"Kick somebody in the ribs on the way. Come on. We"ve got to go. Thank Tey for helping find you. She didn"t have to."

Maya did, but not very graciously. She must have felt threatened. When you"re a chuko, you have to prove yourself everyday.

There wasn"t anyone for her to kick. Wedge had decided reinforcements were likely to arrive so he and his buddies had made sure they"d collect whatever bounties Chodo had put on those guys.

Maya looked bad when we hit the street. I said, "I told you Wedge wasn"t nice people."

"Yeah." After we walked a while, she said, "Men like that Wedge, they"re a whole different kind of bad, aren"t they? People like my stepfather...He was cruel, but I don"t think he could"ve killed a dog. That Wedge did it like it was nothing."

Chukos put a lot of value on being tough. And a lot of them are hard, nasty little critters-especially in front of an audience. Some are dead losses at thirteen. But some still have the kid in there somewhere behind the defenses, and that kid wants to believe there"s some point to living. Maya still contained that hidden child. And it wanted some rea.s.surance.

"Who do you think does the most real harm?" I asked, thinking maybe anybody else was better qualified for this. "The emotional cripple who tries to cripple people who can"t protect themselves? Or the emotionally dead killer like Wedge who basically doesn"t bother anybody but them that asked for it?"

That wasn"t saying what I wanted to say the best way. Maybe there were big holes in it, but there was plenty of truth, too. The hurt a creep like her old man did lasts a lifetime. It gets pa.s.sed on to the next generation. Wedge"s kind of hurt is flashy but it doesn"t last. And it doesn"t eat up kids who can"t fight back.

I didn"t like Wedge. I didn"t like what he was. He probably didn"t have much use for me but I"d bet he"d agree.

Anyway, I knew what I was saying. And Maya seemed to get the message. "Garrett..."

"Never mind. We"ll talk when we get home. The bad time is over."

Sure it was. You smooth talker, Garrett. Now try and convince yourself.

Dean fussed over Maya like he was her mother. I didn"t get a chance to talk to her. The sun was coming up, so I said the h.e.l.l with it and went to bed.

35.

My own body turned traitor. I woke up at noon and couldn"t get back to sleep. I should have been smug, the hero who had gone out to save the damsel and had succeeded, but I didn"t feel smug or heroic. I felt confused, angry, put upon, frustrated. Most of all I felt out of control.

I"m not used to getting knocked around without at least some idea of what"s happening and why. In this one I was starting to suspect that maybe n.o.body knew and everybody was too busy bobbing and weaving to figure out why we were in the ring.

Well, h.e.l.l! I"m a thug for hire. I get paid. Do I have to think, too?

I want to know, for my own peace of mind. I"m no Morley Dotes, for whom the money is the only morality.

I went downstairs to stoke the body"s fires.

Dean had heard me knocking around and had gotten a meal started. Hot tea was on the table. Rewarmed m.u.f.fins landed beside it as I entered the kitchen. There was b.u.t.ter and blueberry preserves and apple juice, and sausages were popping in the pan while eggs boiled.

The place was crowded. "You having a party?" Two women were there with Dean.

He gave me one of his looks.

I recognized one of his more determined nieces, Bess, but the other woman, whose hair Bess was plaiting... "Maya?"

"Do I look too awful?"

No. "Stand up. Turn around. Let me look at you." She didn"t look awful at all. They"d drum her out of the Doom if they saw her like this. "I just ran out of excuses for not taking you out. Except for maybe there"d be riots." She looked good. I"d guessed that. But I hadn"t guessed just how good.

Bess said, "Down, boy."

Dean said, "Mr. Garrett!" He used his protective father tone.

"Phoo! I don"t mess with children."

"I"m not a child," Maya protested. And when you thought about it, she wasn"t. "I"m eighteen. If it wasn"t for the war I"d be married and have a couple of kids."

It was true. In prewar times they"d married them off at thirteen or fourteen and had given up hope of getting rid of them by the time they were fifteen.

"She"s got a point," I told Dean.

"You want these eggs the way you like them?"

How typical of him to drag in extraneous issues. "You won"t hear another word from me."

