The lights above the escalator are set in metal cups, the ceiling about them sooty from years of incandescent heat. At the top behind a low glass wall shine three glossy mannequins, smooth white shells with hair and lips and eyelids painted in bright thin colors. One wears a T-shirt that says Virgo! Are you absolutely positive? Another wears a T-shirt with Albert Einstein on it, that says INTP in big block letters. The center of attention! says the poster hanging above them. None of them wears shoes. Jo turns as her step nears the top, looking down at Ysabel behind her. “What?” says Ysabel.

“I don’t know,” says Jo, stepping off. “I figured you as more a Nordstrom’s girl.”

“Nordstrom,” says Ysabel.

“What?”

“Never mind.” Silvery letters on the wall say Petites. Designer Dresses, say signs atop racks hung with deep greens, reds and browns like wet earth, like wines, all the toasted colors, umbras and siennas, ochres, butters. “Shall we?” says Ysabel.

Arms outstretched Jo presses her hands firmly against the beige walls to either side and regards her reflection. Lips pursed. Eyebrow crooked. Her short hair, blond at the tips, is dark about the scalp. Longer black shocks spike out halfheartedly, already wilting, lying back against the blond. She lifts her chin. Frowns. The dress is long and soft, a heathery grey. Yellow and white stripes pipe down either side. She tucks a black bra strap under. When she lowers her arms, it slips back out. “You know,” she says, “I like the capris better.”

“No,” says Ysabel. A rustle and a thump and her hands appear at the top of the wall, her head peeking over. “I told you. A dress. How’s the skirt? For moving?”

Jo squats, stands up. Rolls her eyes. Plants her feet wide spreading her knees and slapping her hands on them, hunkering over like a sumo wrestler. The skirt stretches taut. She sticks her tongue out at her reflection, googles her eyes. “Well?” says Ysabel. Jo’s knocking her knees together, hands shuffling back and forth in a Charleston. She snorts. “It’s fine,” she says, standing up. “Stretchy.” Half-turning. Her bra clearly visible in the mirror, there where the wide straps of the dress join in the back.

“We can get you one of those bandeau bras,” says Ysabel. She looks down, her head disappearing. There’s another thump.

“I don’t like those bras,” mutters Jo. She hikes up the dress, bending over, peeling it up and off. “And the colors,” Ysabel’s saying. “The colors are perfect. I definitely say that’s the one.”

“So this hunt,” says Jo, standing there in her boxer shorts and bra. “What is it we’re, uh, hunting?”

“I don’t know,” says Ysabel. “Ow.”

“Ow?” Jo looks at the wall, up, her hands pausing, the dress half-clipped to its hanger.

“Ripped a nail. Blasted jeans.”

“So,” says Jo. She hangs the dress from the hook on the door. “We don’t know what we’re hunting. And it’s being thrown by the Duke, right?” She picks up her black T-shirt and still bent over rubs the scab on her knee with her thumb.

“Yes,” says Ysabel. “Duke, umf, Duke Barganax.” There’s another thump.

“The same guy who sent those guys after us.”

“Yes, Jo.”

“So I don’t get it.” Jo sits on the narrow bench by the mirror, turning her T-shirt right-side out. “What do we get by going right up to him? What’s he gonna pull?”

“He’s not going to ‘pull’ anything, Jo. He’s called a hunt, in my honor.” Jo starts to wrestle her way into her T-shirt. “He may even mean this as an apology. Whatever else he’s done, he’s a Duke. I’m leaning toward the green one.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me what you think.”

Jo pops open the flimsy louvered door of her fitting room and steps around to the next, rattling its door until it unsticks with a jerk. Ysabel’s smiling, arms akimbo. The green in her dress is rich and deep like old glass bottles. The skirt is cut above the knee to one side, below it to the other. Thin straps leave her shoulders bare beneath her dark curls. “Well?”

“Works,” says Jo.

Ysabel drops one hand, exasperated. “That’s it?”

“It gets the job done,” says Jo. “That’s, which, the two hundred and fifty dollar one? What?”

“I’m sorry,” says Ysabel, sputtering with laughter. “I’m sorry. It’s the, it’s the boxer shorts. Really.”

“Whatever,” says Jo, rolling her eyes, leaning against the jamb.

“We must get you some new underwear while we’re at it. Along with the bra. A thong, considering the cut of that dress.”

“Hell no,” snaps Jo, straightening up away from the door.

“They’re really much more comfortable than you think,” says Ysabel.

“Hell no.”

“Frankie?” says Gaveston. He knocks. “Mr. Reichart?”

Orlando pushes himself up from the wrought-iron railing he’s been leaning against. “Allow me,” he says.

“Just a moment,” says Gaveston. “Perhaps he’s – ”

Orlando hikes up his leg and kicks. There’s a crunch and a twang. Around the deadbolt plate the door buckles. Biting his lip Orlando swings his leg back, taps the ball of his foot against the concrete, swings forward and up, knee to his chest, drives his foot into the door. It pops open, bouncing off the wall inside, swinging shut. He catches it as he steps through. Gaveston shakes his head and is about to follow when somebody says, “Hey!”

At the bottom of the stairs down the outside of the apartment building there’s Frankie, looking up, one hand shading his eyes, a six-pack of hard lemonade dangling from the other. “Orlando!” calls Gaveston, swinging his portfolio tube up onto his shoulder, coming down the stairs quickly, carefully, one hand on the railing. “Who the,” Frankie’s saying, “what are you, hey!” as Orlando pops out of the doorway. The bottles ring and clank but none of them breaks. Hands free, Frankie’s taking a couple of hasty steps backwards, arms windmilling for balance as he turns, leans, starts to run. Orlando crouches there on the balcony and leaps, legs gathered under himself, half-unbuttoned shirt whipping, long slim curve of his Japanese sword up over his head, shining.

Green flocking flakes from the fake topiary to reveal a dark wicker frame. Buckets filled with dusty silk flowers line the bottom of the glass case. A fountain to be mounted on a wall leans against the base of one of the bushes, its lion’s mouth dry, a black tube dangling unattached from its back. On a plinth above a gaggle of grey plastic ducks sits a young girl, her butterfly wings rendered in thick grey plaster. “Jo?” says Ysabel.

Jo looks away from the glass case, the only thing to be seen on this small landing. Ysabel’s standing at the base of the escalator up, one hand on her hip. “Up to housewares?” says Jo.

Ysabel points to a blank door, the same dull white as the walls. “Oh,” says Jo.

“Offices are on this floor,” says Ysabel. “Go through there and down to the last one on the left. There aren’t any doors. Don’t look at anything, don’t say anything, don’t have anything to do with anything but the last one on the left.” She’s reaching into the front pocket of her jeans. “When you get there, knock four times on the wall outside. Do exactly as you are told.” She’s worming a clear plastic baggie from her pocket. A spoonful of gold dust snakes along the bottom. “Answer every question truthfully. You’ll do fine.”

“And then what?” Jo frowns as Ysabel pinches some gold dust and sprinkles it on the doorknob. “Close your eyes,” says Ysabel.

Jo takes a step closer. Shrugs, and closes her eyes. Ysabel pauses, her gold-dusted finger poised by Jo’s face. Looks at her, standing there in her old black jeans and her black T-shirt. The dresses slumped over one arm, soft grey, slippery silky green. Black underwear dangling from a little plastic hanger in her other hand, a packet of stockings. Ysabel smiles. She brushes Jo’s eyelids lightly one and then the other with her fingertip, glittering them. “You’ll be fine,” she says, in Jo’s ear.

Jo opens her eyes. “Whoa,” she says.

The offices are dim. The cubicle walls are chin-high, a dingy, nappy brown. Jo doesn’t look at the plaques by each opening. Warm light glows from the cubicle to the right. “No,” someone’s saying. “Shadow-time’s orthogonal to pseudo-time. Plates? They’re gonna be glad wide jars again. Yeah. The car under the stale light is a familiar answer, but don’t run to the stranger’s benison – there is nothing in the end but now, and now – ” Jo hurries past, dresses rustling like underbrush. Her knocks against the wall outside the last cubicle on the left are muffled. “Come in,” a woman says.

She’s sitting in a black leatherette chair, flipping through an enormous stack of green-and-white fanfold printout next to an old computer terminal, black screen glowing with amber characters. She wears a white blouse and a big soft grey bow knotted under her collar. There’s nowhere to sit. Jo stands in the cubicle entrance, the load awkward in her arms. The woman pauses her rapid flipping, holds a chunk of printout in the air while selecting a clear plastic ruler, which she lays along the blurry lines of data. “Jo Maguire,” she says.

“Yes,” says Jo.

“That wasn’t a question,” she says. “The first question is: do you miss him?”

Jo frowns. “Do I miss him? Who?”

The woman’s peering at the printout. “Do you miss him.”

Jo blinks. Her lips part as the frown slips from her face. She closes her eyes. “Oh,” she says. Opens them. “Yes. I do.”

The clear plastic ruler jerks down a line. “Do you love him?”

“Of course,” says Jo. Her voice rough, far away. She clears her throat.

The ruler jerks down once more. “If you could say one thing to him, what would it be?”

“I’m sorry,” says Jo. “I’m very sorry.”

The woman neatens up her pile of printout. “That will do,” she says, standing. Bending in front of Jo she pats down the dresses, finds a security tag, pops it off with an orange plastic grip. She pulls a shopping bag from the shelf above her terminal, unfurls it with a shake. Jo drops the dresses in, the stockings, the underwear. “Thank you so much for shopping with us,” says the woman.

Becker leans back, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. A piano rings softly through the speakers to either side of his computer monitor. Samson went back to bed, a woman’s singing, not much hair left on his head. Ate a slice of Wonderbread and went right back to bed. The office is dark, lit only by the lamp on his desk and the bright white glaring from the door to the kitchen, where Guthrie’s standing, arms folded. “Hey,” he says.

“Jesus,” says Becker, starting. “I thought everybody was gone.”

“I was waiting,” says Guthrie. “We were going to talk.”

“Yeah, well,” says Becker, “perks of being promoted.” He turns down the music. “First in, last out. So.”

“So?”

“What are we talking about?”

Guthrie’s pulling a chair up to Becker’s desk. “The two guys,” he says. He straddles the back of the chair, frowning.

“Two guys,” says Becker, shifting his mouse, clicking, tapping a number on the keyboard. “Help me out here. What two guys?”

“The,” says Guthrie, “the two guys.” He points to the door to the lobby. “Wanted to talk to you about Jo, and Ysabel.”

“Oh,” says Becker. “Those two guys. What about them?”

“They didn’t seem weird to you?”

“Just about everything with that girl is weird.”

Guthrie’s fiddling with a fat binder clip, opening and closing the little metal arms. It clinks against the rings on his fingers. “You remember how we met her?”

“Jo brought her in,” says Becker.

Guthrie drops the clip into a wire basket full of them. “That’s not when we met her.”

“There was the thing,” says Becker. “When I got bumped up. At the VC. She was there, wasn’t she? And then Jo went off with her to some party up in Northwest, and – what?”

Guthrie’s shaking his head. “That’s not it,” he says. “You don’t remember.” His hands float over Becker’s desk as if he’s unsure what shape to make with them. “We were there. It was a big old house on Everett.”

“No, see, I remember the party,” says Becker. “It was a little, I had a lot of beer. It’s a little fuzzy.”

“I had way too much beer,” says Guthrie. He taps his head. “Still clear as a bell. You remember the girl who tried to steal your watch?”

“Yeah, but,” says Becker.

“Or the one who said she’d been herself in a former life?”

“I don’t – ”

“You remember the band, right?” Guthrie looks up at Becker now, and Becker looks right back at him, eyes a little wide, frowning just. “They were pretty good,” says Guthrie. “You remember Ysabel’s boyfriend picking a fight? With a sword?”

“Now wait a,” says Becker.

“How he stabbed Jo in the back?”

“Guthrie.” Becker pushes back, hands up, as if he expects Guthrie to leap over the desk at him. Guthrie doesn’t move, doesn’t look away. He says, “That’s when you – ”

“I never,” says Becker.

“ – when you went for him. He was still holding that damn sword, but you went roaring at him. Took three of them to hold you back. And he never even looked at you, he just, he put up his sword, and he walked away.”

“You are so full of shit,” says Becker.

At that Guthrie looks down. His pale hands curl in on themselves, fingernails coated in chipped black polish. “I didn’t do anything,” he says. “I just watched them haul you outside. Watched them bundle her up in a blanket. They told me they were taking her across the street and I said okay. They told me not to worry about it. She was going to be fine. And I said whatever, okay. They told me to take you home.” Guthrie flattens his hands on Becker’s desk and looks up at him. “You were standing there on the porch. Staring off at nothing. I said, let’s get you home. You said sure. You’d already forgotten everything.”

“That’s because it never happened,” says Becker, gently.

“Ask Jo,” says Guthrie. “Ask Ysabel.” He pushes back from Becker’s desk. “Anyway. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He stands up, bumping the chair back towards the line of phone carrels. “Which is why I think we should go to this thing tomorrow night. You know. That those two guys were telling you about?” He shrugs. “Or maybe that never happened, either.”

“Puertas a mi izquierda,” says the recording. “Lloyd Center, Northeast Eleventh Avenue. Doors to my left.” Jo starts awake, nearly dropping the long bundle wrapped in red. Ysabel’s shaking her shoulder. “Our stop,” she says. Her reflection hangs in the dark window like a ghost, the green of her new dress shining over a dimly lit office lobby across the street.

Outside, Jo in her army jacket and her new grey dress, red bundle under one arm, walks to the end of the platform, looking out over the parking lot. It’s almost empty, drowned in a dulling haze of streetlight. Past it a long barn of a movie theater lit up with neon. Across the street another empty lot spreads before the anonymous prow of a shopping mall. A bell rings. With a rising, grinding hum the train pulls away, clank-chunking over a rail junction. “Where is everybody?” says Jo.

“Inside,” says Ysabel.

“Inside.” Jo points across the street. “In the mall.” She shakes her head. “Of course they’re in the mall.”

“Give me your sword,” says Ysabel.

“It’s really fucking late,” says Jo, holding out the bundle.

“The witching hour,” says Ysabel. She’s unwinding the long red scarf from the short épée in its black sheath. “Hold still.” She stoops on one knee there before Jo, shaking the belt loose. Reaches up, wrapping it around Jo’s hips. “Hold still,” she says, buckling it. “We should have gotten you some shoes.”

Jo peers down at her mismatched Chuck Taylors, the white one held together with duct tape. “They’re comfortable.”

“They’re appalling,” says Ysabel, working the sheath’s ties under the belt. “A nice pair of Nikes, maybe, cream and yellow – ”

“Yeah,” snaps Jo, “and I woulda had to,” and then she looks away, across the street, toward the mall. Behind her the theater marquee suddenly goes dark. “You look good,” she says. “In that dress.”

“Thank you,” says Ysabel, sitting back on her heels.

Jo looks down, at Ysabel’s bare shoulders, the green skirt falling away from one knee. “You chilly at all?”

“If I were,” says Ysabel, reaching up, “would you give me your jacket?”

“That part of the job description?” says Jo, taking her hand.

Ysabel shrugs, and pulls herself to her feet.

The restroom’s dark. Becker crouches over a toilet, feet on either side of the seat, hands braced on either side of the stall. “This is nuts,” he says.

“What?” says Guthrie, one stall over.

“This is nuts.”

“They’ll hear you.”

“Nobody’s gonna hear us.” Becker lifts a foot, stretches his leg out and down. Puts his weight on it. Steps off the toilet, shaking out his other leg. “Oh,” he says. “Whoa, yeah.”

