“She’s come back… My mother’s come back. She—I should have washed. I wanted to wash. She can smell the blood on me. She’s here…” His eyes jittered away, turned back to Gini, turned back to the bed.

“You…” He gave Gini a kick. “Check the bed. Pull that cover back—the pink one. It’s moving—Christ, it’s fucking moving…”

Now, Pascal thought as Gini rolled out of Star’s reach and sprang to her feet. As she moved to the bed, and reached for the cover, Pascal lunged forward fast, two feet, three feet. Star was still pressed back against the wall, white to the lips. He was trembling from head to foot, the gun wavering back and forth. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. From above them came a long bumping, slithering movement. Gini was twitching the pink bedcover aside. In a low voice she said, Oh my God, and one split second before Star pulled the trigger, Pascal fired the flash.

The room exploded with light and noise. The room was splitting apart. Pascal dived. He felt his right shoulder crunch into Star’s rib cage. He had started firing before Pascal hit him, and he went on firing as he fell. Pascal was blinded by the noise, the bursts of fire, the horrible abattoir screaming from Star’s mouth. As he fell, Pascal kicked his gun arm and Star gave a scream of pain. There was a burst of fire, an explosion of glass. Metal spun through the air as the gun flew out of Star’s hand, then Star’s fist was smashing into his mouth.

He tried to shout to Gini—he couldn’t see Gini, and she might have been hit—then Star slammed into him again, grabbing at his throat, digging his fingers into the artery in his neck. Ten seconds of that pressure and he’d lose consciousness: Pascal jerked his knee hard up into Star’s crotch, felt him sag and grunt with pain, and the grip of his fingers relaxed. He got in one more good punch, low in the throat, and Star reeled, then grabbed. They crashed back against the pictures on the wall, slammed into a chair, into one of the small fragile tables with which this apartment was filled, then crashed to the floor. Pascal fell awkwardly, one leg twisted behind him—and that second’s disadvantage was all it took. In an instant Star was on his feet again. He kicked out viciously, and pain shot down Pascal’s arm, across his ribs. He almost blacked out, started to rise, watched the room spin and tilt, then a woman’s voice, a voice he hardly recognized, said: “You kick him again, and you’re dead.”

Pascal thought: merciful God, poor Gini. He was trying to push himself to his feet, pain shooting through his arm. He knew the arm, his right arm, was broken, and the film was slowing, he could see with a hideous slow-motion clarity what was going to happen next. Star had become still, and suddenly intent. A slow smile lit his face.