The creature halted in front of their booth and leered down at Slide. "Well, well, well, look who we have here, I thought you'd gotten yourself nuked to hell inside of Luxor. How did you get out of there, Yancey my love? Still got that knack for running away."

Hie thing's voice was a mixture of croaking rasp and hissing sibilance.

Slide regarded him calmly. "You still here, Rayx?"

"Where else should I be, Yancey?"

"Thought you might have crept off to play Prince of Darkness in some dimension where the inhabitants are real dumb and gullible."

Rayx picked at his teeth with a talon. "You know I gave up that shit eons ago. These days I just lay back and amuse myself. How about you?"

Slide shrugged. "I get by."

Rayx turned his attention to Gibson. "Is this the human?"

Slide nodded. "That's him."

"He don't look like much. You sure he fits the Four Requirements?"

"He seems to."

Rayx was shaking his head. "He sure don't look like much. You tried him at the Portal yet?"

"He ain't sure if he wants to get involved,"

Rayx looked at Slide in amazement and wisps of steam issued from his cavernous nostrils. "He ain't sure if he wants to get involved? Since when did a human have a choice in the matter, Yancey Slide? Put him at the damn Portal and see if it takes him, and if he doesn't want to go, drag him there. We got too much riding on this to let the whim of some goddamned human get in the way."

Gibson raised a hand. "Does anyone mind if the goddamned human has something to say about this?"

Rayx snorted and the wisps of steam turned to twin billows. "Feisty little fuck, isn't he?"

Gibson was becoming exceedingly angry. He thought he had moved on from situations where people talked about him as though he was an object with no free will of his own. "That's right, he's a feisty little fuck, and he isn't about to allow himself to be dragged off to any portal against his will without putting up one hell of a fight." He turned to Slide. "And what is it that you all have riding on this?"

Slide gave Gibson a warning look. "Stay out of this, kid. You don't know what you're dealing with. You're drunk."

"So are you."

"Stay out of it, kid."

Gibson, however, was feeling restless. He took a hit on his jug of corn. "How am I supposed to stay out of this when I'm in it up to my fucking neck?" Slide was right, he was drunk. "And another thing, I'm getting tired of being called kid.' You may be older than the rocks on which you sit, but you still don't have to address me as 'kid.' "

Rayx pointed a talon-tipped finger at Slide. "You want to get your little human under control, Yancey, or people are going to start talking."

Gibson had the bit between his teeth and he glared at Rayx. "I'm not his little human. I'm my own man and maybe you better get used to that."

This was too much for Rayx; he lunged for Gibson, grabbed him by the front of his jacket, and half dragged him out of his seat. "Someone needs to teach you some manners, little man."

Slide's voice was hard and cold. "Put him down, Rayx."

Gibson, who by this point was terrified out of his mind but determined not to show it, caught a blast of Rayx's breath full in the face. The demon had the foulest breath imaginable, and he almost gagged. Rayx continued to hold on to him and truculently faced Slide. "Do you intend making me?"

Gibson twisted his head around and looked at Slide. His hands had vanished beneath the table, and Gibson wondered if he had surreptitiously pulled out his gun. Slide was sitting very still and very calm, "Put him down, Rayx, or you'll answer to me."

Gibson was aware that the confrontation was no longer over him but was just the latest twist in some long-term rivalry between the two idimmu. There was almost a ritual to the facedown that told of a long history to the hostility.

Rayx lowered Gibson into his seat again and took a step back.

His eyes flashed. "You think you're ready for me, do you, Slide?"

"I'm always ready for you."

"Why don't you can the bullshit and just get to it?"

Slide's face was impassive. "So take your best shot."

Something silver had appeared in Rayx's hand, but before he could use it the table in front of Slide exploded in a flash of blue flame, smoke, and wood splinters. Rayx tottered back with an angry scream. "You bastard, you had a piece under the table."

Green blood was streaming from the man-beast's right shoulder, and the silver weapon had dropped from his hand. Slide was on his feet. The smoking pistol that he was holding looked exactly like a Civil War Navy Colt, except that Gibson had never seen a Colt that could spout blue fire.

Rayx was down on his knees, trying to stop the flow of blood from his shoulder. Gibson was also on his feet. "Is he going to die?"

Slide shook his head. "No, he'll live. It takes a lot to kill something like Rayx. I just hope that he'll think twice before he fucks with me again." The remark was made as much for the man-beast's benefit as it was for Gibson's. When it was clear that Rayx wasn't going to continue the fight, Slide looked around at the demons who had come in with him. "Why don't you get him out of here before he bleeds all over everything?"

Rayx's gang of five helped their wounded leader out of the barroom, but it was immediately plain that the incident was far from over. A group of idimmu, including Tom Enni-Ya, gathered around Slide with the attitude of people who wanted answers. The landlord of the Rearing Eagle became the spokesman for the group with the weary tone of a man who doesn't want to take control but knows that he has to. "Okay, Yancey, the fun's over. We all know that Rayx is a loudmouthed blowhard who frequently deserves shooting, but, this time round, he did have a point. What do you intend to do with the human?"

Slide holstered his pistol and sat down again. "I need a drink."

Tom Enni-Ya signaled to one of the serving women, and a fresh jug was placed in front of Slide; then the innkeeper put the question again. "What about the human, Yancey? Is he the one?"

Slide shrugged. "What can I tell you? He seems to fit the Requirements but we won't know for sure until he goes to the Portal."

"And when's that going to be? We may not have too much time. Every day more folks come in here with more stories of the changes going down. Since Luxor, it can only get worse. I hear tell there's print-throughs fucking things up everywhere. There are even rumors of a couple of serious continuity disruptions. Shit like that can't help but speed His waking process, and if we don't make our move pretty damn fast, it could well be too late."

Slide pointed to Gibson. "You heard what he said. He's his own man. It's his decision whether he goes or not."

At this, a number of the idimmu growled, and the demon whom Gibson had overheard telling the story of his run-in with the streamheat in the town called Xodd took it upon himself to voice the feelings of the others. "Maybe Rayx had the right idea. We can't let our whole future get hung up on the whim of one human. Maybe we ought to drag him to the Portal whether he likes it or not."

Now every eye in the place was on Gibson, and he knew it was time to make some moves on his own behalf. "Before everyone gets carried away, do I get to say something?"

Tom Enni-Ya nodded. "Sure, say your piece."

Gibson took a deep breath. "I haven't agreed to go to this portal and find out if I really am the one in the prophecy, but I also haven't refused."

The demon from Xodd looked round at the others. "He's got a point there."

Gibson continued. "I might be more willing to go along with this thing if I knew a bit more about it and had a better idea of what my chances of survival might be."

Again the demon from Xodd faced the crowd. "Seems to me that he can't say fairer than that."