Alice ran through the streets. A few rusty pickup trucks and low-riders painted her way with headlights. The city was dark; it was the dead of night. The receding screams of fire trucks let her know that her work in the outreach office had been discovered. Perhaps ol' Johnny had talked to the cops. She wondered what they would think of his story: that he had gotten his ass handed to him by a girl. A dead girl at that; one who he had helped to murder.

She could feel herself slipping. Violence had never been her path before. Sure, she'd learned to shoot shotguns and pistols before – this was Texas, after all. She'd gone out once with her brothers to track down a rabid dog that was prowling around, but that hadn't been violence as much as self-protection. It wasn't pretty, but life often wasn't. A quick death for a suffering creature had seemed the most merciful thing they could do.

Now, however, images of blood and pain flicked through her head. What she had done to John Biden didn't bother her in the least. She had broken his bones, shed his blood, thrown him out a window, and set his home aflame. And she felt no guilt at all. Only when she stopped to consider what she had done did it occur to her that she ought to feel bad. But she didn't.

It was a curious sort of parallax. She knew she ought to feel mercy, compassion, guilt. They'd always been there. Not anymore; they had slipped away like a long number she could no longer remember. She could only sense their absence through conscious thought. Her only reason for existing was for vengeance.

She had become something very different from what she had been.

She wanted her humanity back. All of it. She wasn't just a mindless machine for violence. She wouldn't be. If she had to take it back by force somehow, she would.

Jade's address was burned into her mind. She had to see Jade. She had to see what the Lambs had done to her. Biden had said they hadn't killed her, but that left a fair amount of room.

Houston had a fairly good-sized inner city, just like any big city. There was always a place where the poor and unwanted ended up. Even so, it didn't take her too long to reach the street on which her friend lived. No one bothered her along the way. There were a few shadows that moved and watched her as she went, but perhaps the bulge on her hip, along with the air of danger that hung around her, suggested that there would be easier prey elsewhere.

The building itself was low to the ground and blocky. It was grimy and covered with graffiti tags, like bestial markers of territory. The fire escape looked strong enough. Alice grabbed the ladder and felt pocked metal scratch her palms. It didn't hurt, though. Nothing did.

Her own strength faintly surprised her. She'd never been the wussy type, but the sheer speed and simplicity with which she scaled the fire escape surprised her. It seemed she could rip it right off the side of the building if she wanted to.

Alice made the third floor and cocked her head. The Crow landed on a metal bar and looked at her quizzically. She wasn't doing what it wanted her to do. She didn't care. There would be ample time for that.

The apartment inside was dingy. The furniture was thrift-store castoffs. The carpet was pocked with cigarette burns and stains. That was odd; Jade had always been neat. The window was locked and surrounded by bars. She tried one experimentally, and it was sturdy even if rusty.

Applying more force took care of that. The bar bent in her grip, crying out as she broke it from its mooring and pulled it backwards to get at the window inside. The bar on either side followed suit, and she had enough space to slip through. The window was locked, too, but the lock could not hold up against her strength any more than the bars had.

Her leather coat rustled as she slipped through the window. Inside, she looked around. There was a battered TV set on a crate. There was a couch covered with a cheap blanket. Cigarette smoke hung in the air, smelling metallic and unpleasant. Her nostrils flared. On an endtable, a remote control and a Styrofoam cup waited.

A metallic click crossed her ears, and she turned. Down the hall, a figure stood. Alice leaned closer and narrowed her eyes.

"Jade?" she asked.

The figure in the hall stood only four feet tall, it seemed. It seemed boxy and inhuman. In one hand it clutched a pistol, aimed directly at her. Alice wasn't afraid of the gun, but the figure would have no reason to know that. Then it moved forward silently, almost seeming to glide rather than walk.

"Jade?" she repeated.

"How the hell do you know my name?" the figure challenged.

Alice put a hand to her face, wondering if the makeup rendered her unrecognizable. The figure moved forward again, and Alice gasped.

Jade had been a blonde, pretty girl. She'd been born in the same small Texas town as Alice to hippyish parents. She'd made the jump to Houston shortly after Alice and Chris had left, hoping for better things. Alice remembered her as full of life, vibrant, eager to make her mark on the world.

The woman staring at her was far more careworn and harried. Her face was pinched and pale. Her lips were pressed together; her eyes burning with distrust. In her hands, she held an automatic pistol with the bore firmly centered on Alice's head.

She wore a dirty T-shirt and cheap denim shorts. Her legs were shriveled and stick-thin. Alice stared at them helplessly, overtaken by shock.

