"Well well well. What have we here?"

Jack Jeebs stiffened, straightening up slowly, at the sound of that voice. He hadn't kept the perimeter motion detectors on—damn, damn, damn—and she'd just come strolling in on his entire collection of illegal untaxed imports. They looked damn good laid out on the black velvet. He was in the process of filing off the serial numbers on the barrels.

Not much to be done; still, Jeebs plastered an ingratiating smile on his face and looked the woman in black straight in the sunglasses. "Hiya, Sea, how you doin?" he tried.

Sea picked up a Nuvin Systems mitotic revertor. "Nice," she said appreciatively. "Very nice. These things selling well these days, Jeebs?"

"Uh," said Jeebs, not willing to implicate himself any further than was possible. Her smile hardened a little around the edges; she tossed the little device in her hand absently, and Jeebs really, really didn't like the way she had the nozzle pointed in his direction. Something like that wouldn't just blow his head off, it'd make it so his head had never been there at all. Behind her, the door opened again, and for once in his nasty little life Jack Jeebs was really pleased to see the man who stood on the threshold. Even though he was holding his favourite Series Four. "Kay!" he oozed. "Kay, come on, make her put that down, man.........."

Kay was enjoying this so much he almost smiled. "Oh, she knows what she's doing," he drawled. "Listen, Jeebs, we think you can help us."

"Oh, anything, Kay, you know me, glad to be of service." His green polyester shirt was damp with sweat. Sea was still playing with the revertor in a meaningful sort of way.

"Excellent." Kay leaned against the counter. "Who came in here a couple nights ago and bought one of these off you?" He held up a picture of a complicated, shiny piece of hardware with a name not even Jeebs could pronounce, which worked on a principle not unlike that of the neutron bomb: kill things, kill lots of things, but don't damage buildings. Jeebs swallowed.

"Uh, now, you know I can't violate my clients' privacy—" he began, but the cold nozzle of the revertor underneath his jaw cut off that line of comment. Sea was grinning at him. He thought, not for the first time, that it wasn't fair someone so mean could be so attractive. Kay was regarding the ceiling with blatant unconcern. "Okay, okay, okay," Jeebs quivered. "Male Mertagensian, bout six-seven, in a really good disguise, looks like a young white male with a goatee and dreadlocks, dark hair and eyes. Paid for it with a credit card."

Kay rolled his eyes. "You let aliens use credit cards? You're dumber than you look. Gimme the receipts."

Jeebs, eyes rolling in slightly different directions as he tried to reach over to the slip drawer without accidentally getting himself killed, shuffled through the receipts for the past few days and thrust one at Kay. The older man took it, between finger and thumb, and scowled. "Went through all right, huh?"

"Yeah," said Jeebs, "it looked okay to me...."

Sea gave the little device a twist, just enough to destroy Jeebs's current head, and took the opportunity to ferret through the slip drawer. She slid two more scraps of paper into her suit pockets before Jeebs's eyes regenerated themselves. "Thanks for your help," she said sweetly and sashayed out to the car.

Kay waited until Jeebs's head had grown back and then fixed him with the familiar Kay Look. "This is confiscated," he said, as he had so many, many times, "all of it, you're coming in for questioning before deportation, and if I find you doing anything this stupid and irresponsible again I'm gonna let her handle you, got it?"

Jeebs nodded, eyes wide. Kay gave him a satisfied little smile and followed his partner.

In the car, as the containment crew bundled Jeebs and his merchandise off to headquarters, he glanced over at her. "Did you have to do that?"

"Do what?" Sea took off her sunglasses and loosened her tie. "He was holding out on us." She fished out the slips of paper and handed them over; they were other credit card receipts made within two hours of the one for the Mertagensian's purchase, both Visa Universal Durasteel cards. One was for a field-stripped version of the Noisy Cricket, which made Kay scowl, and the other was for.........a reverberating carbonizer with mutate capacity. One, an easily concealable purse weapon with a kick like a couple tons of TNT, and the other, an assassination weapon. And the Mertagensian in disguise had bought something generally used for cleaning out plague-stricken prison camps without having to rebuild the huts.

"Something really nasty's going down." Sea lit a cigarette and opened the LTD's window a crack.

"So I gather," said her partner, reaching over and appropriating the Camel. He took a long meditative drag before handing it back. "Get Zed on the horn and tell him what we found. And ask them to run a full background check on those cardholders."

Sea unracked the dash mike and called up headquarters, relaying the information. "Oh," she added, "and check all the customs and immigration records for the past month; who's on-planet who has a good reason to kill a lot of people very efficiently?"