“What are you doing? We have to wait till it’s all clear – ”

“You know what they’re gonna do when they get here, Guthrie? The people you think will hear us?”

“Becker, they’ll see your feet!”

“They’re gonna clean the toilets, is what.” Becker stretches his arms up, arches his back. “They aren’t gonna come in and crouch down and look under the damn doors to see if anyone’s hiding in here and say it’s all clear. They’re gonna straight off clean the toilets. With a mop and a sponge and a bucket.” He works his head from side to side. “We’ll be hard to miss.” He unlatches the stall door. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into coming here.”

“Would you just,” says Guthrie, and then the lights come on, cold and bright. Orlando in a long grey skirt steps into the restroom head up, one hand lifting, a warning.

“Trouble, friend Mooncalfe?” says Gaveston, in a rumpled, rust-colored suit, one hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “God damn,” Frankie’s saying, taking in the glossy white tile, the long stainless steel mirror over the sinks. “Hell of a bathroom.”

“Keep him quiet,” snaps Orlando, kneeling.

“Hey,” says Gaveston. Orlando, black braid brushing the floor, peers under the stalls. “I mean,” Frankie’s saying, “the mirrors! They’re so.” Eyes squeezed shut Becker’s hunkering feet on either side of the toilet seat hands braced against the stall. “Damn shiny,” says Frankie.

“Hey,” says Gaveston again, laying two fingers against Frankie’s lips. “Orlando. Nobody’s here.”

Standing and turning in one smooth movement Orlando draws his sword like a curl of light in the air between them. “I can smell him,” he says.

Becker opens his eyes.

“Fine,” says Gaveston. “They missed a janitor, he’s cowering in the stalls, fearful of your majesty. Who cares? You have an appointment to keep.”

Snarling Orlando swings the sword to one side up and back. “Do not think to mock me,” he says, quietly.

“There’s no one here,” says Gaveston, and then he flinches as a toilet flushes. Orlando spins. Becker’s opening his stall door and stepping out to see Orlando in a crouch, his sword up over his head. Becker stops mid-step, face blanching.

“What are you doing here?” says Orlando.

“Uh,” says Becker. “What are you doing here?”

Orlando rears back, sword lowering, eyebrow climbing. “Waiting,” says Gaveston, quickly, smoothly.

Becker blinks, then shrugs. “Oh,” he says. “Well. We’re done.” He knocks on the door to Guthrie’s stall. “Hey. We done?”

There’s a thump.

“You, ah, you might want to flush,” says Becker. He looks from Gaveston, one hand on Frankie’s shoulder, to Frankie, staring at himself in the watery steel mirror. To Orlando in his grey skirt, sword-tip twitching just above the glossy tile. “So,” says Becker, and he swallows. “All yours.” Guthrie’s door is slowly opening.

Pop and twang from the little brown speaker by the boy’s tapping foot. “The oaten pipes blow wondrous shrill,” he croons, and someone laughs, “the hemlock small blow clear, and louder notes from hemlock large and bog-reed strike the ear.” He’s curled around his big-bellied guitar, leaning against a store-front grate under a darkened sign that says Meier & Frank. “For solemn sounds, and sober thoughts, we revellers can’t bear!” Cheers and applause as he starts a thunderous strumming. Men and woman crowd the footbridge before him, the railings that line the broad open atrium, dark glossy suits in browns and blacks, there a burgundy over a velvet vest, gowns in reds and golds that sway like bells, old ivory, slim black skirts, a shimmer like metalled water. The mall about them is dim, grates lowered over store fronts, signs all gone dark. Lanterns bob on poles above the crowd, keeping time. The ice rink on the floor below glimmers uncertainly. Candles in paper bags light the steps of stalled escalators up to the third floor balconies, where banners have been hung: a blue hound standing primly on a rose-colored ground, a red hawk glaring, its wings slashing across brown, and between them a great bee picked out in black and yellow on a creamy field.

Jo’s leaning over the bee, elbows on the railing, watching the crowd below. An old man in a porkpie hat shuffles up by the boy with the guitar and bends over carefully, finding a microphone there on the floor. Blows into it. More cheers as the boy’s strumming tumbles to a chug-a-lug beat and the old man starts to croak, oh, some ride a black one some ride a brown one mine’s as red as the blood in your veins. Laughter and applause.

“You should be armed, miss. And armored.”

Jo turns, jerking as the sword at her hip bangs the bars of the railing. A big guy’s standing there, blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt, a smile somewhere under his long grey mustaches. Next to him a green and purple table laden with worn brown leather, plate the color of old keys, shapeless puddles of slippery mail. “I’m Pyrocles, miss,” he says. Spears lean against the table, and there by his feet a pile of shields like round-bottomed sleds, like big kites. “I’ll hunt with you this night, under the Count’s banner.”

“Jo Maguire,” she says. I’m a babe in arms and a snake in the grass, comes the old man’s growl from below. I’m a star in the sky up over your head.

“The Gallowglas,” says Pyrocles.

She looks away. “I guess,” she says. “I’m here for the Princess.” The wrist of her left hand leaning against the grubby red tape wrapping the hilt of her épée, pushing it out a little, back. Tucking the scabbard against her legs. “We are all here for the Princess,” Pyrocles is saying.

“I didn’t mean you weren’t,” says Jo, and it’s the heel of her hand on the hilt now. “It’s only she’s not here. She’s off, with her mother or something. Getting her hair done. Besides, I already have a sword.”

“You’ll want a spear.” Pyrocles hefts one, shifting it in both hands, eyeing its rule. “A strong straight haft of oak or ash. A shield would only get in your way, but you’ll want a cuirass. Perhaps some greaves.” He’s shaking his head. “Find one with a good boar-stop, miss.”

Jo lets go of the spear she’d picked up. “Boar-stop?” she says.

The Duke lurching hikes a knee up on a green and purple table and pulls himself after it. “Give,” he says, swaying upright in his cream-colored suit, his yellow tie, “give praise, my brethren,” lifting his glass in the air, “for what you are about to receive – Old John Barleycorn, nicotine, and the temptations of the rock ’n’ roll chord E.” His Grace drains the glass as someone across the food court whoops, a man in a powder-blue tux, leaning on the counter of a darkened Chick-fil-A. Down by the Sbarro a fiddle scrapes to life, a red-headed guy jigging with it by a woman smiling as she lifts her voice, window shopping, finger popping, hanging in our favorite shopping mall. “You’ll fall, Your Grace,” says the woman in the short black dress, peering up at him through narrow black-rimmed glasses.

“You say that,” says the Duke, squatting, bracing himself with his free hand, “like it’s a bad thing.” He hops off the table. “At least I’m not squirreling myself away in the bathroom.”

“It’s your party,” she says, reaching into her slim black purse.

“In her honor,” says the Duke. He lifts his glass, frowns. She’s holding out a plastic baggie with a palmful of gold dust inside. “Here,” she says, when he doesn’t take it.”

“Garçon!” roars the Duke. She flinches. “Garçon! There he is.” Gaveston in his rumpled, rust-colored suit, making his way toward them through the crowd. “More John Barleycorn!” calls the Duke, waving his glass. He giggles.

“Your Grace,” says Gaveston. He nods to the woman in the black-rimmed glasses and reaches for the plastic baggie in her hand. The Duke has turned to set his empty glass on the green and purple table. “Come,” he says, and he throws an arm over Gaveston’s shoulder. “Walk about with me.” Gaveston’s tucking the baggie in his jacket pocket. “He’s ready?” says the Duke, leaning close, speaking softly.

“Your Grace, her friends are here. One of the men we interviewed. And another.”

His Grace is shaking his head. “Is he ready?”

Gaveston nods. “Sweetloaf’s dressing him.”

“It’s five hundred dollars, you call me.” The Duke’s smiling. “You decide to snatch the sonofabitch, broad daylight, suddenly you don’t want to bother me? You just, fft?”

“Your Grace?” says Gaveston. “I’m sorry, I – ”

“Don’t apologize,” says the Duke, jerking Gaveston to a halt. “We needed him, we got him. I’m ecstatic. I wasn’t, believe me, you’d know. You play these games.” The Duke leans even closer, pressing a hand to Gaveston’s chest. “It’s counterproductive. The call’s made? Orlando’s in place?”

“They’re still here,” says Gaveston, looking down at the Duke’s hand. “Her friends. Somewhere in the crowd.”

“The call,” says the Duke. “It was made?”

Gaveston looks up. “I got the machine,” he says. “I left a message.”

“You always get the machine,” says His Grace. “We’re set!” He claps Gaveston on the back. Gaveston winces. The Duke heads up a couple of steps onto the broad balcony littered with green and purple tables. “Your Grace?” says Gaveston, not moving. “Sir?”

The Duke stops, turns, spreads his hands. “I’m going to take her measure,” he says, heading back down the steps. “This girl who got Tommy Rawhead killed.”

“Her friends, Your Grace,” says Gaveston.

The Duke smiles. “Two of them? You interviewed one, and there’s this other guy?” Gaveston’s nodding. The Duke leans in. “I think we outnumber them, Stirrup.”

He’s back up the steps. Gaveston sighs, and follows.

“It fits,” says Pyrocles, tightening a belt at Jo’s hip.

“I look like an idiot,” says Jo.

“A mail shirt would be too dangerous,” says Pyrocles. He steps back, tugs one of her shoulder straps. “A blow from a tusk or hoof would shatter links and drive them into your flesh. A mortification for you, miss, if I’m not mistaken.”

“It’s just so,” says Jo, turning. Her breastplate, painted with milky enamel, edged with gold, shaped to suggest round hips, sleek muscles, well-formed breasts, wide nipples ringed with gold filigree. A navel hammered into the pale stiff belly rayed with gold leaf. “Anatomical.”

“You’ll be glad of it when the hunt begins,” says Pyrocles.

“I like your hair,” says the Duke.

His Grace stands behind Pyrocles, one hand on the knot of his yellow tie. His smirk uncoiling into a smile as he looks her in the eye.

“Thanks,” says Jo flatly, after a moment. “I’m thinking of shaving my head.”

“Won’t you get cold?” says the Duke.

She shrugs. “I’ll wear a hat.” Pyrocles tugs at her backplate, checking the fit. She shrugs again.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Jo Gallowglas, who has caused me so much trouble. You’ll remember the Stirrup,” jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Gaveston behind him. Jo’s eyes widen and she opens her mouth to say something. “I’m Southeast,” says His Grace, “the Duke – ”

“Excuse me,” Jo’s saying, pushing past him, past Gaveston who reaches after her. “Ap,” says the Duke, and Gaveston checks. “Your Grace,” he says. “Orlando – ”

“A moment, Stirrup,” says the Duke.

Jo leaps down the couple of steps from the balcony and past a man in a blue sailor suit dodging a woman in a burgundy skirt turning her sword bouncing off Orlando’s shins as she grabs the arm of a woman in a short black dress. “What are you,” says Jo, and then, “I’m sorry,” and then, “Why do you have that?”

The woman looks at Jo through narrow black-rimmed glasses. There’s a dress draped over her arm, a green dress, a green as rich and deep as old glass bottles. “Miss Maguire,” she starts to say, but Jo’s let go, pushing through the crowd. “Hey!” says someone, and “Watch it!” says someone else. Orlando cranes his head to watch her go, his hand on the hilt of his Japanese sword.

“Mooncalfe!” calls the Duke. Orlando whips around. The Duke nods once, slowly, lifting a finger to tap alongside his nose. Orlando glares.

There’s a hallway off the food court, there beside the Sbarro, lit by more candles in paper bags and the fluorescent light from a couple of doorways at the end, one lined in dull blue tile, the other in dusty pink. Roland stands by the pink doorway, a spear against his shoulder. He shakes his head, the pale fuzz of his hair struck by the harsh light. “They’re not to be disturbed,” he says, quietly.

“I need to see her,” says Jo. “Dammit, Roland – ”

“Oh, let her in,” sighs someone inside.

An old woman with long, glossy white hair and a mouthful of pins kneels on the tile floor by Ysabel’s feet. Ysabel’s standing on something, a low stool, there between the toilet stalls and the row of sinks, looking at herself in the long dim mirror. Her gown is the color of worn ivory, high-waisted, a full skirt waterfalling past the stool to the floor, covered all about with a fantastic garden of beadwork, outlines of great flowers flashing like fireworks. Her black hair piled in artful disarray upon her head. A woman wearing a pince-nez stretching up to tuck in a gold chopstick.

“Jo,” says Ysabel, “I didn’t – ”

“Yes, Jo,” says the Queen. “Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf.” She sits in a long black dress on a yellow folding canvas chair in the corner. “But the situation is, as I’m sure you’ll credit, both subtle and dangerous. Roland will hunt for us tonight.” She stands as Jo opens her mouth to say something. “We wished the secret to be closely kept as long as possible, or we’d have told you sooner. You may stand with us, of course, and be honored as my daughter’s guardian. Or,” as Jo’s turning, throwing up her hands, “Swear to fucking God,” she’s muttering, stalking out of the bathroom, “or,” says the Queen, “you may storm off somewhere and sulk.”

Jo’s gone. Ysabel turns back to her reflection in the mirror.

“Your choice is out of my hands,” says the Queen.

Down by the ice rink it’s quiet. Differing songs float down through the big central atrium, a guitar, the fiddle, a flute off away somewhere, the slap of a drum not keeping time with any of them. Guthrie’s looking up one wing of the mall and down the other but potted trees and dead escalators and kiosks muffled under dust covers make it hard to see very far. “It was supposed to be a city within the city,” someone says, and he jumps.

There’s this woman next to him, swaddled in three or four skirts in muddy colors and a couple of sweaters under a grubby orange rain shell. “I’m just waiting,” Guthrie says. “Looking for a friend of mine. They’re both – just a minute ago. They were here. He was. No idea it was so late. I.” She’s laughing. Guthrie’s starting to grin. “What?”

“It’s fun, sneaking in,” she says. Her eyes are bright and blue and her hair is lost under a confetti-colored cap. “Like they don’t know.”

“It’s not what we were,” says Guthrie, looking up at the food court. Someone’s yelling. The fiddle’s stopped. “Not what he was expecting, anyway. I’m, uh. Kinda looking forward.”

“It should have been twenty-one storeys,” she’s saying, “just like the Waldorf-Astoria. What’s the Midnight Disease?” She’s pointing at his T-shirt. Her fingerless glove is yellow and spotted with red unravelling stars.

“A band,” he says. “Waldorf-Astoria?”

But she’s looking up at the food court. “We should get up there before they let it out.” There’s another shout, and a crash, metal against metal. “Your friends are probably up there already.” Clangs, now, up there, one after another.

“I hope not,” says Guthrie, and then, “Let what out?”

Orlando leans forward, feet braced, his Japanese sword in one hand down and back. Pyrocles facing him holds his greatsword one hand on the long pommel below the hilt, the other gripping the blade above, where it’s wrapped in ruddy leather. He steps back, then forth, boots squeaking. “What possible reason?” says Pyrocles.

“You presume I might confront you without one,” says Orlando. “That alone is reason enough.” Pyrocles swings once, twice, great looping cuts. Orlando ducks the first and parries the second, his sword scraping into a slice that forces Pyrocles back, back toward the balcony railing, knocking a chair out of the way.

“Shall I get him?” says Gaveston in the Duke’s ear.

“Get who?” says the Duke, and then, “No. Fuck.”

“Do not play with me, boy!” roars Pyrocles, kicking another chair at Orlando who runs back, away, jumping up on a table as Pyrocles follows the chair with a sword thrust at Orlando leaping up and over, skirt flapping, sword slashing Pyrocles’ back.

