Rouge pulled off the shoes, the socks, dropped the jacket on the sand, and ran to the water's edge. She stopped, tapped her foot on the sand: it pulsed blue under the impact. She dragged her foot: a streak of sapphire, bright as a comet, shined in its wake and stayed there for a long time. Her mouth fell open as she danced around, fascinated by the blue pulses that followed her every step.

She laughed, and squatted on the damp sand, pools of sapphire rippling under her feet. With her index finger she drew the number six. A mad idea occurred to her: she drew a treble clef, a foot-long five-line staff, three sharps, a time signature. And notes, yes! Over two dozen half-notes and quarter notes and whole notes made their way from Rouge's frenzied mind onto the sand.

She stood up to admire her composition. "Is this…." As her mind swam from tequila and reefer and the supernatural beauty around her, she groped for words. Shad had been right: a whole sky's worth of stars, in the sea, in the sand itself! She spun around and around in rapture as her homme approached, a proud, immensely pleased grin on his face. "Is this the universe?"

Shadow caught her in mid-spin, and his arms circled around her waist, his mouth and nose pressed into the back of her head. "Cheri, this is the galaxy. You're the universe." She felt the coarse white fluff of his chest press into her back, and she adjusted her vestigial wings to allow him closer. His head hammered madly against her; his hard hands gently rested on her lean belly. His voice grew low and husky, as if he were being choked by his own desire. "Do I dare disturb the universe?"

Three months ago, at a library a few miles from Jackson Barracks, she'd been searching for music sheets to add variety to her working nights, and he'd been reading T.S. Eliot. As she poured over some Stravinsky composition or other, she'd heard him ask that question, to her. She responded now as she did upon the first asking. "Roughly."

She'd started an older Louis Armstrong piece, a long, slow blues tune to match the general atmosphere of the US Army officer's club. Most of those attending were in their late twenties, with a few old salts in their mid-fifties sprinkled throughout. Most of them had cocktails or beers in hand, some had a lady on their arms, and all of them smoked. This added a visible haze to the air that dimmed the yellow-gold lamplights at each of the white-clothed tables. In her peripheral vision, she saw a major–a bulky, lime-green crocodile–watching her curiously from a booth as he smoked a short wooden pipe. She didn't meet his eyes.

The sapphire stars and waves danced in her mind, even as Rouge's fingers danced across the piano keys. But as she played, the sapphire stars of those two April nights on the beach, exquisite miniatures of her birthstone, brought her playing to a pause. Armstrong wouldn't convey how she was feeling now. She could afford to feel at gigs like this, where it was just her and the piano: there was no orchestra to deviate from, to confuse with spontaneous changes in how she felt. Here, it was just her, her fingers, and all the musical pieces she'd stored in her mind through endless practice. Her pause was momentary, no longer than a full rest, before she began playing again.

It was her and Bunnie's version of "Lili Marlene". Though she had no microphone, she still sang, her voice coming out silky and melancholic.

Underneath the lantern, by the barrack gate

Darling, I remember the way you used to wait.

'Twas there that you whispered tenderly,

That you loved me, you'd always be

My lily of the lamp-light, my own Lili Marlene.

Despite its wistful, nostalgic lyrics, the original version produced by the Krauts was a chipper, triumphant cadence, played with the brass accouterments of a military marching band. She could hear the restrained passion in poor Lale Anderson's voice whenever the song came over Radio Belgrade, straining against the militaristic straightjacket that weasel Goebbels had placed on her music.

Time would come for roll call, time for us to part

Darling, I'd caress you, and press you to my heart!

Twas there 'neath that far-off lan-tern light

I'd hold you tight, we'd kiss goodnight

My lily of the lamp-light, my own Lili Marlene.

When Bunnie had translated the lyrics, Rouge's first artistic decision was to slow the tempo significantly. Arranging the music for piano, saxophone, and snare drum came naturally after that. Bunnie had loved all of it: the jazzy nature of Rouge's version was an enormous middle finger to the Nazis, who despised jazz for its spontaneous, unregulated cadences, along with its origins and popularity among "non-Aryan" species.

I am all alone now, deep in the mud and cold

I drag my pack behind me, its weight I cannot hold

Your love for me re-news my might

It warms my hands, makes my pack light

It's you, Lili Marlene! It's you, Lili Marlene!

They'd meant to play it as a send-off to Alexandria, to give their faithful audience of British airmen and Axis POWs the appreciation they deserved. But the Stukas had taken that from them: after the air raid, she and Bunnie were hurried off to Delhi, just as the RAF had scheduled them. It wasn't fair.

Resting in our billet, just behind the line

Even though we're parted, your lips are close to mine

You wait where that lan-tern softly gleams

Your sweet face seems to haunt my dreams

My lily of the lamp-light, my own Lili Marlene.

My lily of the lamp-light, my own, Lili Mar-lene.

