She was running nowhere in particular now, just trying to shake off her pursuers. But there were so many of them, and she was more alone than she’d ever been. Except she wasn‘t, and hadn’t been, for some time now. There had always been something different about Diana Vertue, even before she became Jenny Psycho. Years before, on the ghostworld called Unseeli, Diana had joined her mind with the last remnants of a dead alien race; the Ashrai. She had become a part of their endless song, for a time, and it changed her forever. She’d tried very hard to forget that, fearing for her humanity, but recent events had forced her to remember. And now, in the final extremities of her life, with death or worse so close she could taste it, the song of the Ashrai burst from her lips again. People ran screaming from the sound of it. And the Ashrai came.
They surged around her small running form, vast and awful, brilliant as suns. People could not look at them directly. There were only glimpses of huge teeth and jagged claws and sharp-planed gargoyle faces. The Ashrai were long dead, but they’d never even considered lying down. Their raging storm filled the street and crackled overhead, slamming head-on into the Mater Mundi’s psistorm. Alien and human thoughts crashed together and neither would give way. Chance and probabilities ran mad as the two powerful mind-sets clashed and struggled, and that madness followed Diana through the streets.
There were rains of fish and frogs, and lightning stabbed down repeatedly from a cloudless sky. Springs burst up out of the ground, and buildings caught on fire. Locks unlocked and doors led out instead of in. Streets suddenly led somewhere other than where they used to, and not every place they led to could be returned from. Whole city blocks swapped their positions, and houses were suddenly separated by stores that had never been there before, selling goods with no names. Things giggled in alleyways, and strange faces beckoned from vilely-lit windows. Everywhere dice rolled sixes, and every cardplayer held the dead man’s hand. People spoke in tongues and stigmata ran with alien blood. The old became young, and babies with knowing eyes spoke unpleasant wisdom. And through it all Diana ran on, untouched and unaffected, heading for New Hope and sanctuary.
She commandeered a gravity sled and flew it out past the city limits, the ghosts of the dead Ashrai boiling around her like stormclouds. Their song was thunder and their grotesque faces flashed like lightning. The Mater Mundi was left behind with the city, not defeated or discouraged, but unwilling to draw attention to itself now that immediate victory was no longer possible. Thousands of espers came to themselves again, and found themselves far from where they had been, and didn’t know why. Chance and probability became normal again, and bewildered street cleaners wondered what to do about the tons of fish and frogs clogging the streets.
High above and far away, Diana raced her sled toward New Hope, and stopped singing. Only then did she realize her throat was raw, and her lips were bleeding. Humans weren’t meant to sing with such an alien voice. The Ashrai soared and dipped around her, large as clouds, alien voices raised in an alien song that frightened and disturbed her now she was no longer a part of it. And then they were gone, and there was only the small battered form of Diana Vertue, flying alone in an empty sky.
It took her the best part of two hours to reach the floating city of New Hope, even pushing the sled’s motor to its limits. Evening was falling toward night, and New Hope blazed against the growing darkness like a crown built of precious stones and starstuff. The bright shining lights and colors didn’t fool Diana for a moment. She knew that behind the fairy-tale glamour lay weapons and defenses powerful enough to hold off a good-sized army. The elves would never be slaves again. The Esper Liberation Front might not be the terrorist organization it had once been, but it had lost none of its ferocity or singleness of purpose.
A telepathic probe from the city bid Diana welcome and gave her a location to land her sled. Any other uninvited visitor would have received either a demand for an immediate explanation or a mental compulsion to leave or die, but the elves had always had a soft spot for Jenny Psycho, the only freedom fighter even more hard-core than them. The city grew and grew as Diana approached, stretching miles in diameter, filling the darkening sky with its shimmering towers of crystal and glass. Gossamer walkways linked delicate minarets, and flying elves waved merrily to Diana as they flowed past her in multicolored displays. And from all around came a joined chorus of mental voices crying welcome, welcome, like a great communal embrace, like finally coming home. An almost overwhelming, seductive sense of belonging.
