"I"ve been so busy, what with working for Global Fun and Games an" all-"

"And you haven"t wanted to talk to him anyway, right?"

"I don"t know what to say..." Crodelia blushed. "I mean, it"s like I don" know him anymore. You don" understand. I was raised in the Church. I was taught that bein" a h.o.m.o-what Jack is, is one of the worst sins."

"It"s not catching and he"s your uncle. He"s risked his life for you and you wont even give him a call. I"m glad you"re so strong on right and wrong."

Bagabond looked disgusted and unconsciously flicked her wrist at the girl.

"Michael"s good for him. I"ve never seen Jack so happy."

"Yeah, well, Michael"s a son of a b.i.t.c.h! I saw him in a club in the Village last week. He was with someone and it wasn"t Uncle Jack." Cordelia was furious.

"Everything okay here?" C.C. seated herself and looked at each woman in turn.

"Hey, no prob." Cordelia waved the waitress over. "You goin" to do my benefit or what?"

"You keep asking and I keep saying no." C.C. shook her head in affectionate exasperation. "I just want to write my songs, do some recording at home. I don"t need a live audience and I certainly don"t want one."

"C.C., de audience needs you. It"s a benefit for wild card victims as well as AIDS. You of all people should have sympathy for the cause."

Bagabond watched C.C."s face tighten at the mention of the wild card virus. It had taken years of drugs, therapy, and G.o.d knew what else to bring her back to humanity. C.C."s very real nightmare was that she would again become a living subway car formed from nothing save hate. Or something much worse. C.C. had spoken of a little of this to Bagabond.

C.C. Ryder controlled her emotions rigidly, never allowing them to exceed a certain low level. If she continued taking the downs and antidepressants prescribed for her, she couldn"t write. Not being able to create her songs was even worse than the prospect of changing back. So she avoided any situation that might be more than she could handle. Not even Tachyon could tell her what might set off the series of internal changes that could result in another transformation. Bagabond did not understand how C.C. could live in that state of constant fear and still create the songs, but she did understand why she wanted to stay away from most humans. She approved.

"No." C.C."s voice had become as tense as her muscles, although it was equally clear that she was controlling the effect the discussion was having on her.

"It could be your big comeback-"

"Cordelia, you can"t have a comeback if you were never there in the first place." C.C. forced a smile. "I"m sure there are many more likely candidates out there."

"Your songs have been recorded by the best: Peter Gabriel-" Cordelia barely paused in her diatribe at the arrival of their burgers. "Simple Minds, U2 ...

It"s time for you to show them all what you can do."

Bored by the argument and reasured that C.C. was holding her own, Bagabond reached out across the city, flashing through the tangle of feral intelligences.

Darkness, bright light; hunger, fulfillment; the tense antic.i.p.ation of the hunter, the cold, shivering fear of the stalked; death, birth; pain. So much pain in living each minute-why did these human fools insist on creating even more for themselves by their little games? Playing at living. She touched a squirrel with a broken back. It had been struck by a pa.s.sing car near Washington Park, and she stopped its heart and brain simultaneously. In Central Park the gray son of the black and the calico dashed into a copse of oaks and sheltered by the underbrush, spun and raked the nose of the Doberman that had chased it.

Bagabond felt the cat"s triumph for an instant before it recognized her touch and hissed in anger. Feeling no need to force the contact, she moved on. She allowed herself another instant to ascertain that the black and the calico"s most recent litter of kittens was well in the warm service tunnels beneath Forty-second Street.

As her eyes rolled back down, Bagabond realized that Cordelia"s conversation with C.C. had stopped.

"Suzanne, are you okay?" C.C. ran her gaze across Bagabond"s face then nodded slowly.