She casually scanned the room as she went into a solo, letting her subconscious play with the melody. She spotted Bunnie at the bar, chatting with a lean red wolf with eyes like chipped stone. Bernard Marx's words tapped her on the shoulder. Like meat. And what makes it worse, she thinks of herself as meat. What was it about officers that drew Bunnie to them? Was it their paychecks, which enabled them to wine and dine her as much as she liked? Perhaps it was some weird thrill, to seduce a ranking man and then move on to the next one?

Perhaps it was simply that Bunnie knew she could get as much attention as she wanted from any man, and had decided to make a game of it. Rouge knew that game: she'd played it well during her stripteasing days. Until Shad, she thought sadly. The library was a place where she felt she could be herself, the last place she'd expected a man to hit on–

Wait a minute. The wolf looked familiar. And a little old for her taste, Rouge noted. She realized that she'd seen him before: her parents collected pictures of that wolf, and used them as target practice. Douglas god-damn MacArthur.

In 1932, seventeen thousand veterans of the Great War–nicknamed "The Bonus Army"–had marched on Washington D.C. Their grievance? Congress had decided to delay paying their well-earned pensions until 19-goddamned-45, thirteen years into the future, while their families starved.

Douglas MacArthur had been put in charge of crowd control, and on then-President Hoover's orders, dispersing the protest altogether. The operation was a resounding success: five hundred US Army cavalry, a thousand police, and six Renault light tanks armed with heavy machine guns, promptly routed the Bonus Army. One of her father's old Marine friends, a fellow survivor of Belleau Wood, was knocked off his feet during the skirmish, and a tank crushed his right arm.

Rouge had been shocked by the grisly news, and had even talked to the poor man a year later. Even after her mother had kicked her out of the house, Rouge had retained her parents' opinion of MacArthur. That opinion now shot through her consciousness like cracks through a pane of glass: she hated MacArthur. Her desire to get up and leave clashed with the urge to get up and drag Bunnie away: the idea of her best friend sleeping with this repulsive wolf was just too–

One of her father's admonitions checked her anger. Cool it, girl. Professionalism kept her seated. She took a deep breath, in, then out, as her fingers comped a half-remembered melody. Cher, you've played for plenty other scumbags, and far worse men than him. As a speakeasy striptease, she'd entertained a few hitmen among the drunks; her boss had been a bootlegger too, with some vague connections to the Maranzanos in New York; and in Alexandria, she'd seen at least one SS officer among the Axis POWs.

She had to put her anger away, but where?

"Hungarian Rhapsody."

"Shad, there's five of them, which one?"

"Number Two."

"...That's the hardest one, cher."

"And it's the best one. Aren't you the best?"

Rouge finished her comping with a little musical flourish. Then she straightened on the bench, closed her eyes to see the sheet music in her mind, black ink on creamy, sulfur-scented paper. She began to play.

"How was your stay with SOE?"

"Exciting: they took me all over North Africa and a bit in Yugoslavia."

"Those Brit boys teach you anything useful?"

"Have you read my reports?"

"All of them. I want to hear it from you."

"Perhaps in your office, sir?"

"Now, Rabot."

Miss Rabot had been onstage when Shadow had gone to the bathroom. Fine woman. She wore a forest green, high-cut evening dress, with matching arm-length gloves, plus a jade pendant on a thin silver chain around her neck. Both dress and pendant brought out the startling green of her eyes. He hadn't heard her sing, but something told him she was an excellent crooner.

He washed his hands and longed for a stiff drink. For two and half hours, he'd suffered through the meeting with the Curtiss representatives, politely listening to Vector's haggling and their counter-haggling over which units should test their new fighter designs, should Uncle Sam award them the contract instead of Grumman. Few questions were thrown his way directly.

But glass after glass of Coke couldn't staunch the antsiness he felt; it just made him want to piss. Shadow had little patience for haggling, and he'd also discovered that he had no taste for his current assignment as his superior's showpiece. He checked his watch: it would be the same conversation in an hour or so, when the suits from Lockheed got here. Oh for fuck's sake.

"Mojito," Shadow ordered the bartender, a short, dark blue shrew with a pencil mustache. He hoped a mojito–and perhaps a Jack-and-Coke, or a scotch, or a beer or two–would take the edge off. More than anything, he regretted not bringing a book to take his mind off the tedium of it all.

As the shrew mixed and muddled his cocktail, he idly listened to the piano, its sad, sweet jazz somewhat dimmed by the dozens of conversations going on around him. With a little titter, the jazz died away. A whole rest, then…

Franz Liszt?

He glanced at the source of this unexpected appearance, and started. Is that…no, it couldn't be. Rouge had black hair and head fur, not the platinum blonde of the bat he saw at the piano. But damn, the resemblance was uncanny, he had to admit.

He listened, watched her carefully. No. That's her. The book of sheet music was closed, as were her eyes; she was playing strictly from memory. He could play a handful of patriotic songs and slower Armstrong tunes; his mother could run through a hymnal in her sleep; but Rouge was the only person he had ever known, who could commit the vast complexity that was "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" to memory.

Her smooth, graceful, tanned hands danced across the ivory keys. Her eyes remained closed, beginning to scrunch up. He knew that expression all too well: it was complete internal concentration, a focus so deep that it took a hard shake on her shoulder to bring her out of it.

