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  Ralph hoped she was right. As he ducked under the arch into Atropos's apartment, he was trying to think of a pretext by which he could send Lois on ahead of him. That would give him an opportunity to give the place a quick search. If that didn't turn up the earrings, he would have to assume that Atropos was still wearing them.

  He noticed her slip was hanging below the hem of her dress again, opened his mouth to tell her, and saw a flicker of movement from the tail of his left eye. He realized they had been a lot less cautious on the return trip - partly because they were worn out - and now they might have to pay a high price for dropping their guard.

  ['Lois, look out!']

  Too late. Ralph felt her arm jerked away as the snarling creature in the dirty tunic seized her about the waist and dragged her backward. Atropos's head only came to her armpit, but that was enough to allow him to hold his rusty blade over her. When Ralph made an instinctive lunge at him, Atropos brought the straight-razor down until it was touching the pearl-gray cord which drifted up from the crown of her head. He bared his teeth at Ralph in an unspeakable grin.

  [Not another step, Shorts . . . not one!]

  Well, he didn't have to worry about Lois's errant earrings anymore, at least. They glittered a murky, pinkish-red against the tiny lobes of Atropos's ears. It was more the sight of them than the shout that stopped Ralph where he was.

  The scalpel drew back a little . . . but only a little.

  [Now, Shorts - you took something of mine just now, didn't you? Don't try to deny it; I know. And now you're going to give it back.]

  The scalpel returned to Lois's balloon-string; Atropos caressed it with the flat of the blade.

  [You give it back or this bitch is going to die here in front of you - you can stand there and watch the sack turn black. So what do you say, Short Stuff? Hand it over.]

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  * * *

  1

  Atropos's smile shone out, full of repulsive triumph, and full of -

  Full of fear. He caught you flat-footed, he's got his scalpel to Lois's balloon-string and his hand around her throat, but he's still scared to death. Why?

  [Come on! Quit wasting time, shithead! Give me the ring!]

  Ralph reached slowly into his watchpocket and grasped the ring, wondering why Atropos hadn't killed Lois outright. Surely he didn't intend to let her - to let either of them - go.

  He's afraid I might hammer him with another one of those telepathic karate-chops. And that's just for starters. I think he's also afraid of screwing up. Afraid of the thing - the entity - that's running him. Afraid of the Crimson King. You're scared of the boss, aren't you, my filthy little friend?

  He held the ring up between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and peeked through it again.

  ['Come and get it, why don't you? Don't be shy.']

  Atropos's face knotted with rage. The expression twisted his nervy, gloating grin into a cartoon scowl.

  [I'll kill her, Shorts, didn't you hear me? Is that what you want?]

  Ralph slowly and deliberately raised his left hand. He made a sawing gesture in the air with it, and was gratified to see Atropos wince when the edge of the palm turned momentarily toward him.

  ['If you even nick her with that blade, I'll hit you so hard you'll need a pocket-knife to dig your teeth out of the wall. And that's a promise.']

  [Just give me the ring, Shorts.]

  They can't lie, Ralph thought suddenly. I can't remember if I was actually told that or just intuited it, but I'm sure it's true - they can't lie. I can, though.

  ['I'll tell you what, Mr A - promise me it's a push and I'll give it to you.']

  Atropos gave him a narrow look in which doubt and suspicion were mingled.

  [A push? What do you mean, a push?]

  ['Ralph, no!']

  He glanced at her, then back at Atropos. He raised his left hand to scratch his cheek without considering how the gesture would look to the little bald doctor. The scalpel was pressed against Lois's balloon-string again in a trice, this time hard enough to dent it and create a dark splotch at the point of contact. It looked like a blood-blister. Great beads of sweat stood out on Atropos's brow, and when he spoke, his voice was a panicky shriek.

  [Don't you go throwing any of your cut-rate thunderbolts at me! The woman dies if you do!]

  Ralph lowered his hand in a hurry, then put both of them behind his back like a penitent child. Ed's wedding ring was still folded into his hand, and now, almost without thinking about it, he tucked it into the back pocket of his pants. It was only then that he was completely sure he didn't mean to give up the ring. Even if it cost Lois her life - both of them their lives - he didn't mean to give up the ring.

  But perhaps it wouldn't come to that.