“Without Jo,” says Gaveston.

“Enough,” says the Duke. “There’s enough in play already. No need to spoil our surprise for a side bet.”

Pryocles twisting catches the next slash with his greatsword like a bar in both hands shoving Orlando over and back off his feet, rolling as Pyrocles shatters a line of tile with a blow.

“Call off your man,” says Agravante. He’s there behind the Duke in his pale pink suit, his long white scarf, his pale, pale dreadlocks gathered in a stiff sheaf at the back of his head.

“The Mooncalfe is no one’s man,” says the Duke without turning.

Another great booming blow and another, tumbling tables in a flurry of dust and chips of tile.

“Call him off, dammit. I’ll not have our huntsman compromised by your silly games.”

“Call him off yourself,” says the Duke. “He’ll be done in but a moment.”

Pyrocles lifting his greatsword for another blow eyes widening as Orlando isn’t rolling but lunging forward not back, up from the floor his sword in both hands curling in a flash through Pyrocles’ chest to burst from his back.

“There,” says the Duke. “All yours, Axehandle.” He leans toward Gaveston. “Make sure,” he says, quietly, “we get someone to fix the floor before we go.”

Pyrocles, wincing, sees Agravante as Orlando yanks free his blade. “Sorry, milord,” he says.

Roland jerks upright as with a rustle of black skirts the Queen steps from the bathroom into the long dim hall. He touches his knuckles to his forehead. She nods once, and heads past him down the hall toward the food court.

Ysabel steps out. Candles in paper bags along the floor light up a flurry of sparks from the beads coiling about her belled ivory skirts, along the trailing points of her sleeves. She stands there a moment, her eyes shadowed, her face still. A trumpet’s sounding out in the atrium.

“I said what I did,” says Roland, “to keep her safe. I – ” But she’s shaking her head. “You should know,” she says, heading past him, down the hall, “I would never give you another chance.”

He shoulders his spear and then he follows her, down the hall, toward the food court.

“Friends and neighbors, gentles all!” booms a voice out there. “Your Queen! Your Princess!”

Pyrocles sits on a spindly plastic chair on the far side of the food court, leaning forward on his knees, head down, grey mustaches drooping from his grey and haggard face. He’s shirtless. The wound in his back is ragged, wet and red. He holds a red plastic cup to the wound in his chest, a puckered maw oozing something white and thick. “Christ,” says Jo, and he starts. “This is somehow my fault, isn’t it.”

“He drew the sword,” says Pyrocles. “I lost my temper. I see no part for your apology to play.”

She kneels beside him. “Let me hold that.”

“That’s for a page to do,” he says, and she says, “You think I give a good goddamn?” and he doesn’t stop her hand from taking the cup. With her other hand she starts to worry at a shoulder-buckle holding breastplate to backplate. “Even if this is the stupidest fucking piece of armor ever.”

He’s smiling, somewhere beneath his mustaches. “So Roland will hunt in your stead, and Marfisa in mine.” Away off in the middle of the food court, the Duke addresses the crowd, arms wide, Roland to one side, his left arm sheathed in a great steel gauntlet, Marfisa to the other in a shimmering minidress like metalled water, greaves of pink bronze strapped to her thighs and calves, a glaive held loosely in one hand.

“Throw Orlando in the mix,” says Jo, “and I’m definitely rooting for the boar.” She’s staring at the stuff seeping from his wound like spun honey, glimmers of gold in milky drops that fall, slowly, into the cup.

“He wouldn’t hunt,” says Pyrocles. “Not even for the Duke. I wonder,” he says, closing his eyes. He touches two fingers to the wound on his chest. “I wonder who.”

The Duke smiles. “I must say I am disappointed,” he says for all to hear, looking from Roland to the Queen. “At this last-minute substitution. Can it be you do not trust me, ma’am?”

“Do not flatter yourself, Southeast,” says the Queen. Ysabel beside her, looking at the floor. “Introduce your huntsman. Let’s get started.”

Pyrocles shakes his head slowly, mustaches wagging. “His Grace’s usual henchmen aren’t about.” He opens his eyes. “The Dagger, the Helm. The Mason.”

“Becker?” says Jo, eyes wide.

“Well,” bellows the Duke, “I know we all hoped to see a hunt with a real Gallowglas on the field. And you all know how I hate to let you down.” The crowd cheers.

Pyrocles, frowning, looks over his shoulder. There’s Becker in his red and green plaid shirt. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he says. “Did you know he’s here?”

“What the hell are you doing here?’ says Jo. And then she looks over at the center of the court, where the Duke with a flourish bellows, “I give you, friends and neighbors, the huntsman for Southeast – my very own Gallowglas!”

A clatter, a squeak of metal. Titters, rippling through the crowd. A scuffle, and Frankie’s pushed out stiff-legged before them all by a boy in a tight brown suit. Frankie grins as laughter blooms all around him. Stovepipes clamped about his legs. His cuirass a plastic garbage lid in back, a great stainless-steel pot lid before. A colander for a helm. In one hand an iron poker, wobbling in time with his bobbing head.

“Hold this,” says Jo. After a moment, Becker reaches out to take the cup. She stands, her shoulder-strap loose, her cuirass cracked open, breastplate sagging. Her hand on the hilt of her épée.

“Jo,” says Pyrocles. “He means to mock. He wants you angry.”

“And now!” cries the Duke. “If you will follow me to the railings and direct your attention to the ground floor so very far below!” The crowd rushes all across the court, up the stairs, roiling about Frankie turning dizzily in place to be taken in hand by the boy in the brown suit. He drags Frankie with him toward the dead escalators, after Marfisa, after Roland.

“You walk into a roomful of gentry,” Jo says to herself. “Full of nothing. Like that.” Looks back at them. “Becker. Can you stay here, with him?”

“What are you going to do?” says Becker.

“I don’t know,” she says, walking away. “Nothing stupid.”

“You don’t need to stay with me,” says Pyrocles.

“It’s okay,” says Becker, looking at the cup he’s holding. “You’re hurt.” Blinking, then, at the wound above it. “Good Lord!” he says. “What happened?”

“I’m a knight,” says Pyrocles. “The Anvil. My name is Pyrocles.”

“Becker,” says Becker. “I manage a phone bank.”

“I give you, friends and neighbors, our quarry!” The Duke, leaning out over the empty atrium, pointing to the floor below as lights thunk to life down there. “The boar, Erymathos!”

“How many heads?” says Roland, stepping slowly down the dead escalator to the second floor. Cheers ring out from the balconies around the atrium. From the first floor below, a grunting roar, a hurried clip-clop-clip-clop-clip.

“One,” says Marfisa, just ahead of him.

“Venom?” says Roland. “Ichor? Flame?”

“Just a foul temper,” says Marfisa. “His bristled back like a forest of spears. And really big tusks.” The crowd on the second floor has left a corridor clear between the escalator up and the escalator down. Marfisa steps out into it, spinning her glaive above her head, kneeling into a swooping lunge and cut. Sets the glaive to one side, adjusting the buckle of a greave. From below, a tremendous crash, a squeal of triumph.

“You won’t take a cuirass?” says Roland.

She looks sidelong up at him with a wry smile. “Nor you, neither?”

He shrugs, the massive steel gauntlet settling with a clank. “I’ll rush him first, drive him back, then work around and run him up to you for the finish.”

“Simple,” she says, grabbing her glaive. “Direct.” Standing up.

“And no quibbling over who gets the kill.”

“Oh, it’s a joint effort, to be sure.”

“The Anvil is a fool,” says Roland.

She shakes her head. “The Mooncalfe is provocative. What’s your excuse?”

He looks away. “A promise.” He points back up the escalator. “And him?”

“Hope he stays the hell out of the way,” says Marfisa.

Frankie’s clattering down the escalator, led by the boy in the brown suit as laughter washes away the claps and cheers. “Hell of a,” says Frankie, a big smile smeared across his face. “An escalator,” he says, as he follows the boy off the last step. “Never seen one that couldn’t move. Wow.”

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” says the boy, leaning in close to Marfisa and Roland. “Don’t fucking think about offering me fucking fiat paper or valuta or fee fucking simple to keep this fucker off the field.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Roland, quietly.

“How dare you suggest otherwise,” says Marfisa, smiling.

“I, um,” says the boy. “I mean. Fuck.”

“What’s that?” says Frankie, grinning.

“Besides,” says Roland, “I think they’d notice, up there. If he weren’t on the field.”

“That clomping noise?” says Frankie. “Like boots? What is that?”

“Fine,” says the boy, scowling. “Fuck it.” He gives Frankie a shove toward the escalator down to the first floor. “Wait,” says Roland. “I’m first.”

Cheers erupt again as Roland spear in hand marches past Frankie to the top of the second escalator. He lifts the spear over his head and the crowd begins to roar, and he throws back his head and roars with them, a deep-throated booming call that swamps the crowd-noise, echoing throughout the atrium. An answering squeal from below, the clip-clop becoming a sudden hailstorm of hoofbeats. Roland lowers his spear and runs down the escalator, taking the stalled steps two at a time.

“Let go,” says Jo.

“No,” says Ysabel.

They’re at the back of the food court crowd, near the first escalator. No one’s looking at them; they’re all leaning over the railings to see what can be seen below.

“You said,” says Jo. “You said he wouldn’t pull anything. That this was just going to be what it was. A hunt in your – ”

“Stop it,” says Ysabel. “Your honor,” says Jo. “Stop it,” says Ysabel. She’s holding Jo’s right hand in both of hers and she pulls Jo stumbling close. Their hands trapped between Jo’s white cuirass, Ysabel’s beaded gown. “Do not throw his lies and his deception in my face.” She leans her forehead against Jo’s. “This is all the Duke’s doing, and none of mine.”

“I didn’t,” says Jo. From below a growl and another crash, monumental, metal twanging, glass cascading, Roland yelling something, the crowd about them taking in one deep murmuring breath.

“And there is nothing you can do,” says Ysabel.

“Then tell me,” says Jo, leaning back, leaning away. “Tell me he can’t get hurt. Tell me it’s against the rules. Tell me it’s only a game.”

“You,” says Ysabel, and then she stops, and then she starts again. “You are impossible, Jo Maguire.”

Jo doesn’t say anything.

“What is he to you?” says Ysabel.

The lights go out. All of them: faint lights deep inside locked stores, safety lights under soffits, the dim sparks left glowing in the big lamps hanging from the rafters far above. Candles snuffed and torches guttered as if they’d never been lit. The crowd shuffling, crying out in a dozen voices, a hundred of shock and alarm and fear. More glass breaks below. Hoofbeats falter and stop. A flash of light, blue-white, everything lit up for an instant and plunged away, and more screams and cries and yells for everyone else to remain calm.

“Her eyes like stars,” says Ysabel. “Her hands of iron. The hair of her head hanging down to the ground.” Another flash of light, flickering now, solidifying into something cold and pale, far below, throwing outrageous shadows up along the walls and storefronts, the rafters and bridges, great black shifting bodiless things with monstrous heads and grasping hands around and above them all.

“What?” says Jo. There’s a piercing wail from below, as thin and pale as the light. “Who?” says Jo.

“She has nineteen names,” says Ysabel.

“Erymathos!” cries the woman standing in the middle of the ice rink. She is wrapped in a long black cloak that she holds shut at her throat. Its folds and tatters are caught along with her snarled black hair in the winds that whirl about her. In her other hand she holds a gnarled grey stick, smooth and dull as driftwood, its tip a spark of blue-white light too bright to look upon. A shriek of grinding metal as clip-clop from the darkness beyond the ice rink comes the boar, up to the low wall about the ice rink. A bent and ragged store-front grate hangs from one great tusk. Glass glitters in the ruff behind the blocky wedge of his head. He lays his snout on the wall, and black blood drips to the ice and smokes there.

“Who has done this?” cries the woman on the ice in that harsh, scraping voice, and the shadows above them all leap and shiver. “Who called you out of sleep and left you stranded in this place?”

“He came of his own choice,” calls the Duke, from above.

“You!” cries the woman on the ice, pointing her stick at him, lighting him up as he leans over the balcony, the shadows suddenly thick behind him. “He is a simple beast, Barganax. Much as yourself. I smell my sister, here.”

“We are guests of the Duke,” calls down the Queen, over across the atrium from the Duke. “This hunt is of his devising. If he truly did not seek your approval of field and quarry, in this your demesne, we offer our sympathies, and gladly take your part in the quarrel.” Out of the darkness away across from the boar comes Roland without his spear, the length of his steel gauntlet stained a bluish black. Marfisa follows him, limping, dragging her glaive along the floor.

“It is true, ma’am, that I am simple,” says the Duke. “I plead simplicity. Of course we shall call off the hunt, and my man on the field stands forfeit.”

“Which is your man,” cries the woman on the ice, as the crowd all about mutters and gasps. “Which is your man?”

“Why,” calls down the Duke, “my Gallowglas.”

Wailing the woman spins on the ice, thrusting her stick at the darkness all about her. “Where? Where? You would use a mortal man to hunt my splendid Erymathos, and send him down to dust? Show him to me!” And the light finds Frankie, cowering against the side of the escalator, his colandered head in his hands. “You!” cries the woman on the ice. “You! Stand up! I would crack open your ribs and set the very air free from your lungs!”

“The hell you will,” says Jo Maguire.

She’s stepping down the dead escalator to the first floor, her épée in her right hand high and pointed at the woman on the ice. “Frankie’s under my protection,” she says.

“Is he,” says the woman on the ice.

“Him,” says Jo, crossing the floor to the low wall about the ice rink, “and her.” She points the sword up and behind her, then levels it at the woman on the ice. “The Princess. Ysabel. Anybody else in here you want, you’re welcome to them. But you so much as give either of them a fucking goosebump, I’ll stick you with this.”

The woman on the ice says nothing, stands stock still, her stick and its bright light pointed at Jo.

“I’m the other Gallowglas,” says Jo. “From what I’ve seen, that’s about all it takes. Right?”

The mall is silent, still. Even the shadows hung on the walls about them hold still for two long breaths, then three. The woman on the ice lowers her stick. From somewhere a quiet sound grows louder, a creak, a crackling groan. She’s smiling. She’s lifting her head. Not looking away from Jo, she’s started to laugh.

They march past clots of cars and trucks haphazardly parked under the buzzing lights, many of them heading on foot up the curve of the ramp and out to the surface and the night above. The boy with the big-bellied guitar slung across his back is helping a red-headed man load a large white drum into the back of a van adorned with a candy-colored pin-up girl, holding a massive snake above her body with both hands. The side door’s open. Marfisa in a soft blue robe sits slumped, a cloth to her face, her greaves stacked on the pavement by her bare feet, her hair the color of clotted cream hanging like a curtain before her face. Agravante kneels before her, reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes. “He’s loose,” she says, her voice slurred. One side of her face is puffy, mottled red and white and yellow, the eye swollen shut. “He’s out there, somewhere.”

“The Duke’s problem,” says Agravante, gently. “Not ours.”

Across the garage, halfway up the ramp, Pyrocles pauses to look back at them. His blue jacket draped across his shoulders, his bare chest wrapped in a white bandage. His expression masked by those long grey mustaches. Becker, unlocking the door of a little red hatchback, looks up to see Pyrocles trudging away up the ramp. “I don’t,” he says, looking about the parking garage, at the people marching past, a pickup truck with wood-framed plastic wings stashed in the back, a sedan topped by a monkey-faced stone idol strewn with ivy, spitting water on the windshield. “I don’t want to forget this,” says Becker, but Guthrie over on the other side of the car is looking down at his thin hands wrapped around each other. “Do you,” he says, “need a ride? Anywhere?”

