Chapter 5

That night, after they had bunked down, Ghoul lay awake in his blankets and tried to make himself feel sleepy. He could hear coyotes giggling far out in the desert, and feel the great still weight of the wasteland pressing in on him. The city had never been so unbearably quiet, not even in the days of martial law when there had been a curfew in place. There had always been the comforting sounds of distant sirens or scattered gunfire. He had not known what loneliness was until he came here.

A shadow crossed in the darkness over his bed, and Ghoul moved on instinct, slipping his hand under the pillow where his pistol was hidden. A cool touch on the back of his wrist stopped him before he could draw.

"It's only me," Poison said softly.

Ghoul relaxed his grip. Poison lifted the edge of the blanket and got into bed beside him. The cot did not make any noise at all when it sank beneath his weight.

"What do you want?" Ghoul whispered. He moved over to give Poison enough room. The bed was small and they had to lay very close. He could see the pale curve of Poison's cheek, bluish and waxen in the darkness.

"I knew you weren't asleep," Poison said. "I could hear you breathing."

He slipped a knee up between Ghoul's legs; his thigh brushed briefly against his crotch, so fleeting that it could have been an accident. But Ghoul knew better than that. Poison did not make careless mistakes; there were no accidents where he was involved.

Ghoul felt his pulse thudding in his throat. He knew that Poison was watching him curiously, waiting for him to speak, but Ghoul couldn't think of a single thing to say. In desperation, he leaned over and tested a dry kiss against Poison's lips. Poison shifted against him, passing the tips of his fingers down Ghoul's side with deliberate slowness, feeling each individual rib.

"I didn't think you still wanted…" Ghoul didn't finish. His voice, though little more than a harsh whisper, had seemed loud to his own ears.

"Oh?" Poison's hand was at the level of his waist now. He slipped it beneath the hem of Ghoul's shirt, moving slow, so slow, but with glacial irresistibility.

"After that first time…" Ghoul gasped.

"You were afraid I had seduced you to my own ends," Poison said quietly. He caressed Ghoul's stomach; his fingers were very cold and delicate, and they felt good in the stifling heat. "To make you help me escape."

"Maybe," Ghoul said. He laughed weakly. It all seemed ridiculous now. "This feels like a dream. I wish it didn't. I want it to be real."

Poison's hand was at the crotch of his jeans, tugging at the zipper. Ghoul touched his wrist. "Wait. What if they hear us?"

"Why do you care what they think?" Poison said.

"I don't. I just…"

"They won't suspect a thing, as long as you're quiet."

There didn't seem to be any sense in arguing, not when Poison had his mind made up. Ghoul let his hand fall from Poison's wrist, and he lay back, still and tense. The pillow was hot and damp against his turned cheek. He wished he could flip it over to the cold side.

How trancelike, how unreal, the way Poison unhooked the button on Ghoul's jeans, spread the two wings of denim back and eased his cock out. His hand was cool on the shaft, stroking him. Not making a fist, but caressing him first with the hollow of his palm and then with the back.

Ghoul sucked in a sharp breath. It must have been louder than he thought, because Poison's free hand descended over his mouth. He turned him with silent tenderness, and pushed his face into the pillow. Ghoul jerked back against him, just once, his fingers curling restlessly in the sheets. His first impulse was to struggle, but he kept still. Poison's hand was on the nape of his neck, his fingers threaded up through his hair. He was very gentle. In fact, he was not hurting him at all, but in his touch there was no allotment for mercy or compromise.

Poison shifted, straddling him. His hips were up against Ghoul's thigh, and Ghoul could feel the hard ridge of his cock through his jeans. Ghoul's breath was coming faster now and his chest ached. A foul bitter taste flooded the back of his throat, like a premonition of panic, but he felt no panic, no fear at all. It was as if he had been purged of everything – all thought and emotion – save for the immediacy of Poison's hands.

Poison's weight half-resting on his back, Poison's hips grinding against his ass, Poison's hand moving in slow half-circles around the shaft of his cock... Ghoul trembled, ungainly ,beneath him, jerking his tensed hips mindlessly, his voice coming in senseless whimpers, smothered against the pillow.

He came, shuddering, and all the strength seemed to rush out of him. He didn't try to move, even after Poison had lifted the hand from the back of his neck. His face felt flushed and his throat ached. There was a dry heat building behind his eyes, but he did not recognize it for what it was until he had already begun to cry.

"Shit…" he gasped. He realized he couldn't breathe, and at last he lifted his face out of the pillow. "I don't know what… I've never…"

Embarrassed, he passed a trembling hand over his face. Poison touched his jaw, turning him for a kiss. Ghoul sobbed once, questioningly, against his mouth, and then he was quiet. He let Poison part his lips, slicking his tongue over the inside of his mouth. Without the hard, desperate edge to his kisses, he almost seemed like a different man. Shakily, Ghoul touched his face in the darkness, reassuring himself that it was the same smooth cheek, the same ragged unwashed fringe of hair.