  ['A push means we both walk away, Mr A - I give you the ring, you give me back my lady-friend. All you have to do is promise not to hurt her. What do you say?']

  ['No, Ralph, no!']

  What Atropos said was nothing. His eyes glittered at Ralph with feary, hateful impotence. If ever in his long life he'd wished for the ability to lie, Ralph supposed he must be wishing for it at that moment. All it would take was Okay, it's a deal, and the ball would be right back in Ralph's court. But he couldn't say that, because he couldn't do that.

  He knows he's in a nasty corner, Ralph thought. It really doesn't matter if he cuts her cord or lets her go - he must think I mean to flash-fry him in either case, and he's not wrong.

  How much damage can you actually do to him, sweetheart? Carolyn asked doubtfully from the place she kept inside his head. How much juice have you got left after cutting open the deathbag around the wedding ring?

  The answer, unfortunately, was not much. Maybe enough to singe his bald head, but probably not enough to saute it. And--

  Then Ralph saw something he didn't like: the edge-of-panic quality in Atropos's grin was being replaced by cautious confidence. And he felt those mad eyes crawling avidly over him - his face, his body, but mostly his aura. Ralph had a sudden clear vision of a mechanic using a dipstick to find out how much oil was left in an automobile crankcase.

  Do something, Lois begged him with her eyes. Please, Ralph.

  But he didn't know what to do. He was completely out of ideas.

  Atropos's smile took on a gloating, nasty edge.

  [You're unloaded, Short Stuff, ain'tcha? Gee, that's sad.]

  ['Hurt her and you'll find out, you sawed-off piece of shit.']

  Atropos's grin went on widening.

  [You couldn't give a rat a hotfoot with what you've got left. Why don't you just be a good boy and hand over the ring before I--]

  ['Oh, you bastard!']

  It was Lois. She was no longer looking at Ralph; she was looking across the room, into the mirror where Atropos no doubt checked the fit and tilt of his latest fashion accents - Rosalie's bandanna, say, or Bill McGovern's Panama. Her eyes were wide and full of fury, and Ralph knew exactly what she was seeing.

  ['Those are MINE, you rotten little thief!']

  She shoved violently backward, using her greater weight to slam Atropos against the side of the archway. A startled grunt escaped him. The hand holding the scalpel flew upward; the blade dug dry scales of dirt from the wall. Lois turned toward him, her face knotted in an angry snarl - a look so un-our Lois that McGovern might have fainted in shock at the sight of it. Her hands clawed at the sides of his face, reaching for his ears. One of her fingers dug into his cheek. Atropos yapped like a dog whose paw has been stepped on, then grabbed her by the waist again and whirled her back around.

  He turned the scalpel's blade inward, getting ready to slash. Ralph shook the forefinger of his right hand at it in a scolding gesture. A flash of light so pallid it was almost invisible shot out from the nail and struck the scalpel's tip, momentarily knocking it away from Lois's balloon-string. And that was all there was; Ralph sensed that his personal armory was now empty.

  Atropos bared his teeth at him from over Lois'
s shoulder as she bucked and twisted in his arms. She was not trying to get away, either; she was trying to turn and attack him. Her feet flailed out as she threw all her weight against him again, trying to squash him against the wall behind them, and without having the slightest idea of what he meant to do, Ralph lunged forward and dropped to his knees with his hands out. He looked like a manic suitor making a strenuous marriage proposal, and one of Lois's thrashing feet came close to kicking him in the throat. He snatched at the hem of her slip and it came free in a slithery little rush of pink nylon. Meanwhile, Lois was still yelling.

  ['Miserable little thief! Here's something for you! How do you like it?']

  Atropos uttered a squeal of pain, and when Ralph looked up, he saw that Lois had buried her teeth in his right wrist. His left hand, the one holding the scalpel, flailed blindly at her balloon-string, missing it by less than an inch. Ralph sprang to his feet and, still with no clear idea of what he was doing, pulled Lois's pink half-slip over Atropos's slashing hand . . . and his head.

  ['Get away from him, Lois! Run!']

  She spat out the small white hand and stumbled toward the barrel-head table in the center of the room, wiping Atropos's blood from her mouth with atavistic loathing . . . but the dominant expression on her face was still one of anger. Atropos himself, for the moment just a bawling, writhing shape under the pink half-slip, groped after her with his free hand. Ralph slapped it away and shoved him back against the side of the archway.