“Anywhere,” says the woman swaddled in those skirts and sweaters. “Anywhere that isn’t.” She’s pointing at a black car parked a couple of spaces over from them, a powerful black thing standing empty. Meticulous lines of hand-painted white letters whorl up and over the sides and hood and roof.

“Give me a minute,” says Becker, closing his door, heading back across the garage.

“Ow!” says Frankie, a hand to his cheek, down by a concrete pillar.

“You with us now?” says Gaveston. “You need another one?”

“No, no,” says Frankie. “No, I’m good. I’m hey! Watch it!” Gaveston’s bent over, tugging at the pot lid strapped to Frankie’s chest. He glowers up at the boy in the tight brown suit. “What on earth did you use, Sweetloaf?”

“Fuckin’ duct tape,” says Sweetloaf, opening a butterfly knife with a practiced whipcrack flourish.

“The conquering hero approaches,” says Orlando.

Jo’s walking quickly over to them, holding her sword in its sheath in one hand at her side. “Miss Maguire,” says Gaveston, straightening up. “A delight to see you again. Congratulations on your – ”

“You hurt?” she says to Frankie, brushing past Gaveston.

“Hey, Jo,” he mumbles.

“Are you hurt?” she says. “Did that thing touch you?”

“No,” says Frankie, “I’m – ” Jo shoves him back, and back again, into the pillar. “The fuck?” she’s yelling. “What the fucking hell were you thinking?”

“I missed you,” says Frankie.

“Well stop!” says Jo. “Jesus. Just stay the fuck away from me.” He’s about to say something and she shoves him once more. “It’s for your own good, you goddamn idiot.”

“Gallowglas,” calls the Duke, walking over to them in his cream-colored suit, his immaculate yellow tie.

“Not now,” says Jo.

“Forgive me, Miss Maguire, but I meant Frankie, here. Frankie Gallowglas.” Smiling, the Duke holds out a stuffed brown leather wallet. “Five hundred bucks, sir,” he says, handing it to Frankie. “As agreed.”

“But I thought you said,” says Frankie, as Gaveston, sidelong eyeing the Duke, says, “Come, Mr. Reichart. Don’t be chary. You’ve served us well.”

Frankie takes the wallet and stuffs it in his pocket, the stovepipes about his shins clanking. “Son of a bitch,” says Jo.

“And now, Miss Maguire,” says the Duke, “for you. Your bravery saved more than Frankie here from the, ah, consequences of my folly.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and she does not shrug it off. “I would grant you a boon, Miss Maguire. Name your heart’s desire. If I can grant it or do it or steal it, it’s yours.”

“Leave my friends alone,” she says.

“What,” says the Duke, “all of them? You’ll have to give me a list.” He steps back. “Very well. It’s done. Nevermore bothered by me or mine! Come, gentlemen.” He turns to go.

“What about the boar?” says Jo, and the Duke stops.

“Erymathos,” he says, “has been taking care of himself for longer than you can remember. The boar,” he says, turning to look back at her, “will be fine.”

Gaveston hurries after the Duke, followed by Sweetloaf.

“I’ll be curious to see what happens next,” says Orlando. “She took a liking to you in there, but you’ve caught her attention.” He smiles. “That’s never wise.” He saunters off after the others.

“Jo,” says Frankie. “Can I – ”

“Shut up,” says Jo, and she walks away. A dark blue car floats between them, the pavement beneath glowing an unearthly blue-white, the hubcaps spinning pinwheels of colored lights. Frankie sits in a clatter of makeshift armor and starts wrestling with the pot lid taped to his chest.

Becker catches up with Jo in the middle of the parking garage. “Hey,” he says. “You need a ride, or something?”

“No,” says Jo, pointing down to the other end of the garage, a long white limousine there, a white SUV by it with gold trim. “The Queen’s giving us a lift. Thanks, though. Maybe Frankie? If you’re feeling generous.”

“Look,” is what Becker says then, “I’m going to forget all of this.”

“I, uh,” says Jo.

“And what I wanted to say is if I’ve been an asshole, I mean, I have been an asshole, to you and her, and I’m sorry, okay?” A sudden blare of a car horn. A grimy white bus is bulling its way down the ramp through the last of the crowd on its way up and out. There’s a man in green coveralls leaning out the front door, yelling and shaking a mop. “It’s all so goddamn,” says Becker.

“Yeah,” says Jo.

“Hey, tomorrow,” says Becker. “Don’t worry about coming in, okay? I’ll square it with Tartt.”

Jo laughs. “Jesus. I hadn’t even. Thanks, Becker, but I really need the money.” She slings her sheathed sword over her shoulder, holding the ties in one hand. “Hell, I’ll bring her along, too. After tonight, she owes me. Big time.”

Becker snorts. “So, what is she, a Princess? What’s that about?”

“You’re going to forget all this tomorrow,” says Jo. “Remember?”

Becker smiles, a little. “Guthrie won’t let me.”

“It’s for the best,” says Jo. “I mean, I appreciate it, really. Thank you. And Guthrie. But forget it. Okay? You don’t want to get mixed up in this. Believe me. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” says Becker. “Tomorrow.” He watches her walk away, down toward the white SUV. Ysabel’s waiting by it in her long ivory gown, Jo’s army jacket draped over her shoulders.

The printer spits out a photo of Ysabel, head and shoulders before an empty blue background, her dark hair swept back, pinned up out of her vaguely smiling face. “See?” says the fat man, leaning over the foot of the rumpled double bed to pluck up the photo. He settles back by the laptop near the pillows, handing the photo to Jo. “No red eye. Light’s too bright. Focus off just enough. That’s some quality DMV shit.” His T-shirt has a grainy picture of a graveyard on it. We have found a new home for the rich, it says. It’s hard to tell where his thin beard ends and his scraggly hair begins.

“It’s supposed to say Oregon,” says Jo.

“It will,” says the fat man with the scraggly hair. “It’ll be smaller, too, and printed on a card.” He pats the laptop, scratched silver and snarled in cables dangling off the sides and the end of the bed. “I’ve got a killer template set up for this. That’s a six-jet printer. Not four colors – six. Won’t pass a UV scanner, but it’ll fool any pair of naked eyeballs in the state. All I have to do is plug in the pretty.” He leans back against the pillows, smiling. “Which I do when you show me the cheddar.” He tilts his head, looks past Jo. “We’re done with the camera, baby. Come over here, make yourself comfortable. Or there.” He’s pointing to the other double bed. The coverlet’s been pulled off. It’s hanging over the window at the front of the room. A tall guy’s lying on his belly on the white sheets, his bare feet sticking off the edge of the bed. “Don’t mind Abe,” says the fat man with the scraggly hair. “He’s only sleeping.”

“I’m fine,” says Ysabel, undoing her hair. She’s sitting on a low stool over in the corner, lit up by a harsh light on a tripod. A big piece of blue paper tacked to the door behind her.

“Suit yourself,” says the fat man with the scraggly hair. “That ain’t a wallet,” he says to Jo. She’s handing him the photo. “I don’t need to fool any pair of eyeballs in the state,” she says. “I told you. I just need a cheap-ass license and a social that can fool a crappy copy machine.”

“I get it,” he says. “An I-9.” He tilts his head to smile at Ysabel again. “You illegal, baby? Where you from, Canada?”

“It’s neighbor shit,” says the girl with the floppy mohawk.

She’s sitting on the counter at the back of the room, between the two sinks. Her hooded sweatshirt’s grey, the sleeves hacked off at the shoulders. She’s playing with an empty orange prescription bottle. The sink to her right is full of them, all empty. “Shut up, Mel,” says the fat man.

Mel shrugs. “It’s that shit a couple weeks ago. She’s the one we’s supposed to watch out for, with the hair.” Pointing at Jo. “And she’s the, I don’t know.” Pointing at Ysabel. “Queen of all a them that’s in it, or whatever.”

“Do not start that neighbor bullshit with me,” says the fat man.

“Okay,” says Mel. “But Hib wakes up screaming ever since, and nobody’s seen Christian.” She’s not looking up from the prescription bottle turning over in her hands. “Not since. And you know what they did to Popgun, just up back of the Denny’s.”

“Christian?” says Jo, but the fat man’s saying, “No, Mel, nobody knows who did what the fuck to Popgun, and I do not want to hear this gutterpunk neighbors and vampires and angel-fucking aliens from out of my hairy ass bullshit. Okay?” He’s smiling up at Jo again. “Now. We gonna do business? ’Cause I have other obligations.”

“Business,” says Jo, running a hand through her hair, short and blond and brown at the roots, black tufts lying against it here and there. “Yeah. Like you said, Timmo, it’s an I-9. So she can get paid.” Ysabel’s frowning at her nails. “But until she gets the paycheck – ”

“Not my problem,” he’s saying, shaking his head.

“End of the month, you get paid.”

“Then that’s when you get the ID.”

“Timmo, please, I – ”

“Credit? Dead it.” He leans back on the pillows, hands behind his head. “Especially not for former clientele.”

“I,” says Jo. “We really need this. Please.”

“I tell you what,” he says, tilting his head, looking past Jo. “Baby.” Ysabel on the stool in her tight denim shorts, her white blouse knotted over a yellow tank top. “Sweetheart.” She looks up at that. “How about we clear the room,” he says. “Just you and me. Strictly photography. Whatever you’re comfortable with, but I bet you can convince me to bend the sixth commandment just this once.”

“Oh, hell no,” says Jo.

“What are you, her mouth?” says Timmo. An orange prescription bottle bounces off his head. “Hey!” He bats another one out of the air. “Goddammit, Mel!”

“You,” she’s saying, laughing, “you are such a fucking skeeveball,” scooping up bottle after bottle from the sink. “Mel, you goddamn tweak,” Timmo’s saying as he scoots down to the end of the bed. A bottle hits the coverlet hanging over the window with a soft thump. Jo ducks one. Another one hits the mirror over the dresser and Abe jerks at the clack, drawing in one long bubbling snore. Mel freezes, arm cocked. Timmo sits there at the end of the bed, glaring. Ysabel stands up.

Jo, straightening, watches Ysabel work a hand into her front pocket. “I think,” says Ysabel, pulling out a couple of bills folded between her index and middle fingers, Jo opening her mouth to say something and closing it again, “this should cover it?” Holding the money out to Timmo, his bare feet dangling over the printer.

He sighs. Takes the money. “You got it, beautiful,” he says. Rolling over. Grabbing the laptop.

“Be sure you spend it all in one place,” says Ysabel. “On something terribly impractical.”

The little man walks right into the closed door of the pickup truck and bounces back, arms waving, head wobbling. Grimacing. His teeth are very long and snag the dim streetlight, the blue-white shine from the sign on the corner: Shilo Inn. Affordable excellence. Roland catches him by his collar and his arm. “Well?” he says, leaning in close to the little man’s ear. It twitches. “Bedamned if I know,” says the little man.

Roland shoves, and the little man bounces off the pickup truck again. As he staggers back, Roland grabs him by his shirt and lifts him off the ground with one hand. The other’s holding his sword. The sleeve of his silver tracksuit rent to ribbons. “Tell her, Cearb,” says Roland, and he sets the tip of his sword against the little man’s belly. “Tell your loathly lady the Chariot still guards the Bride.” Leaning into a thrust, he pulls the little man choking down the blade. Across the lot in the crook of the motel’s elbow the door to room 109 opens. Jo steps out, followed by Ysabel. Cearb reaches out a hand his mouth working and Roland hauls him down behind the big beige box that hides the motel’s dumpster, kneeling there, his blade still deep in Cearb’s belly. Roland’s sunglasses are broken, one yellow lens missing. The headphones around his neck askew, an earpiece broken loose.

“How much?” Jo’s saying, working a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her workpants.

“How much?” says Ysabel.

Jo stops short. “You know what the fuck I’m talking about and you knew I was going to ask you the fucking question the minute you pulled it out so I wish to God you would for once just give me a straight fucking answer.”

“Nothing, Jo.”

“Nothing what?”

“I have no money. As you well know. I told you the very first day.”

Jo looks away. “So you just.” She frowns.

“I gave him – ”

“Shut up,” says Jo. She grabs Ysabel’s arm, the pack of cigarettes forgotten in her other hand. Starts walking along the motel’s portico, lighted doors to the left, dark lot to the right. “Just shut up. Don’t say a word.”

There’s a crunch out there behind the big wood box that hides the motel’s dumpster. “What?” says Jo. Stopping. “What was that?”

“It’s quiet,” says Ysabel. The red light of the sign across the street. Red Lion Hotel. Welcome Boomers.

“I just heard,” says Jo.

“It’s quiet,” says Ysabel. “It’s all gone quiet. There’s someone here.”

“Someone.”

“We shouldn’t have come,” says Ysabel. “Not up here. Not this soon.”

“Timmo doesn’t exactly have an office downtown,” says Jo. “He ever finds out,” she’s looking back at the motel room, “you’re the one that stiffed him.” She shakes her head. “He’s a fuck of a lot more dangerous than anything you’re worried about.”

Behind the dumpster box, Roland’s working his sword free, slowly. “Gallowglas,” wheezes the little man.

Roland nods. “Be glad, Cearb,” he whispers, and the he catches the hand that’s grabbed his wrist and pries it open. “Fair and square,” he says, “you’re out of it. Fair and square.” With a sigh and a slump, Cearb lets his hand fall. “Be glad,” says Roland, “I didn’t call her over to join the fray.”

Cearb smiles around those teeth.

“On a scale of one to ten,” says Ysabel, “where one is – ”

“Yeah, I know,” says the man over the phone.

“Where one is – ”

“Not at all satisfied, yeah, I know, you said it already.”

“Please,” says Ysabel. “I need to read the whole question to you as it’s written.” One leg crossed over the other she sits sideways at her narrow carrel, idly plucking at the hem of her skirt there above her knee. “Besides, we might have changed the scale. Just to see if you’re paying attention.”

“So read the question,” says the man.

“On a scale of one to ten, where one is very dissatisfied and ten is very satisfied, how would you rate your most recent visit, overall, to Pet Depot?”

“See?” says the man. “It’s the same one. You didn’t change anything.”

“You’re paying attention,” says Ysabel. She’s pushed her skirt a little higher, fingertips resting on her knee, her thumb drawing loops on the skin of her thigh.

“Can’t you just average up all the numbers I’ve already given you?”

“It wouldn’t be as meaningful as what you say when I ask the question.” Ysabel taps the number seven on her keyboard.

“Well, I’d say seven, but I’ll give ’em a ten if I never get another survey call like this,” says the man.

“I have to ask you to pick just one,” says Ysabel. She’s already hit enter and brought up the next question on her screen.

“I know you heard that one,” she’s whispering. Sits up there on the low bed in the middle of the big dark room, pushing the bare shoulder next to her. Her blond hair ruddied by the light leaking through the tall narrow windows. “Your Grace,” she hisses. “Leo.”

“Cats,” he says, suddenly. “The building’s settled. What?” Grimacing, his head still on the pillow, digging at the corners of his eyes.

“You heard that,” she says.

“Doll,” he says, “there’s a restaurant downstairs. They’re washing up.”

“At three in the morning?” she says, and there’s a clattering crash.

Lights flicker to life in the wide white stairwell as the Duke descends, belting up a dressing gown of purples and golds. “Fucking Tommy,” he’s muttering. “Goes and gets himself killed. Fucking useless Stirrup.” In the foyer, the doors to the right stand open, the room beyond dark. The Duke stands in the doorway a moment. A confusion of chairs upended, resting on tables, legs in the air. A squeak of wood shifting. “Up horse, motherfucker,” says the Duke, feeling for the lightswitch. “Up with the hattock.”

