"Gor', I'm crackin' up, I am," said Billy, turning quickly away from the

mirror

and hurrying out into the street.

For a while the voice did not return, but Billy couldn't shake the certain

feeling that he was being watched, that someone was constantly looking over

his

shoulder, eavesdropping on him. At night he had strange dreams, and when he

awoke, he was often tired. He had the sense that someone had been using his

body

while he was asleep. He took to drinking coffee by the gallon and staying up

until he collapsed from exhaustion. He began avoiding mirrors. He became

nervous, irritable, and high-strung. He flinched every time he heard a deep

voice speak.

The young toughs who made their living in the street did not mink that he was

paranoid, because they did not deal in sophisticated concepts such as

paranoia.

They marked the change in him and simply decided he was loony. And having

decided this, they started referring to him as "Loony Slade" on every

possible

occasion, a development that Billy took strenuous exception to. He was taking

strenuous exception to it in an alleyway one afternoon, despite the fact that

he

was both outnumbered and outsized by five older boys.

He had delivered an eloquent kick to the essentials of the first one, got in

a

fast lucky shot to the nose of a second, and then inevitably things had

turned

against him. They had bloodied his mouth and bruised his eye and cut his ear

and

pummeled him down onto the ground when out of nowhere a deep voice had cried

out, "Stand off, you miserable little troglodytes, or you'll regret it!"

The young street toughs didn't notice the strange, wild cast to Billy's eyes;

otherwise they might have taken heed of the warning. They were momentarily

taken

aback by the deep voice, turning and looking behind them until they realized

it

was Billy who had spoken. Then they recovered quickly, driven by a simple,

elemental urge to take out their aggressions on someone who was weaker.

"Wot's that ya called me, ya sodding little bastard?" the largest of them

said,

snarling and leaning down toward Billy menacingly.

Billy was half lying, half sitting, his back against the alley wall, blood

running from his mouth and nose. But his eyes blazed with a cold,

preternatural

rage. That gaze should have warned them off. That voice should have warned

them

off. The sound of it should have told them that they were faced with

something

far beyond the norm, but all they saw was someone who was smaller man they

were,

someone who was down and bleeding.

"You heard me, you loathsome little pismire," Billy said with a voice far