  ['No you don't, my friend - not at all.']

  [Let me go! Let me go, you bastard! You can't do this!]

  And the weirdest thing of all is that he really believes that, Ralph thought. He's had it his own way for so long that he's completely forgotten what Short-Timers can do. I can fix that, I think.

  Ralph remembered how Atropos had slashed Rosalie's balloon-string after the dog had licked his hand, and his hatred for this strutting, leering, complacently insane creature suddenly exploded in his head like a rotten-green roadflare. He grabbed one side of Lois's slip and twisted his fist twice around it in a savage winding-up gesture, pulling it so tight that Atropos's features stood out in a pink nylon deathmask.

  Then, just as the blade of the scalpel popped through the fabric and began to cut it open, Ralph whirled Atropos around, using the slip as a man might use a sling to whirl a stone, and sent him flying across the archway. The damage might have been less if Atropos had fallen, but he didn't; his feet knocked against each other but never quite crossed. He hit the rock facing of the archway with a thud, voiced a muffled scream of pain, and dropped to his knees. Spots of blood bloomed on Lois's half-slip like flower-petals. The scalpel had disappeared back through the slit it had made in the cloth. Ralph sprang after Atropos just as it reappeared and lengthened the original cut, freeing the bald creature's staring, bewildered face. His nose was bleeding; so were his forehead and right temple. Before he could begin to get up, Ralph grabbed the slippery pink bulges that were his shoulders.

  [Stop it! I'm warning you, Shorts! I'll make you sorry you were ever bo--]

  Ralph ignored this pointless bluster and slammed Atropos forward, hard. The midget's arms were still tangled in the slip and he caught the floor with nothing but face. His shriek was part amazement, mostly pain. Incredibly, Ralph felt Lois in the back of his mind, telling him that enough was enough, not to really hurt him - not to hurt the pint-sized psychotic who had just tried to kill her. Atropos attempted to roll over. Ralph knee-dropped him in the middle of the back and knocked him flat again.

  ['Don't move, friend. I like you just the way you are.']

  He looked up at Lois, and saw that her amazing fury had departed as suddenly as it had come - like some freak weather phenomenon. A tornado, perhaps, that touches down out of a clear blue sky, rips the top off a barn, and then disappears again. She was pointing at Atropos.

  ['He's got my earrings, Ralph. The nasty little thief has got my earrings. He's wearing them!']

  ['I know. I saw.']

  One snarling side of Atropos's face poked out of the slit in the nylon like the face of the world's ugliest baby at the moment of its birth. Ralph could feel the muscles of the small creature's back trembling beneath his pinioning knee, and he remembered an old proverb he'd read somewhere . . . maybe at the end of a Salada teabag string: He who takes a tiger by the tail dare not let go. Now, in this unlikely den beneath the ground and feeling like a character in a fairy-tale concocted by a lunatic, Ralph thought he had achieved a sort of divine understanding of that proverb. Through a combination of Lois's sudden rage and plain old shitass luck, he had wound up at least temporarily on top of the scuzzy little fuck. The question - and a fairly pressing one, at that - was what to do next.

  The hand holding the scalpel lashed up, but the stroke was both weak and blind. Ralph avoided it easily. Sobbing and cursing, not afraid even now but clearly hurting and all but consumed with impotent rage, Atropos flailed up at him again.

  [Let me up, you overgrown Short-Time bastard! Silly old white-hair! Ugly wrinkle-face!]

  ['I look a little better than that just lately, my friend. Haven't you noticed?']

  [Asshole! Stupid Short-Time asshole! I'll make you sorry! I'll make you so sorry!]

  Well, Ralph thought, at least he's not begging. I almost would have expected him to start begging by now.

  Atropos continued to flail weakly with the scalpel. Ralph ducked two or three of these strokes easily, then slid one hand toward the throat of the creature lying beneath him.

  ['Ralph! No! Don't!']

  He shook his head at her, not knowing if he was expressing annoyance, reassurance, or both. He touched Atropos's skin, and felt him shudder. The bald doc uttered a choked cry of revulsion, and Ralph knew exactly how he felt. It was sickening for both of them, but he didn't take his hand away. Instead, he tried to close it around Atropos's throat and wasn't very surprised to find he couldn't do it. Still, hadn't Lachesis said that only Short-Timers could oppose the will of Atropos? He thought so. The question was, how?

