  Fox was a pistol, all right. Maybe he'd picked Vanessa as his vixen of choice.

  Ross smirked, then furrowed his brow in concentration, picturing Bull Street . . . building it up in his mind . . . then, deciding to be there.

  Then he was there. Now that was a teleport.

  He grinned widely. It was also his first teleport.

  But there was no time to gloat about it; he had a girl to find, one who might be getting herself into trouble she couldn't get out of right at this very moment.

  He sharpened his real-world focus, bringing himself as far into the world of the living as he could without interacting with it; he wanted to be able to walk through people and things if he had to. He had noticed that he no longer had any trouble seeing even in the darkest places; the street was as bright as daylight to him, with every person on it outlined with his or her own little glow of colored light. The faces were the clearest, but it was as if every living creature carried its own little spot-light with him—and from the way the females tended to be dressed and act, it was pretty obvious that there was no lack of "professional ladies" on this section of Bull. They ranged in age from teenagers in punk gear to women with a fair amount of mileage on the meter. He noticed that their glows were all in muddy colors, sullen and angry; dirty red, murky yellow, dirt brown. Just like Vanessa, when she first came over. Her colors were clearing now, but she had a long way to go before she looked like Ross—and he was no match for the clear, blue-white light of Fox or The Old Man.

  He spotted the pimps right away, too—and interestingly enough, the colors of their glows were sharp and less muddied, but acutely painful to look at. Reds and yellows that swirled together in eye-hurting combinations, screaming, clashing pinks and yellow-greens—and the intensity was somehow too much; a fluctuating, pulsing brightness, as if they were burning themselves out with every heartbeat. There were little ribbons of evil yellow connecting each pimp to his "ladies," and Ross wasn't sure just what that meant; was there some kind of emotional or mental dependency there? And if so, who depended on whom? And there was something else, too. Just as Tannim had said, there were things lurking about the pimps, vulturine creatures of shifting shape and shadow, watching and waiting with infinite patience. One of them looked in Ross's direction as if it felt his eyes on it, but its glance was indifferent, as if he was of no use to it. It blinked leprous-silver eyes and turned away, back to the pimp. He shuddered anyway. If these jerks only knew what was waiting for them. . . .

  But none of the girls he saw, in their tinsel and flash, short skirts and glorified underwear, was Tania.

  He drifted along Bull Street for about a mile, seeing no sign of her. When he noticed that the street had gotten emptier, that the girls he saw were no longer plying the trade, he realized he must have come to the end of the "district," and turned back, taking the opposite side of the street.

  It all was pretty different from what he had expected. There were no "Irma la Douce" girls here, no "Pretty Women," or "Happy Hookers." This sure was a far cry from the way most movies portrayed street-walkers. There was nothing playful or cheerful here. Most of 'em looked like whipped dogs, spirits broken, minds numbed. Oh, there were a few who were different, but none of them were hooked up with pimps. It looked to Ross as if the best these kids could muster was the same blank business-like approach as the kids in the fast-food places, selling burgers. No wonder Vanessa had called a night on the job "hanging on the meat-rack."

  Suddenly, his musings were broken into by a glimpse of blond hair with the streetlight shining off of it, and the arch of a nose and cheekbone that seemed familiar, an aura that wasn't as muddy as most. The girl moved, and he got a better look—

  It was her, all right. Then something else caught his eye, and he realized that he wasn't the only person hunting her.

  There was a man stalking her; a man in a suit, with an aura that was completely black, and a swarm of shadow-creatures around him that was three times the number around any of the pimps.

  Ross moved in on the man, quickly, fearing the worst. But before he could reach the girl's side, the man had already maneuvered so that he was between her and the rest of the people on the street. And just as he got within touching distance, the man managed to crowd her into an alcove, where she pressed herself back against a locked doorway, a look of fear and shock on her young face.

  "What—" she said, her voice tight with panic. "What do you want? Leave me alone! I don't have any money, I don't have any drugs—"

  Ross crowded in, trying to think of something he could do. He couldn't hit
the guy, he couldn't drag him away, or even shout in his ear to distract him. And suddenly there didn't seem to be anyone else on this side of the street, as if the rest of the denizens of Bull had sensed the trouble and evaporated.

