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phone.”Jane couldn’t see the gesture, but she got my meaning. “Take care of yourself.” she said and broke the connection.
    I glanced over to see the expression of sadness on the phantom figure sitting next to me before she faded out. “You, too, Jane.” I said to empty air. “You too.”

3
    I’m not much of a believer in premonitions, even though I’m a mage. But when I saw a woman sitting in my favorite beaten-up easy chair in my apartment, I just knew she was Trouble, with a capital “T.” Granted, I had just finished a long and exhausting run and a fight with Ryan, and finding unauthorized persons in my home is generally unnerving, but there was something else about her that I found disquieting. Maybe it was the gun she was pointing at me.
    She was rather small, actually , but the gun made her more than imposing enough. Her long, midnight hair was swept back and caught up in a ponytail that fell over her left shoulder onto the forest green of her shirt. Silver gleamed from the datajack behind her right ear and from the Celtic-style necklace she wore. Black pants, a short black jacket, and black boots completed the outfit. She wore no makeup or other complement to her somewhat pale complexion, and her hooded, deep blue eyes never wavered as she stared at me over the massive barrel of the Ares Predator. It looked like the end of a train tunnel from where I was standing.
    “Hello.” she said in a voice as calm and controlled as the hands holding the unwavering gun. “You must be Talon. I have some business I’d like to discuss with you.” Moving slowly away from the door I took off my broad-brimmed black hat and hung it on the door hook with exaggerated care, gathering my thoughts, considering my options. They were none too good at the moment.
    “Most people call when they want an appointment.”I said.
    She smiled slightly, but it was a cold smile, without humor. I got the feeling that for all her outward calm, this young woman was feeling cornered right about now. I would have to handle things very carefully so she wouldn’t panic and do something that I would very much regret. “This is a matter of some urgency.” she said.
    “So I see. Do you think you could stop pointing that thing at me? I’m willing to talk reasonably, but it’s a little hard to concentrate right now.”
    She shook her head slightly. “Not yet. At least not until we've gotten to know each other better.”
    Great. Just what I needed, a burglar with an insecurity problem. I’ve had dates that went a lot like this, except without the gun.
    “Well.” I said, “as long as you’ve got my undivided attention, why not tell me what this is all about?”
    “It concerns a man you knew named Jason Vale . . .”
    I took an involuntary step back as the memories relumed in a rush of images and feelings.
    “You did know him, didn’t you?” she said and I hated her right then for forcing me to remember.
    “Oh, yes.” I muttered. “I knew him.”
    How could I forget the night I met Jase, the night I was certain I was going to die? Huddled in a dank corner of an abandoned squat, I didn’t really care whether I lived or not, as long as the strange things I was seeing and feeling would stop. I didn’t know it then, but my newly awakened astral senses were open to all the emotional impressions and ghosts lingering in the Rox, the worst neighborhood in Boston. The place where I grew up. I could sense it all, and I was sure I was going mad.
    The images and sensations had been getting worse and worse. The bliss I took deadened things enough that I was able to ignore them, but I was coming down off my last dose and I’d used up all my meager nuyen to buy that. If I wanted any more of the drug—or anything to eat, for that matter—I would probably have to start selling myself down on the Strip or the Combat Zone, like some of the other street kids I knew. I was sixteen years old and completely alone in the world.
    As the drugged