Poison's hands moved quickly over the front of Ghoul's jeans, tucking him back in and buttoning him up.

"There," Poison whispered. He slipped out from under the blankets. "Good night."

"Goodnight," Ghoul said, but he didn't know if Poison was still there to hear.

The next morning, the telegraph woke him. Ghoul felt jittery and wilted, awkward in his own skin, as if he had spent the night in the grip of unsettling dreams. He got up in the bright chill of dawn and ran a hand through his hair to smooth it out. His tattoo itched maddeningly. Ghoul went behind the bar, where a wedge of cloudy mirrored glass still hung in the frame, and peeled back his collar so he could see it.

The scorpion stood out blackly against his livid skin. Ghoul ran his thumb over the tattoo and flakes of dried ink came off on his hand. He heard a whisper of movement behind him, and he turned to see Poison come out from the back room, barefoot and in his shirt sleeves. Without the bulk of his leather jacket and boots around him, he seemed deceptively small, as if there were not enough of him to fill the space he occupied in the air.

Ghoul did not look away quickly enough. Poison caught his eye and started over towards him. Ghoul turned back to the mirror, staring resolutely at his reflection as if he could sink into it and be lost. He heard Poison come up behind him; he looked distorted in the murky glass. At a loss for anything else to say, Ghoul tilted his head to show the tattoo.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"It's fine," Poison said. "If you like hepatitis."

He cupped the outsides of Ghoul's arms in his hands, and Ghoul felt a shudder run through him. "Last night…"

"Yes?"

Ghoul laughed hoarsely. "I don't know. I wish I understood you…"

"So do I." Poison leaned close, as if to kiss him, and Ghoul tilted his face back in anticipation of it. A soft sound, the decorous clearing of a throat, interrupted them.

Dr. Death stood in the doorway of the radio room watching them. Ghoul flinched away, but Poison did not surrender his hold on him. It did not seem to occur to him that he ought to be embarrassed or annoyed at the interruption.

"I thought this looked a little personal for the regular broadcast," Dr. Death said, thrusting a length of telegraph ribbon into Ghoul's hand. "I have to say something so he knows I got it – I have my journalistic integrity – but I figured I'd let you take a look first."

Ghoul smoothed out the crumpled paper in his palm. He'd never had much of a chance to learn to read when he was younger, but the note was short and the meaning plain. It didn't give him much trouble to make out.

COME HOME. ALL IS FORGIVEN.

And then, after the stop, was the name. He didn't even have to struggle to read it; in fact he could have guessed it even if it hadn't been there at all.

THE MANSKINNER.

Ghoul balled up the telegram and stuffed it in his pocket. He could feel Dr. Death watching him, calculating, taking the measure of him as if laying eyes on him for the first time.

"What?" Ghoul hissed.

"Nothing," Dr. Death said with a shrug. "I didn't know you knew Alexei, that's all."

They left The Killjoy before dawn with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their pistols.

Crow Jane fussed over them a little, and insisted on driving them out to the edge of the quarantined suburbs. It was pretty picked over these days, she told them, but they ought to be able to scavenge a car and some necessities.

The suburbs were ringed with a high adobe wall crowned with coils of barbed wire. Crow Jane circled around the perimeter until she found a gap where the bricks had crumbled inward. She got out with them, and stood hugging herself against the chill of the morning.

"It looks like a prison," Ghoul said. Through the gap in the wall, he could see nothing save dusty abandoned streets and the flaking facades of dozens of identical houses.

"It's kind of spooky when you first get inside," Crow Jane said. "But it's not that bad."

"Let's go," Poison said, pulling on his gloves and picking his way through the broken bricks.

Ghoul started to follow him, but Crow Jane caught his arm and pulled him back. She pressed a wad of bills into his hand. "Take this. You'll probably need it."

"I don't—" Ghoul started to say, but she shook her head sharply.

"Just take it. And be careful out there. You'll meet all kinds of people."

"Thanks," Ghoul said, but Crow Jane had already gotten back in the car. Ghoul shoved the money into the pocket of his vest and went to join Poison, who was watching him incuriously from just inside the wall.

"Are you ready?" Poison said.

"Yeah."

"Don't be afraid."

Ghoul jerked his head up, but Poison's expression was flat and unreadable. "I'm not… afraid," Ghoul said. "At least not of this. The only thing that scares me is slowing down. Not getting far enough away."

"Yes," Poison said. "That's what I meant."