"Grown men," Maya told Bess, who nodded in contempt. That nearly sent Dean off on one of those tirades that bust out of him every time one of his nieces opens her mouth.

It occurred to me that Bess was barely three months older than Maya. Dean had no trouble picturing Bess married to me.

People seldom see any need to be consistent.

The key word there, though-of course-is "married."

I said, "Let"s forget it. Maya. Tell me what you learned while those people had you." I went to work eating.

Maya sat down. Bess started on her hair again. "There isn"t much to tell. They didn"t try to entertain or convert me."

"You always pick up more than you think, Maya. Try."

She said, "All right. I got the bright idea I could show you something if I followed those guys. All I showed you was a fat chance to tell me you told me so."

"I told you so."

"Smarta.s.s. They grabbed me and dragged me off and kept me in a place they used for a temple. A weird, grungy place they"d made over by painting the walls with ugly pictures."

"I saw it."

"I sat through their religious services. Three times a day I sat through them. Those guys don"t do anything but work and eat and pray for the end of the world. I think. Mostly they didn"t use Karentine in their services."

"They sound like a fun bunch."

Maya s.n.a.t.c.hed a b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fin off my plate and smiled brightly. She was moving right in. "Get used to it, Garrett. Yeah. They were fun. Like an abscessed tooth."

I chewed sausage and waited.

"They"re really negative, Garrett. In the Doom I know people who are negative, but those guys could give lessons. I mean it. They were praying for the end of the world."

"You"re telling me things I didn"t know. Keep going."

That was praise enough to light her up. It takes so little sometimes. I had a feeling she"d turn out all right, given encouragement. "Tell me more."

She said, "They call themselves the Sons of Hammon. I think Hammon must have been some kind of prophet, about the same time as Terrell."

Dean said, "He was one of Terrell"s original six Companions. And the first to desert him. A bitter parting over a woman."

I looked at him in surprise.

He continued, "Later dogma says Hammon betrayed Terrell"s hiding place to the Emperor Cedric-if you find him mentioned at all. But in the Apocrypha, written that same century and kept intact in secret since, it"s the other way around and Hammon died two years before Terrell was turned in by his own wife. Known to us as Saint Medwa."

"What?" I gave the old man the long look now. He"d never shown much interest in religion or its special folklore. "What is this? Where"d you get all this? When did you become an expert? I"ve never heard of this Hammon character and my mother dragged me to church until I was ten."

"Council of Ai, Mr. Garrett. Five Twenty-One, Imperial Age. Two hundred years before the Great Schism. All the bishops and presters and praetors attended, along with a host of imperial delegates. In those days every diocese sp.a.w.ned its own heresy. And every heretic was a fanatic. The emperor wanted to end a century of fighting. In Five Eighteen in Costain, in one day of rioting, forty-eight thousand had been killed. The emperor was a confirmed Terrillite and he had the swords. He ordered the Council to expunge the memory of Hammon, so the proto-Church and Orthodox sects wrote him out of their histories. I know because my father taught me. He was a Cynic seminarian for three years and a lay deacon all his life."

You never know everything about somebody, do you?

You can"t argue with an expert. Besides, the "facts" I"d been taught had never made sense. The histories of Terrel"s time, outside the religious community, didn"t jibe with what the priests wanted us to believe.

We had been told that Terrell had been martyred for his witnessing to the ma.s.ses. But the way the secular histories go, the religion business was wide open in those days. Every street corner in the cities and every hamlet in the country had its prophet. They could rave all they wanted. Moreover, Terrell had been a prophet of Hano, who had had more followers then than he does now.

"Then why did Cedric kill him?"

"Because he started in on the imperial household and establishment. He got political. And he didn"t have sense enough to shut his mouth when they told him to stick to putting words into the mouth of Hano, who can look out for himself."

I always figured that. Why would Hano need henchmen down here to knock the heads of unbelievers when he"s the Great Headknocker himself? "So who are these Sons of Hammon?"

"I don"t know. I"ve never heard of them."

Maya said, "They"re devil-worshippers, Garrett. They won"t even speak their G.o.d"s name. They just call him the Devastator and beg him to bring on the end of the world."

