“It’s not Worecski,” Skinner shouted. “You want to know for sure? Ride him — it — oh, God damn! Ride it and see!”

She stood over me, her face wild. The muzzle of the rifle was almost against my lips. Then hot white pain blossomed in my chest, my head, pierced my eyes and ears and made me deaf and blind. Consciousness didn’t slide away; it just stopped.

And was back. I had barely enough warning to turn my head before I threw up. My head was too heavy for my neck, and both of them were too much for my shoulders. I slumped against the wall. That hadn’t been anything like before, when I’d been… when Mick… I couldn’t think it, I’d be sick again.

Frances was still in front of me, her feet planted wide, the rifle in her hands. She was the color of raw bread dough, and her face and arms shone with sweat. She shook her head and turned away, walked across the room to the desk, and laid the rifle on it. Then she braced both hands on the desktop.

“He’s not there,” she said, her voice muffled. I wondered if it was her voice or my ears. Mick stood watching her, and I thought he might be preparing to do something, though I didn’t know what. “But one of us has to be riding. The chevaux were empty, no personality, no mind. Just a carcass. It’s a cheval, but there’s a mind on it, so it must be one of us. But it’s not Tom Worecski. And if it’s not… ” She straightened up, and her right hand reached, shaking, for empty air. ”… then I don’t know where he is.”

Slowly, tidily, she folded up; Mick caught her before her head hit the floor.

“Oh, Frances, you never did know much about people. Including you.” Mick turned to me, and there was nothing on his face to say that he didn’t spend every day in scenes like the one we’d just played. “It’s only exhaustion,” he added.

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the woman in his arms. I wanted to say something rude, but couldn’t mobilize more than a stare.

“She was always like this. Like a damn guided missile — once she launched herself at something, she couldn’t stop or slow down or change direction. We used to call her Redline. I’ll bet she hasn’t let this body sleep for a couple-three days.”

He got her over his shoulder and stood up with a grunt. “I’ll put her on the bed.”

“No.”

He stopped and blinked at me.

“She was about to shoot me in the face. Leave her where she fell. If she gets a crick in her neck, I’ll cry buckets.” Then I remembered that the crick would be in someone else’s neck. But Frances would feel it… Papa Legba, no wonder they’d gone nuts.

Mick frowned, but lowered Frances gently back to the floor. Her black hair had swung forward when he’d picked her up; strands were caught in her eyelashes and over her lips. Mick smoothed them back, his long brown hands light and careful, as if he were afraid of marking her skin. “She’s not… It sounds stupid, but she’s not so bad. For one of us. She was crazy, but she wasn’t vicious.”