  Beneath him, Atropos laughed nastily.

  ['Please, Ralph! Please just get my earrings and we'll go!']

  Atropos rolled his eyes in her direction, then looked back at Ralph.

  [Did you think you could kill me, Shorts? Well, guess again.]

  No, he hadn't thought it, but he'd needed to find out for sure.

  [Life's a bitch, ain't it, Shorts? Why don't you just give me back the ring? I'm going to get it sooner or later, I guarantee you that.]

  ['Fuck you, you little weasel.']

  Tough talk, but talk was cheap. The most pressing question was still unanswered: What the hell was he supposed to do with this monster?

  Whatever it is, you won't be able to do it with Lois standing there and watching you, a cold voice that was not quite Carolyn's advised him. She was fine when she was pissed off, but she's not pissed off now. She's too tenderhearted for whatever's going to happen next, Ralph. You have to get her out of here.

  He turned toward Lois. Her eyes were half closed. She looked ready to crumple at the base of the archway and go to sleep.

  ['Lois, I want you to get out of here. Right now. Go up the stairs and wait for me under the tr--']

  The scalpel flashed up again, and this time it almost sliced off the end of Ralph's nose. He recoiled, and his knee slid on nylon. Atropos gave a mighty heave and came within a whisker of rolling out from under. At the last second, Ralph shoved the little man's head flat again with the heel of his hand - that, it seemed, was allowed by the rules - and replanted his knee.

  [Owww! Owww! Stop it! You're killing me!]

  Ralph ignored him and looked at Lois.

  ['Go on, Lois! Go on up! I'll be there as soon as I can!']

  ['I don't think I can climb out on my own - I'm too tired.']

  ['Yes, you can. You have to, and you can.']

  Atropos subsided again - for the moment, at least - a small, gasping engine under Ralph's knee. But that was a long way
from being enough. Time was passing topside, passing fast, and right now time was the real enemy, not Ed Deepneau.

  ['My earrings--']

  ['I'll bring them when I come, Lois. I promise.']

  Making what looked like a supreme effort, Lois straightened and looked solemnly at Ralph.

  ['You shouldn't hurt him, Ralph, not if you don't have to. It's not Christian.']

  No, not at all Christian, a capering little creature deep inside Ralph's head agreed. Not Christian, but still . . . I can't wait to get started.

  ['Go on, Lois. Leave him to me.']

  She looked at him sadly.

  ['It wouldn't do me any good to ask you to promise not to hurt him, would it?']

  He thought about it, then shook his head.

  ['No, but I'll promise you this much: it won't be any harder than he makes it. Is that good enough?']

  Lois considered carefully, then nodded.

  ['Yes, I think that will do. And maybe I can make it back up, if I take it slow and easy . . . but what about you?']

  ['I'll be fine. Wait for me under the tree.']

  ['All right, Ralph.']

  He watched her cross the filthy room, Helen's sneaker bobbing from one wrist. She ducked beneath the arch between the apartment and the stairway and slowly started up. Ralph waited until her feet had disappeared from view, then turned back to Atropos.

  ['Well, Chumley, here we are - two old pals reunited. What should we do? Should we play? You like to play, don't you?']

  Atropos immediately renewed his struggles, simultaneously waving his scalpel above his head and trying to buck Ralph off.

  [Quit it! Get your hands off me, you old faggot!]

  Atropos thrashed so wildly that kneeling on him now was like kneeling on a snake. Ralph ignored the yelling, the bucking, and the blindly waving scalpel. Atropos's whole head was now sticking out of the slip, which made things a lot easier. He grabbed Lois's earrings and tugged. They stayed where they were but earned him a hearty, pained scream from Atropos. Ralph leaned forward, smiling a little.

  ['For pierced ears, aren't they, pal?']

  [Yes! Yes, goddammit!]

  ['To quote you, life's a bitch, ain't it?']

  Ralph seized the earrings again and ripped them free. There were two small fans of blood as the minute holes in the lobes of Atropos's ears became flaps. The bald man's scream was as sharp as a new drillbit. Ralph felt an uneasy mixture of pity and contempt.