Kay took the cigarette back. "There's a convention in town," he said, absently. "My money's on one of the speakers as a target."

Sea scowled at him and racked the mike again. "How come you know everything before I do?" She reclaimed her cigarette. "I've been trying, you know. I've been doing research."

Kay regarded her. "And you're a telepath. So..........."

She sighed and nudged aside the courtesy blocks she'd set over her mindtouch and almost immediately she knew why he knew: because he'd seen it in the paper that morning. GothiCon 02—Seeking Greater Understanding of Morbidity and Gloom—comes to New York, Aug 2-5. Featured speakers include Mitchell K. Buggs, international vampire impersonator, and Jarvis Peebles, CEO of United Vinyl. "You don't think.........." she began, and then thought about it. "Huh. Isn't it a bit, um, obvious, having it out in plain view of the public?"

"Kid," said Kay mildly, "haven't you figured that one out yet? The more ridiculously obvious something is, the more easy it is to ignore. Look." He pointed—with her cigarette—at a mailman who was tucking his long scaly tail absently into his shorts. "The human mind just kind of steps around it. Makes our job easier."

"So no one's gonna notice a hotel full of pigmentless black-clad individuals discussing doom and destructi............" She trailed off again, taking the cigarette back firmly. "Okay, okay, I'm an idiot." They were passing through the East Village, where pigmentless black-clad individuals, often with bizarre hairstyles, were the norm.

Kay patted her gently on the head. "You're a rookie," he said. "Don't sweat it." She gave him a glance of such vitriol he took his hand away, grinning. "But you're learning fast."

They pulled up outside a nondescript rowhouse not far from the Life Cafe—famous for its pasta with meatless balls—and got out. Kay tossed the keys to her. "You get to be the designated driver."

"Oh, great." She followed him sourly. "I was looking forward to that Laphroaig."

Kay shrugged. "Sorry. But I've got one fuck of a headache." He pushed the doorbell and folded his arms, waiting. She sighed and nodded.

When Millius let them in, she took one look at their faces and burst out laughing. "You two are entirely too cute," she gasped, leaning on Kay. "He's being Mr. Grumpy and you're his sidekick Petulant Chick."

Faced with those epithets even Kay couldn't help cracking a smile. The slender Martian led them into her living room and poured them drinks. "What's up?" she asked.

Sea tossed the receipts on the glass coffee table. "Tell me this isn't gonna ruin my week," she begged. Beside her on the sofa, Kay was leaning back with his eyes closed, but his left hand was creeping slowly around her waist.

Millius took up position on her piano and shuffled through them. She gave a low whistle. "Someone's gonna die. Several somebodies, if this is any indication."

"Who's the main enemy of the Transylvanians?" Kay inquired. Sea snorted and put down her very, very small glass of Scotch.

"Transylvanians?" she repeated. "Like, "I vant to drink your blooood" Transylvanians?"

He looked at her with a little condescending smile. "No, kid, like "I'm just a sweet transvestite" Transylvanians. Come on, you have to have seen that training film."

A horrible feeling was creeping over Sea. "........Tell me you're kidding."

Kay's smile grew wider. "Transsexual Transylvania." He pulled out a small silver thing that looked like a Palm Pilot and pushed a few buttons: starcharts lit up on the screen, and one planet in a distant galaxy was picked out in—what else?—pink. "It was discovered ages ago in the seventies, when it turned out that some Transylvanians had made unauthorized planetfall and were screwing around with the local population, literally. Fortunately we didn't have to step in—Transylvanian authorities took care of the problem for us. A sad story, but not without its catchy little tunes."

Sea looked at Millius helplessly. The Martian nodded, her long white hair cascading over her shoulders. "Fraid so, honey. They've come back since, but they're being less of a nuisance—although they've got a whole human following now, after that original, er, close encounter. And they've branched out now; they've just about given up on the absolute pleasure ideal and they've gone over into doom and gloom, because the overheads are lower. Moreover, it's easier to dress for; less in the way of spangles."

Sea swallowed her drink. "Okay," she said in the voice of one who is holding on to sanity with grim determination. "So.......who are their main enemies?"

Kay's hand tightened almost imperceptibly on her waist. "That's the problem," he said. "They have so many."

The Mertagensian wasn't much of a clue; Mertagense was one of the classic mercenary planets, where anyone with enough credits could buy themselves a nice little army. They'd work for anyone, anytime, for whatever reason, as long as they were paid in full. Zed had set the Twins searching for any and all information on the cardholders, but so far everything was coming up nonexistent. "They had to have been registered somewhere," said Sea crossly, "or otherwise even Jeebs's credit card machine would've rejected them, right?"