She landed her gravity sled on the edge of a crowded landing pad near the center of the floating city, and bent tiredly over the controls. It had been a long, hard day, and the odds were it wasn’t going to get any easier anytime soon. Her new, hard-won knowledge weighed heavily on her, a burden even more oppressive because she knew she couldn’t share it with anyone; not even the Elves. Let the true nature of the Mater Mundi become widely known, and all espers would become targets, feared and hated, hunted down and destroyed because of the monster they unknowingly held within them. It had to remain secret until Diana could figure out what to do about it. Assuming she lived that long.
She wearily raised her head to find a small group of Elves waiting to welcome her. They all wore the traditional leather-and-chains outfit, with bright ribbons in their hair and colors on their faces. Their muscles were sharply defined, and they all wore swords and guns on their hips. Diana wasn’t impressed. She’d been expecting that. What did impress the hell out of her was the huge statue of herself carved from pale marble, standing tall and proud at the boundary of the landing pad. Diana looked up at her own giant face until she got a crick in her neck, and then turned an ominous stare on the Elven welcoming committee. One of them stepped forward, grinning widely, a tall, strapping brunette with a bandolier of throwing stars crossing her impressive bosom.
“Thought you’d like it,” she said easily. “That’s why we had you land here. Welcome to New Hope, Jenny Psycho. I’m Crow Jane. Highest number of recorded kills in the great rebellion. I speak for the elf gestalt. What I hear, everyone hears.”
“How convenient,” said Diana, stepping down off her sled to join Crow Jane. “So it’s true then; the elves have achieved a conscious massmind?”
“We are a small, faltering thing as yet, but we grow stronger with every day that passes. We have lost nothing in the union and gained much. We took our inspiration from you, Jenny Psycho, and the Maze people. Together we are strong, and we have sworn never to be weak again.”
“I prefer to be called Diana Vertue these days.”
Crow Jane looked at her dispassionately. “Names are important. They define us. You can’t turn time back, undo what you have made of yourself, simply by retreating to an earlier name.”
“Jenny Psycho was only ever a part of Diana Vertue. I found Jenny too limiting, once the war was over.”
“The war is never over.”
“Why the statue of me?” said Diana, tactfully changing the subject.
“Jenny Psycho has many admirers here,” said Crow Jane, smiling again. “They call themselves the Psycho Sluts. Warriors, troublemakers, free thinkers. We’re very proud of them. The cutting edge of elf philosophy. Your name has become a battle cry. They would die for you.”
“I’d much rather they lived for me,” said Diana dryly. “I might need their support. I’ve come here looking for sanctuary. The Mater Mundi wants my head on a stick. Where would the elves stand, if they had to make a choice?”
“We bend our knees to no one,” said Crow Jane. “Not even the so-called Mother Of All Souls. The elves follow their own destiny. We are aware of the psychic upheaval that disrupted the Parade of the Endless recently. Apparently they’re still trying to get frogs out of the guttering. But we are all battle espers here, in memory of the fallen Stevie Blues, and we defend our own. Stay here as long as you wish.”
She led Diana off the landing pad, and everyone relaxed a little now the formalities were over. The other Elves introduced t
hemselves, and Diana pushed aside her bone-deep tiredness to be as gracious and charming as she could manage. The city of New Hope spread out before her, bright and colorful as a city of Christmas trees. And near and far and all around, Diana could hear in her mind the joined chorus of the Elven minds, like a great sustained chord, a harmony of souls.
“So,” said Diana to Crow Jane, making herself focus on the moment. “What else goes on here, apart from training as warriors and yelling my name when you hit things?”
“We have much to keep us busy. We lead the field in removing the old Imperial conditioning from espers and clones; the mental limits that were supposed to keep them from rebelling. The stronger minds usually broke free on their own, but there are still many who need help. And afterwards, they have to be taught to think for themselves. Too many would walk right back into the cell we freed them from, simply because they’ve never known anything else. And there’s never any shortage of people ready to take advantage of them all over again. We also care for those whose souls are troubled by things they had to do during the war. The esper Guild Houses do what they can, but they don’t have our experience with violence. It was never a clean war, on either side, and we’re still cleaning up the mess.”
