As they reached the sidewalk he saw a taxi pull to a stop before a late-middle-aged couple-he wore an Intrepid cap and she carried a Hard Rock shopping bag. Tourists. They stood a few feet ahead. He knew his next step…

***

The Lady sat beside him in the rear of the cab and stared at the blood on his hand.

“You’re hurt.”

“Yeah. Looks that way.”

Jack wiped his fingers on his jeans and moved his left arm. Pain shot up and down when he flexed the elbow. He checked the sleeve and found the exit hole in the leather. He wondered how bad it was but wasn’t about to remove the jacket here in the cab to find out.

The Lady gently touched his sleeve over the wound, her expression sad.

“Not so long ago I could have healed you.”

“I know.” What he hadn’t known was that she no longer could. “You’ve lost that too?”

She nodded. “I have lost so much. But at least I am still here.”

“Yeah, that’s the important part. But there is something you could do that would help things.”

“Tell me.”

“Can you change into someone else?”

She shook her head. “I am not able. I am still fixed as Mrs. Clevenger.”

“Well, how about switching that dress to something less noticeable?”

“That I can do.” Suddenly she was wearing a drab cloth coat. “Better?”

“Much.”

He marveled at how he’d come to take these things as a matter of course. The workaday world remained blissfully unaware of the secret lives and secret histories playing out around them. As he once had been. As no doubt their cabbie was.

He checked their driver. The Lady was seated directly behind him and he gave no sign that he’d witnessed the transformation. If and when he did notice the coat, he’d assume she’d carried it in with her.