It was the Corpsegrinder.

When it saw that I'd spotted it, it put out several more legs, extended aquilled head, and raised a howl that bounced off the Heaviside layer. Mynonexistent blood chilled.In a panic, I scrambled up and ran toward the Ridgeand safety. I had a squat in the old Roxy, and once I was through the wall, theCorpsegrinder would not follow. Why this should be so, I did not know. But youlearn the rules if you want to survive.

I ran. In the back of my head I could hear the Seven Sisters clucking andgossiping to each other, radiating television and radio over a few dozenfrequencies. Indifferent to my plight.

The Corpsegrinder churned up the wires on a hundred needle-sharp legs. I couldfeel the ion surge it kicked up pushing against me as I reached the intersectionof Ridge and Leverington. Cars were pulling up to the pumps at the Atlanticstation. Teenagers stood in front of the A-Plus Mini Market, flickinghalf-smoked cigarettes into the street, stamping their feet like colts, andwaiting for something to happen. I couldn't help feeling a great longing disdainfor them. Every last one worried about grades and drugs and zits, and all thewhile snugly barricaded within hulking fortresses of flesh.

I was scant yards from home. The Roxy was a big old movie palace, fallen intodisrepair and semiconverted to a skateboarding rink which had gone out ofbusiness almost immediately. But it had been a wonderful place once, and theterra-cotta trim was still there: ribbons and river-gods, great puffing faceswith panpipes, guitars, flowers, wyverns. I crossed the Ridge on a deadtelephone wire, spider-web delicate but still usable.

Almost there.

Then the creature was upon me, with a howl of electromagnetic rage that silencedeven the Sisters for an instant. It slammed into my side, a storm of razors anddiamond-edged fury, hooks and claws extended.

I grabbed at a rusty flange on the side of the Roxy.