And then Crow Jane and Diana Vertue and the other elves came to a sudden halt, as a figure appeared out of the shadows to block their way.
“Speaking of which,” said Crow Jane sourly, “allow me to present our most recent guest. I’m sure you two know each other.”
“Oh yes,” said Jack Random. “We know each other. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like a private word with Diana.”
“Yes,” said Diana, meeting his gaze with level eyes. “There are things we should discuss.”
Crow Jane nodded, and led the other Elves a discreet distance away, to give the two legendary figures a little privacy. Diana studied Jack Random. He seemed calm and collected and not at all crazy.
“I heard about what you did,” she said finally. “It was all over the city.”
“I’m not crazy,” said Random, smiling. “I’ve just gone back to doing what I do best. Killing the bad guys.”
“And you decide who the bad guys are.”
“Who better? Who has more experience fighting the good fight than me? The old professional rebel is back, and God help the guilty.”
“Even if they used to be friends and allies of yours?”
“Perhaps especially then.” Random studied her thoughtfully. “You can’t stay here, you know. Any more than I can. I don’t claim to understand what the Mater Mundi is, but I recognize its might and its determination. If you stay, it’ll come here after you. The other elves will try to defend you, and the Mater Mundi will destroy them all just to get at you. New Hope will be a city of the dead, again. If you stay.”
“Where else can I go?” said Diana, almost plaintively.
“Offworld. Pick a planet with a minimal esper presence, and go to ground. Until either the Mater Mundi forgets about you, or you figure out a way to defeat it. I shall be doing ... much the same. No one fights my fights for me.”
“The Mater Mundi will never forget me,” said Diana. “Not now that I know ... what I know. We are enemies to the death now, our teeth forever locked in each other’s throat. You’re right. I can’t stay here. I can’t be responsible for the destruction of something so beautiful.”
She looked out over the fairy-tale city before her, and wasn’t sure whether she meant New Hope or the new gestalt the elves had built there. It didn’t matter. Both were too precious to be risked by her contaminating presence. Tears stung Diana’s eyes. She could have found a home here. She could feel it. But the newborn elven gestalt would be no match for the centuries-old Mater Mundi.
It was like coming at last to the shores of Heaven, only to find the gates slammed shut in her face.
“Give me time to catch my breath, and I’ll think of somewhere to go,” she said finally. “How about you, Random?”
“Already on my way. You’ll pardon me if I don’t tell you where I’m going. These days, I don’t trust anyone but me. And I watch me pretty damn carefully. I must be off. I have much to do, and justice won’t wait. Ah me; so little time, so many to kill.”
He smiled dazzlingly, with all his old charm and arrogance, and turned and walked away. Diana watched him go, and didn’t know what to say or think. Was he crazy now, or had the whole Empire gone insane? There’d been a lot of people who thought Jenny Psycho was crazy. Of course, they were pretty much right. Diana looked across at Crow Jane, patiently waiting with the other Elves, and wondered how she was going to break the news that she would be leaving.
And then an idea suddenly came to her. She couldn’t risk mental contact with any of her few esper friends; they were all potentially pawns of the Mater Mundi. But there were two people, neither of them in any way espers, with whom she had once made mental contact. When she’d still been Jenny Psycho, a prisoner in Silo Nine, the Imperial detention and torture center also known as Wormboy Hell, the Mater Mundi had created a mental link between Jenny and Finlay Campbell and Evangeline Shreck. It had only ever been intended as a one-off thing, and none of them had tried using the link since, but theoretically there was no reason why Diana shouldn’t be able to reestablish the link. She was, after all, much more powerful and focused now. She closed her eyes and broadcast her thoughts as loudly as she could, on an unfamiliar level.
