"I'll have that one," said the voice in the blue track-suit. "She looks fucking hot."

Rachaela saw his eyes, as if from miles away. They were blind, yet they could see.

Where was the road, where were the cabs and the protection now?

/ was raped before.

I'll just have to put up with it.

Althene said, musically, "Run along, boys."

The boys stood there, looking at them, not laughing now, and not running.

CHAPTER 30

ALL CITIES WERE THE SAME. The first was the blueprint for them all. There were the high places, lighted and mobile with traf-fic, the sumps of darkness where the thick mist crawled. Through them ran rivers, to which steps sloped down, and under the rivers lay the dead, as they lay under the streets.

Malach walked.

He was silent, but behind him, more silent still, the two ghosts of the dogs padded. Sometimes they would pause to examine some odor or essence. Sometimes they slipped a little ahead. Then they would wait for him, nose his hands, and fall back once more.

Malach moved out of time.

Once or twice, pedestrians passed him. Startled and wary in the fog, they stared or averted their eyes, for in this atmosphere he was even more inimical, and more correct. Dark and fog might have made him up.

The fog had crossed the river now, knitted over.

Phantom things slid along the water. Lamps like moons rose, melted, and set.

Malach turned from the bank, down among the side streets.

Beyond the last lamp, a stretch of shadow. In the shadow, a voice. Not loud, quite reasonable.

"Give us yer bag."

And then a dog barked, the noise the product of a small barrel chest.

Malach stopped, and Enki and Oskar came up to him like two drifts of mist.

Down in the shadow, a breathless woman said, "I haven't got much. It won't help you."

"What you got?" asked a second voice.

"A couple of pounds—"

"Let's see."

"No, please. It's my bag. It's private."

The dog barked again.

"Keep your rotten dog off," said the first voice.

The second said, "You scared of that! I tell you, lady, I'm going to kill your dog. I'll skin it."

It was possible to see into the shadow, after all.

The woman was fattish, with glasses, and not young. The dog stood at her ankle, waiting to defend her, trembling. It had a round white and tan body and pointed fox's ears.

The black youth aimed a playful mock kick at it, and it cowered away. It was in the worst predicament, the dog, a coward wanting to be brave.

The white youth spat. "Fucking ugly dog, that is, missus. Better off out of it."

"Please—" said the woman. She pulled the dog back by its lead, as if she would pull it into her fat body.

"Yeah, I'll skin the fucking white dog," said the black boy. He had a knife now, the shadow-fog reflected on it wetly.