  "It's you I want," the man said, in a cold, utterly expressionless voice. "If you come along, there won't be any trouble." He pulled back his coat, and terror spread across Tania's face as she saw the gun he was reaching for. "But if you won't be a good little girl—I'll have to—"

  Ross didn't even think; he just grabbed for the gun, desperately, reaching right through the kidnapper's back and somehow getting his hands on the gun-grip and the trigger. And realizing that he couldn't take it away. That in fact, there wasn't much he could do. Except—maybe—

  His next move was pure instinct. He cocked the hammer, and, as the kidnapper started in surprise at the telltale click, pulled the trigger.

  The gun went off in the shoulder-holster, the bullet tearing its way through the leather and down his side, with a roar and a muzzle-flash that would have blinded and deafened Ross if he had been alive. The jacket blew away like a rag in a hurricane, and the man's body whip-cracked against the opposite wall of the alcove. Tania jerked back, screaming, then spun and bolted for the street.

  The kidnapper clutched at his side, nearly doubling over as his legs and torso went slick with hot, red blood.

  Tania made it across the street, just as the firefight began. Gunmen appeared from nowhere, the pimps and pushers he'd seen before, firing wildly; and Ross realized as he ducked out of sheer reflex that none of them knew why they were shooting. But they certainly knew what they were shooting at; the kidnapper, as the originator of the first shot.

  The kidnapper went down, blood spraying, in the crossfire; Tania ducked into an alley, and sirens began to wail in the distance.

  The firefight continued as Ross dashed across the street after her, while the red and blue flashes of approaching cop cars lit up the sky in both directions.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tania's side was afire, pierced with pain, but she ran anyway, gasping for breath as her lungs ached and her throat rasped. Behind her, sirens split the night air with unearthly wails, though the crack of gunfire no longer echoed down the alley. She didn't care; or rather, she had no room in her mind for anything but the desperate need to run, run until she was somewhere safe.

  She couldn't see at all; her eyes were still dazzled by the flash when the gun had gone off. She lost her balance when she stumbled over a trash-can and fell face-first in the slimy alley, ripping the knees out of her tights and scraping the skin of both palms. She was up again in the next heartbeat—dashing out of the alley and into the lit street, across it, and into another alley again. She ran into a dumpster she hadn't even seen, pushed away from it, and stumbled off into the dark. At the end of this alley she slowed, then stopped, doubling over with one hand on the brick of the wall beside her, sucking in huge gulps of breath, her belly heaving as if a dull knife carved at it deeper every time she breathed.

  Panic ebbed, slowly. Her palms burned, and so did her knees. She stood up, slowly, as the blinding white light of pure fear flickered and went out, freeing her mind, letting her think again.

  This wasn't the first time she'd been approached by a pimp, but they'd never come after her before. No one had ever pulled a gun on her. If it hadn't gone off like that—

  She started to shake, and not just from reaction to her narrow escape. The gun—the gun had gone off, in the guy's holster—before he even touched it. He'd just pulled his jacket open to show it to her. He had been reaching for it, but he hadn't actually gotten his hand on it, when the hammer had gone click, he'd gotten a startled look on his face, and the gun had flashed and roared.

  It had misfired. She had to think that. Anything else was too weird.

  Besides, she didn't want to think about it at all. All she wanted, she realized desperately, was to get home. Back to the apartment, where she could soak her knees and hands before they got infected, soak her tired body in a hot bath, hide in her bed with a book, and never, ever come out again.

  She stood up, still shaking but determined to get home, knees and palms sending little stabs of pain up her arms and legs every time the raw skin flexed.

  She ignored that, and the distant ache in her side, and stepped out into the dim light from the streetlamp, trying to muster a show of courage. She couldn't help but glance over her shoulder, up and down the street; trying not to be obvious about it, but looking furtively to see if there was anyone else likely to make a grab for her. It wasn't just that she was afraid of another muscle-boy coming after her. In her current disheveled condition, she knew she looked like prey, easy prey. Even someone who might ordinarily leave her alone could be tempted to go for her the way she looked right now. And there were muggers, rapists, kids just looking to make some trouble, and she was all too obviously a good target. She started to shake again.

  She saw only a couple of people on her side of the street, and neither of them looked terribly dangerous. One was an old bag-lady who tottered down the street peering into corners, clucking and muttering to herself; the other, of indeterminate gender, wandered all over the sidewalk, clutching a bottle in a paper sack.