Finlay! Can you hear me?
Bloody hell, said Finlay Campbell. I’ve started hearing voices. I didn’t think I was that far gone. You’re not going to tell me you’re the Devil, are you, and I have to go running through the streets with my underpants on my head?
This is Diana.
Bloody silly name for the Devil.
Shut up and listen! This is Diana Vertue, once known as Jenny Psycho.
I think I’d have been better off with the Devil.
Shut up, dear, and let her talk, said Evangeline Shreck. So this is telepathy. How fascinating. Not quite what I’d imagined, but... Correct me if I’m wrong, Diana, but I’d always understood telepathy was only possible between people carrying the esper genes.
Usually, yes. But these are far from normal circumstances. Let’s keep this short and to the point. I’m in deep shit, and I need somewhere safe and secure to hide. Somewhere even the most powerful telepaths couldn’t find me. Any ideas?
My old apartment under the Arenas, said Finlay immediately. Very secure, and no one knows the access codes but me.
And the constant raging emotions and sudden deaths should make a powerful cloak for you to hide behind, said Evangeline.
Who’s after you? said Finlay. Anything we can do to help?
No, said Diana. I have to do this myself. Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll break contact. You have enough problems of your own without adding mine.
True, said Finlay. Can I just ask how you knew I wasn’t dead?
I didn‘t, said Diana. This idea came firmly under the heading of pure desperation. But I always knew you were too mean to die that easily.
Finlay laughed, and told her what she needed to know. Diana broke contact, then steeled herself, and went to tell Crow Jane that she wouldn’t be staying after all.
There was something very wrong with Grace Shreck’s town house. The old stone building looked even more uncared for than usual, if that was possible, and the surrounding gardens had been allowed to run riot. No lights showed at any of the closed windows, save for one high up and to the side. Both house and garden were utterly silent, as though listening or waiting ... for something. Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn huddled together before the front gates, peering dubiously through the black iron bars. Flynn’s camera hovered by his shoulder, as though afraid to go off on its own. Toby glared at the dark house.
“I told you, Flynn. Something’s wrong here. Very wrong. Grace is still in residence, along with all of her servants, but the only light showing is at Clarissa’s bedroom window. So why are they
all sitting around in the dark?”
“Good question, Boss. This is definitely spooky. Reminds me of one of those old houses they always put on the covers of Clarence’s favorite gothic romances. You know; the ones where there’s a batty old ex-wife living secretly in the attic, sharpening a hatchet when she thinks no one’s listening.”
“Will you shut up, Flynn? This is disturbing enough as it is. And look at the garden. Grace would never have allowed it to get into such a mess. She’s always been red hot on keeping up appearances.”
“Could be money problems,” said Flynn.
“No; she’d have talked to me by now if that was the case,” said Toby. “And I can think of at least a dozen antiques in her front room that are each worth more than the house and grounds put together. No ... I don’t like this at all.”
“Then why don’t we do the sensible thing for once, and go home? And not come back till we’ve arranged for some heavy duty backup, body armor, and maybe an exorcist. Just in case.”
“Clarissa’s in there,” said Toby grimly. “Her messages have been growing increasingly short and vague over the past few weeks. I want her out of there. I also want a few urgent words with Grace about something I turned up while checking the Family expense sheets.”
“Hold on,” said Flynn. “Since when have you started investigating your own Family? And keeping it a secret from me?”
Toby looked at him. “Since I found myself wading through matters so murky that just discussing them might be enough to get us both killed. But since we’re here ... and I have no intention of going back without a whole bunch of answers ... Grace took over the day-to-day running of Clan Shreck, after Gregor was murdered by Finlay Campbell. Suited me just fine, at the time. The last thing I needed was more work and more responsibilities. Until the Family bank alerted me, on the quiet, that Grace had been authorizing some very ... unorthodox expenditures. Many of them borderline illegal, not to mention immoral. Very unlike dear old-fashioned aunt Grace.