"She"s fine, Cordelia." C.C. brought the young woman"s attention back to herself, giving Bagahond time to return. Sometimes it had become difficult to come back to the slow, jabbering world of the humans. Someday, she thought, looking at C.C. Ryder, she would not come back. C.C. was the only person she had ever met who understood that. One day she would ask what C.C. had felt as the Other. C.C. mentioned it rarely, but when she did, Bagabond had seen a haunted need still there behind her eyes.

"Um, okay. Anyway, GF & g, you know, would love to back you on your reintroduction. The Funhouse is an intimate venue. Perfect for you and your music." Cordelia leaned toward C.C." hand extended. "And you know Xavier Desmond"s one of your biggest fans."

"Christ, girl, you"re turning into a freaking agent." C.C. leaned back in the fifties plastic-covered chair. "And I"ve already got one agent. That"s bad enough."

"Well, hey, I"ve got to get home. It"s late. Good to see you guys." Cordelia dropped a few bills onto the table and got up. She swung the armadillo shoulder bag off her chair. Catching Bagabond"s eyes on the dead animal, she elbowed it behind her and backed toward the door, still working on C.C. "You"ve got a few weeks to make your final decision. The show"s not until late May. Bono said he was looking forward to meeting you. So"d Little Steven."

"Good night, Cordelia." C.C. Ryder had clearly reached the end of her patience.

"I"m too old for this, Suzanne."

Wriggling underneath the padded shoulders of the business suit Rosemary had bought her, Bagabond stepped out of the elevator onto Rosemary"s floor. The receptionist recognized her instantly.

"Good morning, Ms. Melotti. Let me buzz Ms. Muldoon."

"Thank you, Donnis." Bagabond sat down uncomfortably in one of the chairs scattered around the waiting area.

"I"m afraid you just missed Mr. Goldberg. He left a few minutes ago for his court appearances today." The older woman behind the word processor smiled at Bagabond indulgently while she punched Rosemary"s intercom number and announced her.

"For once everything"s running on time. Go right on in." Bagabond nodded and got back up onto her high heels. With her back to the receptionist, she blinked at the pain in her feet. She hated these days when she played dress-up to talk to Rosemary. At Rosemary"s closed door she knocked twice and walked in to see the a.s.sistant DA with a phone resting on one shoulder. As usual, Bagabond sat on Rosemary"s big oak desk. She listened to the conversation.

"Wonderful, Lieutenant. I"m so glad that tip on the designer drug factory panned out." Rosemary rolled her eyes at Bagabond as she signed papers and balanced the receiver.

"So it wasn"t a Mafia operation after all. Any clues as to the ownership? If we could just find out who"s behind this senseless crime war with the Mafia, we could go a long way toward stopping it." Rosemary nodded to her unseen caller and almost dropped the phone. "True, but as long as they"re wiping each other out, they"re hurting innocent people."

"Well, you can rest a.s.sured that I"ll be forwarding any other aces who volunteer over to you immediately. You"re right-uncoordinated activity is dangerous for all concerned. I"m just glad to help. Right. I"ll be in touch. "Bye." Rosemary hung up the phone.

"We took out a drug plant last night." Rosemary leaned her chin on her hand and smiled up at Bagabond. "I"m pleased."

Bagabond nodded, looking across the office toward the dark wooden door.

"And I"m curious." Rosemary got up and checked to make sure that the door was securely closed. "Why haven"t you volunteered?"

Bagabond noticed for the hundredth time that Rosemary had no trouble walking in her spike heels. She looked up to see Rosemary staring at her, a muscle jumping along her jaw.

"You never asked." Bagabond was uncomfortable. She hated it. Guilt was for humans. Or pets.

"I didn"t think I had to. I thought we were friends." They glared at each other like two cats in a territorial battle. Rosemary broke the impa.s.se.

"And of course we are." The DA sat down and leaned back in her chair. "I should have asked. I"m asking now. I need your help."

Rosemary"s smile reminded Bagabond of a tiger"s yawn. Teeth, lots of teeth.

Bagabond felt cold.