Nostalgia tugged his lips into a small smile, while guilt creeped up his throat, into the back of his eyes. Damn, she's only gotten prettier. The platinum hair suited her much better than the black of yore. A gold chain necklace was draped elegantly over her collar to just above her breast, contrasting against the bright scarlet of her dress. He was also pleased that she'd retained that beautiful swimmer's body that had initially drawn his attention.

But in her performance, he saw something new. Where she once raucously joked and heckled her audience as she played, now it was like she was playing in a completely empty room. A true virtuoso, all of her attention was on the music.

"Would you like to start a tab, sir?" said the shrew.

"Sure." He picked up the cold glass, and turned his attention back to Rouge. Lime, rum, and sugarcane rolled down his throat as he sipped, and mint flowered up his palate into his nose.

A warm East Texan twang in his ear beside him. "See something you like?"

Shadow turned his eyes from Rouge at the piano, to Bunnie Rabot, so that's her voice. He was reminded a little of Patsy Montana, a voice he'd expect to hear yodeling over the prairie instead of crooning in a jazz-filled lounge. "Friend of yours?" he asked casually.

"My co-star," she said with a warm smile, "We're here all night."

"All night, huh?" He momentarily glanced back at the piano before continuing his line of inquiry. "Where'd you come from?"

"Oh, we flew in from Singapore a few days ago."

"I meant your hometown."

"Galveston," she said immediately, holding out a green-gloved hand. "Rabot, but a gentleman would call me Bunnie."

He took her hand and politely kissed it. "Leblanc. Most people call me 'Captain.'"

"Parlez vous, mon Capitaine Leblanc?"

Her accentless delivery of French, despite the clear twang of her English, pleasantly surprised him. "Oui. J'suis acadien."

Her smile broadened. "Thought you were." She lifted her martini from the bar and swirled it around before taking a sip. "Where's your hometown?"

"New Orleans."

"North side?"

"Downtown. My dad's from the north side." He was about to say more, when he realized that Rouge had finished the rhapsody's mellow, lassan introduction. He glanced back at the piano. Yes, that absolutely was Rouge sitting there: whenever she'd played this particular Liszt piece, she would allow two full rests to pass, to steel herself for the oncoming musical deluge. Her face would screw up into a look of mixed elation and dread, and then harden into the same expression every pilot wore during complex aerial maneuvers.

Though she waited two rests, the mixed look was not present tonight. The same virtuoso's mask she'd worn for the lassan, stayed firmly on as she moved into the friska. Her eyes remained closed as her long fingers danced. Shadow watched her, mesmerized.

Bunnie watched too. Then she chuckled, and spoke more to herself than Shadow. "I wonder what pissed her off this time?"

Shadow managed to tear his eyes from Rogue long enough to give Bunnie a questioning look. "That's pissed? Looks pretty stoic to me."

Bunnie smirked. "She thinks she can hide it, but she only plays classical when she's mad." She took a longer sip. "Especially when she trots out Liszt like that."

He looked back to the piano, suddenly feeling a trifle nauseated. Did she see me here? That was entirely possible. Over the past six years, he hadn't allowed himself to imagine what he or Rouge would do if they were to cross each other's paths; but in the back of his mind, he had imagined that she would be more…explosive, if she saw him again. The sip from his mojito turned into a thoughtful pull.

Rouge was in the rhapsody now, as a dolphin in the surf. Any anger she felt–toward MacArthur, Bunnie, Shad, her mother, or anyone else–translated into her hands. Her mind was clear and calm as an underground spring, projecting Liszt's masterpiece onto the back of her eyelids with a clarity that no film, color or otherwise, could ever hope to match. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

"She's Cajun too ya know," Bunnie told him, "Found her in Baton a couple years ago." She got closer to him, to lower her voice: "Poor girl got thrown out of her gig, for having a drink on the job." She shook her head. "I don't blame her, all the shit she's put up with."

"What kind of shit?" Shadow felt his tongue turning to lead.

She shrugged. "I don't know exactly. She keeps changing the story every time I ask. One day she tells me her husband beat her, then she tells me her boyfriend chased after some Biloxi cotton baron's daughter…" She sighed as she took another sip, before continuing her narrative.

Shadow swallowed, his gaze slowly turning from Bunnie, back to Rouge. Guilt burned his vocal chords. Rouge, what happened? Did she really try to replace him that fast? Did he break her so badly, that she would marry a hood that would do that to her? He resolved to find that rotten bastard's address. You'd have to talk to her first, Shad.

"...and this morning she–" Bunnie suddenly looked sharply at Shadow, as if he had suddenly appeared to her from thin air. Shadow heard the break in her speech, and turned to see the offended astonishment growing on her face. "You're Butter Bars?"

Shadow frowned. "I'm sorry?"

Chilled vermouth and gin splashed on his face, ran stinging into his eyes, soaked his quills and uniform shirt. "You sick bastard," Bunnie hissed, before she stormed away.