One of the chairs has been set upright on the floor. The man sitting in it is bent over, picking up a platter from the floor. His pants the color of gravel. His shirt the color of ash. He holds the platter up – a lid, from the steam table beside him. “Your eloquence compels me, Your Grace,” he says. His voice slow and lugubrious. His face like old oatmeal. The Duke, there in the doorway, says nothing. The grey man sets the lid on the steam table. “You aren’t happy to see me?”

The Duke swallows. “I did all I said I would do,” he says.

“No,” says the grey man, standing up. “Not for Erymathos.”

“A chance,” says the Duke. “A chance at oblivion.” But the grey man’s walking toward him, shaking his head. “The boar is loose,” he says. “I held him apart, and gave him up to you, and now he’s loose. That’s on your head.”

“Hell,” says the Duke, “she let him walk – ” The grey man puts a hand on his shoulder. The Duke licks his lips, still open around the next word. Closes his eyes.

“You will see me once more yet,” says the grey man.

“Honestly,” says the Duke, “you don’t have to go to all this trouble.” But there’s no one there.

“Hello, people who don’t live here,” says the woman on the television screen.

“Hi, hello!” say the people on the couch.

“I gave you a key for emergencies!” she says. Laughter.

“Why do we go to work so late?” says Ysabel, opening the fridge. “Aren’t you people supposed to work from nine to five?”

Jo’s on her side on the futon, tapping a cigarette into a coffee cup. “Nobody’s worked nine to five in years,” she says. “Third wife sold separately,” says the man on the television screen. More laughter.

“All right,” says Ysabel. “But why do we wait until three in the afternoon?” She’s pinching open a carton of milk.

“We’re calling people at home,” says Jo. She takes a drag. “Better to wait till they’re home from work.” Blows the smoke out. “Life-sized Imperial Stormtroopers from Sharper Image?” says the man on the television screen. “Two,” says the woman.

“So,” says Ysabel, setting a glass on the counter of the narrow kitchenette, “most people just work till three now?”

Jo hitches up on one elbow. “No, Pet Depot’s a national survey. We’re calling the East Coast at three. What are you doing?”

“Pouring milk,” says Ysabel, tilting her head, pouring slowly, watching the level of the milk rise by the four fingers she’s set against the glass. “So it’s people on the East Coast who only work till three?”

“No,” says Jo, “we’re only allowed to make residential calls between six and nine. So we start out there.”

“Right,” says the woman on the television set. “At the end, you choked on a cookie.” The man says, “That was real.” Jo leans up and snaps it off.

“So the time’s different out there?” says Ysabel, opening the fridge

“Time zones,” says Jo. “It’s across the country.” Stubbing out her cigarette in the coffee cup. “The sun moves, you know?”

“Oh,” says Ysabel. “I thought they’d figured it was the other way round. Whichever.” She steps over to the blond armoire in the corner. “It’s twenty of three now.” She pulls out a thin burgundy cardigan. Slips it on. “Or twenty of six. Time for another day on the phones.”

“Are you,” says Jo, and then she looks down and away, smiling, shaking her head. “Are you going to drink the milk?” The glass half-full sits there on the counter by the sink.

“Are you going to take your sword?”

Jo gets up off the futon. “No, Ysabel, I’m not taking the sword with us to work.”

“And I’m not drinking the milk,” says Ysabel.

“Okay then,” says Jo.

“Yes,” he says. And again, “Yes.” He’s behind the scant cover of a payphone, handset tucked between ear and hunched shoulder. His suit’s black. His tie skinny and black, the knot of it lost somewhere under a thick beard the color of mahogany furniture. “I understand,” he says. He’s pulling a black notebook from his jacket, big as the palm of his hand, thumbing the elastic band off the cover. Opens it to a page that says THURS 29 SEPT at the top. “No. No.” He scribbles G-K under that, shoots his cuff, checks the time. “Probably not.” 2.48, he writes. He’s wearing a pair of black sunglasses. Something is written on one lens, in white, spidery letters.

Across the street Jo steps out of the apartment building, laughing, turning to say something to Ysabel behind her. JEANS, he writes, then OVERSHIRT PLAID BERRY, then WHITE SKIRT. “Tonight? This afternoon.” SWEATER = WINE. He crosses out WINE. “As soon as we’re done here.” RED WINE. He closes the notebook, hangs up the phone.

The payphone’s at the edge of a small corner parking lot, by the yellow Pay Here box. He waits behind the phone as they walk past, Jo saying, “that it moves, what I was saying, what I meant was that’s how it,” and then he heads down the line of parked cars toward the black one in the middle, a powerful-looking thing with dark windows. Spidery lines of white paint whorl over the fenders, across the hood and roof. There’s a little guy sitting padmasana on the hood, there in the middle of the concentric rings of cramped white letters. His suit is black. His tie is skinny and black. His eyes behind black sunglasses, the feather tied to one side stirring by the lank grey curls crowding his ear.

“Mr. Charlock,” says the big guy with the thick beard.

The little guy dips his head, rolls it from one side to the other. Takes a deep breath his shoulders opening and tipping back, his chest lifting up and out.

“Mr. Charlock,” says the big guy again.

“Could you shut up for maybe one more goddamn minute?” says the little guy. The big guy shrugs and reaches up for his sunglasses and the little guy says “Wssht!” Roland’s coming up the side street, pale yellow track suit, spotless white shoes, black headphones over his ears, headband stark against his closecut silvery hair. Hands in his pockets. Nodding to himself as he turns the corner after Jo and Ysabel.

“Where they go, he goes,” says Mr. Charlock. He spits in the palm of his hand and dabs a finger in it, then smears a dark wet line right through the circles of letters. Unfolding his legs, he scoots off the hood. “You oughta remember that by now, Mr. Keightlinger.” He yanks off his sunglasses, glaring at the apartment building across the street. “And every fucking thing else. It’s all guns under pillows and leashes on pews up there – I could be at it all night and still get fucking bupkes.”

Mr. Keightlinger opens the door on the driver’s side with a sharp popping squonk. “Time to put it away,” he says. He tucks his sunglasses into a jacket pocket.

“What did our master’s voice whisper in your tremendous ear?” says Mr. Charlock, opening his door. “What errand slipped his mind on the way to the office this morning? Milk to be soured? Thumbs to prick? His dry cleaning?”

Mr. Keightlinger shakes his head. “Something won’t go back where it came from,” he says. “Sullivan’s Gulch.” Jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Across the river.”

“Some thing,” says Mr. Charlock. He takes in a breath and blows it out, an overdone sigh. “We’re playing dog-catcher?”

“It will be noticed,” says Mr. Keightlinger, climbing into the car. “We keep it out of sight. Favor for a friend.” A jingle of keys. The engine rumbles to life.

“I swear to any fucking god you care to name,” mutters Mr. Charlock, shaking his head, climbing into the car, “if this weren’t the only game in town.”

“On a scale of one to ten,” Guthrie’s saying, as Jo walks by down the narrow aisle of kelly green carrels. “Where one is very dissatisfied and ten is very satisfied.” His T-shirt is black and says Not The Bullet But The Hole. He doesn’t look up. “How would you rate the service provided by the receptionist at Pet Depot?”

Becker’s sitting behind the desk at the front of the office, peering at his computer screen, one hand on his mouse, the other on the phone. Jo snags a chair from an empty carrel and pulls it over by the desk, straddling the back of it. “Hey.”

“You should be dialing,” says Becker. “I just opened up Central. Fresh new numbers, ready and waiting.”

“State law,” says Jo. “Fifteen minutes paid break every two hours of work.”

“You’ve been here an hour and a half.”

She shrugs, elbows propped on the back of the chair. “Wanted to catch you before Tartt left. Tomorrow’s payday. Everything cool?”

Becker takes his hand off the mouse and his hand off the phone and folds them in his lap, sitting back, head tilted. He’s wearing a floppy white T-shirt and his hair’s sticking up in a number of different directions. There’s a pen behind each ear. “Yes, Jo. Everything’s cool. Ysabel will get a check cut tomorrow.”

Jo lets out a breath, dips her head to rest a moment on her forearms. Lifts it grinning. “Great,” she says, getting up. “Thanks, Becker.”

“You’re going to have to tell me,” he says, “one of these days, I mean, how you ended up doing all this stuff for her. It’s nice, it’s great, but.” He looks down, then over at his computer screen. Grabs his mouse. “I mean, it’s your business. Obviously.” Down at the end of the narrow aisle Ysabel’s laughing into the mike of her headset. Nodding, she’s saying something, smiling. Sees Jo and shakes her head, rolls her eyes, leans forward in her carrel, never losing that smile.

“Yeah,” says Jo. “There’s a story there. Look, I should get back on the phones.”

“Thought you were on break,” says Becker.

“Did I say that? I’m talking to my supervisor. We still do that on the clock, right?” Becker scowls over the top of his monitor. “Anyway,” says Jo, “breaks are every two hours. I’ve got another twenty-five minutes to go. At least.” She leans over the desk. “I’m beating rate,” she says.

“You were,” says Becker. “You got nine on the board. You need two more by five to beat rate.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” says Jo, heading back to her carrel.

“Ten minutes, tops,” says Jo into her headset. “And you’ll be helping Pet Depot learn how better to serve their customers.” She frowns.

“I just,” says the woman, into her phone. She’s kneeling, scooping up a clump from the litter box. Sifting loose bits of litter from the clump. “I only ever went the one time.”

“Doesn’t matter,” says Jo. “They still want to know what you think.”

“But we normally go to Pet Samaritan,” says the woman, dumping the clump into a plastic shopping bag that says Thank You! Have a nice day. “I don’t really like those big-box places.” Her sleeve riding up exposes arabesques of blue-black ink circling her forearm. More ink like ivy curls up past the collar of her T-shirt.

“So you’re here in Portland?” says Jo. “I really don’t think,” says the woman, as Jo’s saying, “I mean, Pet Samaritan, right?” Ysabel’s standing by her carrel, her sweater draped over one arm. Jo points to her headset. A short, older woman pushes past, shouldering a gym bag.

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” says the woman, standing, picking up the shopping bag.

Jo leans forward, elbows on her carrel’s desk, crowding her keyboard. “Everything you say, ma’am, is held in the strictest confidence. It’s why Pet Depot hired Barshefsky Associates. They don’t want to see who’s answering the questions, they just want to see what people are saying. We strip out your contact information when we’re done.”

“I still,” says the woman. “I just don’t think.” She backs through a swinging door into a bright kitchen, yellow walls, an avocado refrigerator. Bag still hanging from one hand. “We only went that one time, for the flea emergency.”

Jo’s bent over, forehead on fingertips, eyes closed. “For the survey to mean anything we have to talk to as many people as possible, whether they like it or not, whether they go all the time or not.”

“Well,” says the woman, opening the back door out of the kitchen. “You could tell them I saw a flea on Colin on a Sunday and he was due for more Advantage anyway, but it was a Sunday – ” From around the corner there’s a clatter, a snorting grunt.

“Well,” says Jo, “there’s a set of questions I need to ask of everybody who does the survey. Like I said, it takes about ten minutes – ”

“Colin?” says the woman, heading down the back stairs, phone still to her ear.

“Ma’am?” says Jo.

“Colin,” says the woman. There’s a clopping sound. The side of the house suddenly lights up, empty yellow recycling tub, green garbage can on its side, clutter everywhere, paper towels, eggshells, a takeout carton ripped open. The shopping bag that says Thank You! Have a nice day plops to the ground. The boar looks up, harsh light catching the grey-white fringe of the ruff behind the blocky wedge of his head. Tusks curling up and up and around, one smeared with peanut sauce. Dark eyes glittering. The phone drops to the ground. The woman lifts a hand to her mouth.

“Ma’am?” says Jo. She frowns. Shakes her head. Lifts her headset off, blowing out a sigh. “She hung up,” she says.

“Whatever,” says Ysabel. “Let’s go.”

“Let me do my timesheet,” says Jo.

“Could you maybe describe what you saw?” says Mr. Charlock.

“Well,” says the woman. She’s sitting on one end of the spavined couch. Mr. Charlock’s sitting on the tile-topped coffee table before her, hands on her knees leaning forward, looking up into her eyes. “Would you really use the word ‘huge’?” he says. An owl’s feather dangles from the sunglasses tucked into his jacket pocket.

“Well,” she says, “I, um.”

“‘Monster’?” says Mr. Charlock. “Is that really the right word?”

“Monstrous,” says Mr. Keightlinger, fingering the gauzy curtains hanging in the big front window.

“I wouldn’t use that word either,” says Mr. Charlock. “Step it back. Last night. What did you do? What did you see?”

“Well,” she says.

“You come out of the house, back door. It’s dark. Hypocrisy in your hands. Light on the side of the house goes on, garbage can, recycling tub, then what? What’s knocked it over? What’s rooting around in the coffee grounds? Just this? All this? All this fuss over a little possum?”

“Coyote,” says Mr. Keightlinger.

“A little coyote?” says Mr. Charlock, lifting his hands from her knees. “Well?”

“I guess it was,” says the woman, blinking. A shiver rippling through her. Reaching out to lean on the arm of the couch. “Was just, a, just a.”

“A coyote.”

“Coyote.”

Mr. Charlock’s standing up. “Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?” She’s nodding vaguely, with a wisp of a frown. Mr. Charlock’s smile slips and twists into a grimace, and he lets his head droop, chin on chest, pressing fingertips into the corners of his eyes. “I wouldn’t,” he says, looking up, smiling again, “I wouldn’t bother with the posters.”

“Posters?” she says.

“‘Lost cat’,” says Mr. Charlock. “Trying would only make it hurt more. Hope, you know?” He shakes his head. “We can show ourselves out.”

“I like your tattoos,” says Mr. Keightlinger, following him.

She sits there on the couch, mouth half open, still faintly frowning.

Jo’s in the corner of the white office kitchen, under the window filled with sunlight, sitting knees up on the white floor, black jeans and a red shirt unbuttoned over a black tank top, mismatched Chuck Taylors, white phone against her ear. “What,” Frankie’s saying. “You think I was gonna have the cops up in here or something?”

“So you just said you did it.”

“I said Austin did it. Had a party, you know, got rowdy, he kicked the door.” Frankie sniffs.

“And they bought it.”

“I paid ’em to buy it. Funny thing. Your friends give me five hundred bucks, but first they break down my fuckin’ door.”

“Serves you right,” says Jo.

“You didn’t need to say that,” says Frankie.

Jo looks up at the windowsill. “So it took the whole five hundred?”

“No, it didn’t take the whole five hundred. Why do you care?”

“I just, I wanted to check to see if there was anything funny about it. The money.”

“Funny,” says Frankie.

Jo takes a deep breath. “Did you spend it all?”

“What do you think?’

“That’s great, Frankie,” says Jo. She lets the phone droop in her hand. “That’s just great.” He’s saying something, a tinny squawk from the earpiece. She looks up to see Ysabel standing by the phone on the wall, her hand on the plunger. She presses it. The handset in Jo’s hand goes silent.

“We’ve been punished enough,” says Ysabel. She holds up two white envelopes. “Becker just gave me these. I understand you have some occult means of turning them into cash?”

Jo shrugs.

“So I want to go out,” says Ysabel. “I want to hear music. I want to dance. And I will not take no for an answer.”

Jo pulls herself to her feet. “Okay,” she says. She hangs up the phone.

