Four sets of shoes clattered across the pavement. Three stopped well short of where I lay – they spoke in hushed tones, their words lost to me on the breeze. The fourth approached me, blotting out the morning sky as he hunched over my crumpled form. He was fuzzy, hard to see – as if lit from within. I was pretty sure that wasn't just because of the crack I took to the noggin. My breath caught in my chest. My vision dimmed. I tried in vain to stretch my consciousness, to find myself another vessel, but the effort was too great – all I got for my trouble was a searing pain between my temples and the copper scent of blood prickling in my sinuses. Sirens, faint as hope, echoed in the distance. In that moment, I didn't care I was a fugitive – I just prayed they'd be in time. Whatever these guys wanted with me, it wasn't good, and it's not like I was gonna go down swinging.
'Is it dead?' called one of the stragglers.
'No,' replied the one above me. 'It lives.'
'Come, Ahadiel. We have to go. Perhaps next time, we will finish him.'
And then, sirens drawing closer, they fled.
I woke by degrees. The first thing I was aware of was my leg, which throbbed in time with the beating of my heart. Next came the sirens. They were everywhere, reverberating off the walls around me. I opened my eyes. Light flooded in, and my head erupted in whitehot pain. I clenched them shut again and retched. That meant concussion. Explained the fuzziness.
Again I opened my eyes, slowly this time. My stomach clenched, but I didn't vomit. It was progress. I looked around. I was lying in a broad trash-strewn alley, tucked between a dumpster and a loading dock.
And I wasn't alone.
By instinct, I tried to find my feet, but my hip felt heavy and out of joint, and my leg couldn't take the weight. I got to one knee before collapsing to the ground with a scream.
'Quiet,' said the young man who sat beside me, nodding toward the mouth of the alley – toward the source of the sirens. 'They'll hear you.'
He was a wiry kid of maybe twenty-three, in a tattered army surplus jacket and dirt-smeared jeans. His pallor was gray, his face gaunt, his black hair was longish and matted. His eyes darted this way and that, looking anywhere it seemed but at mine. His frame and clothes suggested homeless. His furtive gaze suggested crazy. In his hand he held a knife, matte brown with rust and filth.
Christ, I thought – this day keeps getting better and better.
'What makes you think I don't want them to hear?'
'You told me. In my head.'
I eyed him, suspicious. 'I did.'
He nodded. 'In my head, I heard you calling. Afraid. Trying to escape. So I came to help.'
'Look, about that – I appreciate the help, but I really gotta go.'
'You are not who you are.'
My heart skipped a beat. 'Come again?'
'You are not who you are,' he repeated. 'Your body – it fits you funny, like borrowed clothes. And the voice you used to call me is not the voice you use now.'
The kid rocked back and forth as he spoke, and still his gaze avoided mine. It was clear he wasn't quite right in the head – but could he really see me?
I rested my weight against the loading dock and stretched my consciousness toward him – probing, testing. The pain in my head redoubled as I struggled to focus. My body went slack as I pulled away. My vision dimmed.
I brushed against his mind, and he flinched as if stung. I settled back into the Friedlander body. The kid stared at me with wide-eyed terror.
'That isn't very nice,' he said, shaking his head, his knife held ready between us. 'My head is crowded enough already.'
'I'm sorry.' My hands were raised palm-out, my tone placating. 'It's just that most people, they can't see me. What I am. Their minds won't let them.'
He scowled. 'You thought I was crazy.'
'Of course not!'
'Everyone thinks I'm crazy. I guess maybe I am. But the pills, they dull everything. The tastes, the smells, the sounds. They reduce it all to ash. You ask me, I think crazy seems the saner option.'
'Listen, kid, you got a name?'
'My mother called me Anders.'
'Nice to meet you, Anders. Mine called me Sam. You think maybe we could do without the knife?'
He looked down at the knife in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and then at me. From his jacket Anders produced a makeshift scabbard of duct tape; he slid the blade into the scabbard, and both disappeared into his jacket.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I was worried they'd come back. The ones who hurt you.'
'Did you see them?'
'Yes. They were not like you. They were fuzzy. Hard to see. Like looking at the sun.'
Shit – angels. That's what I was afraid of. What they wanted with me, I had no idea, but it was clear it wasn't good.
I pushed myself up off the ground and clambered awkwardly to my feet, careful to keep my weight on my