"What can I do? I talk to pigeons." Bagabond examined Rosemary"s face for duplicity.

"Well, pigeons see things. Sometimes I"m sure they see interesting things. I"d just like to hear about those things."

"Which one of you? The DA or the Mafia don?" Rosemary"s eyes flashed up to the door and back to Bagabond. After an instant of hesitation she smiled at the woman sitting on her desk.

"You"d be amazed to discover how much their interests are intertwined."

"Yes. I would." Bagabond shook her head. "No, I don"t think I can help."

"Come on, Suzanne. People are getting hurt out there. We can stop that."

Rosemary reached toward her window. "People killing other people." Bagabond nodded. "Good. The fewer of them, the better I"ll like it."

"Being a hard case today, I see." Rosemary relaxed back into her chair. "I"ve heard this one."

"I mean it." Bagabond looked down at her old friend.

"I know. But I do need you. I need your connections. I need your information.

And it"s not just humans getting hurt." Rosemary stretched her hands out on top of the papers on her desk. They both watched the fingers shake until they were clenched into fists. "Don Picchietti and Don Covello are already dead. They just took out Don Toma.s.so. He was my G.o.dfather. Please, Bagabond. Help me." Rosemary looked up at Bagabond, pleading her case with both her voice and her face.

"Picchietti was. .h.i.t with an ice pick in his ear. n.o.body around him saw anything." Rosemary smiled at her with a twisted and unamused grin. "And for once they weren"t lying."

"You don"t know what you"re doing. But my help won"t hurt anything either."

Bagabond tasted bitterness at her surrender and felt anger at herself, but she could not abandon her friend.

"Thank you." Rosemary relaxed and picked up her pen, flipping it through her fingers. "Talk to Jack lately?"

"Almost never." Bagabond slid a part of her consciousness to the rat whom she had set to watch Jack as he worked his way through the subway tunnels. She smelled him first. Then, turning the rat"s head toward Jack Robicheaux, she saw him in the rat"s dim, black-and-white vision.

"Maybe you could pa.s.s on that I"d like to see him?" Rosemary had obviously tired of sparring with Bagabond.

"I can tell him." Bagabond nodded. "No promises. Who"s the lieutenant I report to?"

"Don"t be ridiculous, Suzanne. You"ll give anything you come up with directly to me." When Rosemary met her eyes, Bagabond found no friendship at all.

Hands clenched atop a stack of case briefs, Rosemary stared out the window of her office. She was afraid for Chris. Until they found out who was behind the war on the Families, he was in extreme danger as the public chief of the Gambiones. And they still had few clues, although every day there was another Mafia loss. They"d hit all the numbers runners, dealers, small-timers, and extortionists they could find to try to get a lead to the top. It hadn"t worked.

The cells of lower-level criminals had no information about the cells above them. It was brilliant organization on someone"s part, and it was destroying her people. She shook her head unconsciously, one part of her preoccupied with the Families while the other was trying to keep on top of her office"s caseload.

More and more she had come to depend on her a.s.sistants for aid in prosecuting the cases she would have dealt with personally a few months ago. She wondered if anyone had noticed and made a mental note to be more careful. But it was so hard to balance everything, so much more difficult than she had ever imagined.

"There"s someone here to see you, Ms. Muldoon." Donnis"s quiet voice broke into her thoughts so abruptly that she jumped.

"Who is it, Donnis? I"ve got a desk full of cases."

"Well, Ms. Muldoon, she says her name is Jane Dow." The name was familiar although Rosemary failed to place it for a moment. Then she had it: Water Lily.

What did the girl want?

"I"ll see her."

Entering, the auburn-haired girl, no, young woman, Rosemary corrected herself, carefully closed the door after herself "Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Muldoon."

"Please have a seat, Ms. Dow. What can I do for you?" Water Lily looked down at her twisting hands, and Rosemary saw droplets of liquid forming on her forehead.

Rosemary wondered if sweating was the extent of her ace, power. Just what she needed.

