A monstrous City, balanced atop a single building.

Started laughing. Didn’t know what was so funny or why he couldn’t stop.

Falling through cold air and couldn’t feel his legs.

Wondered how much this would mess him up.

6

The night half over. Something important slipping away?

Drank more whiskey, and let it swirl around his mouth. Held the burn in the back of his throat. Followed by numbness.

The sounds out in the dark beyond the window hadn’t made him shudder or start for a long time. Skitterings. Moanings. A cut-off shout of alarm.

A spotlight of lavender and crimson painted itself across the far wall of his apartment, then leapt away. Once, Finch had seen a shoal of spores take the form of a huge, bloated green monster. Spiraling red eyes. It had bellowed and dived into a neighborhood to the north.

Smashed itself into motes against the ground.

A child might see that and cry out in delight.

Sidle, quick-shadow, scuttled up the side of the wall near the window. Pursuing moths that had flown into the apartment. Sidle was a happy little predator with bright black eyes. Didn’t care about anything but his next meal. Finch could put him in a cage with a branch and water, and Sidle would be content his entire life. So long as he got fed.

“I guess we’ll soon find out what kind of bastard he was,” Finch said to an oblivious Feral. Feral was looking up at the wall. Mesmerized by Sidle’s stalking of the spiraling moth. Finch wondered how many Sidles Feral had caught over the years.

Finch forced the second bulb into his mouth. Chewed it into a dull paste as he moved from the chair to the couch. Lay down. Swallowed.

The room spun a little. Righted itself.

The ceiling had a few odd discolorations but nothing to suggest infiltration. Invisible spies. Who lived upstairs, anyway? Sometimes lately he had heard a person pacing across the floorboards in the middle of the night.

After a minute or two, Finch sat up. Nothing seemed to be happening. Nothing at all.

The dead man sat in the chair next to him, smiling.

“Uhhh!” Finch leapt to his feet.

The man was flanked by a Feral grown large as a pony. A Sidle grown as large as a Feral. They both looked at him the way Sidle had been looking at the moths.

“Sit down,” the man said. An order, not a suggestion. In a strange accent. The man looked much younger than he had on the floor of the apartment. Had lost the fungal beard.

Finch sat down slowly. Didn’t take his eyes off the man. Left hand groping across the cushions. Where was his gun?

“I’ve been waiting for someone like you,” the man said. “You won’t understand it, but I’m going to give you what I know. Just in case.”