  That didn't mean there wasn't someone lurking around the corner, or in the mouth of an alley; someone she couldn't see. But at least she'd see them and have a head start if they came after her. . . .

  She started up the street, in the direction of the apartment, forcing herself to walk normally, with her head high. The wino stared at her as she passed him, but he didn't seem to really see her; the bag-lady ignored her entirely in favor of an old sneaker she'd just found.

  Nothing happened; no one jumped out of shadowy doorways to grab her, and no one pulled any more guns. One or two kids, alone, dressed in variations on jeans and gang-jackets, looked her over carefully, but evidently decided she wasn't worth hassling.

  By the time she made it back to the apartment, she was ready to pass out from fear and from exhaustion. But at least tonight there was a lightbulb illuminating the staircase, however faintly. There was no way that there could be anyone lurking on the landing, waiting to ambush her. She took the stairs slowly, carefully, pausing every few stairs to catch her breath. It took her a long time to fumble the key out of her tiny purse, and even longer to unlock the door.

  The apartment was completely empty.

  In a way, she was glad; that meant she wasn't going to have to explain what had happened to anyone until she'd managed to sort it all out herself. But the emptiness of the apartment meant she was going to be alone for a while. What if that pimp had friends? What if they knew where she lived? What if they'd been following her?

  They couldn't know where she lived, she told herself, as she shut and locked the door behind her. All she had to do was stay away from the windows, and not turn on any extra lights that might be visible from the street. That wouldn't be too hard.

  The sound of her own heart was so loud she was certain that if anyone did break in, they'd find her by that alone.

  She edged her way around the first room. Tonio, Joe, and Honi were nowhere to be seen, and the bedding hadn't been slept in. She kept between the wall and the light, so that no betraying shadow could fall to tell anyone watching that there was now someone inside the apartment. The bathroom was dark, and once in its comforting shadows she heaved a sigh of relief. She stripped off the ruined tights, whimpering as she pulled the fabric away from abraded flesh. They were useless now; huge runs had already started unraveling the black knit, and by the time she got the tights off, there wasn't much left of them but a weblike snarl of threads.

  My best tights, too, she thought, angrily, tears in her eyes. They'd cost her a full two dollars at Goodwill, and had been brand-new, out of a batch donated by some store or other. SCAD students had snapped up the rest; she'd practically had to fight to get this pair. And now some goon with a gun had ruined them. Her knees started bleeding again,
and she caught the blood with a hastily grabbed wad of toilet tissue. She probably ought to let the scrapes bleed for a while, to clean them out.

  She waited until the bleeding slowed, then wrung out a wash rag in hot water, and sat on the toilet in her panties and cotton minidress, carefully dabbing at her knees and the palms of her hands, trying not to get any blood on anything else. Each touch of the damp cloth brought an involuntary hiss of pain from her, and she rinsed the cloth and wrung it out, over and over, then dabbed at her knees again, wondering if she ought to use the peroxide Laura did her hair with on the scrapes. But soap and water were free, and peroxide cost money.

  Finally the scrapes looked pretty clean, and the bleeding stopped. Her knees looked awful, though. She could hide the palms of her hands, but how was she going to cover up her knees? She still had to hustle tomorrow, if not tonight.

  She finally decided to wear the black garter-belt and the black opaque stockings for the next couple of days. Men never asked her to take those off, not even the suits. And if she never told them that the hose were a little old Italian lady's black support hose, they'd never guess. Those stockings were dark enough she could tape her whole leg and they'd never know it.

  A great Goodwill find, courtesy of Laura, who could see potential in anything.

  It was easier thinking about what to wear than it was to think about what had just happened. She filled the tub with hot water and slipped out of the rest of her clothing, then climbed in, hissing a little as the water set her knees and hands afire. The pain didn't stop, it only leveled off, and she relaxed back into the tub with a sigh and closed her eyes.

  The pimp was dead; she had no doubt at all about that. The minute his gun had gone off, he had been dead. There were enough pimps and pushers nearby to start a small war; they all went armed, and they were all as paranoid as hell, especially the pushers. The minute a shot rang out, every muzzle on the street would have been pointed in her would-be kidnapper's direction, and a microsecond later, every one of the triggers would have been pulled. The law on the street was, "assume they're shooting at you." That was why she'd run for cover, hoping to reach the protection of brick and concrete before the fire-fight began.