"One would think so," said Zed sourly, "unless our Mr. Jeebs is in this deeper than we thought. Cue!" he called over his shoulder. A balding man looked up. "Go and lean on Jeebs. We've got him in interrogation room four." Agent Q nodded and trotted off in the direction of the detention wing. Zed flopped into his chair and stared at Sea and Kay. "This is big, people," he said.

"It's always big," remarked Kay. He sighed. "Right, boss. Where do you want us?"

"Go find me that Mertagensian and take his weapon away from him."

Sea snorted. "You don't ask much, do you?"

Zed gave her a look. "You're the best. Elle and Jay are on the convention. I need you two on this."

Kay hooked an arm around her and pulled her out of Zed's office. "Come on," he said, "don't antagonize the boss right now."

She allowed herself to be led out to the LTD. He took the driver's seat, sliding in behind the wheel as soon as the motor-pool driver got out, and fished in the glove compartment for his cigarettes. "Kay?" she asked, putting on her seatbelt.

"Yeah?"

"You all right? I'm getting a lot of weird feelings here."

He squinted at her. "Yeah. I'm okay. Just a headache."

She stared back, then nodded as they drove off. Later she would realize what it was she had felt—sheer foreshadowing, nothing more complicated than that—and wish that her premonitions could be clearer.

Tracking the mercenary by his credit card was easier than it ought to have been; he clearly wasn't that well informed about Terran financial systems. Taking the weapon away wasn't.

They'd found him in the back room of a comic book store in Soho, flipping through a copy of Neil Gaiman's Brief Lives. Sea had to give him points for taste, although she was a little disappointed to see he had a whole collection of other comics tucked under his arm, most of them with titles like "Gloom" and "Anguish." He was, as Jeebs had said, beautifully disguised as a young, rather boring-looking human male, with spots and dreadlocks and pants that were fashionably too large. However, his mind.........the swirling neon-red strangeness of his mind that she'd felt from half a borough away—was a dead giveaway. She probed gently, trying to find where he had the weapon hidden—it was a little thing, barely the size of a Glock 9mm, but it could easily reduce most of New York City to a ghost town.

She hated having to do this, but it was necessary. Absently browsing among the romance comics, she took down a particular block and reached out to Kay—close by, his headache throbbing in little purple waves. She winced and kept it short. He's got the gun inside the disguise, close to his human waist. Laser stripper. Do it fast.

She could feel her partner's headache blossom as she touched his mind and she hurriedly drew back again, slamming down the courtesy blocks, still visibly engrossed in a copy of Passion's Burning Lust. One hand crept into her pocket and closed around the Cricket's grip.

Kay began to move towards the Mertagensian, apparently intent on the rack of Star Wars graphic novels behind him, and—as always—his attack was so swift even Sea, who was expecting it, jumped. He pulled a tiny silver device from his belt and triggered it as he lunged out at the Mertagensian, slitting the disguise neatly from chin to crotch. The whole thing was over so quickly Sea hadn't even seen the glow of the laser. The torn integument slid to the ground, revealing the spindly silicon-based form of the mercenary—and the silvery gun it had been concealing. Sea whipped out her Cricket as the Mertagensian made for the gun. Kay pulled his Series Four. "Drop it," she ordered the alien, in a clear form of Common. "Drop it and back away or you're interstellar dust."

She could sense Kay rolling his eyes—need to work on your threats, Grasshopper. The Mertagensian glanced from her to him, and she followed its gaze for a split second too long—and it had whipped out one long skinny limb, knocking the Series Four from Kay's grasp, and curled its claws around his throat, lifting him off his feet. She kept the Cricket trained on the node that held its CNS. "Big mistake," she said, as her vision swirled briefly.

"You drop it," it told her, squeezing. She fought against the waves of his pain and kept her gun steady. If she was lucky—if she was accurate and lucky—she could sever its nerves before it had time to spasm and close those claws any further. It was not holding the gun. Its claw was about three inches from the gun's grip. Kay's eyes were rolling up, but he wasn't struggling. She could hear his breathing, though, a tortured gasp.

"How about this," she said thinly, "you let my partner and the weapon go, and we all walk out of here alive?"

It all happened fast. Very fast. She kept the thought on a very tight beam, aware that Mertagensians had some background telepathic ability. Almost instantly, and in perfect unison, Kay swung himself backwards and knocked the alien's weapon from its holster with one clean kick as Sea darted forwards and fired the Cricket directly into the thing's CNS.

At that range the destruction was absolute and there was no time even for a spasm signal to be sent to those bright claws. The Mertagensian.....disintegrated. Sparkling shards of silicon pattered down around them; a scorched hole in the back wall of the shop revealed a surprised-looking alleyway full of trash cans.