The man in the black leather jacket stands on the corner looking up at a big, blocky brick building. The cornerstone is marked with a Masonic compass and square. Signs advertising an Indian restaurant and a head shop hang over the front doors between green-topped white columns. “Hey,” says a burly man, poking his head around the edge of the bus shelter. “Hey, buddy.” He comes over, flip-flops, khaki shorts, a dirty T-shirt that says America the Beautiful over a soaring eagle. “Got something for you.” He’s digging in a side pocket of those shorts, comes up with a clear plastic bottle, label torn, some Snapple tea, something milky sloshing inside. “Yeah?” says the burly man.

“It’s diseased,” says the man in the black leather jacket.

“Naw, bro, no,” says the burly man, shaking the bottle at him. “You got to take it. Kettle’s due.”

“I’m not your brother,” says the man in the black leather jacket. His hair is dark and flops about his eyes and ears, his lean face roughened by a half-grown beard. He shrugs. “Take better care of yourself.” He ducks under the laundry lines of prayer flags, reduced, and steps into the hemp and bead and world crafts shop.

“Dagger,” says the man behind the counter. His hair is richly red and he wears a blue-striped shirt with white French cuffs. The top two buttons undone.

“Stirrup,” says the man in the leather jacket. “You’re the Duke’s man, now?”

“Kills the time,” says the Stirrup.

“And how are you doing?” says the Dagger, leaning on the counter. “With the sword.”

“He’s expecting you,” says the Stirrup, pointing upstairs.

“Sidney!” cries the Duke, opening the white door to his rooms.

“M’lord,” says the Dagger.

“Come in, come in.” The Duke’s wearing brown corduroy pants and a brown sweater vest over a white T-shirt. He leads the Dagger down a dark hall into a room filled with sunlight from tall, narrow windows. “It’s not,” a woman’s saying, “as if I don’t understand. You had your thing with the kitchen knight. Fine. But we should have been there. We would have kept you from embarrassment.” She’s standing by the big brown desk, holding a glass of wine. Her hair short and gunmetal grey. She wears brown tights and a long red shirt. The Duke stops in the middle of the room, spreads his hand, looks from her to the Dagger and back. “What are you,” he says, “my mother?”

“No, m’lord,” says the grey-haired woman. She sips her wine.

“Two things,” says the Duke. “First, should me no would haves. That buck has sailed. Two: I could give a shit about embarrassment. Tonight we’re going up into Northeast to kill that fucking boar.”

“Just the three of us?” says the grey-haired woman.

“Boar?” says the Dagger.

“Uh, Duke?” says the blond woman sitting behind the desk. She’s wearing a satiny pink camisole and holding out a phone. “I got his machine again.”

“Okay,” says the Duke. “Okay.” He sighs. “The three of us, plus two more,” he says to the grey-haired woman. “Catch Sidney up while I make this call.” He steps over, takes the phone. “In the, in the other room. I’ll be right back.”

The blond woman’s smiling at the Dagger. “Want something to drink?”

“But I can’t I-do it if I don’t believe it,” she sings, there in the dark-panelled corner, as the guitars loop around for another chiming pass. “So I sit here alone like a sword in a stone and I wait for a man to come by,” her fingers bouncing from the strings of her bass to lay a floor for them all, “who’s stuck equally fast with the wit to at last pull us free!” The drummer’s ruddy head shines under an errant light behind the whirling blurry fence of his sticks. Red hair bobbing one guitarist’s bouncing behind her, the other not more than a kid curled about his big-bellied acoustic, flocks of bright chords beating about his head canted to find the mike and harmonize with her, “Just a plain and artless Art with a warm spot in his heart for the girl inside the Guinevere clothes – for me!”

Plaid shirts, a green hoodie, corduroy and a wallet chain, tank tops, a leather cowboy hat, glasses and bottles held high cheering and clapping packed between a long L-shaped padded bench and the band there in the corner, blue jeans and striped T-shirts, stubbled head and hornrims, kilts and shorts and a snap-front Western shirt, a trucker’s cap that says Trans-Alaska Pipeline System shouting and whistling, standing on chairs and tables against the back wall. There by the bench Jo has to lift her hands above her head to find room to clap. Ysabel beside her, baggy cargo pants and a ringer belly shirt, holding her hair back out of her upturned face eyes closed, laughing under all the applause. “Thanks,” says the singer, ducking as she hauls the bass off her shoulder. “Thanks for indulging. An oldie, a goodie, ought to be more of a standard than it is.” A waitress carefully navigates the gap between crowd and bench, tray up, empty bottles, a glass full of something light and fizzy. “We’re Stone and Salt,” says the singer. “I think that’s what we decided on.” Laughter, more applause, jumping, jostled, the waitress lowers her tray curling over it braced one hand against the back of the bench.

“We got some whiskey,” says the red-headed man, who’s put down his guitar and picked up a fiddle.

“Is that Willamette Week?” says the singer. “Mark from the Willamette Week, ladies and gentlemen, slaking our thirst. Portland Mercury, y’all gonna put out?” The waitress pushes past Jo who stumbles leaning into a guy in a grey hoodie leaning back. “Is the Mercury in the house?” The waitress puts her hand on Ysabel’s shoulder, Ysabel turning, puzzled, shaking her head, “What?” she says. The waitress trying to give her the glass.

“Portland Monthly?” says the red-headed man.

“Oregonian?” says the kid, not looking up from the capo he’s strapping to his guitar.

“Two Louies, gonna buy us a round?”

Ysabel’s saying something to the waitress, “I don’t want this.” The guy in the grey hoodie lifts his phone up eyeing the blue-lit screen, angling for a shot of the singer, handing up shot glasses from the tray on the floor. “We have a,” she’s saying.

“Anodyne? Anodyne Magazine, in the house?”

“Daily Vanguard?”

“We didn’t order anything,” says Jo.

“We have a problem,” the singer says, standing up.

“I told you,” says the drummer. “I’m not doing jokes.”

“Oregon Business? Street Roots?”

The waitress points back, toward the bar. Jo’s looking, Ysabel craning up on her toes. A man in a black turtleneck looking right back at her, smiling. Waving. “We’re a five-piece,” says the singer. “These days. Not a quartet. I guess Mark couldn’t see our organist, off to the side. We couldn’t fit her on stage!” The drummer rattles off a sudden riff, thumping down the toms to crash against a cymbal. Marfisa’s standing up from behind a couple of keyboards, tangled hair pale like clotted cream shining under the lights. The man in the black turtleneck at the bar shrugging, looking only at Ysabel. Ysabel’s shaking her head. The waitress rolls her eyes.

Marfisa’s tucking a leather bag under her arm, drone pipes clattering. “She’s piping for us this next song,” says the singer, “and that is thirsty work. Can anybody,” and Ysabel’s reaching out to pluck the glass from the tray, the waitress already turned to go, tray wobbling from the shift in weight. “Can anybody spare a glass or a swallow?” says the singer.

Ysabel hands the glass to the guy in the grey hoodie. “Pass it up!” she says. He grins. Takes the glass. “Hey!” he bellows. “Pass it up!”

Hand to hand above the crowd the glass makes its way up to the singer, smiling, who takes it, hands it to Marfisa. “Thanks,” she says, “Yeah,” says Marfisa, leaning into the drummer’s mike. “Thank you, anonymous benefactor,” says the singer. The man in the black turtleneck turning away, lost in the press by the bar. “Okay,” says the singer. A low keening seeps into the room, stilling the crowd. Marfisa’s started blowing. Ysabel takes Jo’s hand. “This one’s gonna be on the album,” says the singer. Jo looks down at her hand, looks up at Ysabel, Ysabel’s eyes on the stage, shining, smiling. “Here it comes,” she says.

“Words,” the singer wails, “what use are words?” An echo, a ghost of a melody laid over the droning pipes. “I’m leaving, like the first morning. I’m held like the wind in your hand.” The fiddle groans, a rotting chord. “I ate my toast with butter and I drank my coffee with cream,” the guitar spieling under it all, “I wore your mask for a year and a day,” and with a crash of cymbals everything drops away but the drone and her voice. “But I’m not gonna scream,” she sings, simply, quietly, the drums fluttering up behind her, building, the red-headed man his fiddle high holding his bow ready, Marfisa hands on her pipes eyes closed blowing and ready, the kid’s hands shivering over the strings shedding notes as she opens her mouth and cries, “I’m leaving – ”

A desk lamp on the floor, plugged into an orange extension cord snaking off into the shadows. By the lamp a rotary phone and an answering machine. A bare foot steps into the light. Above it crisp folds of a dark blue skirt. He kneels there, by the light. Reaches out to press the rewind button on the answering machine. A scribble of voice in the air. Stop.

He sits back on his heels, face in shadow. His long black hair loose, spilling over the shoulders of his white shirt.

He leans forward. Presses play. Stands.

“Orlando, you sonofabitch, I know you’re there. Pick up.” He stands, steps away from the light. Unbuttons his shirt. “Listen, I’m calling on you. You owe me. You know it.” The shirt drops to the floor. A rustle, the darkness of his skirt falling away. The dark windows high in the wall before him, blank with dust weakly catching the lamplight. “I told you to find me a Gallowglas. You did.” Naked, he folds his hands together and bows his head. “You were going to cut her down right there in front of everybody until I told you not to. And you didn’t.” He lifts his head. Turns around. A thin dark line of hair dropping from his navel interrupted by something pale, dead skin tight and shining, a ripple, a knot, scars hunched across his belly from hip to hip.

“Orlando. Dammit, pick up.”

He steps back into the circle of lamplight and kneels. One hand holding a long knife, a slight curl to it, a simple Japanese hilt. “Don’t give me that shit about no oath sworn and no duty bound. You did it.” His other hand floats under the blade shining suddenly harsh. “For me.” Wraps his fingers about it, there below the hand on the hilt. “You need me. Admit it.” He closes his eyes. Squeezes them shut as he tightens his grip. “Tonight we’re going after Erymathos. The Dagger, the Helm, the Stirrup, and Jo fucking Gallowglas. I need you there, to watch my back. You hear me?” A drop of something colorless slides down the blade. Hangs a moment at the tip, an inch from the scar above his right hip. “You hear me? Orlando. Pick up.”

He yanks the knife into himself. Sits there a moment. His breath quick and shallow.

“You owe me. Seven ways, you owe me.”

Forearms tensed fists bunched tight one above the other he draws them straight upright along the frozen ripple of that scar, opening something wet and yellow in the light.

“Dammit.” A rattle, a click. Dial tone. He leans forward, reaches out with a hand shaking to press the stop button. Sits back. Swallows. Pulls the knife from his body.

After a moment he lays it to one side. His other arm cradling the wound, wet and shining, glittering, golden.

He leans forward. Presses rewind. The voice scribbles. Stop. Play.

Lighting a cigarette Jo tips her head back, lets a curl of smoke escape the corner of her mouth. “So you’re like a real band now and everything, huh?”

“This whole side of town is dangerous,” says Marfisa, head down, hands tight on the straps of her small purple backpack. Ysabel whoops spinning arms outstretched under the blinking red stoplights ahead of them, streets empty of traffic all around her.

“You got a CD coming out? You giving it away on the internet?” says Jo, heading down the sidewalk after Ysabel. “This isn’t a joke,” says Marfisa, following her. Wingtips clocking past an open lot full of idle Coke machines. “You should damn well know to stay downtown by now.” Argyle socks up over her knees and a tweed coat longer than her short checked skirt.

“We’re two fucking blocks from the bridge,” says Jo.

“You shouldn’t have crossed the water,” says Marfisa.

“Stop fighting!” calls Ysabel back over her shoulder.

“She wanted to see a band tonight,” says Jo, and Marfisa says “It doesn’t matter” as Jo’s saying, “Apparently, she wanted to see you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Marfisa, stopping at the corner, and then she lifts her head and calls, “Princess!”

Ysabel walking backwards down the street says, “Sing for me.”

“Lady, come back to the sidewalk.”

“Sing!” says Ysabel. “Your lady commands it.” Laughing.

“Lady, it’s Southeast’s street. The Hawthorne. Runs right through the heart of his demesne.”

“The Duke?” says Jo. “Don’t worry about the Duke.”

“How did it go?” says Ysabel, in the crosswalk now, as Jo says “He promised.” Ysabel’s singing, “I’m wearing Heidi braids, and aviator shades, my sailor suit is blue.”

“He promised?” Marfisa slowly turns her head to look at Jo. “You witless fool.” The next stoplight down the street turns red, and an engine snarls. Headlights appear, turn right, coming at them. Ysabel’s singing, “And if it weren’t for you, I’d take it off and leave it in a heap,” her voice faltering, turning to watch the car approach. “Right here in the street.” Marfisa’s small purple backpack falls to the sidewalk.

The car’s a reddish brown, a black stripe down the side. The driver’s hair is blond. She wears a grey chauffeur’s cap. The engine settles into a slow deep idle. A face appears up over the top of the car, a big smile, floppy brown hair, the Duke, pulling himself up out the window on the passenger’s side, resting his elbows on the roof of the car. “Put it away, Axe,” he says, sweetly. “The Princess is a friend of Jo’s, and I’m a man of my word.”

“Told you,” says Jo to herself. Marfisa holding the hilt of her sword down by her hip point up edges out into the street between Ysabel and the car.

“The Princess is a friend of Jo’s,” says the Duke, a little louder, “but you, Axe, are not – unless?” He looks to Jo, spreading his hands.

“Yeah,” says Jo, quickly. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“Damn,” says the Duke, slapping the roof of his car. “I hope you won’t be too profligate with that particular honor.” Looks down, into the car. “Babe, remind me, at some point I really need to get a copy of that list from her.” Marfisa looking sidelong at Jo, her arm relaxing. The tip of her sword swinging slowly down toward the pavement.

“You’ve interrupted my first night out in over a week,” says Ysabel.

“I know, lady,” says the Duke, “and I am sorry. Direst need compels me.”

“But you can’t mess with her,” says Jo. “And you can’t mess with Marfisa.”

The Duke cocks a finger at her. “Thing is,” he says, “I’m sure, a little work, you could devise a cunning sophistry around how one must first love oneself before loving others, but the spirit of my boon is as clear as the letter: I’m only to leave your friends alone.”

Jo sighs. “But me you’re gonna fuck with however you want.”

“Fuck with?” The Duke shakes his head, sadly. “I need your help, Gallowglas.” And then he smiles, his eyes lighting up. “You ever ridden a horse?”

Pop pop pop a string of firecrackers tossed from the back of the pickup truck slithers along the metal grating of the bridge. The Stirrup in his linen suit jumps, dropping a handful of paper-wrapped packets, bright red and gold under the fluorescent lights, bouncing on the bridge. “Fucking hell,” yells the boy in the brown leather jacket, “not fucking yet!” He reaches up into the truck, slapping at the people crammed in the back, seven or eight of them, hands in ripped leather gloves, a dirty blue goretex shoulder, a black T-shirt snarled with a face in cracked white ink.