"Crazies."

"He answers them, Garrett." She started shaking. "That was the bad part. I heard him. Inside my head. He promises them the end of the world before the turn of the century if they carry out his commands faithfully. Many will die in the struggle but the martyrs will be rewarded. They will be drawn to his bosom in peace and ecstasy forever."

I exchanged looks with Dean. Maya"s eyes had glazed and she was babbling like something had taken possession of her. "Hey! Maya! Come back." I clapped my hands in front of her nose.

She jumped and looked bewildered. "Sorry. I got carried away, didn"t I? But it got pretty intense when those guys got a service going and their G.o.d talked to them. h.e.l.l. It was really bad the night before last. He showed up in person."

"Yes?" Did I want to know about this? "A thing like an ape, six arms, twelve feet tall?"

"That was the shape he a.s.sumed. Uglier than a barrel of horned toads. How did you know?"

"I met him. Out at Chodo"s. He didn"t make good company. But he seemed kind of puny for a G.o.d."

"That wasn"t really the G.o.d, Garrett. I"m not sure what they meant but the thing was something like what the real G.o.d dreamed. Only he had control of the dream, like you do sometimes. You know?"

The more she talked the more nervous she got. I wondered if they"d done something to her that she either wouldn"t talk about or couldn"t remember. "Is this upsetting you?"

"Some. Things like that don"t happen to people like me."

"Maya, things like that don"t happen to people like me, either. Or anybody else. I"ve had some weird cases but I"ve never gone up against a G.o.d. n.o.body these days has to deal with G.o.ds who really show up."

I glanced around. Dean was troubled. Maya was troubled. Even Bess, who didn"t have a notion what we were talking about, bless her vacant head, was worried. I thought back on what I"d said.

A G.o.d who really shows up.

That"s nightmare stuff. Who expects the G.o.ds to take an active role these days? Not even guys like Peridont. The G.o.ds haven"t busybodied since antiquity.

What Maya had to tell was interesting, but useful only in a cautionary sense. I still had to get my hands on Jill Craight and maybe squeeze her. Something had started all this excitement bubbling.

I recalled the note Jill had left in that apartment. I had made maybe the biggest screw up of a career checkered with goofs.

I should have sat on that sucker for as long as it took. Somebody was going to come and get it-somebody who might be at the root of this whole d.a.m.ned business.

Maybe I hadn"t needed Jill at all. If only I had waited there until he came...But then I wouldn"t have gotten Maya loose...

Maybe it wasn"t too late. "I have to go out."

36.

It was too late. The note was gone. I cussed my blindness. I tore that apartment to shreds looking for something, anything, and found exactly what I deserved to find. Nothing.

So it would be the hard way after all, hunt Jill Craight until something shook loose.

I hoped I wouldn"t be hearing from the Sons of Hammon for a while. The way they"d taken it on the chin, I couldn"t see them doing anything but backing off to regroup. I just hoped the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were as confused as the rest of us.

I got out of there and headed to the area where Tey Koto claimed Jill was likely to be found.

There are pimples and pockets of h.e.l.l and Purgatory all over TunFaire. People wouldn"t want their daughters hanging out there. The kingpin probably has a finger in all of them. The worst, the biggest, where Chodo"s presence is heavier than that of a king, is the Tenderloin, sometimes called the Street of the d.a.m.ned. If you want it, someone there will sell it. And the kingpin will get his cut.

It"s h.e.l.l on earth for those who survive that way, used and abused and discarded the instant they lose their marketability. For those who haven"t been to the underside and haven"t lived with the ticks on society"s underbelly, it"s difficult to believe people will use each other so badly.

Believe me, there are people out there who"ll destroy a hundred lives for pocket change and never know a moment"s remorse. Who wouldn"t, in fact, understand if you told them they"d done something wrong by addicting a twelve-year-old so she"d cooperate as a thirty-a-day flat-backer.

They understand "against the laws of Man" but not "against the law of humanity." Right is whatever you make it, for as long as you can make it last.

They"re out there. And they"re the real bogeymen.