Jacob Laudano, damn it, was on a horse again. He knew he was dreaming, but he couldn't wake up and he couldn't get the horse to stop or slow down. He crouched over, hanging on, knowing from the position of the other horses around him that he was going to lose or, worse yet, that he was going to fall. He had been a jockey for eight years and hated every day of every diet, every moment on top of the stupid animals he could barely tolerate. He didn't like them. They didn't like him. He had been a lousy jockey. He was an average thief. If he could wake up, he could get a glass of something, water, rye, something. Then he could go back to sleep. He had gotten to his apartment less than an hour ago. He had done what he had to do. It had been easy. He got his money. So why the hell was he having bad dreams. This dream in particular, putting him on a damned horse, knowing he was going to lose. He made the effort, called out in his sleep, struggled, and burst into darkened wakefulness. The roar of the crowd was the whirling of the wind. The breeze on his legs was from the cold that seeped in through badly insulated windows. The sweat on his forehead wasn't from the exertion of the race but a sense of waking fear. Jacob the Jockey was afraid to go back to sleep.
She had three names, the one she was born with, the one she had taken when she married the hedgehog who had slunk away one night when she was asleep, and the name she used for her job, her professional name, her respectable name.