The huge drug mushrooms transformed. Hoods drawn down to the ground, the red surface once so soft become hard as brick. Wavering lines of green energy sparked from their minaret-like tops. Shot out toward the green towers. Gray caps stood watch from tiny circles of windows. Across the sides of each stem, unending repetitions of the symbol Shriek had carried with him on the scrap of paper. Over and over again in a kind of madness. No flow of food or drugs now. No pretense of even caring. Just a sense of waiting. For what?

He took a side street, then an alley. Crept through a courtyard and walked into an apartment complex as a shortcut. Kept his face turned to the wall. If someone wanted to kill him, they could.

Finally reached the hotel steps. The madman lay sprawled there. Someone had slit his throat. His arms were thrown out to either side as if in welcome. Just another body. Already a sly fringe of tiny green-and-white mushrooms had sprouted up through his pant legs, his shirt, his face. In another day, he’d be a fucking flower bed.

Next to the madman’s left hand Finch saw a little round carving. He picked it up. Crudely drawn, but unmistakably Stark’s face, with its sharp features. The deep-set eyes.

Rathven telling him, “You have to choose a side, Finch. Eventually you have to choose a side, even if you pretend to be neutral. Even if you think giving out information is like selling smokes or food packets.”

Through his fuzziness, a terrible thought.

Dropped the carving. Hobbled fast up the steps.

At Rathven’s door. One more time. Only it was open now. Had forced the Lewden Special into his left hand, over the bandaged finger. Held the sword in his right.

Hobbled inside, trying to focus his fading attention. Through the hallway. Entered the room ringed by bookshelves. In one chair, facing him, Bosun. He’d abandoned his custom-made revolvers. Held a fungal gun on Rathven. Her back was to him, but he could see her raised arms. The glint of her own monstrous revolver. A standoff.

“You are fucking late,” Bosun said. “We’ve been waiting for a while.”

Didn’t reply. Just walked around until he stood to the right side of them both. Bosun’s bald head was bloodstained. Other people’s blood? A yellowing bandage over his shoulder where Finch had clipped him. A nervous tic working its way across the corner of his left eye. Wore a dark shirt and darker pants, tucked into boots. Taken from a Partial? Some perverse form of camouflage?

Rathven was pale but composed. Gaze never wavering from Bosun. The battered old gun trembled only a little in her grip. A smell of sweat and fear came from both of them.