Sea fell on her knees beside Kay. All around them the comic-book shop patrons were staring, mouths open, as parts of their favourite books happened right in front of their eyes. He lay perfectly still, and she could see the bruises already blossoming on his throat. The Cricket fell from her hands; she ripped off his tie and tore the top buttons of his shirt open.

"That," he croaked, not bothering to open his eyes, "was not one of our better moments," and went off into a fit of hoarse coughing.

"Shut up, dear," she said mildly, and burst into tears.

Half an hour later, she sat in the elevated office, her hands clasped to hide the way they were still shaking. She'd given her report after taking a protesting Kay to medical and making sure someone had a good look at him, and she had handed over the confiscated weapon, and was now sitting in an egg-chair feeling rather as if she was about to be executed.

Zed weighed the Mertagensian's gun in his hands for a long, thoughtful moment, and then put it down carefully on his desk. "Have this destroyed," he said to his office assistant. Sea watched the man flicker in and out of vision as he moved at a respectable fraction of lightspeed.

"Done sir! Anything else sir?"

"Get me a cup of coffee, would you? Viennese Cinnamon. With hazelnut." The assistant blurred out again. Zed fixed Sea with a look.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. The look deepened.

"Sea," he said. "You saved his life and several hundred thousand other lives. Shut up. The point I'm trying to make here is that by killing the assassin you also got rid of any hope we might've had of figuring out who hired him."

She returned his look. "Which would you rather I had done?" she inquired.

Zed dropped his gaze first. "Go on. Go take the rest of the day off."

She looked through the exam room window as a doctor she belatedly recognized as Elle helped Kay on with his shirt, and looked away again, hurrying out of the building. She stopped at a local bar and had three large scotches, one after another, before going home.

The bubble bath got rid of some of the tension aches, but she still had to use her migraine injector and spend the afternoon lying down in a silent dark room. It wasn't one of the super-extra-economy size headaches she'd had right after the accident, but it was about a seven point eight on the Richter scale, and she was jolly glad she hadn't had time to eat anything that day. Over and over again she saw Kay lying crumpled on the shop floor with those dark bruises blooming on his throat, saw the Mertagensian exploding into crystal dust.

Eventually she slept.

The doorbell woke her at nine-thirty at night. She jerked awake, staring into the darkness with eyes that no longer felt like red-hot curried marbles, and wondered where she was for a horrible uncertain moment. It had been three months since she'd stopped being Christine Redhart, but old habits died hard, and she had been so used to her old apartment that this one still felt odd.

Whoever it was at the door was being quite insistent. She swung her legs off the edge of the bed, cursing in a low continuous undertone, and put on a robe, padding out to the hall. "Who is it?" she demanded crossly.

There was a pause. Then, from the other side of the door, someone said huskily, "Damn, woman, you could at least sound pleased to see me."

She slid the chain off and opened the door, not knowing what to say. Kay was, as ever, wearing his impeccable uniform. She didn't know whether to slam the door or burst into tears, but he settled the matter for her by smartly inserting himself through the gap between her and the door and closing it behind him before taking her face firmly between his hands and kissing her until her ears rang.

"That's twice now," he told her, some time later, refilling their glasses. "You need to do something stupid so I can even the score." He still sounded awful, his voice raw and husky, but he didn't seem to be suffering in any other way. "First the Silar and now this."

"Oh, it's okay," she told him, a little dizzily. "No reparations are required."

He scowled. "Why'd you run off, earlier?"

"I......" She sighed. "Zed bawled me out for destroying whatever chance we had of finding the guys who hired him."

Kay looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "And you thought............"

"I don't know what I thought. I had a migraine coming on." She sighed. He scowled again.

"Why didn't you say?"

"What did you want me to say? 'I'm taking the rest of the day off cos I have a bit of a headache, oh, and incidentally I'm terrified of seeing you because I don't know what you're going to say to me when you do see me again......'" She hid her face in her hands, cursing. "Bugger, now you've got me drunk, and I can't help telling the truth."

"It's useful," said Kay, and took her hands away. "Shut up for a moment and listen to me, would you?"

She shut up. He was using The Voice.

"Thank you for saving my life again." He spat the sentence out in one go.

".....you're welcome...."

".....and don't you ever, ever run out on me again like that. I drove all over Manhattan looking for you in every bar and every goddamn coffee shop you go to, before giving up and coming here." He was still holding her hands. She looked up at him, completely lost for words, and he took the opportunity to kiss her again, firmly and with considerable skill.