"Fool," she murmured in an angel's voice. "You're Immune." She swished clothing of pastel panels as thin as imagination. "You can't be touched." The fear did not subside.

Merod Schene DownTown reeked of insanity. The madness was spreading. Immunity could lose its value any minute.

Scraping, clicking sounds came from the deeper darknesses. Things were following her. Crazy things, evil things, the worst discards and mistakes, that till recently had confined their predations to the deepest hours of the night. She felt their mad eyes measuring her.

They grew bolder all the time.

She paused outside the breezeway leading to her destination. The silence in there was more intimidating than the clicks and slithers growing louder behind her. She did not want to go ahead. But they were working themselves up back there.

Something moved in the breezeway.

Terror yanked a melodic whimper from Midnight's throat.

Dark dread rolled over her, filled her hollow bones with liquid nitrogen. Then warmth swamped her as she recognized the shadow. "Amber Soul!"

The shadow shifted shape, becoming something out of nightmare, rushed past. Clicks, squeaks, scrabblings, whines, the hiss of scales on decomposed pavement moved away hurriedly. Lady Midnight rushed along the dank passage, through a doorway, into a brightly lighted room, where she fell trembling into Turtle's arms.

Only after her heartbeat slackened and her shaking stopped was she smitten by the incongruity of being held and comforted by a creature so much shorter.

Strange as she was, Midnight was human. Turtle was not.

Turtle stood 1.75 meters tall and 1 meter wide. He massed 125 kilos, not a gram of it fat. He had skin the color and texture of a snake's belly. His features vaguely resembled a turtle's. But there was nothing slow or lumbering about him. He moved like a cat.