"Well, I thought maybe I could do something for you. I heard that you were looking for aces and-I know I"m not much of one, but I thought I could work for you. Help out." For the first time Water Lily met Rosemary"s eyes and shrugged.

"If you have anything that I could do."

"Possibly." Rosemary sighed. She couldn"t imagine what, but she was not about to turn down any help at this point. "Tell me what, precisely, is the extent of your power?"

"Well, I control water. I"m really good at floods." Water Lily turned pink and the water on her face shone. She seemed very young. Rosemary heard dripping but chose to ignore it.

"All water, everywhere? I mean, do you have a range? Do you generate it, or can you use the water around you?" Rosemary stopped and smiled apologetically.

"Sorry about the third degree. I"m just trying to see where you"ll fit in."

"It has to be fairly close, but I can use any water in my vicinity and control the force of its flow. And I can change the electrolyte balance in someone and knock them out." Water Lily was looking fractionally less embarra.s.sed now that she was being taken seriously. Rosemary no longer heard the dripping. " I was thinking that I would be good with crowd control, sweeping people off their feet without really hurting them with a small flood, or causing distractions if you needed it."

"What about other forms of water, high-pressure steam, for example?"

"I don"t know. I"ve never tried it." Water Lily appeared to be interested in the idea.

"Okay, that sounds as if it could be quite helpful. Welcome aboard, Water Lily.

Or do you prefer Jane?" Rosemary thought about the raids she was trying to organize on some of the Shadow Fist drug operations. A few burst pipes could do an amazing amount of damage. She smiled broadly at the younger woman without seeing her.

"Jane, please. You can reach me at Aces High. I brought a card. Just let me know what I can do." Jane looked pleased by her acceptance.

Rosemary stole half an hour to familiarize herself with the cases stacked in front of her before she called in Paul Goldberg. His experience had made him an obvious choice to be her immediate aide, and Rosemary had taken advantage of it.

Paul came in and sat down uninvited. He held a fat sheaf of reports that he dropped on her desk with a thud.

"The latest info on our caseload. We won the case against Malerucci." Rosemary glanced up from the paperwork at the mention of the name. "I know you didn"t think much of the case we had, but I decided to go ahead with it. It worked out.

Maybe you"re not aware of this, but we"ve been taking some heat about the number of Mafia cases we"re prosecuting, or rather not prosecuting. The cops have come to me several times complaining about doing all the work and getting no support from this office."

"The cops are always complaining. You know that, Paul. They don"t understand that we have this Const.i.tution thing we have to pay attention to when we haul someone into court. Good work on the Malerucci case, but you took a chance there. The jury could have gone either way based on that evidence."

"Especially after somebody got to the Police Evidence Lab and destroyed most of the c.o.ke." Paul crossed his legs on Rosemary"s desk and leaned back in the chair. "We haven"t been able to trace that leak yet."

"In the future, please stick to my instructions on which cases to go after. I"d appreciate it, speaking strictly as your boss." Rosemary smiled at him and leaned back in her own chair.

"Boss, I"ve noticed a trend in the cases you okay, and I"m not the only one. Why aren"t we going after the Mafia? With this war going on, we could put a lot of nasty people away. Their resources are stretched too thin to protect all of their people." He reached out and tapped the stack of papers with a rigid forefinger. "It"s all right here. I"ve even got a possible tax evasion on Chris Mazzucch.e.l.li. What do you say? Let me at "im."

"No." Rosemary put on her best inscrutable madonna look. "I want to wait until the war has shaken out some more."

"The Mafia appears to be self-destructing anyway. We can just save ourselves the trouble."

"You know that if we put some of these people behind bars we might just be saving their lives." Paul was watching her closely. His scrutiny made Rosemary uncomfortable.

"I make the decisions here." The tone in her voice was meant to shut Paul up and it worked, but she still didn"t like the stare she got after she said it.