A light laugh that trilled up into the supersonic, and she was gone.
I was listening to the rain underfoot when a lightning bolt screamed intoexistence, turning me inside-out for the briefest instant then cartwheelinggleefully into oblivion. In the instant of restoration following the bolt, thewalls were transparent and all the world made of glass, its secrets available tobe snooped out. But before comprehension was possible, the walls opaqued againand the lightning's malevolent aftermath faded like a madman's smile in thenight.
Through it all the Seven Sisters were laughing and singing, screaming with joywhenever a lightning bolt flashed, and making up nonsense poems from howls,whistles, and static. During a momentary lull, the flat hum of a carrier wavefilled my head. Phaenna, by the feel of her. But instead of her voice, I heardonly the sound of fearful sobs.
"Widow?" I said. "Is that you?"
"She can't hear you," Phaenna purred. "You're lucky I'm here to bring you up tospeed. A lightning bolt hit the transformer outside her house. It was bound tohappen sooner or later. Your Nemesis--the one you call the Corpsegrinder, such acute nickname, by the way--has her trapped."
This was making no sense at all. "Why would the Corpsegrinder be after her?"
"Why why why why?" Phaenna sang, a snatch of some pop ballad or other.
"You didn't get answers when you were alive, what makes you think you'd get anynow?" The sobbing went on and on. "She can sit it out," I said. "TheCorpsegrinder can't--hey, wait. Didn't they just wire her house for cable? I'mtrying to picture it. Phone lines on one side, electric on the other, cable. Shecan slip out on his blind side."
The sobs lessened and then rose in a most un-Widow like wail of despair.
"Typical," Phaenna said. "You haven't the slightest notion of what you're