Harlot's Moon

  He tapped Dr. Brandt on the shoulder and she said, “The edges are uncurled!”

  “Don’t worry about that now.”

  “I hate these stupid things.”

  “Forget that.”

  For a moment the station seemed filled with people. A cacophony of voices and noise erupted around him. Pace bit back a yelp and steadied himself against the side of the ticket machine.

  The benches and aisles suddenly overflowed with people and animals. Wings flapped past, brushing his neck. A dog howled forlornly. A woman with blue skin and obsidian eyes began writing flaming runes in the air. A nun was running around with a yardstick screaming, “Don’t eat paste!” Kids laughed. An Indian with lengthy braids twirled a pair of six-shooters and aimed here and there, practicing taking the tops of skulls off. There were others Pace couldn’t focus on, who moved in and out of his vision, shifting and fluctuating. Blurred colors and activity swept across the station, through his head, and appeared to reach some kind of a peak as he went to one knee, then stopped altogether.

  Dr. Brandt couldn’t handle wrestling with her dollar bills anymore and started checking the bottom of her purse for coins. “Maybe I have enough change.”

  “Really, that doesn’t matter anymore.”

  The three figures that had climbed from their hidden corners continued forward, faces unclear as they approached. His eyes were focused, everything else was distinct, except for their faces. They came at him sort of frolicking, what they used to call gamboling when people would do that sort of thing. Silently easing nearer. Features dim and clouded, but their names somehow known to him.

  Pia.

  Faust.

  Hayden.

  The closer they got, the more obscured their features became. Pace stepped out in front of Dr. Brandt. Change fell to the floor and she said, “Will?”

  “I think we should leave.”

  “What?”

  “The fish cannery is going to have to do without me.”

  She turned and the three figures slid past him and were on her. Pace thought, This is why she was afraid, she must’ve been expecting this. He shook his head. But if that were true, then why didn’t she let Ernie escort her? Why didn’t she just give me a train ticket to the halfway house and drop me off at the curb?

  Dr. Brandt let out a shout—a strangely feminine sound that was part annoyance, part indignation. He threw a wild punch and missed all three of the intruders, no easy achievement considering how close they were to him. Somebody took one of his wrists and somebody else took the other.

  “My God,” Pia said. “He’s so slow.”

  “He’s not going to be any good to us in this state,” Faust said. “Our father who art inhibited.”

  “He can hear you just fine though,” Pace told them.

  Hayden twisted Pace’s arm. “There was a time when nobody could put a hand on you, if you didn’t want it there.”

  “When was that?” Pace asked, genuinely curious.

  “You were stupid to let them do this to you.”

  “I think I might have to agree.”

  He looked at where the guy’s nose would probably be, waiting for his hands to snap out and break it, but they didn’t. He expected Dr. Brandt to scream or start speaking in that cold, indifferent way, but she didn’t. He couldn’t figure out what was going on and kept hoping something else would happen that he wouldn’t be responsible for. Something that might reveal a truer nature.

  Faust almost came into view for a moment before fading again. The faceless figure approached, inch by inch. Without features it managed to peer into Pace’s eyes and say, “Ah, our father who art indifferent. I think they may have cured him.”