“Cut it out!” bellows the Duke, brown boots ringing on the bridge, hands in the pockets of his long red coat. “Now listen up.” The Stirrup handing up the last of his firecrackers, the boy in the brown leather jacket tossing cheap lighters up into the pickup, purple and orange, green and yellow and blue. “My boys, Gaveston and Sweetloaf, they’re gonna in a minute here drive you out by the Lloyd Center. Start dropping you off every couple of blocks.” Pacing back and forth by the back of the truck. “You’re looking for a pig,” he says. “Biggest fucking monster pig there ever was.” The people in the back of the truck watching him, faces still, glasses blank in the streetlight, leaning over to spit something, cheeks pitted with old acne, picking at teeth with a grimy thumbnail. “You find him, you set him off running south. Down onto I-84. Kick up a ruckus, holler, spook him with those fireworks.” Nobody says anything. Maybe a shrug. “Everybody got their money?” Nods now, smiles, “Oh, yass,” says someone, the scarred face. “Okay,” says the Duke. “End of the night, you meet us on the freeway. Job’s done right, and we’ve got our boar, you’ll get double what’s in your pockets now.” Sweetloaf and the Stirrup climbing into the cab of the truck. “Keep in mind,” says the Duke, “there’s no life or limb on the table here. Nobody’s asking you to fight the damn thing. Just run him south, to us. But you don’t do a good job of that…” He slaps the side of the truck as it rumbles to life. “Go get him!”

“How will you stop me?” says Ysabel, sitting in the cramped back seat of the Duke’s car. City of tiny lites, murmurs the radio. Don’t you wanna go?

Marfisa beside her knees jackknifed takes Ysabel’s hand in hers. “I’ll say please.” She lifts Ysabel’s hand to her lips. “Don’t.”

“You can do better than that,” says Ysabel. Tiny lightning, in the storm. Tiny blankets keep you warm.

The Duke’s car is parked down the bridge where grate meets pavement, by the towering red-and-white striped crossing gates. Behind it a dark wall of trees along the riverfront and then up climbs the city, windows lit, spotlights and streetlights, billboards shining jostling building against building, depth lost in the darkness hazed by all that light. Shoulders hunched, hands jammed in the pockets of his red coat, the Duke walks up to the blond woman in the grey chauffeur’s cap, grey uniform jacket buttoned up to her throat, leaning against the fender, her back to the city. She stands as he steps close to her, hands on her hips. “When we’re gone,” he says, “take those two wherever they want to go. If I’m not back in the morning.”

“Leo,” she says. He leans up on his toes, reaching for the back of her head, pulling her mouth down to his. “Don’t,” he says, after the kiss, “don’t call me that. Not here. If I’m not back in the morning, there’s good cash money in the upper left drawer of the desk. Whoever’s next can’t keep it from you.”

“I can never find your fucking desk,” she says.

He kisses her again. “It’ll be there.” Steps back from her. Touches his fingers to his lips. “So where the fuck are these horses?” says Jo, loudly.

The Duke sighs. “Problem, Gallowglas?”

Jo’s on the sidewalk, flicking a cigarette-spark off into the dark past the bridge, out toward the great cranes away south sleeping by half-built bulks of glass-wrapped towers, red guide lights winking. “The Dagger and the Helm are fetching the horses,” says the Duke. “But you’re not pissed about the horses.” He leans on the bridge railing beside her. “And it can’t be Erymathos. You yourself told me off for letting him go, and here I am doing something about it.”

“What did you do with Christian Beaumont?”

“And just like that,” says His Grace, “you make demands of me.”

“Yeah,” says Jo.

“Who the fuck is Christian Beaumont?”

“Someone I used to know,” says Jo. “You picked him up the last time you got one of these posses together.”

“Another friend?” says the Duke. “If you mean the ruffians who set upon yourself and the Princess – ”

“Please.”

His smile is small and tight. “ – then I’ve got to remind you that occurred a couple weeks ago. Well before any words passed directly between us.”

“No one’s seen him since,” she says. “Your Grace.”

A pattering rainfall of hoofbeats, off in the distance. “I’m touched,” says the Duke, turning away, walking across the bridge. “You think I ever even knew their names in the first place.” He looks down the bridge toward the ramp curving up from the dark trees below. The hoofbeats drumming closer, quickly. “Trust me, Jo Gallowglas,” he calls over his shoulder. “When you got Tommy Rawhead killed, the only name I had in mind was yours.”

Up the bridge at a quick trot come the horses, heads tossing, six of them, the Dagger riding at the lead, all in black under his red coat. The grey-haired woman bringing up the rear, stepping her horse back and forth as the horses slow to a walk and stop, blowing, there where the pavement meets metal, there before the Duke. His Grace reaches slowly up, carefully, the horse before him all rust red and black points saddled and bridled, reins tucked away, stands still, shivers, blinks. The Duke’s hand settles on the horse’s neck, and nothing happens. His shoulders drop. His head tilts to the side. Smiling, he closes his eyes, strokes the horse’s neck. “So warm,” he says.

Jo pats the horse next to his, dark with a wide white blaze, gold glittering about the eyes. Fingers the saddle blanket, blue with gold trim. The seal in the corner. “Portland Police?” she says.

“They have horses,” says the Duke, opening his eyes. “We put them back when we’re done.”

“The hounds are away?” says the Helm, her voice rough.

“And so should we be,” says the Duke, lifting his foot into the stirrup, hauling himself up and up into the saddle, his horse stepping back and forth for balance. “Coming, Gallowglas?”

“Who else are we expecting, m’lord?” says the Dagger. Jo reaches up for the saddle of her horse. “We fetched six, but there’s only four of us.”

“I’d thought the Princess would ride one,” says His Grace, “to keep up with her guardian. But the Axe happened along, just in time to – ”

“Whoop,” says Jo as her horse wheels, herself half in the saddle. “Whoa,” she says. “Whoa. Like riding a bicycle.” Teeth gritted, setting her feet in the stirrups, untangling the reins. “A really fucking big bicycle. With feet.”

The Duke laughs. The Dagger’s smiling. The Helm walks her horse over by Jo’s, looks her over, shrugs, nodding at the Duke. “I said,” says Ysabel, reaching up eyes closed to stroke the neck of a grey horse pale among the others, “that I’m going with you.” She opens her eyes. “So it’s just as well you brought them.”

“Lady,” says the Duke, after a moment. “I hadn’t seen you leave the car.” She swings herself into the saddle, leans forward to lay her cheek against the grey’s mane. “You’ll be cold,” he says.

“I don’t care,” she says, straightening.

“I can’t risk it,” he says. “With a Gallowglas on the field. If something were to happen.”

“No one’s asking you to risk it,” she says. “And you were willing enough when you thought you had no one worthy of seeing me home.”

“I thought I’d have no choice,” he says.

“You don’t,” she says.

“And you, Axe?” says the Duke. Jo’s glaring at Ysabel. Ysabel’s shooting Jo a dark fierce look. “You’ll make it an even half dozen?”

Marfisa’s already hauling herself up onto the pinto, kicking one long leg over, settling her skirt, the skirts of her coat. “I would have words with Erymathos,” she says, “before the end.”

“Fine,” says the Duke. “Marvelous. Okay. Head north, for I-5, and take the I-84 exit.” He leans forward and whispers in his horse’s ear. “Soft loam under hoof, and clear sharp air in your lungs, and sweet grass and cold water when it’s done.” He straightens, looks about at the others. “Last one under the Grand Avenue bridge buys the bourbon!” he shouts. “Heeyup!”

The horses gallop away down the bridge, striking sparks, flying under the green sign that says Seattle, The Dalles, climbing the curving off-ramp leaning up and off to the left, into the empty, quiet confusion of freeway lanes. Roland jogs to a stop, bent over panting at the other end of the bridge, sweat-dark T-shirt, sunglasses shining in the streetlight, headphones over his ears. He straightens, claps his hands together, takes a deep breath in through his nose, blown out through his mouth. And again, hunching over, shaking out one leg then the other. And again, clapping his hands together once more, and then again, as one step after another after another and another the Chariot begins to run.

Those teeth shining Cearb clings to the green fence railing the bridge above the welter of freeway ramps. A horn blats from the traffic trundling behind him. He’s staring down, humming, one arm hooked through the wire mesh, face pressed against it. Tires whining red lights chase white lights down the freeway under the bridge beneath him. He purses thin lips about those teeth and thunder welling up under the sounds of engines and wheels he closes his eyes.

He opens them. The freeway below is empty. He turns his head. The bridge behind him quiet and still. “Yes,” whispers Cearb. The thunder spills over as one two six horses race around the curl of the ramp down the eastbound lanes, riders in red coats dark in the dim pink light. “Yes!” cries Cearb, letting go, falling back to the sidewalk and tumble scuttling across the empty bridge through a wailing ghost of a horn, clambering up the green fence railing the other side. He perches there panting, hands and sneakered feet wrapped around the green rail. Horses galloping below slow and faltering lean one way and another double back. Laughter and whoops. “Catch me,” says Cearb, “judge me, beat me,” the words like handclaps, “write what I’ve done in your big black book!” His voice a rasp snagging on labored breaths. “But where will you write down all I’ve suffered?” Cearb rears up hands in the air and roars, “Who will rage for me? Gallowglas! Gallowglas!”

Clang the spear shivering head caught in the mesh below his sneakers thrumming arms whirling for balance as below the Duke yells “Dagger!” The laughter’s gone. A horse screams. The spear caught still reaching for the top of its arc, spear-haft a lever, spear-head wrenching the mesh, as Cearb grabs for the railing with one wild hand, hanging there for one long moment, spear-butt floating, drooping, falling, spear-head pulling free with a squawk tumbling butt catching the edge of the bridge with a clunk spinning out over them below, the Duke’s horse rearing, the Dagger’s wallowing sideways hooves churning on the pavement as the spear-haft clatters bouncing end-to-end on the freeway. “The fuck are you trying to do?” The Duke, hauling his reins half-standing in the saddle, glaring at the Dagger. “Strike him? With a mortal on the field, you moron?”

“Eleleu!” cries Cearb, slapping the railing. “Eleleu!”

“Ignore him!” says His Grace, big bay stepping sideways, back again. “Bad enough we’re hunting the boar. Kill that little fuck, you’ll bring her down on our heads for sure. Helm!”

“Lord!” she calls from behind him.

“Take the moron east to the Thiry-third Avenue bridge and hold there.” He looks back over his shoulder at her. “Wind if you see the fucker. Pin him but damn well do not finish him until I show, got me?”

“M’lord,” says the Helm. In one hand she’s holding a coiled horn the color of old piano keys.

“Not so fast, moron,” says the Duke. The Dagger about to kick one foot free of the stirrup settles back mouth pinched. “You leave that thing right the hell where it lays. Gallowglas.” Jo’s looking back and forth, Ysabel to the Duke, the spear on the pavement, Ysabel again, her horse stepping nervously in place. “Eleleu!” cries Cearb above them. “Pick it up, Gallowglas,” says the Duke.

“M’lord!” says the Dagger.

“Go!” bellows the Duke. The Helm kicks her horse into a run down the freeway. “Get the hell down to the Thirty-third bridge!” The Dagger, scowling, gallops after. “Gallowglas, pick up the damn spear.”

“I’m here, uh, to do what I do,” says Jo. “Be on the field of battle. Whatever. I – ”

“I’ll be sure to tell him when he’s running us down,” says the Duke. “Pick it up, don’t pick it up. I were you, I had nothing in my pocket, I’d take whatever I could get.” He’s not looking away from her. Shivering, Jo shakes a foot loose and over her horse’s back, sliding to the ground. “Strike, Gallowglas!” cries Cearb, metal clanging furiously. “Eleleu! Strike!”

“Shut the fuck up!” yells Jo, stock still, fists balled, glaring up into the pink-hazed darkness, and then the only sound is the wind tugging at trees to either side of the freeway. Ysabel’s horse, clopping, one step and another. “Who is that guy?” says Jo.

“You’re holding this end,” His Grace is saying to Marfisa. “You got a horn?”

“If we see him, you’ll hear me,” says Marfisa.

“You see him, I want you hauling ass back over the river,” says the Duke. “I got no fucking clue in this world why I’m not telling you to do that right this minute.”

“I’ll keep her safe, Your Grace,” says Marfisa.

“Yes,” says the Duke. “You will.”

Jo stands, the spear in both hands, looking up and down its length. The head like a mirrored leaf long as her forearm butted by round black quillions almost as long. The haft-wood dark and smooth and straight, swelling at the end to a ringed black ferrule that chimes gently as she shifts it. “Good boar-stop,” she says, and then, “He threw this?”

“You ready?” says the Duke.

“A minute,” says Jo, looking up at her horse. She shifts the spear to her left hand, reaches up for the reins with her right, starts to lift her left foot for the stirrup and stops. “Shit,” she says. Lets go of the reins, takes the spear in her right hand, reaches up with her left for the reins, then the pommel. Takes a deep breath. “Let me,” says Ysabel. She’s behind Jo, reaching down for the spear. “Climb up, I’ll hand it back to you,” she says.

“Avaunt already,” says the Duke. “Ain’t got all night.”

“How was the ride?” says Ysabel.

“I don’t,” says Jo, both hands on the saddle and reins, grunting as she hauls herself up, “I don’t like leaving you alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

Jo looks over her shoulder as the Duke canters away to the east, hoofbeats thudding on the dark freeway. “This is getting out of hand.”

“Was it ever in hand?” says Ysabel, handing her the spear, butt-first. “Don’t think about the traffic.”

“Traffic?” says Jo.

“Don’t think about it,” says Ysabel.

“You mean to strike Erymathos with that?” says the Helm.

White lights shine deep in the blade of the Dagger’s sword. Long and slender, wrapped in brown leather above the quillions, corded hilt ending in a pommel like a great joint. He holds it out to the side in one hand up at the top of the hilt, fingers curled about those quillions. “Bertilak dismounted,” he says, lifting his arm, slowly, “brandished his bright blade, and boldy stepped forward,” lifting that sword up over his head, passing the hilt to his other hand, lowering, slowly, out to the other side. “Strode through the ford to where his foe waited.” Red lights shine, deep in the blade of his sword.

“You’re no Bertilak,” says the Helm. Her horse whickers. Up past the bridge behind her red letters on the wall of a big blank building say Gordon’s Fireplace Shop. “He dismounted. A sword’s hardly the thing to strike a boar from horseback.”

“You still think we’re going to strike the boar.”

“Well,” says the Helm. “There’s but one relay of hounds. If you can call it a relay. It’s to flush him out, not run him down. His Grace posted us here on the off-chance Erymathos misses him, standing in the middle of the damn,” she’s looking up the freeway, turns, looks down it, squinting into the shadows. “Ford,” she adds. “No,” she says. “I don’t think we will. This is a duel, not a hunt.”

“How long has it been since we’ve had a proper hunt?” says the Dagger.

“You’re not angry about losing your spear,” says the Helm.

“The blood, at the unmaking, bright on the snow,” says the Dagger. He laughs, a short flat bark. “How long has it been since we’ve seen a proper snow?”

“Sidney,” says the Helm.

“You saw her,” says the Dagger. “What she’s doing to our lady. Out cavorting all night with her like that.”

“What business is that of ours,” says the Helm, looking at him, the sword in his hand.

“She’s the bride of the King Come Back!” says the Dagger.

“Don’t tell me what you would do,” says the Helm. “And I won’t tell you not to do it.”

“Listen!” says the Dagger, sitting up in his saddle. Off in the dark, the sound of firecrackers, pop pop pop.

One hand beating the steering wheel Mr. Charlock writhes on the front seat blindly kicking the door. Head in Mr. Keightlinger’s lap, face lost somewhere under Mr. Keightlinger’s palm. A wrench and he’s suddenly still, taut, his voice slicing through the car, pitched high, scoured. His back arches, heels dug into the seat, then sagging, drooping, quiet. Mr. Keightlinger lifts his hand. Mr. Charlock takes a deep breath and rolls over in a sudden coughing fit. “Fucking backlash,” he says, when he can sit up, feather dangling from his sunglasses. He straightens his collar, the knot of his tie. Smooths wayward curls by his ears.

“They coming?” says Mr. Keightlinger.