Jade took her left hand off the pistol and reached down to grab the wheel next to her. She gave it a sharp push and rolled forward. Her eyes, and the muzzle, never left Alice. She rolled the wheelchair forward into the light.

"Get the hell out," she said angrily. "There's no rock here, no cash, nada. Get out of here or I'll blow your brains out."

Wheelchair. Wheelchair. Alice's mind gibbered, caught on that like a fishhook. It was the greatest shock since her resurrection. Jade was in a wheelchair. A fucking wheelchair.

"Jade...it's me. Alice," she whispered, and reached out a hand.

Her answer was the report of the pistol, and then something immensely strong and powerful whacked her head. It was like being hit with a baseball bat while wearing a helmet. There was no pain, but there was an immense crack she could both hear and feel. Her left eye turned to jelly, and she could feel the nauseating invasion of the slug traveling through her eye and cheek into her brain. She fell to the ground as if poleaxed.

Yet before she hit the ground, the eldritch powers were already at work, as unconscious as sight. Her cheek began to knit itself back together. She lay on the cheap carpet for a moment and then opened her newly born eye. She stood up and sneezed. A small piece of lead expelled itself from her nose and rolled underneath the carpet. How lovely, Alice thought.

Now fear joined anger on her friend's face.

"Jade, dammit, it's me," Alice said.

The muzzle shook. "Alice?" Jade quavered.

Alice nodded.

"But you -- I saw -- you died -- what the hell?"

Alice shrugged. "I don't know," she said judiciously. "How the hell are you in a wheelchair?" She took a step forward. "What happened?"

Jade's cheek twitched. She put the pistol down and stared at Alice with disbelieving eyes.

"You're dead," she breathed. "Alice, I saw...I was there at the hospital...I was there at your funeral...," she shook her head. "You can't come back from that. You just can't."

Alice indicated the crow on her shoulder. "The crow did it," she said.

Jade's eyebrow raised. "A bird brought you back?"

Yeah, and he has a skeleton handyman who's been making snotty comments too. She stepped forward and held up her hands. "Jade, I don't know the how. I just know that I'm here, and I know what I have to do." She stopped and took a moment to try and gather her thoughts. "But I needed to see you."

Jade shook her head wonderingly. "Well...here I am," she said bitterly.

"Who did it?"

"Who d'you think?"

"The Lambs." Alice's voice was flat.

Jade nodded. "Oh, they broke in. Had a baseball bat and worked me over but good. Four big, strong boys. They said God had told them to punish me for encouraging people to leave." Her eyes rimmed in pain. "Tried the cops, but they didn't believe a bunch of clean-cut God-fearing white boys could do anything. Nothing happened."

Alice closed her eyes. In some dim way it occurred to her that it was good that she could feel pain; it meant that some piece of humanity remained to her. But most of her mind was furious and hurt and regretful. How could men do this? How could they do this and say God told them to do it? What God could demand a young woman's spine?

Her conscious mind didn't even register taking three sweeping steps across the room to her friend, nor grabbing her arms. She only heard the rustling of her coat and felt her friend in her grasp. She didn't quite understand herself what she was doing. But she knew she could, in some instinctual, inexpressible way.

She could sense her friend's heartbeat even though she held Jade by the arms. She could feel a great, sweeping void below her friend's ribcage. It was neither sight nor touch nor her own dead nerves that told her. She never could have explained how she felt it, only that she did.

Energy shifted within her. She could feel something coming from her own grip into her friend's body; in return something cold and retching and painful came from Jade to her. It was inexplicable, beyond her experience as human or revenant. Not sex – not even close -- but something even older and elemental. Alice drew the cold thing into herself and gave the energy to her friend.

Now, there was pain, real physical pain. It was as if some evil soul had kicked her in the stomach and doused her in icewater. Her knees jellied and she sank to the floor. She trembled and felt as if she might vomit. She raised suddenly helpless arms to her face.

Jade stared down at her from the chair for a few moments. Then, with the monkeylike speed of long practice, she grabbed the arms of the chair, lowered herself to the ground, and propped herself up on her hands. She pulled herself over to Alice with a wiry strength that was surprising to watch.

"Alice...how the hell did you do that?"

Alice swallowed mightily to keep from retching. "Do what?" she choked.

Jade stared at her own toes with an expression of almost ridiculous intensity. They moved slowly back and forth. She grabbed the couch and pulled herself up to a kneeling position, then slowly tottered to her feet. She stared at Alice in perfect befuddlement.

"That," Jade said. "Alice...I was paralyzed. I haven't done that since just before you died. They told me I would never walk again." Her legs, still stick-thin, collapsed under her like a gazelle's. She sat down on the floor. "How did you do that? And what the hell happened to you?"

