“For what?” Lonnegan asked.

“For what?” Mendelberg’s voice rose to a near shriek. “To fix these.” She turned her head so that her audience could see her filmy ears straight on. “To become human!”

“Goddamn,” Lonnegan said. The Angel couldn’t find it within herself to rebuke her as comprehension struck them all. “You betrayed your people and your honor because you wanted plastic surgery?”

“I deserve it!” Mendelberg screamed, and the ghost rose right out of the floor before her.

The Angel recognized him immediately. It was the gunman who’d escaped from Jamal’s hotel room by slipping away through the floor. He was a plump five-foot-six or so, with fat cheeks, protruding watery blue eyes, and clothes that looked like they came from a parody movie about the disco era. He wore a glittering puce—she guessed—shirt of some hideous synthetic material that clung disturbingly to his rotund figure, tight pants, ditto, and shiny black patent leather half boots. He looked pissed, and drunk, which was a bad combination. He stared at Mendelberg, one of his guns pointing at her, while he tried to cover the Angel and the others with a second.

“Son of a bitch!” Mendelberg screeched, and opened fire.

Bullets flew like angry wasps, right through his chest and torso while Angel, Lonnegan, and Stevens ducked for cover. Mendelberg emptied her magazine, to no avail. The hit man, as he tried to cover everyone, spotted and recognized the Angel for the first time.

“You killed my Andrei!” he shrieked in a voice that was so heavily accented that he sounded like Boris Badonov from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons that she loved when she was a child.

“No I didn’t,” the Angel said as calmly as she could. She would have been more afraid if she hadn’t noticed that she could sort of see through his guns, much like you could sort of see through his body. She hoped Lonnegan and Stevens had noticed the same thing.

“You lie.” His hand was not exactly steady and his words were somewhat slurred. At least she thought they were, and not just oddly accented.

“She’s telling the truth,” Lonnegan said.

“Shut up, you unnatural creature!” the Russian hit man ordered, his attention and his gun wavering between the two women.

“What?” Lonnegan said, baffled.

“Woman police!” he exclaimed. “Is unnatural! Here or in Mother Russia. No woman tells me what I can do! I spit upon you useless creatures.”

Lonnegan groaned. The man was stark mad, the Angel thought. Mad, drunk, and as dangerous as hell was real.

“I am telling the truth,” she said, trying again. “He’s in the hospital.”

“You put my Andrei in the hospital!” he cried, revising his accusation. “Which one? I will go to him!”

“Hey!” Lonnegan barked. “Over here, Rasputin.”

The Russian veered crookedly, focusing on her. Stevens was crouched on the floor, hand clapped to his upper right arm. One of Mendelberg’s wild shots had clipped him. He was grimacing, but was much more cogent than Mendelberg, who stood in place, wide-eyed and chest heaving, still pulling the trigger, which was clicking away uselessly.