“They’re here,” says Mr. Charlock, pointing out the front window toward the darkness at the end of the street. “Right down the freeway. Whole big chunk of it decoupled.”

Mr. Keightlinger grunts. He pulls off his sunglasses, wipes them on his tie.

“She’s right there with ’em,” says Mr. Charlock, and then pop pop pop pop pop.

Mr. Keightlinger jerks open his door, steps out on the sidewalk. Mr. Charlock’s already running down the street toward the great mass of darkness shouldering treebranches aside, starting into streetlight as another string of firecrackers pops at its feet. Grey and white and yellow hair like quills about its ruff. Tusks swinging through the air as it screams. A man in a dirty blue raincoat yelling something wordless as he lights another string, pop pop. The boar hunching leaning into a run down the street. Mr. Charlock watches as it locomotives past, pop pop pop. “Run you magnificent sonofabitch! Run!” Past Mr. Keightlinger, past the black car whorled with spidery white letters, down the street toward the house at the end, the high fence behind it, the darkness beyond.

The walls of the gulch rise to either side of the freeway, dark and close and lined with shapeless trees, crowned with a row of houses to the north. The Duke’s horse trotting through dappled pools of thin dirty light down the eastbound lanes, Jo behind, leaning in the saddle, the long black spear under one arm. “Come on,” calls the Duke back over his shoulder.

“I’m, uh,” says Jo, reins in one hand out to the side, trying to haul back the spear swinging wide, “a bit distracted – ”

“Well,” says the Duke, looking away, “don’t worry about me, Gallowglas.”

“What?” says Jo, horse leaning one way after the reins, herself the other, after the spear.

“I have an appointment yet to keep,” says the Duke, not looking back. “You won’t be the death of me.”

“Why do,” says Jo, and then “hey, whoa — ” Her horse kicks forward as she lurches back spear tipping out of her hand dropping spear-head striking the pavement with a bright clang. Yanking the reins her horse stomping to a stop. “The fuck,” the Duke’s saying, hauling his horse around. “I thought you could ride.”

“Why do you keep blaming me for that?” says Jo, slumped in her saddle. Looking up. “It was Roland who killed him — ”

“A sword thrust?” sneers the Duke. “A sword thrust is nothing. You hadn’t been there, he’d’ve laughed and bought the Chariot a drink. If you hadn’t been there, Tommy’d be telling me right now what an ass I am, out here in the middle of the night like this.”

“So instead you’d be what, in bed with your blonde?” says Jo, looking him in the eye. “Leave that monster out here to run amok doing God knows what?”

“Hark! The screams!” The Duke lifts a hand to his ear. “The people, fleeing from a monster run amok!” He drops his hand, arches an eyebrow. “Two things, okay, and leave her the hell out of this. She’s a nice girl. First. The boar wants one thing and one thing only and I’m right here and don’t you dare, don’t you dare even suggest I would not keep my word. And anyway, you’re so fucking worried about this monster, why didn’t you come do something about it? Why wait for me?”

“What can I do?” says Jo. Throwing her hands out. “What the fuck can I do? I can’t even hold a goddamn spear!”

“You don’t have to do anything!” roars the Duke. “Just standing there you could kill us all!”

Jo’s horse kicks the pavement, shifting. She doesn’t look away. The Duke’s horse stands still and the Duke is holding a spear now, the spear-haft dark and red, the head a broad flat ugly blade, and he doesn’t look away.

“I don’t,” says Jo, as the Duke says “Pick up your spear.” Above them, away behind the line of houses, the sudden pop pop pop of firecrackers. “Pick up the damn spear!” says the Duke.

A crack and something, boards, flying into the air, a squealing roar, dark trees shaking undergrowth ripping a rattling crash and then the sound of debris, settling. There on the roof of a long low building squatting above the freeway a great dark shape, bristling ruff high above the snout lowered over them, curls of old yellow glistening in the dim light. “The tracks,” says Jo. “He can’t – ” Below the building a sharp drop in the gulch wall down to railroad tracks, a high wall back up to the freeway, ten or fifteen feet up, the great dark shape hunkering low, a growl, Jo’s horse snorting, head tossing. The boar springs from the roof, over those tracks, clearing the wall, a scream and a thunderclap, the horses staggering, “Oh, shit,” says Jo, and there he stands in a cloud of pink-lit dust on the freeway, chunks of pavement pattering down like rain.

“They’ll be fine,” says Ysabel, eyes closed, standing there under the bridge, her cheek against the throat of her pale grey horse. “Or did you really want words with Erymathos, before the end?”

Marfisa stands with her back to Ysabel out on the freeway, watching away down the eastbound lanes.

“He hurt you so badly,” says Ysabel, opening her eyes. “Your poor face. You could have died. Gone down to dust. You still could.”

“My lady seems almost upset at the idea,” says Marfisa.

Ysabel walks away from the horses, out from under the bridge. Puts her arms around Marfisa, leans against her back, her head on Marfisa’s shoulder, cheek against the tweed. Marfisa puts her hand on Ysabel’s hands, her head tilting back, hair the color of clotted cream tangling with loose black curls.

“You’re not very good at this game,” says Ysabel, smiling.

Stiffening Marfisa tries to step away. “I don’t want to play games,” she says, pulling at Ysabel’s hands.

“Then don’t,” says Ysabel, letting her go, pulling her back. Face to face now, Marfisa turning away, looking down, Ysabel’s hands clasped at the small of Marfisa’s back, Marfisa’s hanging useless at her side. Smiling Ysabel leans up, kisses the tip of Marfisa’s nose. “The boar,” says Marfisa, her voice thick.

“Let it,” says Ysabel. Light grows around them, bright, yellow-white.

“We should be – ”

“We should be doing what we’re doing.”

“Lady,” says Marfisa, squinting against the light.

“Shut up,” says Ysabel, pulling her into a kiss as the light splits in two, a sudden blare of engine overwhelming white snout of a truck headlights passing either side buffeted by spinning wheels, the trailer over and around them dark as they kiss clinging to each other red taillights whipping past and gone. The horses watch as laughing Ysabel spinning stumbling tugs Marfisa after her to the barricade in the middle of the freeway another rush of engine dopplering past them slashing ghosts of white and red light through the air. Ysabel half-sitting on the barricade one hand under Marfisa’s skirt the other buried in pale curls stained a dirty peach in the weak light, Marfisa kissing her mouth, her throat, Marfisa’s hands jerking buttons loose, tugging Ysabel’s baggy pants over her hips, Marfisa stooping, those pale curls eclipsing the light winking from Ysabel’s belly. Ysabel one arm around the squat green pillar set in the barricade throws her head back as half-heard half-seen cars and trucks billow past east and west, before and behind her, stitching the darkness with light.

“Oh shit,” says Jo on her hands and knees, “oh God.” Sobbing for breath. “It’s not,” the Duke is saying, strained, over away somewhere, “it’s not dead.” A grunt, the scrape of hair like quills against broken concrete, muscles creaking, something else, metal, something groaning, out of it all a single hoofbeat: clip. Another, clop. Jo scrabbling, Chuck Taylors kicking into almost a run, hands brushing the freeway, head down, “Oh shit.” A blustering, querulous snort. “It’s not,” says the Duke again. “You sonofabitch. You lied.” Clip. “Fuck me, it hurts. It’s not dead.”

Clop.

The boar Erymathos stands in the middle of the eastbound lanes swaying from side to side. From his left shoulder juts a dark red spear-haft. The pale cracked concrete beneath him smeared black. He blows, head ducking, tusks dipping, takes another couple of steps, clip-clop-clip. Spear-haft quivering. Head turning this way and that. Behind him the Duke’s horse jerks its head up and legs kicking the air rolls upright. The Duke screams. The boar turns to glare at him, head canted, spear drooping. “Stupid! Fucking! Horse!”

There by the barricade the black spear. Jo reaches for it when the boar looks away. The Duke’s horse staggers past, empty brown boot flopping from one stirrup. Clop-clip, the boar unsteadily steps toward the Duke. “Hey,” says Jo, standing, black spear braced in both hands. “Hey!”

“Gallowglas?” cries the Duke. “The horn! The fucking horn!” Trying to push himself up on one elbow. “Don’t be a moron. Blow!”

“Hey!” yells Jo. Clop-clip, clop. That great head grey and yellow and white hair like quills in its ruff turning like a sail, those old yellow tusks, those little black eyes casting back and forth. “Over here!” Clip-clop, and two more steps, clop-clop. “The horn!” says the Duke again.

Jo swallows. Redoubles her grip on the spear-haft. The boar looming over her. “It’s on your fucking horse,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut.

The boar Erymathos takes one last step and with a sigh crumples to the ground.

Jo opens her eyes. She’s on her knees, the black spear laid beside her. Someone’s hand on her shoulder. “The tongue,” says the Helm, grey hair dull in this thin light. “Fix the tongue.” Jo lifts a hand. Drifts of glittering dust spill from her arm to her lap, sparkle across the freeway about her. “Fix the tongue before it all blows away.”

The boar’s head still looms before her. Dust sloughs from the tusks, whips into the air in a sudden gout that suddenly subsides. One of the tusks sags avalanching down the boar’s hollow cheek, dust shining in the ruff itself dissolving into dust. Beyond the head nothing but dust and more dust, empty pavement, thin dirty light. The Helm reaches past Jo for the slack jaw, working it open, the tongue purple and black in her fist. She stabs it with a slender knife, striking the concrete with a tinny clink. Rocks back on her heels, a hand on Jo’s shoulder again. Jo blinking against the glittering dust thick in the air about them. “My leg,” says the Duke, over away somewhere. “Really fucking hurts.”

“Whatsisname,” says Jo, brushing dust from her arms, then reaching for the black spear. “The Dagger. Where – ”

“He won’t want it back,” says the Helm, standing.

“I didn’t,” says Jo, but the Helm’s headed over to the Duke. “I mean,” says Jo. The back of the boar’s head collapses then in swirls of dust. The remaining tusk wobbles, dust unskeining as it settles but doesn’t fall. Hoofbeats. Jo climbs to her feet, the spear left there on the freeway. “Hey,” she says, looking about. “Dagger?”

Marfisa’s riding toward them, leading the Duke’s horse by the reins, Ysabel on her pale grey horse behind. “Jo!” Ysabel calls. Kicking one leg over her horse’s back even as it slows.

“Yeah,” Jo’s saying, looking about. “I’ve got to, um.” She leans down, reaching for the spear.

Marfisa comes up behind the Helm, kneeling over the Duke still flat on his back. “Your leg’s broken,” she says.

“Bullshit,” says the Duke, his face pale, slick.

“I’ve seen one before,” says Marfisa, kneeling beside the Helm. The Helm stands.

“Jo,” Ysabel’s saying, and Jo says “I’m okay. I’m okay,” and “What the hell are you doing here?” as Ysabel says “Are you okay?”

“You were supposed to get the hell out of here,” says Jo.

“We heard the horn,” says Ysabel. “Marfisa wouldn’t. Are you okay?”

“The Dagger,” Jo’s saying. She coughs. “I need to give it back to him. Where the fuck is he?”

The Dagger kicking drifts of dust stalks among the horses. In one hand his slender sword, wrapped in brown leather just above the quillions. In the other a coiled horn the color of old keys.

“Don’t,” Ysabel’s saying. “Put it down. Put the spear down.”

“The Duke,” says Jo. “Killed it. Why is there so much dust.”

“Jo,” says Ysabel, and then her eyes go wide. “Ysabel?” says Jo, and she turns to look as the Dagger swings his sword up and back behind his head.

“My DDR game’s pretty much fucked, isn’t it,” gasps the Duke, eyes closed. Marfisa nods, her fingers gently probing his misshapen leg. The Dagger’s boot crunching beside her. She looks up to see that sword swinging around from behind his head in a flat arc at her neck. She has time to say “What?”

Clang.

Blade tip braced against pavement sword hilt clutched in his gloved fist a fencepost stopping the Dagger’s cut the Chariot, stretched forward in a lunge, chest heaving, T-shirt dark with sweat, sunglasses shining in the streetlight. Straightening as the Dagger steps back. Swinging his sword around to point at the Dagger, leaning back a little, off-hand tucked against his chest. The Dagger taking another step back, and another. “I,” he says.

“Oh, no,” says the Chariot. “Don’t run.”

“Leo, honey,” she’s whispering. Down the hallway a booming knock. She sits up there on the low bed in the middle of the big dark room, the Duke beside her on his back, right leg lying on top of the blanket, splinted with thin sticks, wrapped in purple cloth. “I don’t,” he murmurs, eyes closed. Shirt buttons undone. His chest and forehead gleaming, his hair slick with sweat. “Don’t.” Again the pounding at the door.

Belting a short silk robe of whites and pale blues she walks down the dark hall to the white door rattling from another flurry of knocks. “Go away,” she says.

The pounding stops. “I would have words with His Grace,” says someone on the other side, his voice highly pitched, rich and gentle and smooth.

“He doesn’t want to see anyone,” she says. “Or have words.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to hear that from his lips. Not yours.”

“Go away,” she says. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Is he hurt?”

She opens her mouth to say something, stops. “No,” she says. “Why would you – ” The door shivers at a mighty blow, and another. “The password!” he cries, his voice no longer gentle. Another blow. She steps away, hands up, head down. “Duncan,” she says, “Duncan will be one man.”

“And Farquahr will be two!” The door bursts open. Stepping backward she stumbles and falls, clutching at her robe falling open slipping off one shoulder. His bare feet stride past, dark blue skirt rustling. His long black hair unbound. Past the pitted yellow tusk on the floor still shining with gold dust to kneel by the bed. She sits up against the wall, head in her hand, still clutching her robe.

He’s taken the Duke’s hand in his own. Raised it to his lips. His black hair slipping from his shoulder slithering down, obscuring the kiss. “Mooncalfe,” says His Grace.

Orlando murmurs something, not looking up from the Duke’s hand. “I don’t,” says the Duke, pulling his hand back. Orlando stands. Stoops over the Duke, black hair falling like a curtain again, but the Duke puts up his hand over his face, turning away. Orlando hangs there a moment, then straightens. Brushes his fingertips against his lips, presses them against His Grace’s bare chest. Turns and walks away.

“Whatever will you do?” he says, in the doorway, bathed in the ruddy light of the Coke machine.

“What?” she says.

“Wherever will you go? What was that place called? Devil’s Point? Would they still take you back, I wonder…”

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with him?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He turns then, to look at her, his face lost in shadow. “He no longer wants you, either.”

“Where were you?” she says. “Tonight.” She climbs to her feet, steps toward him. “He needed you and you weren’t there for him. Where were you?”

He lifts a hand, curls it in a loose fist and tilts the knuckles toward her. “You are brave,” he says, tightening his fist. Her eyes widen, her mouth opens, jaw working, curling into herself, shivering violently. He drops his hand and she lets out the breath she’s been holding, takes in a great shuddering drag of air, leaning against the wall. “What did you do to me?” she asks. “What did you do to me?” He closes the door gently between them.

Jo still in her black jeans, her black tank top, her mismatched Chuck Taylors lies on her side, facing the wall. It’s dark, the only light leaking up from the street below. Her eyes are not closed.

Ysabel snoring lightly lies on her belly, dark hair pillowed on one arm curled, one bare leg kicked out from under the blankets trailing off the futon onto the carpet. There by her shucked pants the black spear-haft stretching off to the head like a mirrored leaf under a spindly, wrought-iron chair. On the glass-topped table by a low bowl full of sunflower heads and little light-colored roses a plate, something long and dark on it in a puddle of something dark and thick, pierced through by a slender knife.

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” says Jo, to no one at all.