"I don't know," Alice admitted, and tried to pull herself up. She wasn't paralyzed herself; her legs worked. It just felt like she'd taken a massive blow. Her strength had been drained away like a vampire's victim. The crow looked at her with disapproval and cawed. It flew out the window and landed on the fire escape. Its meaning was clear.

"I have to go," Alice said, and grimly tried to gain her own feet. They trembled, but she could stand up. How was she supposed to do anything like this?

"Should I call a doctor?" Jade asked, baffled.

Alice shook her head. "You shot me in the head and I blew the bullet out my nose. What would a doctor do?"

"Listen," Jade said. "Just...stay a while, stay until you feel better, Jesus H. Christ, I don't understand any of this--,"

Alice held up a hand. "I have to go," she repeated. "I wasn't supposed to come here. I...I have things I have to do. I'm sorry." She essayed a weak smile. "At least I got to see you again," she said.

She staggered out onto the fire escape and gasped. How was she supposed to do anything? She felt drained. Climbing up the fire escape had been simplicity itself; climbing down seemed an unattainable obstacle.

Somehow, she made it over the fire escape. One foot touched the ladder. The other slipped, and suddenly she was tumbling in space, only cheap laundry hung on clotheslines meeting her questing, numb fingers. She fell like a rock, and the asphalt seemed to tumble when she hit the ground.

She lay in the filthy alleyway, gasping, wondering if she could ever walk again. Would she spend eternity here in these dirty surroundings? It seemed so.

The sound of sprung bootheels clocking along the asphalt touched her ears. She was not surprised to see the dark eyeholes of the Skull Cowboy peering down at her.

"What have you done?" he asked roughly.

"I don't know," Alice said weakly. "My friend...she was...in a wheelchair...they...,"

The Skull Cowboy sighed. "Quit fucking around," he said. "The problems of the living are not your problem. Do your job."

"I couldn't leave her like that," Alice said, and let her head fall back against the pavement.

The Skull Cowboy shook his head. "Dammit," he said. "You do not understand. Who you were...your friends...your family...none of those things mean anything anymore. You are here to serve the Crow. Do its bidding."

"Fuck you," Alice said, unable to think of anything wittier to say.

The Skull Cowboy bent down and removed something from his boot. She tilted her head and saw he held a slim boot knife, the point gleaming between his bony fingers. The edge looked wickedly sharp. Moonlight skittered along the blade. With a deadly grace, the Skull Cowboy threw it.

The blade entered her stomach. It didn't hurt, but she could feel it there. She glared up at him.

"Having fun?" she spat.

"Teaching a lesson," he replied. "Pull the knife out."

She complied, fighting the brief but strong urge to reach up and stab him right in his bony ass. Instead, she simply tossed the knife to the ground and looked at him. The wound closed up as it always had, leaving no trace.

"What happens to you in battle is undone. What you give to the living...that stays gone." He crouched down by her and leaned over her as if to kiss her with his lipless mouth. She could smell the spoiled-cinnamon scent of decay and recoiled.

"You have to listen," he said urgently. "Your days of playing with dollies are over. You are not one of the living! They can only drain you. The Crow is your master now."

"I couldn't leave her like that," Alice said, trying to get mad, trying to find any source of energy.

"Look where it got you. Weak as a kitten. You should have left her. Leave her now. She lives. You don't."

The crow landed on a dumpster nearby and cawed insistently. Both figures turned to look at it. The Skull Cowboy sighed.

"Very well," he said heavily.

He reached down and grabbed her arms, and Alice felt something in that grip. It seemed the reverse of what she had done in Jade's apartment. The flow of energy was reversed. Now the cold weakness left her, replaced by rapidly increasing strength. After a few moments he let go, and she was able to stand up again – strong again and renewed.

The Skull Cowboy staggered. Automatically, Alice reached out and grabbed his arm, thinking only a few moments too late it might come off in her hand.

"You all right?"

The Skull Cowboy sighed. "The crow will restore me in time," he said.

"What did you do?" Alice asked.

"I took your mistake for my own. Replenished you from what you gave to the girl upstairs. I gave to you from my strength."

She was silent for a few moments, aware that she could only understand what he was talking about in the sketchiest way.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

The Cowboy shrugged. "This is your mission, not mine," he said thickly. "Now. Go back to where you came from. One of the men you seek is here."

The crow looked at her and cawed as if to verify what the Skull Cowboy said. Alice nodded slowly.

"Go," he said. "Go...and shed their blood."

For a long moment Alice wondered what she had become, and what might lie ahead. The crow took off and began to flap its wings, flying down the alley to the street.

She abandoned her thoughts and followed it.