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Vanessa's hands balled into fists, and tears welled up in her eyes. "I wanta
help," she whispered hoarsely, "an' I can't. I wanta do somethin' an' whenever
I try'n get near Bull, the world just sorta goes away-"
Fox said that Vanessa had died on Bull street, victim of a heart attack
brought on by one too many hits of crack. She still hadn't come to terms with
her life, much less her death, and Ross sighed with helpless frustration.
"Look, honey, you just now helped, okay? An' someday you'll do better. Right
now, you gotta learn to stand up f'r y'self, fight back, don't let nobody push
you around. Then maybe you c'n do more."
Vanessa scrubbed at her eyes, and sniffed. And just when Ross began to feel
really badly, wanting to comfort her, but needing to go find Tannim's girl in
the real world, help showed up in the guise of Foxtrot. Today Fox looked like
a cartoon hero, pipestem legs and wild hair. He just appeared out of nowhere,
like always, and Vanessa looked up at him and smiled through her tears.
Somehow they both always recognized Fox, no matter what he looked like.
"Heya, lady!" Fox crowed, as if there was nothing wrong. "Got something I want
to show you." Then he looked over his shoulder at Ross, and grinned. "Sorry
old man, no fossils allowed. It's just for people who believe in the magic of
rock'n'roll."
"Ah, go on," Ross said, relieved. "You wouldn't know good music if'n it sat up
an' bit your ass."
"That wouldn't be where I'd want something to bite me," Fox replied
insolently, and reached for Vanessa's hand. She took it hesitantly, and they
vanished in a glittering shower of sparks.
Fox was a pistol, all right. Maybe he'd picked Vanessa as his vixen of choice.
Ross smirked, then furrowed his brow in concentration, picturing Bull Street .
. . building it up in his mind . . . then, deciding to be there.
Then he was there. Now that was a teleport.
He grinned widely. It was also his first teleport.
But there was no time to gloat about it; he had a girl to find, one who might
be getting herself into trouble she couldn't get out of right at this very
moment.
He sharpened his real-world focus, bringing himself as far into the world of
the living as he could without interacting with it; he wanted to be able to
walk through people and things if he had to. He had noticed that he no longer
had any trouble seeing even in the darkest places; the street was as bright as
daylight to him, with every person on it outlined with his or her own little
glow of colored light. The faces were the clearest, but it was as if every
living creature carried its own little spot-light with him-and from the way
the females tended to be dressed and act, it was pretty obvious that there was
no lack of "professional ladies" on this section of Bull. They ranged in age
from teenagers in punk gear to women with a fair amount of mileage on the
meter. He noticed that their glows were all in muddy colors, sullen and angry;
dirty red, murky yellow, dirt brown. Just like Vanessa, when she first came
over. Her colors were clearing now, but she had a long way to go before she
looked like Ross-and he was no match for the clear, blue-white light of Fox or
The Old Man.
He spotted the pimps right away, too-and interestingly enough, the colors of
their glows were sharp and less muddied, but acutely painful to look at. Reds
and yellows that swirled together in eye-hurting combinations, screaming,
clashing pinks and yellow-greens-and the intensity was somehow too much; a
fluctuating, pulsing brightness, as if they were burning themselves out with
every heartbeat. There were little ribbons of evil yellow connecting each pimp
to his "ladies," and Ross wasn't sure just what that meant; was there some
kind of emotional or mental dependency there? And if so, who depended on whom?
And there was something else, too. Just as Tannim had said, there were things
lurking about the pimps, vulturine creatures of shifting shape and shadow,
watching and waiting with infinite patience. One of them looked in Ross's
direction as if it felt his eyes on it, but its glance was indifferent, as if
he was of no use to it. It blinked leprous-silver eyes and turned away, back
to the pimp. He shuddered anyway. If these jerks only knew what was waiting
for them. . . .
But none of the girls he saw, in their tinsel and flash, short skirts and
glorified underwear, was Tania.
He drifted along Bull Street for about a mile, seeing no sign of her. When he
noticed that the street had gotten emptier, that the girls he saw were no
longer plying the trade, he realized he must have come to the end of the
"district," and turned back, taking the opposite side of the street.
It all was pretty different from what he had expected. There were no "Irma la
Douce" girls here, no "Pretty Women," or "Happy Hookers." This sure was a far
cry from the way most movies portrayed street-walkers. There was nothing
playful or cheerful here. Most of 'em looked like whipped dogs, spirits
broken, minds numbed. Oh, there were a few who were different, but none of
them were hooked up with pimps. It looked to Ross as if the best these kids
could muster was the same blank business-like approach as the kids in the
fast-food places, selling burgers. No wonder Vanessa had called a night on the
job "hanging on the meat-rack."
Suddenly, his musings were broken into by a glimpse of blond hair with the
streetlight shining off of it, and the arch of a nose and cheekbone that
seemed familiar, an aura that wasn't as muddy as most. The girl moved, and he
got a better look-
It was her, all right. Then something else caught his eye, and he realized
that he wasn't the only person hunting her.
There was a man stalking her; a man in a suit, with an aura that was
completely black, and a swarm of shadow-creatures around him that was three
times the number around any of the pimps.
Ross moved in on the man, quickly, fearing the worst. But before he could
reach the girl's side, the man had already maneuvered so that he was between
her and the rest of the people on the street. And just as he got within
touching distance, the man managed to crowd her into an alcove, where she
pressed herself back against a locked doorway, a look of fear and shock on her
young face.
"What-" she said, her voice tight with panic. "What do you want? Leave me
alone! I don't have any money, I don't have any drugs-"
Ross crowded in, trying to think of something he could do. He couldn't hit the
guy, he couldn't drag him away, or even shout in his ear to distract him. And
suddenly there didn't seem to be anyone else on this side of the street, as if
the rest of the denizens of Bull had sensed the trouble and evaporated.
"It's you I want," the man said, in a cold, utterly expressionless voice. "If
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